Earthlings, We Are Being Cultured

Warning: long, slightly rant-y post here. I promise there's pictures if you scroll down :)

For her birthday a little over a month ago, my sister D got a brand new Cockatiel. Sunshine yellow, red cheeks, adorable plume atop his head as if he thinks he's the king of something. His name is Machi, short for Machiavelli (my brilliant little sister read The Prince...for fun...and loved it), and he's very into ragtime and other 1920's jazz. Or so she says.
A very cultured bird, don't you think?

From this inkling a question arose in my mind: what does it mean to be cultured? And let's make the assumption here that to be universally considered "cultured" is a positive and noteworthy achievement, however one manages to acquire that title.

(Machi would appear to be the obvious answer. He is all about great literature, music that shaped history, and feathered plumes)

One thing I love about Google is its simple "define" command. The result is, more often than not, an accurate simplification of the socially accepted definition of the input. How convenient.

Let's play a game.

Google definition of cultured: Characterized by refined taste and manners and good education.

Google definition of refined: With impurities or unwanted elements having been removed by processing. Elegant and cultured in appearance, manner, or taste.

Google definition of processing: Perform a series of mechanical or chemical operations on (something) in order to change or preserve it.

Google definition of education: The process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, esp. at a school or university: "a new system of public education".

Google definition of systematic: Done or acting according to a fixed plan or system.

Google definition of elegant: Pleasingly graceful and stylish in appearance or manner.

So here's our amended definition of cultured, or, for grammar's sake, a cultured person:

One who, by undergoing a series of operations to change oneself, has been cleansed of impurities and unwanted elements; he or she has been put through the process of receiving instruction via a fixed system, and is now pleasingly graceful and stylish in appearance and manner.

Ah, and the truth comes out. Now we refer back to Google's second definition of cultured:

Grown or propagated in an artificial medium.

While this definition officially pertains to the likes of tissue cells and bacteria, it quite accurately and concisely sums up the definition expanded from the one pertaining to people.

We are being grown in an artificial medium. From the day we are born (or really, as we're seeing more and more these days, before then), we are expected to follow certain paths and make certain decisions within a society constructed to guide us towards selected goals. The argument can be made that society's current state is naturalbecause it exists, and has come to this point via eons of terrestrial and biological evolution. Yet I believe that a society can no longer be considered natural when it begins to degrade nature itself in such a way that resources become non-replenishable and entire ecosystems cease to exist.

So let me take the term cultured and trash it. Let me take that measure of artificial superiority and replace it with a more noble, if perhaps comical-sounding title:

that of the earthling, devoted to the earth; to the preservation and conservation of our planet; to the intellectual and spiritual advancement of our people; to getting down off our high horse and understanding that we, self-aware, opposable thumbs and all, hold no more claim over the earth than any other fellow animal.

Then, after that is said and done, we may immerse ourselves in the studies of music and art and literature, and reinitialize our pursuits of fair politics, peace, equal opportunity, universal access to education...the list goes on. Only in this way can expand our horizons without utterly destroying them first.

It is necessary to redefine human, not as master, not as destroyer, but as respectful inhabitant of our dear mother earth. Once we have denounced our mirage of superiority we can begin to assign genuine value to intellectual and societal pursuits.

Don't let yourself be cultured. Grow yourself.

*Note: all pictures were collected from my phone. The landscape is Lake Tahoe, and the animal pictures were taken at a preserve in Santa Rosa, California.*