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Culture

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Everyday life

   Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to
   cultivate"), generally refers to patterns of human activity and the
   symbolic structures that give such activity significance. Different
   definitions of "culture" reflect different theoretical bases for
   understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity.

   Anthropologists most commonly use the term "culture" to refer to the
   universal human capacity to classify, codify and communicate their
   experiences symbolically. This capacity has long been taken as a
   defining feature of the humans. However, primatologists such as Jane
   Goodall have identified aspects of culture among human's closest
   relatives in the animal kingdom.
   Farhang culture has always been the focal point of Iranian
   civilization. Painting of Persian women musicians from Hasht-Behesht
   Palace ("Palace of the 8 heavens").
   Enlarge
   Farhang culture has always been the focal point of Iranian
   civilization. Painting of Persian women musicians from Hasht-Behesht
   Palace ("Palace of the 8 heavens").
   Ancient Egyptian art.
   Enlarge
   Ancient Egyptian art.

Defining "culture"

   Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society." As
   such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals,
   norms of behaviour and systems of belief.

   Various definitions of culture reflect differing theories for
   understanding — or criteria for evaluating — human activity. Edward
   Burnett Tylor writing from the perspective of social anthropology in
   the UK in 1871 described culture in the following way: "Culture or
   civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, 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."

   More recently, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
   Organization UNESCO (2002) described culture as follows: "... culture
   should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material,
   intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and
   that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles,
   ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs".

   While these two definitions cover a range of meaning, they do not
   exhaust the many uses of the term "culture." In 1952, Alfred Kroeber
   and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of more than 100 definitions of
   "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions.

   These definitions, and many others, provide a catalog of the elements
   of culture. The items catalogued (e.g., a law, a stone tool, a
   marriage) each have an existence and life-line of their own. They come
   into space-time at one set of coordinates and go out of it another.
   While here, they change, so that one may speak of the evolution of the
   law or the tool.

   A culture, then, is by definition at least, a set of cultural objects.
   Anthropologist Leslie White asked: "What sort of objects are they? Are
   they physical objects? Mental objects? Both? Metaphors? Symbols?
   Reifications?" In Science of Culture (1949), he concluded that they are
   objects " sui generis"; that is, of their own kind. In trying to define
   that kind, he hit upon a previously unrealized aspect of symbolization,
   which he called "the symbolate"—an object created by the act of
   symbolization. He thus defined culture as "symbolates understood in an
   extra-somatic context." The key to this definition is the discovery of
   the symbolate.

   Seeking to provide a practical definition, social theorist, Peter
   Walters, describes culture simply as "shared schematic experience,"
   including, but not limited to, any of the various qualifiers
   (linguistic, artisitic, religious, etc.) included in previous
   definitions.

Key components of culture

   Initiation rite of the Yao people of Malawi in Africa.
   Enlarge
   Initiation rite of the Yao people of Malawi in Africa.

   A common way of understanding culture sees it as consisting of four
   elements that are "passed on from generation to generation by learning
   alone":
    1. values;
    2. norms;
    3. institutions;
    4. artifacts.

   Values comprise ideas about what in life seems important. They guide
   the rest of the culture. Norms consist of expectations of how people
   will behave in various situations. Each culture has methods, called
   sanctions, of enforcing its norms. Sanctions vary with the importance
   of the norm; norms that a society enforces formally have the status of
   laws. Institutions are the structures of a society within which values
   and norms are transmitted. Artifacts—things, or aspects of material
   culture—derive from a culture's values and norms.
   Academic procession during the University of Canterbury graduation
   ceremony.
   Enlarge
   Academic procession during the University of Canterbury graduation
   ceremony.

   Julian Huxley gives a slightly different division, into inter-related
   "mentifacts", "socifacts" and "artifacts", for ideological,
   sociological, and technological subsystems respectively. Socialization,
   in Huxley's view, depends on the belief subsystem. The sociological
   subsystem governs interaction between people. Material objects and
   their use make up the technological subsystem.

   As a rule, archaeologists focus on material culture, whereas cultural
   anthropologists focus on symbolic culture, although ultimately both
   groups maintain interests in the relationships between these two
   dimensions. Moreover, anthropologists understand "culture" to refer not
   only to consumption goods, but to the general processes which produce
   such goods and give them meaning, and to the social relationships and
   practices in which such objects and processes become embedded.

Ways of looking at culture

Culture as civilization

   Many people today have an idea of "culture" that developed in Europe
   during the 18th and early 19th centuries. This notion of culture
   reflected inequalities within European societies, and between European
   powers and their colonies around the world. It identifies "culture"
   with "civilization" and contrasts it with "nature." According to this
   way of thinking, one can classify some countries as more civilized than
   others, and some people as more cultured than others. Some cultural
   theorists have thus tried to eliminate popular or mass culture from the
   definition of culture. Theorists such as Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) or
   the Leavisites regard culture as simply the result of "the best that
   has been thought and said in the world” Arnold contrasted mass/popular
   culture with social chaos or anarchy. On this account, culture links
   closely with social cultivation: the progressive refinement of human
   behaviour. Arnold consistently uses the word this way: "... culture
   being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on
   all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought
   and said in the world".
   An artifact of "high culture": a painting by Edgar Degas.
   Enlarge
   An artifact of "high culture": a painting by Edgar Degas.

   In practice, culture referred to élite goods and activities such as
   haute cuisine, high fashion or haute couture, museum-caliber art and
   classical music, and the word cultured described people who knew about,
   and took part in, these activities. Today some designate these goods as
   "high culture" to distinguish them from mass-produced goods, which are
   designated "popular culture."

   People who use the term "culture" in this way tend not to use it in the
   plural as "cultures". They do not believe that distinct cultures exist,
   each with their own internal logic and values; but rather that only a
   single standard of refinement suffices, against which one can measure
   all groups. Thus, according to this worldview, people with different
   customs from those who regard themselves as cultured do not usually
   count as "having a different culture," but are classed as "uncultured."
   People lacking "culture" often seemed more "natural," and observers
   often defended (or criticized) elements of high culture for repressing
   " human nature".

   From the 18th century onwards, some social critics have accepted this
   contrast between cultured and uncultured, but have stressed the
   interpretation of refinement and of sophistication as corrupting and
   unnatural developments that obscure and distort people's essential
   nature. On this account, folk music (as produced by working-class
   people) honestly expresses a natural way of life, and classical music
   seems superficial and decadent. Equally, this view often portrays
   Indigenous peoples as ' noble savages' living authentic unblemished
   lives, uncomplicated and uncorrupted by the highly-stratified
   capitalist systems of the West.

   Today most social scientists reject the monadic conception of culture,
   and the opposition of culture to nature. They recognize non- élites as
   just as cultured as élites (and non-Westerners as just as civilized) --
   simply regarding them as just cultured in a different way. Thus social
   observers contrast the "high" culture of élites to "popular" or pop
   culture, meaning goods and activities produced for, and consumed by the
   masses. (Note that some classifications relegate both high and low
   cultures to the status of subcultures.)

Culture as worldview

   During the Romantic era, scholars in Germany, especially those
   concerned with nationalist movements — such as the nationalist struggle
   to create a "Germany" out of diverse principalities, and the
   nationalist struggles by ethnic minorities against the Austro-Hungarian
   Empire — developed a more inclusive notion of culture as " worldview."
   In this mode of thought, a distinct and incommensurable world view
   characterizes each ethnic group. Although more inclusive than earlier
   views, this approach to culture still allowed for distinctions between
   "civilized" and "primitive" or "tribal" cultures.

   By the late 19th century, anthropologists had adopted and adapted the
   term culture to a broader definition that they could apply to a wider
   variety of societies. Attentive to the theory of evolution, they
   assumed that all human beings evolved equally, and that the fact that
   all humans have cultures must in some way result from human evolution.
   They also showed some reluctance to use biological evolution to explain
   differences between specific cultures — an approach that either
   exemplified a form of, or segment of society vis a vis other segments
   and the society as a whole, they often reveal processes of domination
   and resistance.

   In the 1950s, subcultures — groups with distinctive characteristics
   within a larger culture — began to be the subject of study by
   sociologists. The 20th century also saw the popularization of the idea
   of corporate culture — distinct and malleable within the context of an
   employing organization or a workplace.

Culture as symbols

   The symbolic view of culture, the legacy of Clifford Geertz (1973) and
   Victor Turner (1967), holds symbols to be both the practices of social
   actors and the context that gives such practices meaning. Anthony P.
   Cohen (1985) writes of the "symbolic gloss" which allows social actors
   to use common symbols to communicate and understand each other while
   still imbuing these symbols with personal significance and meanings.
   Symbols provide the limits of cultured thought. Members of a culture
   rely on these symbols to frame their thoughts and expressions in
   intelligible terms. In short, symbols make culture possible,
   reproducible and readable. They are the "webs of significance" in
   Weber's sense that, to quote Pierre Bourdieu (1977), "give regularity,
   unity and systematicity to the practices of a group." Thus, for
   example:
     * "Stop, in the name of the law!"—Stock phrase uttered to the
       antagonists by the sheriff or marshal in 20th century American Old
       Western movies
     * Law and order—stock phrase in the United States
     * Peace and order— stock phrase in the Philippines

Culture as a stabilizing mechanism

   Modern cultural theory also considers the possibility that (a) culture
   itself is a product of stabilization tendencies inherent in
   evolutionary pressures toward self-similarity and self-cognition of
   societies as wholes, or tribalisms. See Steven Wolfram's A new kind of
   science on iterated simple algorithms from genetic unfolding, from
   which the concept of culture as an operating mechanism can be
   developed, and Richard Dawkins' The Extended Phenotype for discussion
   of genetic and memetic stability over time, through negative feedback
   mechanisms.

Culture and evolutionary psychology

   Researchers in evolutionary psychology argue that the mind is a system
   of neurocognitive information processing modules designed by natural
   selection to solve the adaptive problems of our distant anscestors.
   According to evolutionary psychologists, the diversity of forms that
   human cultures take are constrained (indeed, made possible) by innate
   information processing mechanisms underlying our behaviour, including
   language acquisition modules, incest avoidance mechanisms, cheater
   detection mechanisms, intelligence and sex-specific mating preferences,
   foraging mechanisms, alliance-tracking mechanisms, agent detection
   mechanisms, and so on. These mechanisms are theorized to be the
   psychological foundations of culture. In order to fully understand
   culture we must understand its biological conditions of possibility.

Cultures within a society

   Large societies often have subcultures, or groups of people with
   distinct sets of behaviour and beliefs that differentiate them from a
   larger culture of which they are a part. The subculture may be
   distinctive because of the age of its members, or by their race,
   ethnicity, class or gender. The qualities that determine a subculture
   as distinct may be aesthetic, religious, occupational, political,
   sexual or a combination of these factors.

   In dealing with immigrant groups and their cultures, there are
   essentially four approaches:
     * Monoculturalism: In Europe, culture is very closely linked to
       nationalism, thus government policy is to assimilate immigrants,
       although recent increases in migration have led many European
       states to experiment with forms of multiculturalism.
     * Leitkultur (core culture): A model developed in Germany by Bassam
       Tibi. The idea is that minorities can have an identity of their
       own, but they should at least support the core concepts of the
       culture on which the society is based.
     * Melting Pot: In the United States, the traditional view has been
       one of a melting pot where all the immigrant cultures are mixed and
       amalgamated without state intervention.
     * Multiculturalism: A policy that immigrants and others should
       preserve their cultures with the different cultures interacting
       peacefully within one nation.

   The way nation states treat immigrant cultures rarely falls neatly into
   one or another of the above approaches. The degree of difference with
   the host culture (i.e., "foreignness"), the number of immigrants,
   attitudes of the resident population, the type of government policies
   that are enacted and the effectiveness of those policies all make it
   difficult to generalize about the effects. Similarly with other
   subcultures within a society, attitudes of the mainstream population
   and communications between various cultural groups play a major role in
   determining outcomes. The study of cultures within a society is complex
   and research must take into account a myriad of variables.

Cultures by region

   Many regional cultures have been influenced by contact with others,
   such as by colonization, trade, migration, mass media and religion.

   Africa

   Though of many varied origins, African culture, especially Sub-Saharan
   African culture has been shaped by European colonialism, and is
   differentiated from North Africa from its lesser influence by Arab and
   Islamic culture.
   Hopi man weaving on traditional loom in the USA.
   Enlarge
   Hopi man weaving on traditional loom in the USA.

   Americas

   The culture of the Americas has been strongly influenced by peoples
   that inhabitated the continents before Europeans arrived; people from
   Africa (the United States especially has a large African-American
   population, most of whom are descended from former slaves), and the
   immigration of Europeans, especially Spanish, English, French,
   Portuguese, German, and Dutch.

   Asia

   Despite the great cultural diversity of Asian nations, there are,
   nevertheless, several transnational cultural influences. Though Korea,
   Japan, and Vietnam are not Chinese-speaking countries, their languages
   have been heavily influenced by Chinese and Chinese writing. Thus, in
   East Asia, Chinese writing is generally agreed to exert a unifying
   influence. Religions, especially Buddhism and Taoism have had an impact
   on the cultural traditions of East Asian countries (see section on
   Eastern religion and philosophy, below). There is also a shared social
   and moral philosophy that derives from Confucianism.

   Hinduism and Islam have for hundreds of years exerted cultural
   influence on various peoples of South Asia. Similarly, Buddhism is
   pervasive in Southeast Asia.

   Australia

   Much of Australia's culture is derived from European and American
   roots, but distinctive Australian features have evolved from the
   environment and Aboriginal culture.

   Europe

   European culture also has a broad influence beyond the continent of
   Europe due to the legacy of colonialism. In this broader sense it is
   sometimes referred to as Western culture. This is most easily seen in
   the spread of the English language and to a lesser extent, a few other
   European languages. Dominant influences include ancient Greece, ancient
   Rome, and Christianity, although religion has declined in Europe.

   Middle East and North Africa

   Perhaps the defining characteristic of the Middle East and North Africa
   is Islam and variations of the Arab language, though this region is
   also home to Israel and Judaism, and significant Christian minorities.
   Further, several groups which are adherents to Islam do not consider
   themselves Arab.

Belief systems

   Religion and other belief systems are often integral to a culture.
   Religion, from the Latin religare, meaning "to bind fast", is a feature
   of cultures throughout human history. The Dictionary of Philosophy and
   Religion defines religion in the following way:

     ... an institution with a recognized body of communicants who gather
     together regularly for worship, and accept a set of doctrines
     offering some means of relating the individual to what is taken to
     be the ultimate nature of reality.

   Religion often codifies behaviour, such as with the 10 Commandments of
   Christianity or the five precepts of Buddhism. Sometimes it is involved
   with government, as in a theocracy. It also influences arts.

   Eurocentric custom to some extent divides humanity into Western and
   non-Western cultures, although this has some flaws.

   Western culture spread from Europe most strongly to Australia, Canada,
   and the United States. It is influenced by ancient Greece, ancient Rome
   and the Christian church.

   Western culture tends to be more individualistic than non-Western
   cultures. It also sees man, god, and nature or the universe more
   separately than non-Western cultures. It is marked by economic wealth,
   literacy, and technological advancement, although these traits are not
   exclusive to it.

Abrahamic religions

   Judaism is one of, if not the first, recorded monotheistic faiths and
   one of the oldest religious traditions still practiced today. The
   values and history of the Jewish people are a major part of the
   foundation of other Abrahamic religions such as Christianity, Islam, as
   well as Samaritanism and the Bahá'í Faith.

   Christianity was the dominant feature in shaping European culture for
   at least the last 1700 years. Modern philosophical thought has very
   much been influenced by Christian philosophers such as St. Thomas
   Aquinas and Erasmus. European colonization and missionaries have spread
   it.

Eastern religion and philosophy

   Agni, Hindu fire god.
   Enlarge
   Agni, Hindu fire god.

   Philosophy and religion are often closely interwoven in Eastern
   thought. Many Asian religious and philosophical traditions originated
   in India and China and spread across Asia through cultural diffusion
   and the migration of peoples. Hinduism is the wellspring of Buddhism,
   the Mahāyāna branch of which spread north and eastwards from India into
   Tibet, China, Mongolia, Japan and Korea and south from China into
   Vietnam. Theravāda Buddhism spread throughout Southeast Asia, including
   Sri Lanka, parts of southwest China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and
   Thailand.

   Indian philosophy includes Hindu philosophy. They contain elements of
   nonmaterial pursuits, whereas another school of thought from India,
   Carvaka, preached the enjoyment of material world. Confucianism and
   Taoism, both of which originated in China have had pervasive influence
   on both religious and philosophical traditions, as well as statecraft
   and the arts throughout Asia.

   During the 20th century, in the two most populous countries of Asia,
   two dramatically different political philosophies took shape. Gandhi
   gave a new meaning to Ahimsa, a core belief of both Hinduism and
   Jainism, and redefined the concepts of nonviolence and nonresistance.
   During the same period, Mao Zedong’s communist philosophy became a
   powerful secular belief system in China.

Folk religions

   Folk religions practiced by tribal groups are common in Asia, Africa
   and the Americas. Their influence can be considerable; may pervade the
   culture and even become the state religion, as with Shintoism. Like the
   other major religions, folk religion answers human needs for
   reassurance in times of trouble, healing, averting misfortune and
   providing rituals that address the major passages and transitions in
   human life.

The "American Dream"

   The American Dream is a faith, held by many in the United States, that,
   through hard work, courage, and self-determination, regardless of
   social class, a person can gain a better life. This notion is rooted in
   the belief that the United States is a " city upon a hill, a light unto
   the nations," which were values held by many early European settlers
   and maintained by subsequent generations.

Marriage

   Religion often influences marriage and sexual practices.

   Most Christian churches give some form of blessing to a marriage; the
   wedding ceremony typically includes some sort of pledge by the
   community to support the relationship. In marriage, Christians draw a
   parallel with the relationship between Jesus Christ and His Church. The
   Roman Catholic Church believes it is morally wrong to divorce, and
   divorcées cannot remarry in a church marriage.

Cultural studies

   Cultural studies developed in the late 20th century, in part through
   the re-introduction of Marxist thought into sociology, and in part
   through the articulation of sociology and other academic disciplines
   such as literary criticism. This movement aimed to focus on the
   analysis of subcultures in capitalist societies. Following the
   non-anthropological tradition, cultural studies generally focus on the
   study of consumption goods (such as fashion, art, and literature).
   Because the 18th- and 19th-century distinction between "high" and "low"
   culture seems inappropriate to apply to the mass-produced and
   mass-marketed consumption goods which cultural studies analyses, these
   scholars refer instead to "popular culture".

   Today, some anthropologists have joined the project of cultural
   studies. Most, however, reject the identification of culture with
   consumption goods. Furthermore, many now reject the notion of culture
   as bounded, and consequently reject the notion of subculture. Instead,
   they see culture as a complex web of shifting patterns that link people
   in different locales and that link social formations of different
   scales. According to this view, any group can construct its own
   cultural identity.

   Currently, a debate is underway regarding whether or not culture can
   actually change fundamental human cognition. Researchers are divided on
   the question.

Cultural change

   A 19th century engraving showing Australian "natives opposing the
   arrival of Captain James Cook" in 1770.
   Enlarge
   A 19th century engraving showing Australian " natives opposing the
   arrival of Captain James Cook" in 1770.

   Cultures, by predisposition, both embrace and resist change, depending
   on culture traits. For example, men and women have complementary roles
   in many cultures. One gender might desire changes that affect the
   other, as happened in the second half of the 20th century in western
   cultures. Thus there are both dynamic influences that encourage
   acceptance of new things, and conservative forces that resist change.

   Three kinds of influence cause both change and resistance to it:
    1. forces at work within a society
    2. contact between societies
    3. changes in the natural environment.

   Cultural change can come about due to the environment, to inventions
   (and other internal influences), and to contact with other cultures.
   For example, the end of the last ice age helped lead to the invention
   of agriculture, which in its turn brought about many cultural
   innovations.

   In diffusion, the form of something (though not necessarily its
   meaning) moves from one culture to another. For example, hamburgers,
   mundane in the United States, seemed exotic when introduced into China.
   "Stimulus diffusion" refers to an element of one culture leading to an
   invention in another. Diffusion of innovations theory presents a
   research-based model of why and when individuals and cultures adopt new
   ideas, practices, and products.

   " Acculturation" has different meanings, but in this context refers to
   replacement of the traits of one culture with those of another, such as
   happened to certain Native American tribes and to many indigenous
   peoples across the globe during the process of colonization. Related
   processes on an individual level include assimilation (adoption of a
   different culture by an individual) and transculturation.

   Cultural invention has come to mean any innovation that is new and
   found to be useful to a group of people and expressed in their
   behaviour but which does not exist as a physical object. Humanity is in
   a global "accelerating culture change period", driven by the expansion
   of international commerce, the mass media, and above all, the human
   population explosion, among other factors. The world's population now
   doubles in less than years.

   Culture change is complex and has far-ranging effects. Sociologists and
   anthropologists believe that a holistic approach to the study of
   cultures and their environments is needed to understand all of the
   various aspects of change. Human existence may best be looked at as a
   "multifaceted whole." Only from this vantage can one grasp the
   realities of culture change.
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