“The breasts, the hallmark of our culture. You cannot sell anything in America without the breasts.” said Phil Donahue. This is an interesting viewpoint of American culture on Donahue’s part. His culture defines how he views others and the world. Without his American views on American society, how else could he formulate this opinion and idea? To a large extent, people’s culture that they are accustomed to, affects their perception of the world and the people in it.
Culture can effect our perceptions of the littlest things, such as language. How we communicate is very different from place to place. Like in “Dave Berry Does Japan”, he has no knowledge of the Japanese language or its inhibitions. He didn’t bother to adapt the concept of Japanese “apologies” or they’re strong sense of acceptance of apologies, as later discussed in “Going to Japan” by Barbara Kingsolver. A personal experience that could define a difference of American language to Japanese is with the experience through foreign exchange students. The Japanese culture affects the way some people think such as, Kingsolver who learned the power of forgiveness, unlike Berry who doesn’t bother to learn any of the Japanese culture and therefore is not changed by it.
Another defining aspect of one’s culture is the piece of social interactions. Social interactions can be between two people, one person and a group, a group versus a group, etc. They have a certain way of defining what one person deems normal and not normal. One example of this is in the essay, “An Indian Father’s Plea” by Robert Lake. In the essay it talks about how Lake’s son, Windwolf, doesn’t want to participate in cultural powwows anymore due to the influence of white, public schooling and kids and the cong...
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... “individuality” that is specific to one person. In “Matrimony with a Proper Stranger” by Miguel Helft, both Rajiv and Vandana had different upbringings and therefore cultures, yet both wanted or conceded to an arranged marriage. This is an example of a cultural impact on two different cultures that has the same outcome, proving that “individualities” are formed by one’s upbringing. Also, culture is such a broad spectrum of topics it covers, it’s hard to find something that one isn’t influenced by any of the outside aspects.
Culture is a factor that shapes our everyday lives, along with being exposed to new and unique cultural aspects everyday. Being changed and having your thoughts on events differ than originally isn’t a bad thing. Culture does change the way people are informed and the way they view the world through language, social interactions, and religion.
Can you imagine yourself being apart of a group or lifestyle, now imagine yourself not fitting in. Maybe some people think you’re weird, but people just like you understand. Many suggest that it’s dangerous while others want to join. Whatever the reason may be you still consider yourself apart of society. As you grow older you realize that many people have different backgrounds and maybe even distinct behaviors. When people feel a deep need for love or respect, values and morals may be forgotten. It’s their customs, rituals, and beliefs that make up their own culture.
Culture – Culture is defined as the common language that is shared and is what makes diverse individuals able to communicate with each other. Due to the different origins that America has grown upon, the study of culture is highly important. Just as the lecture notes for week 1b says, culture is what hold people together, and what allows them to figure and fight out how the world should be. Without all the different cultures, America would not be diversely rich as it is today. Gary Columbo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle the authors of “Thinking Critically, Challenging Cultural Myths” on page three, do an amazing job at explaining culture as holding people together by sharing customs, ideas, beliefs and values. American culture was shown
Culture is expressed through a variety of different ways, from clothing styles to lifestyles to faithful traditions. It can also have a deep impact on the viewpoints of those around you, whether negatively or positively. No matter how a person goes about their everyday life, they can rise above the expectations of their culture to change the world around them. Culture does not have to be the basis of every thought, word, or deed of a person.
How does one define what culture is? Culture is defined as the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with, their world and with one another - transmitted from generation through learning. This is particularly meaning a pattern of behavior shared by a society or group of people; with many things making up a society’s ‘way of life’ such as language, foods etc. Culture is something that molds people into who they are today. It influences how people handle a variety of situations, process information and how they interact with others. However, there are events when one’s own culture does not play a significant role in the decisions that they make or how they see the world. Despite
Dominant social groups in a society often determine what counts as culture. In the first piece, the writer mentioned how novice teachers and students work. Teachers tend to disentangle race and culture instead of suture those two. They use “cultural” as a catchall phrase to describe cultural student’s misbehavior.
The Odyssey is a famous Greek tell written by Homer about Odysseus. A hero in the Trojan War and king of the kingdom island of Ithaca along side his wife Penelope and son Telemachos, Odysseus is known to be a great man. Then there is Okonkwo, the main character in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. A story of the African Ibo tribe, Okonkwo is known as the greatest fighter in his tribe and grows to plays an important role in his village, despite his father leaving him with nothing to live off of. These two different characters from these two different books, both full of pride and reason, embark on a epic journey that will challenge who they are/have become but each will react differently based on time and experience and for that reason there are two different outcomes.
Culture is a major component when defining a nation. Many who claim to a culture are proud of it, and take heavy offense to any who disclaim their culture. Now culture can contain art, literature, and religion, but it also can hold a nation’s diet, entertainment, and personalities. These are all important aspects to a culture, which all boils down to how people interpret each society. When one tries to describe a society by the amount of wealth a nation has or by the surplus population they are determining another’s culture. In this passage Jennifer Price writes a synopsis on the eye-catching plastic flamingo in a way that criticizes American culture; she uses critical tone, arrogant descriptions, and irony.
A culture is less exact. It can mean the types of conventional conduct which are attributes of a given society, or of a gathering of social orders, or of a specific race, or of a specific region, or of a specific timeframe.
A person’s culture is an assembly of their thoughts, practices, beliefs, values, traditions, relationships, and roles (Geurink, 2012, p. 267). An expected behavior is associated with a group of people who share an ethnicity, race, language, and religion (p. 267). Culture, a specific set of practices and behaviors, implies the
Ruth Benedict’s anthropological book, Patterns of Culture explores the dualism of culture and personality. Benedict studies different cultures such as the Zuni tribe and the Dobu Indians. Each culture she finds is so different and distinctive in relation to the norm of our society. Each difference is what makes it unique. Benedict compares the likenesses of culture and individuality, “A culture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of thought or action” (46), but note, they are not the same by use of the word, “like.” Benedict is saying that figuratively, cultures are like personalities. Culture and individuality are intertwined and dependent upon each other for survival.
Culture sometimes informs the way one views the others and the world in our everyday lives. Some say your culture shapes you as who you are but others say that it’s the experiences you’ve had. Whenever I hear the question “To what extent does one’s Culture inform the way one views others and the world?” I think of two different things. I think of the differences between people, an example being people who have homes and the homeless. They have different point of views because they are in drastically different situations. So I do agree with it may have to deal with experiences, but then I also think about racism and racial judgement, etc. Thats where the Culture comes into play and then with that information I stand in the middle. Its both,
Culture has many strong, distinct effects on the viewpoints of people. There are those that discriminate other races because of their culture. Culture influences the appearance of a person and in this period of time, appearance is essentially everything. Culture makes people heavily judge others in the world because of their appearance, their race, and the languages they speak, which is part of their culture.
American and Japanese ways of speaking are so different that they often cause culture shock to both Americans and Japanese who visit each other's country. Most Japanese who come to the United States are at first shocked and have a problem with the American direct way of speaking.
In the end, what we learn from this article is very realistic and logical. Furthermore, it is supported with real-life examples. Culture is ordinary, each individual has it, and it is both individual and common. It’s a result of both traditional values and an individual effort. Therefore, trying to fit it into certain sharp-edged models would be wrong.
Culture has a big impact on how we all fit in as individuals in today’s society, and since this assignment is about that I decided to include some of my own experiences to illustrate my point of view and compare it with those of my classmates and some of the readings.