문화의 생태학

The Ecology of Culture - T.S. Eliot’s Definition 01 Culture

In this article I have surveyed the ecological traits of culture presented by T. S. Eliot chiefly in his book of Notes towards the Definition of Culture. He comprehends culture as a tree with an organic system growing from the soil of a human society and as an interrelated whole of the parts. From the ecological point of view he observes several unique traits of culture. First of all he understands culture inseparable from religion in that religion is ingrained in man’s behavior and habit and culture includes all the human activities and interests And he thinks that men arc endowed with different talents so that the different levels of culture and the classes of’ various functions are spontaneously formed in the human community Eliot is keenly aware of the role of a family as a primary channel of transmission of culture and thinks it desirable to preserve the local cultures and the “unity and diversity” among the stronger and the satellite cultures. Furthermore he considers the cultural conflicts and friction between class and region favorable for the progress of culture. These qualities of culture defined by Eliot may be neglected as the obsolete ones in the Postmodern age when we are facing with the popularity of the mixed multicultures in the imaginary space of’ computers and in the mass media. Those however deserve our careful attention as a means of friction to hold out the artificial production of the degraded various cultures His theory of culture gives us a balanced perspective when we listen to Eliot’s worry about the degradation of culture which would be caused by the monopolistic control of government in the reformation of culture with disregarding the innate ecological character of culture.