nature and characteristics of culture
Answers
The word culture is one of those terms that we use quite often, but what is it exactly? If you were to ask a group of anthropologists whose job it is to study culture, you may get a different definition from each of them. However, even though definitions of culture may differ, many of them do emphasize similar things. For the purposes of this lesson, we'll define culture as the complex whole of a society. So this can include everything that gives a society its identity, which would include such things as language, beliefs, values, customs, laws, cuisine, etc.
The members of society not only endorse them but also mold their behavior accordingly. They are the members of the society because of the traditions and customs which are common and which are passed down from generation to generation through the process of socialization. These common patterns designate culture and it is in terms of culture that we are able to understand the specific behavior pattern of human beings in their social relations. Cultural ideas emerge from shared social particularly fascinating about cultures is that each culture, no matter where it is located, shares at least five basic characteristics. This means the Mayan culture, which is now extinct, shared at least five basic characteristics with present-day American culture. The five basic characteristics that all cultures share are that they are learned, shared, based on symbols, integrated, and dynamic.
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 behavior, beliefs, feelings, thought; it connotes everything that is acquired by them as social beings.