The Meaning of Culture - Notes

The Meaning of Culture by Clyde Kluckhohn

Introduction

  • Clyde Kluckhohn (1905-1960) argues that culture profoundly shapes our lives, influencing family relationships, economic arrangements, and religious activities.
  • He suggests that human behavior is largely predictable due to cultural imprinting.
  • Examples:
    • An American-born male raised in China adopting Chinese mannerisms.
    • Rattlesnake meat tasting like chicken until its true nature is revealed.
    • Early American settlers viewing tomatoes, a Native American product, as poisonous.
  • Kluckhohn emphasizes cultural relativity: our thoughts and feelings are shaped more by upbringing than by biology or environment.
  • In the early days of cultural anthropology, biological explanations of behavior (biological reductionism) were common, even leading to racist ideologies.
  • Kluckhohn's 1949 essay from Mirror for Man promotes cultural anthropology and condemns biological reductionism, following the lead of pioneers like Franz Boas and Margaret Mead.
  • Kluckhohn, along with many cultural anthropologists, would likely argue that reductionism persists today, being promoted by "evolutionary biologists" and "evolutionary psychologists."
  • Kluckhohn received degrees from Oxford and Harvard and is known for his work with the Navaho.

Key Concept: Culture as Learned Adaptive Techniques

  • Culture encompasses the total life way of a people, the social legacy individuals acquire from their group.
  • Culture can be seen as the part of the environment created by humans.
  • Anthropology's most significant contribution to understanding human behavior is the concept of culture, comparable to evolution in biology or gravity in physics.
  • Understanding a people's "design for living" allows us to predict their behavior.
  • Many actions are patterned by culture, not random or due to individual quirks.
  • Even individualists follow cultural patterns.

Examples of Cultural Influence

  • Daily routines like brushing teeth, clothing choices, meal frequency, and sleeping arrangements are culturally determined.
  • An American woman's aversion to plural wives is a cultural viewpoint, contrasted with a Koryak woman's view of companionship in the home.
  • Example of an American orphaned in China:
    • He was raised by a Chinese family and, despite his American biological heritage (blue eyes, light hair), exhibited Chinese mannerisms, movements, and thought patterns.
    • He was more Chinese than American due to cultural training.
  • Rattlesnake meat experiment:
    • A trader's wife served guests rattlesnake meat, initially presented as similar to chicken or tuna.
    • Upon revealing the meat's true identity, guests experienced immediate and violent vomiting.
    • Demonstrates how a biological process (digestion) is influenced by cultural knowledge and perception.

Culture and Biology

  • Culture arises from human nature but is constrained by biology and natural laws.
  • Culture also shapes biological processes like vomiting, weeping, eating, and waste elimination.
  • Hunger is a biological drive, but cultural norms determine when and how often people eat.
  • Food choices are limited by availability but also regulated by culture.
  • Some berries are biologically poisonous, but cultural beliefs dictate what is considered edible (e.g., tomatoes once thought poisonous by Americans).
  • Culture channels the process of eating, influencing attitudes towards food.
  • Emotions are physiological events, but cultural cues can stimulate feelings of pleasure, anger, or lust.

Innate Endowments and Cultural Training

  • Innate abilities are observed only as modified by cultural training, except in newborns or individuals with abnormalities.
  • Observation of babies in a New Mexico hospital (Zuñi, Navaho, and white American) initially showed differences in activity levels.
  • However, by age two, cultural influences altered these initial differences: Zuñi babies appeared less active compared to white children due to cultural norms.

Nature of Culture

  • Culture is a way of thinking, feeling, and believing; it's a group's knowledge stored for future use.
  • We study culture through overt behavior, speech, gestures, activities, and tangible results like tools and houses.

Culture vs. Society

  • Culture should not be confused with society.
  • A "society" is a group of interacting people who cooperate to achieve certain ends.
  • A "culture" is the distinctive way of life of that group.
  • Not all social events are culturally patterned; new situations arise without pre-existing cultural solutions.

Culture as Pooled Learning

  • Culture is a storehouse of shared learning.
  • Unlike animals with innate responses, human infants rely on learning formulas supplied by their culture.
  • Learned behavior becomes automatic, like turning on a radio.

Universal Dilemmas and Cultural Variations

  • All human societies face similar dilemmas (biology, human situation), leading to basic cultural categories.
  • Human culture requires language and provides for aesthetic expression.
  • Every culture addresses problems like death and aims to perpetuate the group while meeting individual needs.
  • However, variations on these themes are vast.
  • Examples: Language sound variations, beauty standards (nose plugs), puberty rites, and attitudes toward menstruation differ across cultures.
  • Each culture categorizes nature uniquely.

Cultural Regulation of Instincts

  • Every culture addresses the sexual instinct but varies widely in its approach.
  • Examples: Varying levels of premarital sexual expression, monogamy vs. polygamy, acceptance of homosexuality, and practices of celibacy.
  • Marriage can be an individual arrangement or part of a complex system of reciprocities between families.

Selectivity and Institutionalization

  • The essence of culture is selectivity, often unconscious.
  • Cultures develop organically and resist change once established.
  • "Sacred beliefs" are beyond criticism.
  • Emotional loyalty to culture persists despite factual contradictions because of early childhood conditioning.

Culture as a Social Legacy

  • Culture is learned by individuals within a group and is shared with others.
  • It contrasts with organic heredity and allows us to live together in an organized society.
  • Culture provides ready-made solutions, helps predict behavior, and facilitates mutual expectations.

Constant Cultural Pressure

  • Culture regulates our lives from birth to death through constant pressure to conform to established behaviors.
  • This includes expectations for eating, excreting, sleeping, and social conduct.
  • Adhering to cultural norms creates a sense of connection among group members.
  • Ruth Benedict defined culture as "that which binds men together."

Culture: Problems and Solutions

  • Culture adjusts to the environment and other people but also creates problems.
  • Examples: Superstitions or beliefs that create unnecessary fears.
  • Culture produces needs and provides means to fulfill them.
  • Culturally defined drives can be more powerful than biological ones (e.g., Americans working for success over sexual satisfaction).

Utility and Survival Value

  • Groups often elaborate aspects of culture beyond utility or survival value.
  • Not all culture promotes physical survival and can sometimes hinder it.
  • Adaptive cultural aspects can persist even after losing their usefulness.
  • Analysis reveals features that are not adaptations to the current environment but are survivals of previously adaptive forms.

Functionality

  • Cultural practices must be functional (contribute to survival or individual adjustment) to persist.
  • Functions can be manifest (obvious) or latent (hidden).
  • Example: A cowboy riding a horse a short distance maintains prestige within his subculture (latent function).
  • Nonfunctional customs (buttons on sleeves, English spelling) maintain security by preserving continuity with the past.

Culture and History

  • Culture is a product of history, embracing aspects of the past in altered forms.
  • New discoveries and inventions are available through historical contacts or internal creation.
  • Only those that meet the group's needs for survival or psychological adjustment become part of the culture.
  • Culture building adds to biological capacities, providing instruments that enlarge or substitute for biological functions and compensate for limitations.

Culture as a Map

  • Culture is like a map: an abstract representation of trends toward uniformity in a group.
  • Knowing a culture allows one to navigate life within a society.

Culture as Interdependent System

  • A culture is a structure, not a random collection of patterns.
  • It is an interdependent system based on linked premises and categories, often unstated.
  • Internal coherence is felt rather than rationally constructed.
  • Culture provides skills for living and blueprints for human relations.

Assumptions and Fulfillment

  • Each culture makes assumptions about the purposes of human existence, rights, and fulfillment.
  • Some assumptions are explicit, while others are tacit premises inferred by observing trends in word and deed.