Taleen Alawadi In his essay, “What is Culture?”, Kluckhohn explains the differences and similarities amongst world’s peoples. To support his explanation of the differences and similarities he provides the concept of culture. It is difficult to give this concept a precise definition because the word “culture” is a broad term. Kluckhohn allows the reader to understand the concept of culture by providing examples of cultural differences along with some anthropological evidence to support his views. When reading this piece I began to recognize the influence of cultural differences when Kluckhohn asked, “Why do so many Chinese dislike milk, and milk products? Why during World War II did Japanese soldiers die willingly in a Banzai charge that seemed …show more content…
Kluckhohn incorporates his knowledge as a former professor of anthropology when he states, “to be human is to be cultured”. I agree with his statement, not only because he has credibility on the subject, but because he supports this statement with multiple examples. The first example he provides is a comparison of an American woman’s view, and a Koryak woman’s view on the subject of a man having more than one wife. This tremendously helped put the concept of culture into perspective because he examines two incredibly different opinions. First being that of the American woman who thinks it is “unnatural” to share her husband with other women, and the second being the Koryak woman believed it to be selfish that a woman would want to restrict her husband to one mate without the desire for feminine companionship in her …show more content…
The first example concerning the American male who was raised in China, accurately portrays the correlation between culture and biological inheritance in a real life circumstance. Although the male was American by blood, his facial expressions, mode of thought, and body language were all from Chinese decent. I know this to be true because genetically I am a full Jordanian. Both my father and mother were born in Jordan, but I was born in America. Because I was raised around an American lifestyle, when I visit my family in Jordan they mock my gestures and expressions because it is different than what they are accustomed to. Even though I look Jordanian, when I am in Jordan people can recognize that I don’t belong
Conley defined culture in many forms in chapter 3. Culture is utilized to rationalize many human behaviors and descriptions of all sorts of individuals and patterns. In other terms, Conley stated that culture can be considered a set of beliefs, traditions, and practices. It is also the sum total of the social categories and concepts we hold in addition to beliefs or viewpoints, practices, and behaviors. Based on my reflections on the various definitions of culture discussed by Conley, the one that makes sense the most is Material versus Nonmaterial culture. According to Conley culture is created by individuals and it is a way of life. It can be separated into Material culture and Nonmaterial culture. Material culture is basically everything
"Whereas animals are rigidly controlled by their biology, human behavior is largely determined by culture, a largely autonomous system of symbols and values, growing from a biological base, but growing indefinitely away from it. Able to overpower or escape biological constraints in most regards, cultures can vary from one another enough so that important portion...
One of the main things that shapes a person’s cultural identity is their parents. Culture is passed down from generation to generation. In the story Two Kinds Amy Tan tells about a mother and daughter that clash heads because the mother wants her daughter to be something she’s not. They are Chinese, and in Chinese culture children are pushed to excel in everything they do and be better than everybody. The mother tells her daughter “You can be best anything. Of course, you can be a prodigy too”. The mother is pushing the Chinese culture down on her, because that’s the way she was raised. People’s parents were raised one way, which in their mind is the “right” way, so they raise their children the same way implementing
Roy A. Rappaport and Ruth Benedict both held very strong opinions regarding the subject of culture and ritual. They lived in slightly different overlapping historical time periods, Benedict being influenced by WWII in the 18th century and Rappaport growing up during the Great Depression in the early 19th century. Influences of Franz Boas carried through the theories of both of these anthropologists. Although Benedict never succeeded in conducting her own fieldwork, she wrote ethnographies based on fieldwork done by Boas, this particular case focusing on the Kwakiutl of the Northwestern Coast of America. The focus of Rappaport’s fieldwork in this context is the Tsembaga of New Guinea. Benedict displays a more idealistic view of culture and ritual as opposed to Rappaport’s exceedingly materialistic perspective.
With the globalization and modernization, there is a social tendency to melt different individuals into an integral and international community. In America, individuals from different culture struggle with assimilation to the white mainstream. They find it painful but worth to mute racial identity for future success. Assimilation to an advanced culture is a somewhat progress and broaden the space for self-growth. But sometimes individuals feels pressure to force them blend in the surroundings. On the contrary, some individuals use the advantages of racial differences to exceed others in the mainstream. Amy Chua, in her essay “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior”, takes advantage of the fact that American parents underrate rote repetition and insists
Everyone has an ethnic background, whether it is Chinese or European, we all come from somewhere. Barbara Ehrenreich has come to the conclusion in her article “Cultural Baggage” that the race and religion of our ancestors should not be what defines us. While she agrees that everyone has different roots, she shows the reader that you do not have to be defined by your roots and that the traditions do not have to be followed.
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.
Everybody has their own definition of Culture – and when this word is used generally, most audiences have a rough idea of its meaning. Culture usually refers to the beliefs, ideas, languages, rituals and traditions by certain communities, that are passed from generation to generations continuously over the past many centuries. In society, two cultures cannot be same if one is located on the west coast and the other one is all the way to the East. As we compare, the American and Indian cultures have very vast differentiation between them. While the culture of America is a mixture of different cultures since each immigrant internally packed his or her previously known culture, but sooner they will become Americanized, but on the other hand the Indian culture is unique and has its own values. India is a captivating country full of humble traditions, lively festivals, and honest beliefs. India has an enormous bundle of religions and languages with Hindi and Punjabi are the most popular in most of the cities. The vast geographic location of India, and America have contributed to the rise of new cultures; each characterized with different style of marriages, education system, and family relationship.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, culture is defined as tradition or a way of life. It is also a defining principle in how we live our life and the type of people we become. The Salish Indians of the Montana and Celie, the main character of the book The Color Purple, are two examples of cultures that made them who they are. Celie is a poor, black, woman growing up in Memphis, Tennessee in the mid-twentieth century. The men have constantly put her down, through beatings and rape, for being a woman with no talent at all. Her husband’s lover comes to town and gives Celie a chance to see a culture where a woman can stand up for herself and teaches her that love is possible. The Salish on the other hand have a culture that has gone on through the ages and still is a part of each person today despite the obstacles they have had to face. Culture does shape us because from birth it is what tells us our ideals, laws, and morals that we live by each day.
Culture, where and how a person is raised, affects a person no matter how much they dislike the way they are being taught the ways of life. However, moving to different places as a child and coun...
Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people…Culture in its broadest sense of cultivated behavior; a totality of a person’s learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior through social learning (http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/choudhury/culture.html).
Anthropologists define the term culture in a variety of ways, but there are certain shared features of the definition that virtually all anthropologists agree on. Culture is a shared, socially transmitted knowledge and behavior. The key features of this definition of culture are as follows. 1) Culture is shared among the members of that particular society or group. Thus, people share a common cultural identity, meaning that they recognize themselves and their culture's traditions as distinct from other people and other traditions. 2) Culture is socially transmitted from others while growing up in a certain environment, group, or society. The transmission of cultural knowledge to the next generation by means of social learning is referred to as enculturation or socialization. 3) Culture profoundly affects the knowledge, actions, and feelings of the people in that particular society or group. This concept is often referred to as cultural knowledge that leads to behavior that is meaningful to others and adaptive to the natural and social environment of that particular culture.
Culture is the whole system of ideas, action and result of the work of human beings in the frame work of the life of the community. Culture includes everything that is reserved, and his sense of hu...
Culture is the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects and behavior. It includes the ideas, value, customs and artifacts of a group of people (Schaefer, 2002). Culture is a pattern of human activities and the symbols that give these activities significance. It is what people eat, how they dress, beliefs they hold and activities they engage in. It is the totality of the way of life evolved by a people in their attempts to meet the challenges of living in their environment, which gives order and meaning to their social, political, economic, aesthetic and religious norms and modes of organization thus distinguishing people from their neighbors.
Culture is the social behavior and norms found in a particular group of people and society, defined by everything from language, religion, food, habits, music, and values. In one line, culture is the people's way of life. Culture is also the distinction between nature and nurture. The term nature means what we get biologically or naturally and the term nurture means how our surroundings shape our identities. People genetically get some ability and similarity just like their family members. But in some case, their culture may be similar or different. If a child born in an Indian society and raised in the European society, that child may follow European culture more effectively. Cultural sociologists study for how different cultural elements