The Definition of Culture
The study of culture is an extremely broad and diverse field. It covers topics that range from art and archaeology to religion, politics, and everyday life. Each approach to the subject has its own particular methods, traditions, and objects of inquiry. The different approaches also tend to emphasize or ignore specific areas of history. For example, some approaches to cultural history have tended to focus on art, while others have focused more on food and cooking, or on gender and sexuality. The different emphases of each approach have also led to different questions being asked about the nature and origin of culture, its relation to society, and the way in which people make sense of their world.
One of the most difficult problems in understanding culture is how to define the term. It is easy to say that the word “culture” refers to human behavior, but what does this mean? One approach is to view culture as a set of patterns of and for behavior that distinguishes the members of a given group from other groups. In this sense, culture is a behavioral system that may serve as a conditioning influence upon future action.
Another definition of culture is more complex, describing the ways in which a people express their values and beliefs, and organize their lives. This view of culture is often referred to as an individual’s “cultural identity.” In this sense, cultural identity refers to the person’s inherited ideas and attitudes that are shaped by his or her social and family surroundings, education, and religious training. It also includes the person’s worldview, personality traits, and overt motor activity.
It is important to distinguish between these two definitions of culture. Although the subhuman species have no culture, in humans, a sense of culture can be so strong as to keep the sex urge in check or even inspire vows of premarital chastity, and it can cause a person to die of hunger when foods that are part of his or her own culture are not available.
The definition of culture that is most closely related to the concept of a cognitive fossil is the concept that human behavior develops out of a ‘cognitive fossil’ – an existing social and cultural system that provides the basis for all subsequent actions. The development of culture in humans thus takes place in a process that is both innate and learned, and it is this cognitive fossil that serves as the basis for a theory of cultural evolution.
When viewed from this perspective, the various different interpretations of cultural history are complementary and not mutually exclusive. Each approach offers clues to the zeitgeist of a particular time, and each object (be it a 17th century lathe or a piece of faience) can provide information about technological prowess, economic systems, political structures, social hierarchies, and the myriad other facets that are associated with a culture. These clues are then used to construct the narrative of a culture’s historical development.
The study of culture is an extremely broad and diverse field. It covers topics that range from art and archaeology to religion, politics, and everyday life. Each approach to the subject has its own particular methods, traditions, and objects of inquiry. The different approaches also tend to emphasize or ignore specific areas of history. For example, some approaches to cultural history have tended to focus on art, while others have focused more on food and cooking, or on gender and sexuality. The different emphases of each approach have also led to different questions being asked about the nature and origin of culture, its relation to society, and the way in which people make sense of their world. One of the most difficult problems in understanding culture is how to define the term. It is easy to say that the word “culture” refers to human behavior, but what does this mean? One approach is to view culture as a set of patterns of and for behavior that distinguishes the members of a given group from other groups. In this sense, culture is a behavioral system that may serve as a conditioning influence upon future action. Another definition of culture is more complex, describing the ways in which a people express their values and beliefs, and organize their lives. This view of culture is often referred to as an individual’s “cultural identity.” In this sense, cultural identity refers to the person’s inherited ideas and attitudes that are shaped by his or her social and family surroundings, education, and religious training. It also includes the person’s worldview, personality traits, and overt motor activity. It is important to distinguish between these two definitions of culture. Although the subhuman species have no culture, in humans, a sense of culture can be so strong as to keep the sex urge in check or even inspire vows of premarital chastity, and it can cause a person to die of hunger when foods that are part of his or her own culture are not available. The definition of culture that is most closely related to the concept of a cognitive fossil is the concept that human behavior develops out of a ‘cognitive fossil’ – an existing social and cultural system that provides the basis for all subsequent actions. The development of culture in humans thus takes place in a process that is both innate and learned, and it is this cognitive fossil that serves as the basis for a theory of cultural evolution. When viewed from this perspective, the various different interpretations of cultural history are complementary and not mutually exclusive. Each approach offers clues to the zeitgeist of a particular time, and each object (be it a 17th century lathe or a piece of faience) can provide information about technological prowess, economic systems, political structures, social hierarchies, and the myriad other facets that are associated with a culture. These clues are then used to construct the narrative of a culture’s historical development.