What is culture? What is it good for? Is it important for us? We live in a world where an overload of information has become the norm, and we often don't have the right criteria to tell what's true or false. Faced with this situation, culture gives us the tools we need to form our own judgement of the world. In this "la Caixa" Foundation Social Observatory Café, Antonio Monegal, professor and writer, encourages us to think of culture not just as a collection of knowledge that connects us with our roots and values, but also as the driving force behind our critical thinking and what bolsters our intellectual independence.