Anthropology 150

The Nature of Culture

The Brief Definition

Culture is that which is learned, shared, and transmitted

– Learning: we are taught culture, as opposed to it being instinctual or purely biological

– Shared: culture is a characteristic of groups. An individual’s learned behaviors are not cultural unless others share them.

– Transmitted: Cultural behaviors are multi- generational, often lasting for hundreds or thousands of years.

A Brief History of Culture

Since Homo habilis, if not before, hominins

have been cultural (over 2 million years)

Culture was, and is a means of adaptation

Culture is, to some extent, a solution to

problems and cultural differences

throughout the world are rooted in different

problems and/or different solutions to

similar problems

Culture is learned

The process of learning culture is called

“Enculturation”

The “Mama Theory”: culture is how your

mama raises you

Human behavior is malleable and any

infant can be enculturated into any culture

Culture is Shared

By definition culture is about groups of people

Those groups can be of varying scales

– Societies: a group of people who interact with each

other on a regular basis

Societies are groups, culture is something that binds them

together

– Smaller groups: ethnic groups, religious groups, kin

groups

– These smaller groups may possess distinctive forms

of behavior, belief, speech, etc. that we can define as

a sub-culture

Sub-Cultures

Sub-cultures always stand in a relationship to the broader (society-wide) dominant culture

Examples: In greater LA we might (hypothetically)identify sub-cultures defined by ethnicity, such as Latino culture, African American culture, Armenian culture, etc. Each of these articulates with the others through intersection with the dominant culture, which, arguably, is based on Western European cultural traditions such as the use of English for most official business.

Culture is transmitted

Learning is transmission, but learning over generations builds cultural traditions

Not just what is learned, but how it is learned is part of culture

Sources of learning (agents of enculturation may include – Observation

– Oral history

– Formal schools

– apprenticeships

– Public media (TV, movies, advertising, music, literature)

Culture: The Long definition

Tylor (1871)

– “Culture is that complex whole, which includes

knowledge, belief, art, morals, custom and

any other capabilities acquired by man (sic)

as a member of society

Culture is Integrated

Culture isn’t transmitted piecemeal, but more commonly as a whole package

Economics, social organization, subsistence, politics, religion, all fit together (the key insight of the functionalist school).

Even when we study aspects of culture in isolation, it is important to remember the constitution of the whole

Ethnocentrism and Cultural

Relativism

Ethnocentrism is the belief that your own culture is superior

Relativism is the suspension of judgment in an attempt to understand another culture in its own terms

Relativism is an essential aspect of anthropology

Relativism does not imply nihilism, nor the abandonment of personal beliefs, simply the willingness to understand how other cultures view the world