ANT2

CULTURE: GIVING MEANING TO HUMAN LIVES

Chapter 2

What is Culture?

There are 7 elements of culture:

1. Culture is learned

2. Culture is shared

3. Culture uses symbols

4. Cultures are dynamic, always adapting and changing

5. Culture is integrated with daily experience

6. Culture shapes everybody's life

7. Understanding culture involves overcoming ethnocentrism

Culture is “the complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals,

custom, and any other capabilities acquired by man as a member of society” (E.B.

Tylor, 1832-1917).

1) Enculturation

The process of learning the social rules and cultural logic of a society. This

begins at birth.

All human beings are born with the ability

to learn culture, nobody is born a fully

formed cultural being. We learn through

observation, mimicry, and emulation

(parents and peers), technical instruction

(e.g., how to hold a fork, tie your shoes, do

math), and conditioning ( i.e., reinforced or

discouraged through a series of rewards

and punishments, both physical and social

(getting a spanking, Amish shunning).

Enculturation happens both explicitly and implicitly

Throughout your schooling, your teachers have explicitly taught you many

things you need to know to be a productive member of society (to write,

analyze text, do mathematics), while implicitly lessons of obedience and

respect for authority are learned by sitting in rows facing forward.

2) Culture is Shared

■ Culture is shared among members of a

society. In other words, the elements that

make up what it means to be American,

or what it means to be a Kalahari

Bushman, or what it means to be

Scottish, are commonly understood

among all members of that group. These

same elements tend not to be understood

by members of other cultures or

societies.

– Culture can be transmitted face to face or virtually using a variety of technological innovations.

3) Culture as a System of Symbols

■ Symbol: An object, idea, image, figure, or character

that represents something else

– Can be verbal or nonverbal

■ Clifford Geertz’s interpretative theory of culture is

the idea that culture is embodied and transmitted

through symbols

– Example: is it a wink or a twitch?

4) Culture is Dynamic

■ Culture is comprised of a dynamic and

interrelated set of social, economic, and belief

structures

– This is the key to understanding how the

whole of culture operates

■ Cultures change constantly!

■ Why do cultures change?

– Environmental change

– Population growth

– Intrusion by outsiders

– Changing values

■ Different aspects of culture change at different

rates

5) Culture is Integrated with Daily Experience

■ Integrated with daily experience

■ All aspects of culture function as a whole

■ We have biological needs, such as food, sleep,

etc., but culture shapes those activities

6) Everyone Has Culture, and it Shapes Your Life

■ Yet, like accents, we tend to notice cultures

more when they differ from those we are

familiar with

■ In the United States, there is a tendency to view

minorities, immigrants, and others who differ

from white middle-class norms as “people with

culture”

■ By differing from mainstream patterns, a

group’s culture becomes more visible

– The more “culture” one appears to have,

the less power one wields.

7) Overcoming Ethnocentrism, Achieving Cultural Relativism

■ Cultural relativism involves

interpreting another culture using

goals, values, and beliefs rather

than one’s own.

■ Does not mean necessarily

accepting and defending all the

things people do

– Not the equivalent of moral or

ethical relativism

If culture is emergent and dynamic, why does it feel so stable?

■ Societies function most smoothly when cultural processes feel natural and stable

– People need cultural stability

■ Enculturation occurs constantly

■ Our experience of culture is repeatedly stabilized by symbols, values, norms, and traditions

Symbols

■ A symbols is something that conventionally, and

arbitrarily, stands for something else

■ Symbols do change (sometimes dramatically), but

are particularly stable

■ Symbols are easily remembered

■ Symbols preserve a culture’s conventional

meanings

Values

■ Are symbolic expressions of intrinsically desirable principles or qualities.

■ Tend to conserve a society’s dominant ideas about morality and social

issues.

■ Can change . . . but more slowly than other aspects of culture.

Norms

■ Typical patterns of behavior, the unwritten

rules of everyday life

■ Remain stable because people learn

them from an early age and because

society encourages conformity

■ Are usually unnoticed by people until

they’re violated

Traditions

■ Are the most enduring and ritualized

aspects of a culture

■ Are usually assumed to be timeless (or,

at least, very old)

– Makes challenging traditions difficult,

even if they justify actions that make no

sense in modern times

■ The powerful notion that things have

always been a certain way makes

challenging traditions difficult, even if

they justify actions that make no logical

sense in modern times

How is culture expressed through social institutions?

■ Culture feels stable because it is expressed and reinforced by social institutions:

– the organized sets of social relationships that link individuals to each other in a

structured way in a particular society

■ These institutions include

– Patterns of kinship and marriage

– Economic activities

– Religious institutions

– Political forms

Can anybody own culture?

■ Nobody can own “the collective

processes that make the artificial

seem natural”

– Conflicts do arise over claims to the

exclusive right to use symbols that

give culture power and meaning

■ Cultural appropriation: unilateral

decision of one social group to take

control over the symbols, practices,

or objects of another

Conclusion

■ At the heart of all anthropological discussions of culture is the idea that culture

helps people understand and respond to a constantly changing world

■ A holistic perspective on culture illustrates how different domains of a society

interrelate, but culture is dynamic—responding to innovation, creativity, and

struggles over meaning

■ In spite of the difficulties studying culture, it is more important that ever to

understand culture, what it is, and how cultural processes work.

– The big and urgent matters of out time have cultural causes and

consequences