Second, and almost imperceptibly, culture is a concept that includes a refining and elevating element, each society`s reservoir of the best that has been known and thought, as Mathew Arnold put it in the 1860s.
In time, culture comes to be associated, often aggressively, with the nation or the state; this differentiates `us` from `them`, almost always some degree of xenophobia.
said, culture and imperialism, xiii