What is Culture For?

by The School of Life, Alain de Botton (Editor)

Our societies frequently proclaim their enormous esteem for culture. Music, film, literature and the visual arts enjoy high prestige and are viewed by many as getting close to the meaning of life. But what is culture really for? This book proposes that works of culture were all made, in one way or another, with the idea of improving the way we live. The book connects a range of cultural masterpieces with our own dilemmas and pains around love, work and society, and invites us to see culture as a resource with which to address the complex agonies of being human. It provides us with enduring keys to unlocking culture as a way of transforming our lives.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Art, Self Help

112 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 19, 2018

About the author

The School of Life is a global organisation helping people lead more fulfilled lives.

We believe that the journey to finding fulfilment begins with self-knowledge. It is only when we have a sense of who we really are that we can make reliable decisions, particularly around love and work.

Sadly, tools and techniques for developing self-knowledge and finding fulfilment are hard to find – they’re not taught in schools, in universities, or in workplaces. Too many of us go through life without ever really understanding what’s going on in the recesses of our minds.

That’s why we created The School of Life; a resource for helping us understand ourselves, for improving our relationships, our careers and our social lives - as well as for helping us find calm and get more out of our leisure hours. We do this through films, workshops, books and gifts - as well as through a warm and supportive community.

Reviews

[Saman · Rating 4 out of 5]

فرهنگ به چه کار آید؟ / به روایت مدرسه‌ی دوباتن/ ترجمه‌ی رضا بهرامی/ نشر کرگدن

چه قدر این کتاب شیرین و دوست داشتنی بود. انگار وارد یک نمایشگاه آثار هنری شدم و یک تور لیدر خوش صحبت باسواد شروع کرد به گفتن و تحلیل کردن از آثار مختلف هنری این نمایشگاه واسه من. رمان‌ها، نقاشی، فیلم، موسیقی، کارت پستال و .... تو این تحلیل‌ها، هم چیز جدیدی یاد گرفتم، هم مسائلی که می‌دونستم رو باعث شد بهتر بهش نگاه کنم و یه جورایی بهم می‌گفت چشم‌ها را باید شست، جور دیگر باید دید. در واقع کتاب به ما از ارزش هنر و آثار هنری و تاثیرشون بر ما و زندگی میگه.

من نیاز داشتم این کتاب حجیم‌تر می‌بود.. 86 صفحه برای این موضوع بسیارررررر کم بود و تنها دلیلی که به کتاب 4 میدم و نه 5 همین مساله است!

[°•.Melina°•. · Rating 5 out of 5]

《فرهنگ به چه کار می‌آید/نشر کرگدن》
پنج ستاره میدم چون به کتابهای اینطوریِ بیشتری تو زندگیم احتیاج دارم. هر فصلش یه درسِ جذاب بود واقعا. کلا آلن دوباتن رو خیلی قبول دارم و این یه کتاب ریزه میزه‌س که باید بشکنی ببینی چه تیزه. مثل یه کنفرانس یا وبینار هنری-اسطوره‌ای-فلسفی بود در مختصر ترین شکل ممکن که افسوس میخورم انقد مختصر بود، میتونست همین جذابیت و اطلاعات و دیدگاه‌هارو تا ۳۰۰ صفحه ادامه بده اما په پیشنهاد و کادوی خوبیه برای تازه قدم‌های هنر و ادبیات. حتما بخونید، من ار گوشه کنارای ایران کتاب پیداش کردم و هوس کردم این کشفیاتِ گوشه کناری رو گسترش بدم🦦

میام مثل ۲۰ تا ریویوی قبلی ایشالا پاراگراف‌های موردعلاقه‌مو اضافه کنم.

[Sara⋆ฺ࿐ · Rating 5 out of 5]

این کتاب مجموعه‌ای از تأملات در باب معنای " فرهنگ" و کاربردهای اون در زندگی فردی و اجتماعی ماست.
کتاب با زبانی شاعرانه از تجربیات زیسته انسان ها با فرهنگ مثل موسیقی، کتاب، نقاشی و ... میگه و ما رو به تأمل وامی‌داره که فرهنگ واقعا به چه کار ما میاد؟ و اگه نبود چطور زندگی میکردیم؟ و چطور متوجه نشدیم فرهنگ با تار و پود زندگی ما پیوند خورده؟ و اصلا اگه فرهنگ نبود چطور تنهایی رو تاب می‌آوردیم.

در فصل اول، نویسنده‌های کتاب تاکید می‌کنند که آثار فرهنگی، مانند رمان‌ها، نقاشی‌ها و موسیقی، تنها برای بحث‌های تخصصی و آکادمیک نیستن. بلکه این آثار می‌توانند به ما کمک کنن تا با رنج‌ها و مشکلات زندگی بهتر کنار بیایم و احساس کنیم که در این تجربیات تنها نیستیم. فرهنگ از طریق ایجاد ارتباط عاطفی و همدلی، ما را به دیگران نزدیک‌تر می‌کنه و به ما یادآوری می‌کند که دیگران نیز احساسات و تجربیات مشابهی داشتن.

فصل اول و سوم رو از همه بیشتر دوست داشتم. و توصیه میکنم قبل خوندن فصل اول این کتاب، فلسفه تنهایی رو بخونید. منو خیلی یاد فلسفه‌ی تنهایی انداخت فصل اولش و بنظر ترکیب خوبی میاد.

این کتاب عیدی مامان بود و خیلی چسبید. یکی از بهترین کتاب‌هایی که کادو گرفتم. واقعا باعث شد لحظاتی خودم رو در کتاب گم کنن.

کتاب قسمت های مهم و زیبای زیادی داره که منو به وجد آورد ولی تنبل تر از اونم که براتون اینجا بذارمشون :) پس به خودتون لطف کنید و حتما این کتاب رو بخونید♡

[i · Rating 5 out of 5]

توسط نشر کرگدن چاپ و ترجمه شده ولی خب نسخه فارسی اینجا اضافه نشده.
کتاب به شدت جمع و جور و خوش خوانه ،موضوع کلیش در مورد نقش هنر و اثری که میذارن هست(هر هنری.کتاب فیلم موسیقی رمان و....) اینکه اثار هنری چطور خیلی وقتا دستمونو واسه خودمون رو میکنن ، اگه بعضی وقتا بزدلیم شجاعتو بهمون تزریق میکنن و باعث میشن ادمای درست تری باشیم.به هیچ وجه توضیحاتش حوصله سر بر نیست(یکی که حوصلش از همه چی سر میره اینو داره بهت میگه). پر از نقل و قول نقاشی و فیلم موسیقی و نویسنده ها و فیلسوف هاست و توی ژانر خودش خیلی دلچسبه.
اولین اثری هست که از الن دوباتن میخونم و احتمالا اخریش نباشه!

[Maja (majareads) Milocanovich ☕️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Culture is our emotional apothecary.” 🩵

Surprisingly (because of how short and unknown (to me) it is) - one of the best reads I’ve read in a while. It’s so condensed, but holds so much truth, wisdom, magic.. I just felt so deeply understood, valued and seen reading this.
I could spend hours and hours reading such incredibly deep appreciation of art, paintings, literature, music.. (And I thankfully will, as I will be coming back to this book over and over again.)
This left me feeling inspired, motivated, hopeful, humble, curious! All my recommendations ! And a few quotes that might pull you to read it.

“We lose sight of the value of almost everything that is readily to hand, we’re deeply ungrateful towards anything that is free or doesn’t cost very much, we trust in the value of objects more than ideas or feelings.
We are sluggish in remembering to love and care, and are prone to racing through the years
while forgetting the wonder, fragility and beauty of existence.
It’s fortunate, therefore, that we have art.”

“Art can do the opposite of glamorizing the unattainable,
it can reawaken us to genuine merit of life as we are forced to lead it.
It is advertising for the things we really need.”

[Laura Ghitoi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think this book (or actually shall we call it "longer form essay bound between two harder covers"?) ever set out to offer the most comprehensive response to the question in the title, which is fine. Indeed, the chapters merely scratch the surface of what could easily be a few hundred pages book, but in the process they actually manage to get some interesting views and insights across.
The last chapter, Perspective, truly resonated with me since it offered an alternative look over the overwhelming sensation caused by constant waves of negative news. Same goes for the Hope chapter.

"Culture is our emotional apothecary, a storehouse of humanity's finest bottled wisdom and compassion, with whose help we have the best chance of riding out our many inevitable moments of fragility and joy."

[Fat · Rating 5 out of 5]

بعد از گذروندن امتحانا یه کتاب خوندم به اسم "فرهنگ به چه کار می‌آید؟"
به روایت مدرسه دوباتن.
به جرئت می‌تونم بگم هیچ کتابی تا حالا انقدر قشنگ وجود فرهنگ و هنر رو توی زندگیم به نمایش نذاشته بود.توی فصل های مختلف در مورد حیطه های مختلفی از هنر حرف زده بود.

مثلا اینکه کتابی که می‌خونیم به ما کمک می‌کنه کمتر دیگران رو قضاوت کنیم، چون تو در هر لحظه می‌تونی آدم‌ها و دنیای توی سرشون رو درک کنی و بفهمی آدما "بد" نیستن، فقط ممکنه بعضی وقتا کارای بدی رو انجام بدن.

ما آدم‌ها نمی‌تونیم غممون رو به هرکسی بگیم، و به قول خود کتاب "شاید موثر ترین راه برای مقابله با اندوه صرفا پخش کردن یک موسیقی باشد"
خیلی وقت‌ها وقتی غمگینیم نمی‌تونیم از غممون حرف بزنیم،اما دیدن یه عکس، یه نقاشی، یا گوش دادن به موسیقی می‌تونه بهمون حس همدردی بده.

هنر میتونه بهمون امید بده که همه چیز درست می‌شه، زندگی همین لحظه های کوچیک و گذراست و می‌گذره.

هنر می‌تونه کمکمون کنه اعتدال رو برقرار کنیم، مثلا دیدن قهرمان توی فیلمی که داره با تمام وجود شجاعت به خرج می‌ده نترسیدن رو یادمون می‌ده و باعث نیشه نقطه‌ی تعادل زندگیت رو پیدا کنی‌.

هنر بهت یاد میده همدردی کنی، تو با خوندن کتاب یا دیدن فیلم به این پی میبری آدمی که شکست خورده رو نباید ترک کرد، اون آدم لایق همدردی توعه.

هنر حرف‌هایی رو می‌زنه که شاید داره تورو آزار میده و تو بلد نیستی بروزشون بدی‌، حرف‌هایی که سالهاست روی قلبت سنگینی می‌کنه و تو بلد نیستی به زبونشون بیاری.

هنر زیبایی ها رو نشونت میده و تورو درگیر چیز هایی می‌کنه که زیبایی حقیقی این دنیاان‌.

حتی هنر می‌تونه مثل رسانه های تبلیغاتی عمل کنه و به اونهمه ترسی که توی وجودت هست پایان ببخشه‌.

باز هم به نقل قول از خود کتاب،
فرهنگ شفاخانه‌ی عاطفی ماست‌.

[Puella Sole · Rating 4 out of 5]

U pravom trenutku, taman mi je vratilo fokus i pomoglo da posložim mnoge stvari u glavi.

[Reyhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

کتابی بود که در شرایط سخت برمیگردم و دوباره میخونمش💕

[Tawfiq Hamid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read presenting some nice reflections on "culture"; which here concerns things like art, music, theatre, paintings etc.

Presents a few ideas on the motivations behind people creating these artefacts and in turn spends time explaining how we can best engage with "culture". This is primarily done through the lens of helping us in our own lives to derive peace and calm.

Presents eight main ideas in about 100 pages and is nicely written as per the usual style of the school of life. A nice read for a relaxed Sunday afternoon.

The book is also available as a blog post and version on the website has more pictures:
https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebo...

[Guillermo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written, reassuring and encouraging book about the importance of culture. It makes some very important points one might not have thought of using interesting and varied references of all art forms. Whether you want to be reassured in your love of culture or you are simply curious about what The School of Life has to say about it, this book will make you appreciate culture even more by highlighting the essential and complex role it can play in our lives.
"One of our major flaws as animals, and a big contributor to our unhappiness, is that we are very bad at keeping in mind the real ingredients of fulfilment."

[Snowy.roz · Rating 5 out of 5]

چراااااا انقد کم حجم😭
دوست نداشتم تموم بشه، انگار داشتم یه شیرینی خوشمزه میخوردم و وسطش یکی ازم گرفتتش😭، دوست داشتم همینجور بخونم و بخونم....

دیروز تموم کردمش و دوباره امروز شروعش کردم🙂👌


فرهنگ یعنی زیباتر دیده شدن همه چیز😍🤌

در یک کلام بخونیدش، به همه توصیه میکنمش❤️

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good but should be titled “what is art for?”

[Jannik Faierson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. Contentwise, it is great and offers interesting new ideas. But regarding the language and the style, I do have much criticism. On the one hand, I think that the language wasn't coherently. Many times one idea stopped very suddenly and a completely new idea was being put forth. Additionally, I believe that many ideas could have been elaborated much deeper and thoroughly. Instead, one idea why culture might be useful was quickly explained and a few examples were provided but without any transition. Unfortunately, this felt more like a draft than a real book.
But don't get me wrong. I still value the content very much. The main idea is that cultural objects, such as art, music, and films should be accessible and useful for everybody and not only for the elite, who studied some art for many years. No, culture is for every human being, regardless of education and can help us in various ways. Accordingly, art can express emotions that we feel internally and thus helps us to understand ourselves better. It can give us balance if we feel unbalanced in some part of our life. And it gives us hope because we can learn from great tragedies that we are not alone with our temporarily suffering and it can help us not to do mistakes that lead to more suffering.

All these ideas contributed to a new understanding of myself and the potential that art and other forms of culture can offer to me. Very importantly, I understood that I don't have to be an expert in the art to gain something from it. Instead, it can enrich my life if I just spend some more time with it and allow myself to stop analyzing everything rationally and start experiencing and feeling emotions resulting from it. This is valuable insight for my personal development.

[Richard Webb · Rating 3 out of 5]

It gets three stars because I think the subject matter is important and it does a good job of conveying why art matters and what it can do for us. As a whole, it's a really interesting topic and you could talk for ages about why we should care.

But for me it's held back by the fact that it feels like a pretty explicit critique of artistic snobbery whilst displaying an incredibly narrow minded conception of culture and art more generally.

He takes issue with the idea of art as something that has to be enjoyed and appreciated in a very particular way with a particular education. We go through a whole journey of why this shouldn't be the case and the value we can all take away to end on the fact that to have the value he's described it has to be 'good' art. It feels like a complete 180 on itself - this without even mentioning that wider culture is completely neglected. Can we really talk about culture in 2018 (when this book was published) without talking about memes? Videogames? Not a single tv show? No Friends, Bojack Horseman, Tiger King? I hate to say it but not even a reference to the Kardashians?

it is just so nearly *almost* there; the foundations for a compelling, beautiful argument about the value of art and culture is here and completely squandered by only referring to high culture.

'Culture should be for everyone!' our author passionately declares.
'But what about the culture that I enjoy?' the average person asks.
'Oh no, not THAT culture, culture has to be GOOD to have value.'

Dare I say it but I think the author has tripped, stumbled, and fallen on his own sharpened sword.

[Nathan De · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting short reflection on the power of culture and good art to be used as a therapeutic tool that can lift, inspire and complement us. Whether it is by providing companionship (we are not alone in the emotions we feel), hope (we can learn to appreciate the small things), balance (we crave the add chaos to our order or vice versa), compassion (we can also be the victim of misfortune by sheer dumb luck), knowledge (we can learn from the accumulated body of human wisdom throughout the ages), encouragement (we can strive to become better versions of ourselves), appreciation (we can be reminded of the things that can contribute to real happiness) or perspective (we can reframe events against a more imposing or vast backdrop of space and time).

[Robert Costin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short, pithy, thought provoking. Maybe I devoured it too quickly - perhaps read a chapter at a time then reflect and discuss with a sympathetic friend. Warmly recommended, particularly for people who teach young people.

[Emir Catovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable and Enlightning

A worthwhile read, showing why art should be intimately linked to logic and not severed. Philosophy is not enough, beauty is not enough. They must be merged together

[Klára · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good summary of various aspects of art that make it so enticing and important. Helped me organize some of my thoughts and will be coming back to it.

[Tim Belonax · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d recommend any book from The School of Life for the casual philosophy reader.

[Emmish · Rating 5 out of 5]

-we can't just try to live well, we need to present wisdom compellingly.

[Tessy · Rating 3 out of 5]

D.

[Lusenii Kromah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy to read book that is great for traveling or vacation

[Mark O'mara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short but very wise and valuable book. Succinct in making a powerful argument about the power and necessity of the arts/culture for our individual well being.

[Sarah Reza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally, this book is very helpful for me to understand about art and the artists. Who are they and their period too.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

High-brow and thought-provoking, the central argument is that we need culture for all sorts of things. I tend to agree.

[Reena · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short yet poignant book again by School of life whose perspectives continue to make me feel seen and understood a million times better than the U.S. self help genre.

[blueyasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

خیلی قشنگ بود.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're looking for a decent aphoristic defense of art, culture, and all things creative that you could use to enlighten your philistine friends, this is a pretty good resource.

[Maaike · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We're leaky creatures. Hope drains away, not because the situation is genuinely hopeless but because we are so attuned to seeing what's wrong. It's precisely because we so readily lose hope that the optimistic reminders provided by culture - hope in amber - are so important"
page 47.

and that is just one aspect. very concise and welcome reminder of what art is for