The Importance of Culture for Community Builders
Culture, with a capital C, refers to the human species’ propensity for absorbing and imitating patterned and symbolic ideas that ultimately further its survival. Whether it’s the belief that a kippah, or Jewish headdress, is unambiguously identified as part of a particular cultural practice, or the tendency to view climate change through a lens that is both anthropological and historical, “culture” with a lower case c is a learned way of life, one among many that individuals pick up along the way.
The word has acquired a broad and sometimes contradictory set of meanings since the eighteenth century, when it first entered English usage. Its early meaning, for instance, referred to an overall human developmental process; this was reflected in the concept of the Bildungsroman, a narrative describing the journey from childhood through adulthood and into old age. By the late twentieth century, however, it had come to be used as a more specific and concrete term, referring to the beliefs, customs, and traditions of a particular group or period of history.
It is difficult to overstate the power and influence of culture upon the human species. It is powerful enough to hold the sex urge in check, leading some individuals to premarital chastity or even permanent celibacy. It is powerful enough to keep people alive in spite of disease, and to make them hunger despite food being available. It is powerful enough to create a culture that values certain behaviors more than others, and to make that value system the dominant one in an individual’s life.
Moreover, it is the power of culture to shape the worldview and behavior of humans that makes it so important for community builders to understand, promote and support. For this reason, it is important to recognize that every person and group has its own culture, with significant implications for environmental behaviours and outcomes.
A number of different theories have been used to help explain culture. Anthropology, for example, has long emphasized the importance of social and symbolic structures in the development of human consciousness. In the early twenty-first century, scholars working in the field of new cultural history have sought to combine a strong commitment to anthropological models with a more rigorous and critical approach to the writing of history itself.
The key idea of the new cultural historians is that all human life is deeply mediated by systems of signification that vary both from society to society and within societies themselves. This insight suggests that understanding culture requires an appreciation of the complexity of all human societies and their inter-relationships, and a rejection of elitist assumptions that have plagued scholarly discourse on this topic for generations. This is a challenge that will require the full force of a multidisciplinary community. It will also require an awareness of the ways in which current scientific, model-based research tends to isolate behavioral traits from their broader social and historic contexts. This is a significant limitation that should be overcome if the relevance of the concept of culture is to be fully realized.
Culture, with a capital C, refers to the human species’ propensity for absorbing and imitating patterned and symbolic ideas that ultimately further its survival. Whether it’s the belief that a kippah, or Jewish headdress, is unambiguously identified as part of a particular cultural practice, or the tendency to view climate change through a lens that is both anthropological and historical, “culture” with a lower case c is a learned way of life, one among many that individuals pick up along the way. The word has acquired a broad and sometimes contradictory set of meanings since the eighteenth century, when it first entered English usage. Its early meaning, for instance, referred to an overall human developmental process; this was reflected in the concept of the Bildungsroman, a narrative describing the journey from childhood through adulthood and into old age. By the late twentieth century, however, it had come to be used as a more specific and concrete term, referring to the beliefs, customs, and traditions of a particular group or period of history. It is difficult to overstate the power and influence of culture upon the human species. It is powerful enough to hold the sex urge in check, leading some individuals to premarital chastity or even permanent celibacy. It is powerful enough to keep people alive in spite of disease, and to make them hunger despite food being available. It is powerful enough to create a culture that values certain behaviors more than others, and to make that value system the dominant one in an individual’s life. Moreover, it is the power of culture to shape the worldview and behavior of humans that makes it so important for community builders to understand, promote and support. For this reason, it is important to recognize that every person and group has its own culture, with significant implications for environmental behaviours and outcomes. A number of different theories have been used to help explain culture. Anthropology, for example, has long emphasized the importance of social and symbolic structures in the development of human consciousness. In the early twenty-first century, scholars working in the field of new cultural history have sought to combine a strong commitment to anthropological models with a more rigorous and critical approach to the writing of history itself. The key idea of the new cultural historians is that all human life is deeply mediated by systems of signification that vary both from society to society and within societies themselves. This insight suggests that understanding culture requires an appreciation of the complexity of all human societies and their inter-relationships, and a rejection of elitist assumptions that have plagued scholarly discourse on this topic for generations. This is a challenge that will require the full force of a multidisciplinary community. It will also require an awareness of the ways in which current scientific, model-based research tends to isolate behavioral traits from their broader social and historic contexts. This is a significant limitation that should be overcome if the relevance of the concept of culture is to be fully realized.