Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
10/07/2014
Defining Culture
Culture The set of learned behaviors and ideas that are
characteristic of a particular society or other social group
Society A group of people who occupy a particular territory and
speak a common language not generally understood by neighboring species.
Culture is commonly shared
Imagined Communities
- LGBT community, religious communities, etc
Culture is learned
Culture norms have to be learned
-If its innate, its not culture
-Length of childhood roughly reflects degree learned behavior is
needed for survival
-Humans have a unique way of transmitting culture through the use
of spoken, symbolic language (keeps us from having to learn the hard way)
Controversies
Should the concept of culture refer to just the rules or ideas behind
behavior?
-Is it only in our heads?
-Or, should it also include the behaviors or products of behaviors
Culture Norms
mile Durkheim: culture is super-organic and exerts a strong coercive
power on us. How?
Norms are standards or rules about what is acceptable behavior
The power of conformity
- When everyone is free to do as they please they generally imitate
each other
Ethnocentrism
-Judging other cultures solely in terms of your own culture
-The feeling that your own behavior and attitudes are correct and that
people who do not share those patterns are immoral or inferior
Romanticism
Rejecting ones own culture and idealizing another without a clear
understanding of that culture from an anthropological perspective
Cultural Relativism
Boasians
Franz Boa & students
Reacting too early social evolutionist who felt Western society was
superior
-Strong form
All patterns of culture are equally valid, should not be changed or
eliminated
-Weak form
Anthropologists should strive for objectivity and be wary or
superficial or quick judgment in understanding behavior tolerance unless
there is a strong reason to behave otherwise
Does not preclude judgment or changing behavior
Human Rights
-Many cultures say they have a different code of ethics than the West
Can there still be a universal standard of human rights?
Variation & Pattern
-Individual variation versus shared cultural patterns
-Anthropologists focus on identifying shared patterns and observing
the limits of variation
Ideal vs. Actual Cultural Patterns
Ideal cultural patterns refer to a societys ideas about how people
should feel and behave in certain situations