Perhaps we should start with the dictionary definition of culture.
Mirriam-Websters defines culture (the one we want) as:
1) the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations
2) the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group ; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time <popular culture> <southern culture>
3) the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization <a corporate culture focused on the bottom line>
4) the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic <studying the effect of computers on print culture> <changing the culture of materialism will take time — Peggy O'Mara>
According to Encarta:
Culture, in anthropology, [is] the patterns of behavior and thinking that people living in social groups learn, create, and share. Culture distinguishes one human group from others. It also distinguishes humans from other animals. A people’s culture includes their beliefs, rules of behavior, language, rituals, art, technology, styles of dress, ways of producing and cooking food, religion, and political and economic systems.
Well, as I'm certain you can see, Culture is a large, overbearing, and amorphous word. We wan't to be able to strike into the heart of this beast. So! on to the actual guide. We'll start with the pieces of the Encarta definition. Each part will give a descriptive definition of the term, and then a section on how best to go about creating that section (in various forms and fashions, there is no one right way, but there may be several good way) If you feel a term should be added, please post it, the definition and why. These definitions are not simple dictionary definitions, these pertain to writing.
Beliefs:
Belief is anything that the the culture feels is true. This pretty much includes everything else, and is highly tied to Religion. An important distiction to make is this: Belief does not equal fact. One can believe the earth is round. It is necessary to KNOW the earth is round. Without that belief, the knowledge isn't true (in that person's eyes). But one can believe in a god and that NOT be true (I am not saying anything religious here.) It is important to note the distinction. Beleif does not require (or necessarily want) objective facts to back it up. Subjective is fine, but it does need reasoning. (if this is unclear, please ask)
Rules/Behavior:
All good countries have laws. All good cultures have excommunication. Break the law, get excommunicated. Excommunication is a bad thing, and once outside of a group of people who you have called your culture from the beginning of your life until now, it is difficult to continue existing. So, in order to avoid being cast out, one obeys the rules of their culture. These will stem heavily from the religion of the culture, but some things hold true throughout all cultures. Murder is bad, don't sleep with someone else's wife, etc. are all pretty standard. The little things will change, and it's important to know why. If for some reason, the religion declares that the god is... a wolf-god, then these people are likely to revere wolves. Which would lead to the law: Don't kill wolves. That simple. Laws can stem from outside influences as well. The US laws separating the power of the government directly come from hating a monarchy (well, sort of).
Laws should tend to grow more controlling of smaller things as the culture ages. Here's an example. Having sex with a child was considered fine by the ancient greeks (although I believe this was confined to a mentor student relationship), but over time, that culture (which was engulfed by all of Europe in a sense and then moved to America) changed it's laws and now it is illegal to do such things. (Though most of us agree with such laws, it was not always so, just an example of how rules and behavior guidelines can alter the way we think. We come to accept the rules as true and good)
Language:
Ever read Pygmallion? Well you should have, it's literature, it's good, it's about language. Anyway, the point of Pygmallion is that language has a large say on who a person is. The story tells of a flower-girl who has a really crude/poor accent who is transform through speech lessons by a language professor into a woman who could speak like a duchess, and after being dressed up and coached int duchess mannerisms, she pulled it off (I believe). Anyway, the manner of speaking, if it's course, if it is filled with explitives, if it's verbose (Think Polonius from Hamlet) if it's straight-forward and to the point, it gives a large perception of the character. Extend this throughout a culture and it will be a cultural thing. This may sound racially bashing (it's not) or stereotypical, but someone coming from a "ghetto" neighborhood is more likely to have to prove themselves strong. One way to do so is to "talk the talk" or "curse like hell." Someone from an aristocratic family would have no use for those words (they can get what they want with money) and thus would not use vulgarities or profanities. If that makes sense. I believe it was Marucha who had the Native American post, that might help this concept.
Anyway, languages proliferate, and remember that different areas will have different dialects.
Body-Language (I decided these two were not the same thing)
Rituals:
Rituals can be... pretty much anything. They are any action taken by the group on a regular basis to either affirm their faith in one diety (in the case of a religious ritual) or to confirm their devotion to that culture. Let us take three different examples.
1) The ever popular: Fraternity. The initiation ceremony involving eating hotdogs out of a toilet or streaking through a public park could be considered a ritual as it confirms that person's loyalty to the fraternity. This is an example of a non-religious ritual. (I am not bashing fraternities)
2) Each year, thousands of Muslims crowd around that sacred stone of theirs (in that sacred black box no one is allowed to enter or speak about) and spin around in some crazy ritual I don't know much about (I am not bashing muslims)
3) Human Sacrifice such as by the Aztec's who would carve out people's hearts and serve them to the gods.
Do note, that age of a culture will affect rituals. A younger culture will likely have more "primitive" rituals (such as Human Sacrifice) whereas older cultures will have more "intelligent" rituals focused on higher planes of thought (think of that Jewish rite of passage for 13 year old boys)
Art:
Art is anything designed with the expressed intent of getting across a message, or with the expressed intent of looking beautiful/functional. That's pretty all encompassing (hell, some guy did a paint enema (sp?) and crapped on a canvass and called it art... not what I call art though) The type of art can be reliant on the time period. For the Medieval Period, art was highly focused on the church and did not portray the human form with much grace or gifts considering it was a horribly hard life and most believed that we were flawed. The rennaisance saw a spur in scientific studies and also led to many new artists focusing on perfecting and then furthering the human form (much like those ancient greeks)
Technology:
You could think that technology is entirely based on the age of a culture, and you could be wrong. (No, you are wrong).
Case in point: the middle east is where all of the human civilization started, and yet some of that area is the poorest in the world.
It has a lot to do with government. A strong government has a lot of technologically advanced stuff inside, but if the government should fall, wars break out, the people die, and the technology and knowledge is sometimes lost for centuries. The middle east used to be the richest most technologically advanced place in the world back during the Crusades, but quickly lost it to Europe when the rennaisance started.
And the middle ages was a trend away from technology, after the fall of the Roman Empire, thing such as aqueducts fell into disuse.
Technology is more than simply based on how old a culture is, it has a lot to do with the power of the government behind that culture (though age has a lot to do with it)
Styles of Dress:
I'm not tackling this one. Think popular culture. Think traditional middle eastern garb. Think about how Chinese people dress. Think about the samurai. Think about the old knights. Think about the crazy Marie Antoinnette and her hairstyles. Right, dress can very between cultures. Someone else will do this more justice.
Food:
I honestly have little to say on this other than it is highly based on geographic area. Tropics aren't likely to grow wheat or rice, but will grow bananas and sugar cane. Mountainous mainland areas aren't likely to eat fish, islanders are. It will also be based off of religions. I believe Islam (or is it Judaism?) forbids eating pigs, Christianity forbids drinking blood, etc.
I will finish later. This is a ot of work.
Religion:
Read pages 10 through whatever current page we are on until I edit this post to take this part out and you will almost certainly gain some insight into the religious aspect of culture.
Politics:
Politics affects culture immensely. The fact that various politic structures have different effects is important to note. Democracies tend to allow sub-cultures and then other cultures to exist (hence the idea of a minority). Within the US, there are literally hundreds of cultures, and that is because the government and it's political structure tolerates them (yes, that sounds harsh, but my next example will explain why.) Dictatorships (including communism, which I'll discuss in a minute) tend to be the opposite. The majority (which is defined by whoever the leader is, regardless of the true majority) is always right, the minorites might even be killed off (Holocaust ring any bells?) and the propoganda used intends to alter the base ideas of people, and thus the culture. Communism didn't just work, ever seen pictures of Cuba? The billboards in Cuba don't say "holiday inn, next right" they say "Viva la revolucion" (sp?) because that allows people to feel as if they are a part of a group, a movement, history even, and that shapes the culture and beliefs. Hitler (sorry for the double reference) knew that the German youth were prone to "belonging" to a military, and set up a special armed forces when he wasn't supposed to in order to cater to that need. Politics is also brought on by the previous culture. Trying to fight off an oppresive mother-country, why not become democratic. Constantly suffering because of a rich aristocracy ruining what little wealth the proletariat has by sending them to war without guns or ammo or even food in the middle of winter, why not become communist?
Economics:
Think about how the world's economic systems have been. There's the current model of a global economy that focus's on capitalism. How does this affect us? We get ahead in life if we work. What do we do? We work. And work... and work. Then we work some more. We place an importance on materials, on jobs, on money, etc. because we are a free-market.
Communism put importance on the state (mainly so people didn't/don't rebel on account of they are dirt poor and don't even have toilet paper). They work for the collective good, which frankly, fails (because we only care about ourselves.)
And fuedalism was basically "we don't have any choice," and the only thing you did was either work, or make other people work, or go to war. Those were the only things in the economy (well, there were "free markets" of sorts in cities, but the majority of the fuedalist european monarchies were mainly serfdom working class.)
Anyway, the way that the economic system is structured affects the focus of the people. The fuedal structure made people focus on god (why? because they suffered in this world for a happy place i the next) and our current structure makes us focus on having "stuff" and finding "happiness" (through having stuff.)
Entertainment:
Actually, you have to see entertainment as both a force and a response to culture. Let me explain. Hollywood: everyone is perfect. Effect on culture: everyone believes looks are important. Videogames: everyone is violent. Effect on culture: children commit more crimes. Regardless of your views on this, there are people who may or may not see this as fact (no comment on my opinion). Anyway, this is just the effects it can have, you also have to remember how entertainment is a product of the culture just as much if not moreso than it affects. You see, Shakespearean audiences liked fights to be long and drawn out, why? Because Elizabethan (right?) era people were kinda stuck up ish. I beleive it was either them or the victorian era people who put skirts on there piano legs, that's how riske they thought legs were. The point: entertainment will often cover topics considered wrong/raunchy/terrible to speak of in everyday life. Why? We find those things repulsive and disturbing and different, and for some reason that makes it funny. So entertainment will often cover taboos. Its a strange subject, but an important one nonetheless.
Social Hierarchy/Caste Systems:
Okay, let's take a look at the Hindu Caste system. The 'Untouchables' are at the bottom because of their job (I think many have a job related to the dead or something like that) so they are generally considered dirty. This ostracizes them from a lot of the other people (since you don't want to tuch dirty people, right?) China used to believe that the merchants were beneath peasants in the old times of Dynasties (I'm fairly certain that was the ranking, because merchants don't do anything but resell goods, they don't make anything. Despite the fact that they were the wealthiest people around, nobody thought highly of them.)
Anyway, I think it's a pretty safe assumption that placement in hierarchies is (originally) based on your proximity to an old family that has proven themselves in battle. The first kings are the leaders of warriors who take control of the land, their highest ranking generals usually become nobility, and then those lines are all the aristocracy (high ranking in social network). When the people later overthrow that king and a middle class is set up, the aristocracy is gone and social systems are more based on wealth. Rich people are looked at better because they drive nice cars, wear nice suits, have some nice bling, enjoy fine wine, live in a huge house, etc. Poor people are looked at with pity or scorn because they have no home, live under bridges, take the bus because they can't afford to buy even a used car, etc. While I'm not saying any of these things are good or right, they are the way things work (a lot of the times). You're not gonna see a bunch of homeless people at Bill Gates mansion, not because they are less than Bill Gates, but because the social difference is made by the wealth difference in a highly capitalistic and democratic government such as ours.
I will also say that if religion becomes a majorly important object in the times, and being excommunicated from the church is worse than death, the clergy will have more importance than other people, and the highest ups (like the pope) can have even more power and influence than entire KINGS. Think "Crusades." There's a reason they are called holy wars...
Location:
Think about it really hard. If you live on a small island, are you going to eat lots of fish, or lots of cow? Obviously fish, because they are the easiest to catch and most abundant. Now, lets say there are a bunch of poisonous fish and people start dying from eating them. OH NO! The gods don't want us eating that fish! That fish must be the physical embodiment of the gods! NOBODY EAT THAT FISH! *everyone starts revering it* Okay, location and thus foods available are important. (I think it's Judaism that forbids eating pigs, if I'm wrong, please correct me. Now, what do pigs do? They eat, and eat, and eat, and eat, and then we eat them. They are hard to raise and always... eating. So they are impractical when in.. oh say, deserts? That, and the whole dangerous to eat if not cooked properly... but that's not important.)
And then location has the added benefit of climate. Mountainous people are likely to not know what an ocean is. People who live in freezing climates have to dress in layers (and people in deserts have to cover most/all of their skin to protect against sun poisoning). Both are used to not seeing much (if any) skin. Throw someone from their culture into modern America and you've got the classic age old line, "HERETICS!"
Yeah, location is important.
*Note: I want your input on these things. Any person posted between this post and my next one may get deleted if I decide this post is too long. Get started.
NOTEWORTHY EXPLANATIONS:
I used to have page numbers, but upon further consideration, if you haven't read something, you haven't learned everything. Most people who post more than a couple of sentences are going to give you at least some insight.
