SUBSTANCE AND ECONOMICS
Culture is a learned reaction, this human survival trait gives us a way to colonize and adapt to our environment. With out this key element, adaptation becomes complicated, and our species will die off. Archeologist have dug and scraped away the dirt, rocks and mud to bring us a glimpse of the past. Their fieldwork has shown us how we, as a whole, have biologically adapted to suit our modern needs in the environment that our ancestors have lived in. In addition, they also tell us how we have changed the natural environment as the population has increased in size. This brings us to substance and economics, a basic foundation in which a culture can survive. The definition of economics is reacting to the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. For the definition of substance I have found two that compliment this cross-cultural comparison. One is ?material possessions, wealth, and property?. The second definition is ?that which gives stability or solidarity, confidence, and ground.? These definitions are not only evident in today?s modern social infrastructures but also evident in cultures of the past and the social order in other countries. We have come to understand that there are four ways to sustain a community that our evolution process has brought us to. These ways are hunting and gathering, fishing and gardening, herding, and agriculture. The longest known survival method is hunting and gathering.
This course of action was a main part of the old stone culture known as the Paleolithic period when hominids walked the land. They would gather berries, seeds, wild fruits, vegetables and even hunted wild game in the area. This type of practice is still used today in Africa and other parts of the world. Similarly, the Yiwara, who inhabit the heart of the Gibson Desert, have a lifestyle adapted to this arid environment. In the desert, there is no regular seasonal pattern of food-collecting, because there are no predictable seasons when plants can be expected to ripen. Thus, opportunistic movement towards rainfall and known water catchments spots also known as billabongs characterizes the subsistence of the Yiwara. Large game constitutes only a small part of the Yiwara diet, which is largely vegetarian. Lizards, rabbits provide most of the protein and are collected by everyone. Even these small animals are divided and shared among kin. Individual portions may be barely a mouthful, but nothing is wasted.
The word “culture” derives from the Latin verb colere, which means to cultivate or till. Donley states that the meaning of culture as a noun developed from humans having dominance over nature. As humans began building structures and growing crops instead of hunting and gathering the terms agriculture and aquaculture were created. Looking back centuries ago, the term “culture” was refereed to as the distinction of what is natural; this means that what comes directly from the earth and was modified or created by humans. Culture has become
The Island of Mocha in the video is an example of a traditional economic system evolving into a market system. Every person plays a key role in this traditional system. They had fisherman, coconut collector, melon seller, lumberman, barber, doctor, preacher, brownies seller, and a chief. The Mochans got sick of trading goods all across the island just to get the things that they want or needed. The Chief decided that they would use clam shell for currency instead of trading.
Economy and materialism are concepts that come up every day in the life of Americans. Those who are not from America may think the way Americans live is strange and wasteful and they’d be right in their thinking that. Americans are consumed by consumerism and the need to buy things because there is always some new and improved version of what was purchased two weeks ago. Although it is said that Americans are too materialistic, the truth is that materialistic does not quite cover the near obsession with the latest and greatest that Americans have.
Living off of what you are given from nature is demonstrated by the early Wabanaki in many ways. Their beliefs of wealth have ties with the topic of simplifying. Many months had an abundance of natural resources that the Wabanaki could easily take advantage of. All individuals of the tribe were able collect only what was necessary sustaining their environment and also strengthening their ethical code. Simplifying and creating more equal communities would contest the segregation based on class or financial status, which still plagues our society and many communities
Culture often means an appreciation of the finer things in life; however, culture brings members of a society together. We have a sense of belonging because we share similar beliefs, values, and attitudes about what’s right and wrong. As a result, culture changes as people adapt to their surroundings. According to Bishop Donald, “let it begin with me and my children and grandchildren” (211). Among other things, culture influences what you eat; how you were raised and will raise your own children? If, when, and whom you will marry; how you make and spend money. Truth is culture is adaptive and always changing over time because
In Jared Diamond’s excerpt from his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, he puts forward the historical narrative of how human evolution progresses at varying rates for different cultures due solely to the particular geographic region that people assimilate from. Diamond supports this thesis with specific evidence on the importance of food production, emphasizing that food is the main ingredient needed for a population to experience progress and growth, enabling that culture to expand around the world. I agree with Diamond’s dissertation and find it compelling due to his logical evidence and ethos on the topic.
Culture is an essential part of every human being. People can fall under the category of one culture or they can fall under many. Values derived from culture tend to reflect in an individual’s or a society’s understanding of what is wrong and right. In culture, there are many significant features. Some are material, such as food and clothing, and non-material, such as beliefs and ideas. These material and non-material objects help to push people into powerful roles and they maintain the power. With the power these people then have a strong influence on the beliefs and ideas of the lower people. They have the ability to alter and change their beliefs at any time and most times, they follow along with it. These ideas and thoughts have been in place for many decades, since cultural theorists, such as Marx and Habermas, began explaining them. They have been a thought for decades
The idea that they are connected implies an environmental determinism instead of relative determinism and verges on controversial because it implies a predisposition for a particular cultural development based on environment instead of causality from human decisions, a concept that not many are comfortable with. Cultural ecology involves three processes. “First, the anthropologists analyze the relationship of the technology used in production to the environment in which it is used. Then they relate other behavioral patterns to subsistence. Finally, they can ask how these behavioral patterns affect other aspects of the culture, such as kinship, warfare, and religion” (Townsend, 2008). Steward focused on subsistence technology and related features of socioeconomic life and called this the cultural core. He said once could determine what is in a population’s so-called cultural core by using cultural ecological method. The cultural core encompassed the “technology, knowledge, labor, and family organization used to collect resources from the environment” (Tucker, 2013). However, his cultural core idea proved to severely underestimate the complexity and variability of environmental and social systems (Geertz,
Establishing an adequate supply of food is historically one of the fundamental challenges facing mankind. The modern food infrastructure employed by contemporary society is rooted in the creation and innovation of food production. Its effective utilization decreases the level of societal labor contribution required and discourages food shortage trepidation amongst individuals. It is hard to fathom given the current status of our society massive agricultural-industrial complex that the hunter-gatherer organization of society dominated for more than 99 percent of our existence (Fagan 2007: 126). The hunter-gatherer population was characterized by their primary subsistence method, which involved the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild. The primary methods employed were foraging and hunting, which were conducted without any significant recourse to the domestication of either food source (Fagan 2007: 129). Food production is presumed to have emerged approximately 12,000 years ago as a system of “deliberate cultivation of cereal grasses, edible root plants, and animal domestication” (Fagan 2007: 126). The pronounced change from hunting and gathering to agriculture and domestication can be simplistically designated the Agricultural or Neolithic Revolution (Pringle 1998). The catalytic developments of the Neolithic Revolution mark a major turning point in the history of humankind. The resulting animal and plant domestication established the foundation on which modern civilization was built.
Schneider asks, does this practice rob peoples of their culture, or simply generate a new kind of survival market culture? In seeking “to recognize and question Eurocentric imaginings of the world,” the discipline of anthropology complicates the right of tourists to judge the commodities of indigenous communities, as it questions the right of a global economy that forces peoples to produce such commodities to survive (Schneider 83).
Culture may be defined as the sum totaltotal of non-biological activities of a people. For anthropologists like Marvin Harris (1974). Culture is directly related to concrete material conditions of existence. It is a set of altitudinal and behavioral tools as well as a map of adapting to one’s environment. Culture is thus essentially adaptive. Following the concept of cultural relativism espoused by Margaret Mead (1968) it is the view of this article that culture must be seen asbe specific and valid in particular circumstances with value judgement as to its relative significance to other groups, even within the same nation-state or society. The point that is therefore being made is that there are some particularities of culture that characterize
There are many natural resources and products that us people take for granted. Resources such as salt, water, sugar, and cotton are items we see and use on a daily basis. Back then, however, the availability and desire of some of these resources determines the success or crumble of certain civilizations. Throughout history, salt and sugar have shaped the development and success of some civilizations, empires, and more. If salt and sugar never existed, life today would definitely be different. Not only because of today’s uses, but because some discoveries made by some ancient civilizations may never have been found as those civilizations wouldn't flourish on those resources and then crumble. The availability and desire of salt and sugar have significantly helped the development of civilizations and cultures but it has also hindered them. Many people in these
Culture is an important concept in anthropology. Culture is defined as, "sets of learned behavior and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society. Human beings use culture to adapt to and transform the world in which they live." (LS:512). Culture has been used in anthropology to understand human difference, but within this understanding there have been benefits and drawbacks to the ideas of culture. Finally, the study of language and humans as symbol using creatures helps us have perspectives on different parts of the world. All anthropologists share a certain reliance on culture to have a starting point in understanding human experience as a whole.
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.
For an extensive period of time, sociologists and anthropologists have attempted to define culture. It is well known, that such concept is one with various, intrinsic definitions and subject to multiple interpretations, therefore being extremely laborious to define; laborious, to the extent that: “Despite a century of efforts to define culture adequately, there was in the early 1990s no agreement among anthropologists regarding its nature.” (Apte (1994: 2001), as cited in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics). Nonetheless, the classical definition states that: “Culture… is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” (Sir Edward