Jessica Buhler ~ “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture”

I once had to read a chapter by Clifford Geertz’s entitled “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture.” The chapter pretty much depicted different concepts of culture. The concept that Geertz believed was that “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun; I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning.” I found my self asking what does he mean but that. I think he means that everyone forms their own opinions about a culture just like a spider forms its own web. The webs of real spiders can be easily broken could Geertz be indirectly implying that cultures can be just as easily broken? I think so. A change in religion can change a culture drastically just look back in history. But does it really break the culture or does the culture just get larger like a spider’s web can be made bigger to catch more food? If it is made bigger then I would think it would be much easier to destroy or does it somehow become stronger. Religions start small and like a web it catches individuals seeking something to believe in and soon the web becomes bigger and much stronger then it was before. So surely cultures cannot be broken much easier when they are larger. Otherwise I don’t think anyone would be standing here today because the American culture is huge and we have yet to be broken.