Chapter8: The Characteristics of Culture
If youask 100 anthropologists to define culture, you’ll get 100 differentdefinitions. However, most of these definitions would emphasizeroughly the same things: that culture is shared, transmitted throughlearning and helps shape behavior and beliefs. Culture is of concernto all four subfields and while our earliest ancestors relied more onbiological adaptation, culture now shapes humanity to a much largerextent.
Oneof the earliest definitions of culture was put forth by Tylor in1871: “Culture, or civilization, is that complex whole whichincludes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any othercapabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”
Thebook defines culture as, “a society’s shared and sociallytransmitted ideas, values and perceptions, which are used to makesense of experience and generate behavior and are reflected in thatbehavior (147).”
Cultureis universal among all human groups and even exists among someprimates.
Allcultures have to provide for the physical, emotional, and socialneeds of their members, enculturate new members, resolve conflictsand promote survival for their members.
Societymust balance the needs of the whole with the needs of theindividual. If individual needs are continually suppressed, socialsystems can become unstable and individual stress can become toomuch to handle. Every culture has its own methods of balancing theneeds of society in relation to individual needs.
Subculturesare groups with distinct patterns of learned and shared behavior(ethnicities, races, genders, age categories) within a largerculture. Despite these distinctive traits, members of subculturesstill share commonalities with the larger society. Subculturesexist in most state level systems because those systems arepluralistic,they encompass more than one ethnic group or culture.
Culturehas five basic characteristics: It is learned, shared, based onsymbols, integrated, and dynamic. All cultures share these basicfeatures.
Cultureis learned. It is notbiological; we do not inherit it. Much of learning culture isunconscious. We learn culture from families, peers, institutions,and media. The process of learning culture is known asenculturation. While all humans have basic biological needs such as food, sleep,and sex, the way we fulfill those needs varies cross-culturally.
Cultureis shared. Because we share culture with other members ofour group, we are able to act in socially appropriate ways as wellas predict how others will act. Despite the shared nature ofculture, that doesn’t mean that culture is hom*ogenous (the same). The multiple cultural worlds that exist in any society are discussedin detail below.
Cultureis based on symbols. A symbol is something that stands forsomething else. Symbols vary cross-culturally and are arbitrary. They only have meaning when people in a culture agree on their use. Language, money and art are all symbols. Language is the mostimportant symbolic component of culture.
Cultureis integrated. This is known as holism, or the various partsof a culture being interconnected. All aspects of a culture arerelated to one another and to truly understand a culture, one mustlearn about all of its parts, not only a few.
Cultureis dynamic. This simply means that cultures interact andchange. Because most cultures are in contact with other cultures,they exchange ideas and symbols. All cultures change, otherwise,they would have problems adapting to changing environments. Andbecause cultures are integrated, if one component in the systemchanges, it is likely that the entire system must adjust.
See Alsosfiscience
CULTUREAND ADAPTATION
Biologicaladaptation in humans is important but humans have increasingly cometo rely upon cultural adaptation. However, not all adaptation isgood, and not all cultural practices are adaptive. Some features ofa culture may be maladaptive, such as fast food, pollution, nuclearwaste and climate change. However, because culture is adaptive anddynamic, once we recognize problems, culture can adapt again, in amore positive way, to find solutions.
ETHNOCENTRISMAND THE EVALUATION OF CULTURE
Thediversity of cultural practices and adaptations to the problems ofhuman existence often lead some to question which practices are thebest. Ethnocentrism is when one views their own culture asthe best and only proper way to behave and adapt.
Sincemost humans believe their culture is the best and only way to live,there are small amounts of ethnocentrism everywhere in the world.
Smalldoses help to create a sense of cultural pride and to build strong,cohesive groups.
Buttaken to extremes, and certainly when it includes an unwillingnessto be tolerant, it can be destructive. Ethnocentrism is at theheart of colonization and genocide.
Culturalanthropologists have, however, pushed for cultural relativism,the principle that all cultures must be understood in terms of theirown values and beliefs, not by the standards of another. Under thisprinciple, no culture is better than any other and cultures can onlybe judged on whether they are meeting the needs of their own people.
Mostindividuals are members of multiple cultural worlds. Culture existsat several levels. We typically refer to smaller cultures within alarger culture as subcultures. People have some type ofconnection to that subculture but must also be able to operateeffectively within the larger culture. Some of the diversity we seeacross subcultures is based on class, race, ethnicity, age, andgender. Social stratification is often the result of our recognitionof these worlds as different and a belief that they are somehowinferior to our own or to the larger culture.
Classis a social category based on people’s economic position insociety. Not all societies exhibit class differences; ones who donot are called egalitarian. Class societies are hierarchical, with one class having more accessto resources than others. Class is a recent feature of culture, asall early humans lived in egalitarian bands or tribes.
Race(in a cultural sense) is the socially constructed meanings assignedto the perceived differences between people based on physical traits(skin color, facial features, hair types). What differences werecognize and the meanings we assign those differences are allculturally determined and not biologically created. These physicalfeatures do not determine a person’s actions or explain theirbehavior.
Ethnicgroup refers topeople who identify themselves as a distinct group based on culturalfeatures such as common origins, language, customs and beliefs. Ethnic groups can be historically constituted (a group of people whoshared a territory, language or religion) or they can be morerecently claimed (African Americans). Just because people choose tosee themselves as members of a specific ethnic group doesn’t meanthat all members of that group are the same or share beliefs andvalues. Ethnicity,because it is a marker of group membership, can be used todiscriminate.
Indigenouspeoples,“are groups who have a long-standing connection with someterritory that predates colonial or outside societies prevailing inthe territory.” Indigenous peoples are groups that were in aterritory before Europeans or colonists arrived, thus NativeAmericans are an indigenous group. They are frequently called FirstPeoples, and often suffer from discrimination.
Genderrefers to the cultural meanings assigned to the biologicaldifferences between the sexes. Most societies only have masculineor feminine cultural roles, but some have a third, or even ablended, gender. Gender roles vary widely cross-culturally. Closely tied to gender roles are issues relating to hom*osexuality. In many cultures around the world, there is discrimination based ongender and sexual orientation.
Ageis both a biological fact as well as being culturally constructed. While we can reckon how many years old an individual is (biologicalage), what that means in terms of rights and responsibilities isculturally constructed. Most societies have obligations andresponsibilities that are assigned based on individuals reachingspecific ages. Think of driving, drinking, and voting.
