People go hill walking to achieve something very distinctive. The goal is to step out of culture space and discover what defines us in nature, where we are a part of, and in tune with, the earth and the sky, and all the animals. It might sound like I’m about to get spiritual, purge that from your mind, the spiritual is just another product to sell you, one born of culture, it is the products of man and minds. What we are talking about here is the things we do not build.

Culture is that which is built by us, it is a product or a set of social conditions. It is our traditions and our language, it is our rules and norms, it is language, housing, politics, religion etc. Nature is that which exists without our interaction, it is the trees and the hills and the oceans and other life on this planet. It is nature and space and time, it is what we are not responsible for. Of course there is the argument that these things invade each other by our interactions with them, that all become cultural as we intervene to manage, that the national park has the flora and fauna that we designate to it. None of that is the argument for this piece, I’m talking about when you at least attempt to step out of one to feel the effect of the other.

Going into the mountains is an attempt at stepping out of culture, the effort is to feel connected, to feel smaller than the great scheme of things and to enjoy a detachment not easily obtained in modernity. Sartre put this in terms of facing up to responsibility by realising it, being both in terms of being outside of the culture that creates our illusions of what is real, and the realisation that we are not the centre of anything significant. If I go up Snowdon (Wales) I cannot gain these feelings because it has become a cultural endeavour, since it is always filled with groups of arseholes in stylish walk-wear, sporting earbuds, trying to get the best selfie at the top. I feel these folks have missed the point somewhat, and in doing so they ruin the experience for anyone who wants to walk this mountain for the real purpose of doing so.

Jamie Oliver cooks a dish on TV, he says it is Jewish food. Jamie Oliver is not a Jewish man, each the ingredients of the food appear in other types of food, they are supermarket bought, and non Jews use them all the time in other dishes. What I wondered was what makes this a dish so that can be ascribed to a cultural entity (Judaism is an ideology, therefore built by people, therefore cultural)? What is it about these ingredients, arranged in this way, that makes the dish Jewish? Is it that he learned this dish from someone that is Jewish, is it that it is only eaten by people who are Jewish? I fear this is nonsense, and a better description would have been to include the word “traditionally” before the word “Jewish” in the introduction, maybe I missed that.

We do this with Italian food too I suppose, and Chinese, and Indian. Yet in those cases we are talking about original regional availability of grown or nurtured produce dictating the innovation of the offerings as being the cultural factor of uniqueness concerning the meals produced. I can make Italian food, that does not make me Italian, yet the food is Italian because I accept that it was in it’s original nature first produced by Italians. How can we explain why this is not the same error? I would say that the calling of a food stuff “Jewish”, rather than “Traditionally Jewish”, is an error because the Jews of history are not a people from a defined place that is different distinctly or uniquely to them from any other descendants of that same region. Would not these foods be better described by a region rather than a religion, unless they have a ceremonial purpose?

On that point we could say that Halal is a unique type of food because it requires a unique treatment of the animal so as to produce a differing result either in what is measurable or perceived, this is a cultural rather than regional thing, but intervention defines it in reality rather than just merely in rhetoric. I am not saying that I agree with what I think to be the practice of an unnecessary cruelty, but if the meat is different because of that cruelty then it holds a uniqueness that can be said to be defined correctly by the term Halal, just like the distinction between poached and fried this is not an error. I would position holy water as suffering the same mistake of definition as Jewish food, in that speaking words in Latin and waving your hands toward water does not change the nature of that water in any measurable way.

It’s possible I’m just nit picking with the food stuff in this post, but that’s what I do. I take something that is shaky and I try to push it over, today I’m writing about culture and trying to define what it is and what it is not. The walking stuff I am dead serious about though, it matters that those folks on Snowdon are missing something vitally important that means no serious walker would do that mountain more than once, there’s no tranquillity to be gained. The less people we, Em and I, see on a walk, the better we enjoy it, and the less we say while we are walking the better we tune in to where we are and the more good it does us.

People often find their value in the busyness that is their life, by going to work or being useful, but this may not be what lets you know you. It just may be a part of the structural, cultural part of a life where meaning is drawn from some attainment. There is no achievement in walking up a hill, not in the same sense as something you get a prize, praise, a wage, or a reward for., because it is a task you didn’t need to perform. It’s not about bragging to other walkers or joining a club, it’s not about brands of clothing or boots, it is about just doing it because it is its own reward.

Paul S Wilson