What is culture?

It's been about 2 weeks since I started wondering about "culture" and how to define it....we were having a discussion about "what culture is..." If you take an English person, WHAT makes that person "English"...(apart from tea!! , because I grew up to love my tea too!!)...and also.....WHAT tells you the person you know is a South African! or an American....or an Australian/whatever nation....

I found the following comments on THIS SITE this moring, but I do disagree with some of the points....Once I've decided on what I think culture is, I will add mine here and in the meantime, add your views too...that would be interesting!

1) Culture is no special way of life!The anthropological concept of culture describes the different possibilities of organizing human life. Such an idea of culture may not operate with categories of more or less worth. According to this eating with fork and knife or having a harmonical lunch with your family is not more cultured than eating with fingers or having some fast food in your 15-minutes-lunch-break.

2) Culture is not the opposite of nature!Common ideas define culture as the perfection of natural conditions or see culture as the overcoming of a natural stadium. In both cases nature and culture are strictly separated. In opposite to this we have to understand the way we see nature, the idea of nature itself is a cultural construction.

3) Culture is nothing aesthetical or exclusive! Poetry and painting seem to be cultural products par excellence. In contrast to them illegal graffiti and dirty Rap Music seem to be uncivilized barbarism. Assuming culture as all specific rules of thinking and acting, aesthetical ideas just are a piece of the cultural whole and not the one and only category that defines culture.

4) Culture is nothing constant and fixed! Culture is a process of endless redefinition and reorganisation. Culture must be thought as the Semiotics do: Using the allegory of the mythical argoship they assume culture as an assemble of symbols which is always in motion, a ship that is permanent transforming during its odyssey through the time.

5) Culture is nothing that could become infected!People who talk about an infection of culture think about it as a homogeneous, uniform something, a health body that can become ill influenced by other foreign cultures. Firstly, in fact culture must be unterstood as a melting pot. Culture is a complexe product of different and heterogeneous influences. Secondly, the use of such a metaphor reminds me a lot to a long gone time.

6) Culture is nothing that could be protected! The idea of protection requires an imagination of ideal cultural conditions. Such an assumption is against the character of culture that is determined by permanent flow. ...