CULTURE

CULTURE is COMPLEX

●It includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society (taylor)

Culture is....

●learned from others while growing up in a particular human society or groupwidely shared by the members of that society or groupresponsible for most differences in ways of thinking and behaving that exist between human societies or groupsso essential in completing the psychological and social development of individuals that a person who did not learn culture would not be considered normal by other people

culture is learned, shared, largely responsible for differences between human groups, and necessary to make individuals into complete persons.

The culture of a group consists of shared, socially learned knowledge and patterns of behavior.

Shared...

Culture is a collective phenomenon—it is shared. People who were brought up in or are familiar with a given culture are mostly able to communicate with and interact with one another without serious misunderstandings and without needing to explain what their behavior means.

...Socially Learned...

Individuals acquire their culture in the process of growing up in a society or some other kind of group. The process by which infants and children learn the culture of those around them is called socialization, or enculturation. Learning one’s culture, of course, happens as a normal part of childhood. To say that culture is learned from others seems obvious, but it has several important implications that are not completely intuitive.

...Knowledge..

The members of a culture share enough knowledge that they behave in ways that are meaningful and acceptable to others so that they avoid frequent misunderstandings and usually do not need to explain what they are doing.The knowledge guides behavior such that the people can survive, reproduce, and transmit their culture.

…and Patterns of Behavior

The behavior of individuals varies for several reasons. First, individuals have different social identities: males and females, old and young, rich and poor, family X and family Y, and so forth. Actions appropriate for people with one identity may not be appropriate for others. Second, the behavior of individuals varies with context and situation: a woman acts differently depending on whether she is interacting with her husband, child, priest, or employee. Third, each human individual is in some ways a unique human individual: even when brought up in the same society, we all differ in our emotional responses, appetites, interpretations of events, reactions to stimuli, and so forth.Finally, cultural standards for and expectations of behavior are often ambiguous. For these and other reasons, it is a mistake to think of behavior as uniform within the same culture.

Origin(s) of Culture

One way to investigate the origin of culture is to look at the anatomy needed to produce speech. Language is almost entirely symbolic so estimating when the ability to speak language evolved is one indication of when humanity became dependent on culture. Indeed, culture as we know it could not exist without language.humanity had the capacity for culture by around 80,000 years ago.

Culture and Human Life

culture is absolutely essential to human life as it is usually lived—in association with other people, or in social groups. Those who study animal behavior know that living in social groups does not require culture.

Culture is necessary for human existence in at least three specific ways:

1. Culture provides the knowledge by which we adapt to our natural environment by harnessing resources and solving other problems of living in a particular place.

● 2. Culture is the basis for human social life.

3. Culture affects our views of reality. It provides the mental concepts by which people perceive, interpret, analyze, and explain events in the world around them.

End of discussion

Discussant:REYMUND B. FLORES, M.P.G.