Question

Mention the characteristics and components of culture

Answer 1

Sometimes an individual is described as “a highly cultured person”, meaning thereby that the person in question has certain features such as his speech, manner, and taste for literature, music or painting which distinguish him from others. Culture, in this sense, refers to certain personal characteristics of a individual. However, this is not the sense in which the word culture is used and understood in social sciences.

Sometimes culture is used in popular discourse to refer to a celebration or an evening of entertainment, as when one speaks of a ‘cultural show’. In this sense, culture is identified with aesthetics or the fine arts such as dance, music or drama. This is also different from the technical meaning of the word culture.

Culture is used in a special sense in anthropology and sociology. It refers to the sum of human beings’ life ways, their behaviour, beliefs, feelings, thought; it connotes everything that is acquired by them as social beings.

Culture has been defined in number of ways. There is no consensus among sociologists and anthropologists regarding the definition of culture. One of the most comprehensive definitions of the term culture was provided by the British anthropologist Edward Tylor. He defined culture as ” that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”.