What is culture why it is important and can man control culture?

I planned to define 'culture' first and then expand the topic on changing cultures. However that turned out to be a daunting task. I did not like the option of cutting and pasting the definition from a renowned dictionary. I now think of an idea of dwelling on some anecdotes of culture and look at it closely through examples and try to provide a definition agreeable to the majority of readers.

Culture is definitely a pattern of behaviour of a group. If men were to live in isolation then we will not be worrying about erosion of values in culture. In fact even if families were to live separately and not as a community, we would have very little to talk about culture. Culture is the price man has paid for living as a community. Or look at positively culture is the shield which protects the man against the conflicts of life in a group. Culture lives and will live as long as mankind. The irony is this living thing is never documented but it is ever changing.

Every one agrees that "change management" is the essential ingredient of success for modern life or modern enterprise. Culture is the way mankind manages the changes in life. What becomes a strategy to handle situations gathers together to form unwritten laws to be followed and handed over to next generations. It is not enforced but still following it provides an esteem to individuals and families that it can be hardly ignored.

If it is a protective sheath then why do we worry when the culture changes? Let us take a few anecdotes here. Ramanyana and Mahabharatha are two Indian epics standing tall in the midst of thousands of tales and folklores. In my opinion these two may be the earliest documentary on the earth to describe wars, its ill effects and the devastating damage on the mankind. Still wars are waged between countries, communities, groups, families and individuals incessantly.

Wars do create cultures and unwritten customs. Amazingly Rama had the culture to extend one more day's life to Ravana who was defeated in the war with shame on mind and none of his valor or support infrastructure coming to rescue. How can you pardon a person who has abducted your wife and refused to send her back with honor? Rama's act was modern day equivalent of declaring ceasefire when the enemy has lost. Rama by today's standards or by today's cultural views is not a SMART DUDE. The war of Rama's era had one dictum followed ad verbium "thou shall not hurt a bare opponent". Compare this against today's culture. Wars are not fought today on any specifically earmarked war zone. It is fought on the entire land, sea and air boundaries of countries. Nobody is spared, civilians, young, old, children and women. How and when did things change to make every war of men against men more evil?

The War Chronicle of Mahabharatha clearly indicates how the pristine culture of fair war changed with in the 18 days of the total war. When Bhishma was in charge for more than half the duration of war, war was all fair. The fighting started after dawn and ended precisely at dusk. After the day's war came to an end, the enemies crossed their lines and mingled freely. They even dined together in the same dining tents and the food for both the factions prepared in a common kitchen. The next day they dispersed to take their line to fight till they fell. Every one-on-one or group fighting was fair and on expected lines. The only point of pain was Blood relatives supported either of the warring sides and people of the same families fought and killed each other. When Bhishma fell the fair war culture vanished. Even his death was on deception. A great warrior fell to arrows of gay concealed through the arrows of greatest archer of the epic Arjuna. After this, the war of Mahabharata turned evil without the guarded rules. War extended beyond dusk. Warriors left the war zone and fought. They killed each other uttering lies or catching the warriors unaware. That was the day the rules of war were recast to demonstrate how man can degrade to any level just to survive and succeed. Thus man has started changing his culture to gain easy victories and make life easier for himself. Instead Culture should have remained as a strong bulwark of man's discipline and man should have given up anything to guard it on the other hand it turned out that man should tweak and tune culture to reach his opportunistic ends.

In essence man changes culture to make life easier and successful for him. However one question remains did he ever get the intended benefits by making culture flexible?