It's interesting to see the definitions of "culture" for various people.
I don't think enjoying things that are considered "low" or "high" culture by themselves define an individual. It's usually when the list tends to drag into embracing things only on one side of the cultural divide that it gets weird.
Like the concept of well rounded has been lost.
Oh my god I am. The last real book I read (excluding comics of course) was Great Gatsby, and I only read half of it and it was for English class lol. I'd never moved anywhere outside of my hometown (well, I'm a minor) but I've been to Taipei every year I guess? I'm also a total dumbass when it comes to politics and history. Actually I learned like 70% of my knowledge of history from taking Art History. Still, I'd like to think that I'm well-spoken and openminded. Just don't try to talk to me about Trump because I don't know wtf he did this week and frankly I don't want to.
I hate the idea of there being this magical line between high and low culture, decided by some mystical "canon".
But I also hate the idea that there is some pride to be had in never travelling, never bettering your knowledge or engaging with serious or challenging works or critical theory, that that's somehow "more real".
I have two degrees, I speak fluent Japanese and studied in the country for about a year. I have travelled widely across Europe and I live in trendy East London. I'm passionate about Shakespeare and could summarise most of his plays and hold my own in a discussion on key themes, I will jump at the chance to see them on stage, especially at The Globe. I enjoy good quality wine, teas and food. I'm always up for a trip to the art gallery or museum and can identify most key aesthetic and cultural movements. I'm modestly famous on the internet for having a "fancy sounding" voice. My favourite fashion brand is Hobbs.
...But that's only half the story. I'm not the upper class snob some people might believe from that. I was born in statistically the most working class town in Britain, in a very poor part of Northern England and still have the accent (surprise! The fancy sounding voice isn't my normal speaking voice!), my dad worked nights in the shipyard and I didn't have much as a kid. I'm proud of where I'm from and I despise flashy ostentatious wealth and pretentious people. My favourite things to do outside of my job are reading trashy shounen manga, watching cartoons and playing video games. My perfect breakfast is a big mug of builders tea and a bacon buttie with ketchup. My favourite writer is Terry Pratchett.
I believe that a person can think deeply about and learn from anything. Every piece of culture is worthy of consideration and everyone should think about what they consume. Trying to learn is always going to be harder if you have a hard life, and I respect that. I've had advantages due to my parents gaining qualifications, though it wasn't always easy, and I've been lucky enough to be introduced to certain circles, but I've also worked really hard on my end to broaden my knowledge of the world and culture where I can with the resources at my disposal. When the internet exists, there's really no excuse to act proud of ignorance about which fork is the right one to use, or the proper ettiquette for sushi or what differentiates modernism, post-modernism and meta-modernism; you can just google it.
anti-intellectualism isnt about being stupid, ignorant, or uncultured
its an attitude that distrusts academia and the arts. you can travel broadly and be very knowledgeable and be an anti-intellectual, and there are anti-intellectuals who are prominent in our culture.
on the flip, you can never leave your hometown, get your news from social media, and mostly shop at walmart and NOT be an anti-intellectual. besides the social media thing, those two are more class indicators than intellectualism indicators - and associating intellectualism with class is very dangerous. the greatest intellectuals ive known have been gardeners, nurses, and construction workers.
Same latitude, slightly different longitude. Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. Home of... nuclear submarines and getting dunked on by J K Rowling as a convenient "grim" setting for a crime novel 
Why on earth some people still think that reading a books automatically make you more intelligent, or that is an inherent thing, which all intelligent people have to do? (－‸ლ)
It's stupid as hell...
Anyway nobody giving me a chance because I'm from rural town, so why to bother. Yes, I'm uncultured and I even like to pushing that fact forward, sometimes more than it needed, but anyway it's fun ^_^
But if say serious, so not, I don't think that I'm uncultured, but again, nobody is giving me chance because I'm living in rural place.
I'm reading this thread living 100 miles from my hometown for university, while reading wittgenstein in German. I still feel like an uncultured slob.
Now about myself. Many people said me during my life that I'm erudite and that I have a strong critical thinking and logic... and even more said that I'm crazy retarded moron.
Nowadays, I meat people with the second kind of opinion more and more rarely (or, at least, they don't tell me it in face?). But I faced such a characteristic a lot in my younger years. I learned different so-called "difficult" subjects, like a math, programming, natural science etc., much, much more easily than the average people of my age (not talking about intellectual elite, of course; just comparing to the average). But, in the same time, it was very hard for me to learn some so-called "simple" things.
Just an example of the situation of that kind, after which people thought I'm irredeemable idiot:
One day, when I was very young, my grandma explained me how to clean the floor. She gave me a very old rag and told me, that I should make it wet and wipe the floor with it. "But, granny", - said I - "this rag looks so dirty and smelly. There are hair, dirt and other weird things on it. (showing her) How can it make anything clean?" (or something like this), because... Jesus Christ, the thought, that dirty thing can make something clean, really had blown up my young mind. Of course, she have become irritated. She started to wipe the stain on the floor with the rag in the front of me, as a demonstration, and she had shown that it was wiped out with the rag. "That's how it makes it clean, fool", - said she, - and gave me a rag. So I decided to stop irritate her more with a "stupid" questions. I decided just to make an exception to this particular rag and to believe that it can do the things clean, and just started to clean the floor, in the way she have explained.
Another day, she told me to wipe out the table. "How?" - asked I. "With the rag" - said she (but she didn't specify, with which rag exactly). I recalled that the rag for the floor makes things clean, even if it looks dirty, and started to move it on the table surface, "cleaning" tablecloth, dishes, glasses, cutlery... I was surprised that they seemingly became just more dirty after this. So I decided to wipe them harder... You can guess, how loud she screamed about what an irredeemable idiot am I, when she saw what I was doing. 
I still remember it, because of feeling of shock and sincere misunderstanding, what have I done wrong.
When I grew up, I realized that my problem is, that my brain works inherently well with a formal logic, but have a big problems with understanding that vague, "intuitively clear" things, which everyone around perceived like "obvious". So I put an additional efforts to understand them. I started to ask people around "stupid" questions, despite of the risk of being mocked, because I really wanted to learn all of this.
For example, once I've asked my boyfriend:
- Why when I'm opening the door with the key, it feels painful, and when you're opening the door with the key, you don't look to feel pain?
Instead of saying "Because you are idiot", as my family members would say in this situation, he said:
- Show me, how are you doing it
I had shown him, how am I opening the door, slowly and clearly. When he looked at it attentively, he was surprised.
- Why do you squeeze the key so hard? Your hand becomes white and tremble from such a strong tension, when you are doing this! Of course, it'll hurt. - said he.
- But when someone explained me in my young years, how to open the door, they pressured my hand with very strong pressure, so I just repeat what they have shown me, putting all my strength into it.
- You don't need to repeat it in exactly the same way, how they've shown you.
- But if I don't put any pressure, the key doesn't move at all.
- In this case, try to increase pressure slowly, until key will start to move. The weakest pressure, from ones, which are enough to moving the key, is the pressure, which you should put in it the next time.
I did what he said and was happy, because since then I don't feel pain, opening the doors with a keys (well, if the locks are not very tight, of course).
Just for the reference: this talk happened, when I'm was 23 or 24 y.o. .... if you'll ever feel stupid, just recall this post. LOL
I don't know, why have I write it
Being cultured and being intelligent are completely different notions.
One doesn't need to be intelligent to be cultured in general; and not all intelligent persons are cultured (also, not all educated (as, did studies) persons are cultured).
The book/intelligence link is probably very weak indeed. The book/culture used to be stronger, simply because it used to be one of the main sources of culture in certain circles.
I don't think one has to read to be cultured, but it's a good tool (also to access oral tradition knowledge that would be difficult to gain directly through oral tradition).
Your examples of lack if common sense have nothing to do with culture or intelligence imo. You seem to have an issue to translate your technical or scientific knowledge into practical, everyday life application. Welcome to the club! I have that too, and my spouse too, in pretty incredible proportions. Sometimes I have to draw some schematics to illustrate the physical properties he needs to rely on to do some everyday tasks, because otherwise he can't make the connection and can't understand how to do the task.
I think that's a very relative subject. You can't compare how "cultured" two people are if they didn't have the same opportunities in life, to me it's more important to see how much someone is willing to learn with the time and resources they had/have available.
I'm fluent in 2 languages, can communicate fairly well in 2 other languages, lived in 2 different countries, visited 5 in total. My aunt lived all her live in a very rural area, she almost never left our state, only speaks one language and doesn't know how to eat with forks, only spoons and knives. But she has more knowledge of classic (national/local) literature and music than me, she has way more practical knowledge of cooking, farming, husbandry etc than me, and also has a better understanding of local geography. So, who am I to say I'm more cultured than her, just because I grew up with access to better education and had more chances to travel? I barely can light a gas oven with a match and I only know how to cook one of our traditional dishes (and still only do it right 50% of the time), but she knows how to cut firewood and prepare multiple dishes with a whole goat lmao
(Also she'd laugh so much if someone said chocolate milk comes from brown cows )
In terms of culture, I think that my cultural background is very heterogeneous. I don't read/watch the most of contemporary bestsellers - books, movies or whatever. When people around discuss them, I have no idea what they are talking about, until I google it. I also know only particular part of "classic literature". Many of "classic" books looks quite boring for me ( I know, I'm a bad gal ). But I read all books of Philip Dick and the most of classical cyberpunk ( the middle of XX century ) and sci-fi ( Azimov, Herman Lem etc). I have a big lacunae in knowing general history of some periods. In the same time, I know much more about the history of science and Christian religion. Because I investigate and remember only those things, which are interesting for me. 
When I was little, in the 70s, my parents were working contantly trying to build careers that would keep us out of poverty in rural Appalachia. They had me very young, their parents were still working, and in consequence I spent a lot of time being kept by their grandparents. My mom's grandmother, who was born in 1898, was my favorite. She was a German refugee from the Kaiser. Her brother died in WW1 fighting for the US at the tail end of the war. But her family still spent the rest of their lives being called Nazis, just because they were German, though their only son had died for the US. By ignorant people to whom all Germans were Nazis. She died in 1984 still embarrassed of being born a German.
I guess when I think of uncultured people those are the ones I think of. People who love, hate, and reason (or not) based on stereotypes... on other people's often ill-formed opinions, instead of opinions they formed on their own. Minors have little choice, as they can't control their own information flow, but the older you get the flimsier the excuses become when there's a public pile-on that we later find out was unwarranted, or an attack on a country that "we're sure!" has weapons of mass destruction... except they don't. Have you been around the block? Then you know to reserve judgment and be kind in the meantime. You might save someone's life. But if your little bubble is so comfy that you don't care, if you're too lazy or too focused on your own ends to ask the damn question and deal with the real consequences... then you're uncultured. Has nothing to do with travel or languages or your favorite form of entertainment.
@DokiDokiTsuna you're not an uncultured slob! You're deeply interested in all kinds of important subjects and enjoy talking about them with people, a starter of meaningful conversations. Most everything you list as your examples of culture are related to how much you consume, and the other is how much education you have...which is another consumption marker for status, ie. hereditary wealth. Don't confuse intelligence or culture with simply being rich or materialistic!
also...suddenly comics & webnovels don't count as books?
I live in Oklahoma!
Anyways, I used to chase book knowledge when I was younger. Until I realized that it doesn't really matter since most people around me at the time didn't give two craps for what I knew.
As of now, I don't really care anymore about being cultured or intellectual. I try to avoid news of any kind, I prefer to focus on listening to Metal and drawing my comic, being good at my service industry job, and maintaining my realtionship with my wife (who is way more accomplished than me xD)
Yeah. I'm probably an uncultured slob but it doesn't bother me, because...I'm pretty happy where I'm at in life.
Oh your example about Germany is very interesting, and I think it illustrates well how distance (geographical and cultural) can keep alive prejudice that is actual dead or dying at the place they were born.
I'm French. My grandfather was a war prisoner during WW2, so that was the 40'. Well, in the mid-60, his kids already had German penpals. For sure it took longer in some families, but by the time I was growing up in the 80' and 90', I can say I very rarely heard any anti-German speech, and when it was the case it was often in a anti-EU context, not really war related.
Imagine my surprise when I arrive in Canada and one of the first person I meet is a young adult, younger than like me, who tell me like it's a secret that her father is German-born, only because I told her I had just been to Germany, and then proceed to ask me not to tell people because of the social stigma. What? It took me a few seconds to understand, my first idea was that there was a problem within the local German community, I did not register that a girl born in the 90' in Canada could have an issue with her German origins.
Kind of a rare case though, there are a lot of people of German origins around here, I've not hear much prejudice against them, nor shame on their part, so I would not say this example has any significance.
But it was just a weird feeling, this completely different way to see things, between me, born 20km from the German border, and her, born later in Canada.
