Introduction to Culture

Every human group possesses a culture, which varies across societies and exhibits uniqueness. Culture provides people with a sense of identity and belonging. For example, a person may identify with a Punjabi or Bengali community.

Concept of Culture

Culture is the framework of beliefs, expressive symbols, and values that individuals use to define their feelings and make judgments (Geertz, 1957).

Edward Burnett Tylor, an English anthropologist, defined culture in his book Primitive Culture (1871) as the complex whole encompassing knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by humans as members of society. This includes all aspects of human activity, from fine arts to popular entertainment, and from everyday behavior to sophisticated technology. It also includes plans, rules, techniques, designs, and policies for living.

Definition of Culture

The word "culture" comes from the German word "Kultur," meaning 'growing'. In social anthropology, culture refers to knowledge about humanity that is learned or acquired, not natural. Culture is a way of life, encompassing behavior patterns, ideas, attitudes, and values.

The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the language we speak, and the deities we worship are all aspects of culture. In simple terms, culture is the embodiment of how we think and do things, inherited as members of society. All achievements of human beings as members of social groups can be called culture.

Art, music, literature, architecture, sculpture, philosophy, religion, and science are aspects of culture. It also includes customs, traditions, festivals, ways of living, and one’s outlook on various issues of life.

Culture refers to a human-made environment including all the material and nonmaterial products of group life transmitted from one generation to the next.

The Cultural Iceberg

The cultural iceberg analogy compares culture to an iceberg, with a smaller visible section and a larger invisible section. Edward T. Hall coined this concept in 1976, suggesting that only about 10% of culture is visible, while the majority (90%) is hidden beneath the surface. Culture has external-facing components that are visible, and a large part that is hidden below the surface.

The iceberg analogy illustrates how much of culture is invisible and intangible, with deeply set values and beliefs. The image is static and fixed, but culture is dynamic and complex. The iceberg is used to illustrate a concept.

Surface culture includes aspects like food, flags, festivals, fashion, holidays, music, performances, dances, games, arts and crafts, literature, and language.

Deep culture includes communication styles and rules (facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, personal space, touching, body language, conversational patterns), handling and displaying emotion, notions of courtesy, manners, friendship, leadership, cleanliness, modesty, and beauty. It also encompasses concepts of self, time, past and future, fairness and justice, roles related to age, sex, class, family, attitudes toward elders, adolescents, dependents, rule expectations, work authority, cooperation vs. competition, relationships with animals, age, sin, death, and approaches to religion, courtship, marriage, raising children, decision-making, and problem-solving.

Cultural Needs and Balance

All cultures must provide for the physical, emotional, and social needs of their members, enculturate new members, resolve conflicts, and promote survival. Society must balance the needs of the whole with the needs of the individual. If individual needs are continually suppressed, social systems can become unstable and individual stress can become overwhelming. Every culture has its methods of balancing societal needs in relation to individual needs.

Characteristics of Culture

Culture has five basic characteristics: it is learned, shared, based on symbols, integrated, and dynamic. All cultures share these features.

Culture is Learned: It is not biological and isn't inherited. Much of learning culture is unconscious, acquired from families, peers, institutions, and media. The process of learning culture is known as enculturation. While all humans have basic biological needs such as food, sleep, and sex, the way we fulfill these needs varies cross-culturally.
Culture is Shared: Sharing culture with other members of a group enables socially appropriate actions and the ability to predict others' actions. Despite the shared nature of culture, it is not homogenous. Multiple cultural worlds exist in any society.
Culture is Based on Symbols: A symbol stands for something else, varying cross-culturally and arbitrarily. Symbols only have meaning when people in a culture agree on their use. Language, money, and art are all symbols. Language is the most important symbolic component of culture.
Culture is Integrated: This is known as holism, where various parts of a culture are interconnected. All aspects of a culture are related to one another, and to truly understand a culture, one must learn about all of its parts, not only a few.
Culture is Dynamic: Cultures interact and change. Because most cultures are in contact with other cultures, they exchange ideas and symbols. All cultures change; otherwise, they would have problems adapting to changing environments. Because cultures are integrated, if one component in the system changes, the entire system must adjust.

Culture Acquisition

Culture is not something that we simply absorb – it is learned. In anthropology, this process is referred to as acculturation or enculturation. In psychology, it is described as conditioning. Sociologists have tended to use the term ‘socialisation’ to describe the process by which we become social and cultural beings.

Main Components of Culture

Culture includes both material and non-material components. Non-material components encompass symbols, norms, beliefs, and language. Material components include technology, monuments, buildings, and arts.A discussion and presentation on the importance and relevance of studying culture has been mentioned for a separate tutorial.Thank you.