According to Edward Tylor, "Culture . . . is that complex whole which
includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities
and habits acquired by man as a member of society."
Enculturation is the process by which a child learns his or her culture.
What is Culture?
Culture is Learned
Cultural learning depends on the uniquely developed human capacity
to use symbols, signs that have no necessary or natural connection
to the things they stand for or signify.
Clifford Geertz defines culture as ideas based on cultural
learning and symbols, and he characterizes cultures as "control
mechanisms" or "programs" that govern behavior.
Through enculturation, people gradually internalize a previously
established system of meanings and symbols, which helps guide
their behavior and perceptions throughout their lives.
Culture is learned through direct instruction as well as observation,
experience, interaction with others, and conscious and unconscious
behavior modification.
Culture is Shared
Culture is transmitted in society; it is an attribute not of
individuals per se, but of individuals as members of groups.
Enculturation tends to unify people by providing them with shared
beliefs, values, memories, and expectations.
Parents become agents in the enculturation of their children,
just as their parents were for them.
Culture is Symbolic
Symbolic thought is unique and crucial to humans and to cultural
learning.
A symbol is something verbal or nonverbal, within a particular
language or culture, that comes to stand for something else.
While human symbol use is overwhelmingly linguistic, there
are also myriad nonverbal symbols (e.g., flags, the golden arches)
that have arbitrary and conventional associations with the things
they symbolize.
Every contemporary human population has the ability to use symbols
and thus to create and maintain culture.
Although chimpanzees and gorillas have rudimentary cultural abilities,
no other animal has elaborated cultural abilities to the extent that
humans do.
Culture and Nature
Culture teaches humans how to express natural biological urges
in particular ways.
Culture converts natural acts into cultural customs.
Culture, and cultural changes, affect how we perceive nature,
human nature, and "the natural."
Culture is All-Encompassing
The anthropological concept of culture encompasses all aspects
of human group behavior.
All people are cultured, not just those who are formally educated
and sophisticated.
Culture is Integrated
Cultures are integrated, patterned systems; if one aspect of
a cultural system changes, other parts change as well.
A set of characteristic core values (key, basic, central values)
integrates each culture and helps distinguish it from others.
Culture Can Be Adaptive and Maladaptive
Although humans continue to adapt biologically, reliance on social
and cultural means of adaptation has increased during human evolution
and plays a crucial role.
Cultural traits, patterns, and inventions can also be maladaptive,
threatening a group's continued survival and reproduction.
Culture and the Individual: Agency and Practice
People use their culture actively and creatively, rather than
blindly following its dictates.
Culture is contested—that is, different groups in society
struggle with one another over whose ideas, values, goals, and
beliefs will prevail.
Common symbols may have radically different meanings to different
individuals and groups in the same culture.
Ideal culture consists of what people say they should do and
what they say they do, whereas real culture refers to their actual
behavior.
Agency refers to the actions that individuals take, both alone
and in groups, in forming and transforming cultural identities.
Practice theory recognizes that individuals within a society
or culture have diverse motives and intentions and different degrees
of power and influence.
Practice theory focuses on how individuals influence, create,
and transform the world they live in.
Culture shapes how individuals experience and respond to
external events, but individuals also play an active role in how
society functions and changes.
Levels of Culture
National culture refers to the beliefs, learned behavior patterns,
values, and institutions shared by citizens of the same nation.
International culture extends beyond and across national boundaries
as a result of diffusion (borrowing), migration, multinational organizations,
and common histories or interests.
Subcultures are different symbol-based patterns and traditions
associated with particular groups in the same complex society.
Ethnocentrism, Cultural Relativism, and Human Rights
Ethnocentrism is the tendency to view one's own culture as superior
and to apply one's own cultural values in judging the behavior and
beliefs of people raised in other cultures.
Ethnocentrism contributes to social solidarity, a sense of
value and community, among people who share a cultural tradition.
Ethnocentrism is universal—that is, people everywhere
believe that their cultural values and customs are true, right,
proper, and moral.
Cultural relativism is the viewpoint that behavior in one culture
should not be judged by the standards of another culture.
Cultural relativism can present problems.
At its most extreme, cultural relativism argues that there
is no superior, international, or universal morality, that the
moral and ethical rules of all cultures deserve equal respect.
The idea of inalienable, international human rights challenges
cultural relativism by invoking a realm of justice and morality beyond
and superior to the laws and customs of particular countries, cultures,
and religions.
Cultural rights are vested in groups rather than individuals,
and include a group's ability to preserve its culture, language, and
economic base.
The notion of indigenous intellectual property rights (IPR)
attempts to conserve each society's core beliefs, knowledge, and
practices.
According to the IPR concept, a particular group may determine
how indigenous knowledge and its products may be used and distributed
and the level of compensation required.
Kottak argues that objectivity, sensitivity, and a cross-cultural
perspective do not preclude anthropologists from respecting international
standards of justice and morality.
Universality, Generality, and Particularity
Anthropologists accept the doctrine known as "the psychic unity of
man."
According to this doctrine, although individuals differ in their
emotional and intellectual tendencies and capacities, all human populations
have equivalent capacities for culture.
Regardless of their genes or their physical appearance, people
can learn any cultural tradition.
Cultural universals are features that are found in every culture.
Cultural generalities are features that are common to several but
not all human groups.
Cultural particularities are features that are unique to certain
cultural traditions.
Universals and Generalities
Biologically based universals include a long period of infant
dependency, year-round sexuality, and a complex brain that enables
us to use symbols, languages, and tools.
Social universals include life in groups and in some kind of
family.
One cultural generality (present in many but not all societies)
is the nuclear family, a kinship group consisting of parents and children.
Particularity: Patterns of Culture
At the level of the individual cultural trait or element, cultural
particularities (features that are confined to a single place, culture,
or society) are becoming increasingly rare because of cultural diffusion.
At a higher level, cultures are integrated and patterned differently
and display tremendous variation and diversity.
When cultural traits are borrowed, they are modified to fit the
culture that adopts them.
Mechanisms of Cultural Change
Diffusion
Diffusion is the borrowing of traits between cultures.
Diffusion has gone on throughout human history, as contact between
neighboring groups has always existed and has extended over vast areas.
Diffusion can be direct—between two adjacent cultures—or
indirect—across one or more intervening cultures or through
some long-distance medium (e.g., mass media, information technology).
Diffusion is forced when one culture subjugates another and imposes
its customs on the dominated group.
Acculturation
Acculturation is the exchange of cultural features that results
when groups come into continuous firsthand contact.
Acculturation may occur in either or both groups engaged in such
contact.
With acculturation, parts of the cultures change, but each group
remains distinct.
A pidgin—an example of acculturation—is a mixed language
that develops to ease communication between members of different cultures
in contact (e.g., in the context of trade or colonialism).
Independent Invention
Independent invention is the process by which humans innovate,
creatively finding solutions to problems.
One reason that cultural generalities exist is that people in
different societies have innovated and changed in similar ways when
faced with comparable problems and challenges (e.g., the independent
invention of agriculture in both the Middle East and Mexico).
Globalization
Globalization encompasses a series of processes, including diffusion
and acculturation, working to promote change in a world in which nations
and people are increasingly interlinked and mutually dependent.
Forces of globalization include international commerce and finance,
travel and tourism, transnational migration, the mass media, and various
high-tech information flows.
As a result of globalization, local people must increasingly cope
with forces generated by progressively larger regional, national, and
international systems.
Indigenous peoples and traditional societies have devised various
strategies to deal with threats to their autonomy, identity, and livelihood.
Box: Touching, Affection, Love, and Sex
Different cultures have strikingly different notions about displays
of affection and matters of personal space.
Americans and Brazilians have very different attitudes about personal
space and displays of affection.
Americans tend to maintain a considerable distance from others
when talking, walking, or dancing.
In contrast, Brazilians maintain less physical distance during
social interactions.
Americans tend to blur the distinctions between affection, love,
and sex, and thus to avoid displays of affection because of fears
of improper sexuality.
Brazilians (including men) frequently engage in displays of affection,
which are not necessarily considered to imply sex.
