Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Aspects of Culture
Aspects of Culture
REFERENCE:
CONTRERAS, ANTONIO, ET.AL. UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, & POLITICS. PHOENIX PUBLISHING HOUSE. 2016
THE COMPLEXITY OF CULTURE
Culture is a people’s a way of life.
According to E.B. Tylor – culture is that complex whole, which
encompasses beliefs, practices, values, attitudes, laws, norms,
artifacts, symbols, knowledge and everything that a person learns
and shares a member of society.
The “complex whole” in the above paragraph suggests that culture
cannot be simply broken down into a set of attributes.
THE WHAT, HOW AND WHY OF CULTURE
E. B. Taylor, and English anthropologist, was the first to coin the term “culture”
in the 18th century. The study of society is incomplete without proper
understanding of the culture of that society because culture and society go
together.
Culture us a unique possession of man.
Culture is the unique quality of man which separates him from the lower
animals. Culture includes all that man acquires in his social life.
DEFINITIONS OF CULTURE
There are several definitions of culture in the circulation.
B. Malinowski defined it as “the hard work of man and the medium through which he achieve
his ends.”
R. Redfield, defined culture as “an organized body of conventional understandings manifest
in art which persisting through tradition, characterizes a human group”
V. de Robert described culture as “the body of thought and knowledge, both theoretical and
practical, which on man can possess”.
E.B. Tylor – culture is that complex whole, which encompasses beliefs, practices, values,
attitudes, laws, norms, artifacts, symbols, knowledge and everything that a person learns and
shares a member of society.
1) When you judge the behavior and beliefs of people who are different from you.
Way out: To stop ethnocentric behavior, you must stop judging others who are different from you.
2) When you believe that there are primitive cultures, especially if their way of life is different from yours.
Way out: Ethnocentrism is taught. You have to unlearn that your culture is superior and all other cultures are
inferior.
3) When you believe that some cultures are backward if they lack the technology and consumerism of your own culture.
Way out: Remember that there are no primitive or backward cultures. All cultures provide their members with the
means for meeting all human needs.
CULTURE
RELATIVISM
Culture relativism is the idea that all norms, beliefs and values are dependent on their context
and should be treated as such. A key component of cultural relativism is the concept that
nobody, not even researchers, comes from a neutral position. The way to deal with our own
assumptions is not to pretend that they don’t exist, but rather to acknowledge them and then
use the awareness that we are not neutral to inform our conclusions.
Culture relativity is a belief that maintains it does not matter whether cultures are ether equal
or different because equality and similarity do not necessarily translate to real or imagined
inferiority/superiority of cultures out there.
As an attitude, cultural relativism promotes greater appreciation of the cultures one
encountered along the way.
As a behavior, cultural relativism is a good way to rehearse the norms and values of society –
a requirement that one must subscribe to regardless of his/her cultural origin.
XENOCENTRISM AND XENOPHOBIA