Culture Questions

Andy Crouch, in his latest book, Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling, notes 5 questions that aid in evaluating any cultural artifact. I thought they’d be helpful to post in order to hear your thoughts on the matter. Here are the questions:

1) What does this cultural artifact assume about the way the world is?

2) What does this cultural artifact assume about the way the world should be? 

3) What does this cultural artifact make possible?

4) What does this cultural artifact make impossible (or at least very difficult)?

5) What new forms of culture are created in response to this artifact?

I find these to be very helpful (and new) questions to be asking regarding culture. The talk of cultural ‘artifacts’ comes from the recognition that , according to Crouch, though we have grown quite accustomed to speaking of culture in terms of a whole, in reality culture is made up of all sorts of little creative acts (‘artifacts’). In the book, Crouch applies these questions to the simple artifact of the egg omelet. A trivial example, sure, but it help to see how comprehensive these questions are. They apply to everything.

Here’s the work: