(See related pages)
|
|
|
A cultural behavior involves a concept or idea that is shared among members of a population, transmitted extragenetically through learning using symbols, and made possible through artifacts. Culture is the major adaptive mechanism of our species, which we absolutely depend on for our survival. The rudiments of culture can be observed in some other organisms, especially the nonhuman primates. Indeed, chimpanzees who manufacture tools are clearly engaged in cultural behaviors, though these behaviors are not vital to the continuation of their species. The human brain—the organ that enables us to have culture—may be pictured as having different functional levels, the results of different stages of our evolutionary history. All these levels operate together to produce our basic behavioral repertoire. The thinking part of our brain, our cerebral cortex, is a complex, highly cross-referenced system that allows us to store data from our memories and experiences and to manipulate those memories to produce the ideas that make culture possible. Culture is a species characteristic, but individual cultural systems differ greatly. To explain, understand, and analyze a given cultural system requires that we see each system as an integrated set of ideas and behaviors, all of which are related directly or indirectly to the abstract assumptions we call worldview. Worldview in turn may be defined as the collective interpretations of and responses to the natural and cultural environments in which a group of people lives. |