Culture is accumulated productive force transmitted through language and labor

Evidence

Culture has its roots in what Marx, in The German Ideology , called man’s “double relation”: to nature and to other men. Men, Marx argued, intervene in nature and, with the help of certain instruments and tools, use nature to reproduce the material conditions of their existence. But, from a very early point in the history of human development, this intervention in nature through labor is socially organized. Men collaborate with one another—at first, through the collective use of simple tools, the rudimentary division of labor, and the exchange of goods—for the more effective reproduction of their material conditions. This is the beginning of social organization, and of human history. From this point forward, man’s relation to nature becomes socially mediated. The reproduction of human society, in increasingly complex and extended forms, and the reproduction of material existence are fundamentally linked: in effect, the adaptation of nature to man’s material needs is effected only through the forms which his social collaboration with other men assumes. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 881 (#expands, via linked claim)

It defines “culture” as both the meanings and values which arise among distinctive social groups and classes, on the basis of their given historical conditions and relationships, through which they “handle” and respond to the conditions of existence; and as the lived traditions and practices through which those “understandings” are expressed and in which they are embodied. Williams brings together these two aspects—definitions and ways of life—around the concept of “culture” itself. Thompson brings the two elements—consciousness and conditions—around the concept of “experience.” — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 191 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

Related

• For Marx, human labor’s relation to nature is always socially organized and mediated. (similarity 0.89)
• Culture as objectivated design of human existence is the anthropological definition (similarity 0.89)
• For Marx, human culture arises only through socially organized labor. (similarity 0.87)
• Marx treats culture as accumulated human mastery over nature, not mere description (similarity 0.86)
• Marx treats culture as a productive force materialized in labor and language (similarity 0.85)
• Human culture originates in the socially mediated relation between man and nature (similarity 0.84)
• Because man creates society, the colonial structure’s prognosis lies in human hands. (similarity 0.84)
• Culture names the forms, not the content, of social relationships (similarity 0.83)
• Marx defined culture as accumulated human mastery over nature transmitted through language and labor. (similarity 0.83)
• Culture is defined as lived meanings plus embodied traditions responding to conditions (similarity 0.82)
• Human cultures historically vary with their material or productive basis (similarity 0.81)
• Cultural definitions remain incomplete working models that enable imagining (similarity 0.81)
• Culture remained an indeterminate site of convergent interests, not a fixed concept. (similarity 0.81)
• Culture is the interrelation of all social practices, not one practice. (similarity 0.81)
• Culture is a constitutive dimension of all social practices, not a cause of them (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Marx treats culture as a productive force materialized in labor and language #corroborates (0.90)
• Human culture originates in the socially mediated relation between man and nature #expands (0.55) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 881
• Culture is defined as lived meanings plus embodied traditions responding to conditions #qualifies (0.40) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 191