Understanding Culture: Its Role in Shaping Societies

Culture, as anthropologists define it, is the way of life shared by a group of people. It encompasses the customs, beliefs, arts, and institutions that bind people together, creating a collective identity that transcends individual differences. Culture is not inherited genetically but is an acquired behavior learned through socialization. This process ensures that cultural norms, values, and practices are passed down from one generation to the next.

Socialization begins in early childhood and involves teaching children the appropriate behaviors and attitudes necessary for functioning within their society. While the methods of child training can vary significantly between different cultures, the goal remains the same: to instill a common set of behaviors and values that align with societal expectations. Early childhood experiences are crucial in shaping an individual’s personality and worldview. Since these experiences are generally shared by most children within a culture, they result in a common personality pattern among adults in that society.

In today's globalized world, the influence of culture remains strong, even as societies evolve and interact more closely with one another. Despite the increasing interconnectedness, cultural distinctions continue to play a critical role in shaping individual identities and social cohesion. Understanding culture's role in human development is essential for appreciating the diversity and unity that characterize human societies.
Understanding Culture: Its Role in Shaping Societies

Society with Diverse Cultural Behaviors

Cultural behaviors are fundamentally universal, yet they manifest uniquely across different societies. The diversity of cultural expressions is boundless, restricted only by functionality and conformity within each society's broader context.

One intriguing aspect of cultural variation is the endorsement of bodily modifications. In the United States, this takes myriad forms. Some opt for relatively simple alterations like styling their hair, ear piercing, or nail art. Others embrace tattoos, which in our culture often carry personal significance or aesthetic appeal.

Contrastingly, tattoos in other cultures may hold distinct meanings. For instance, in Polynesian societies, tattoos known as "tatau" are deeply rooted in cultural traditions, symbolizing rites of passage and social status.

Furthermore, cosmetic surgery is prevalent in many societies, from nose jobs to hair transplants, reflecting cultural ideals of beauty and self-image. Young individuals might strive to appear older through facial hair or specific hairstyles, while older individuals often seek rejuvenation through cosmetic procedures like facelifts or hair dyeing.

In stark contrast, some cultural practices surrounding body adornment can seem unconventional to Western eyes. Among certain South American tribes, infants' skulls are intentionally shaped by binding boards against their heads. In the Dugum Dani tribe of New Guinea, a distinctive funeral custom involves women having a finger amputated to commemorate a deceased loved one permanently.

These practices underscore the remarkable breadth of human cultural expression. Each society's norms shape how individuals alter or adorn their bodies, reflecting values, traditions, and social meanings unique to that culture. Understanding such practices broadens our appreciation for diverse cultural identities and the intricate ways in which societies convey belonging and meaning through bodily aesthetics.

As globalization continues to interconnect societies, cultural exchanges challenge and enrich established norms, fostering dialogue and understanding across diverse cultural landscapes. The allure of cultural diversity lies not only in its outward manifestations but also in the rich tapestry of meanings and values that underpin these behaviors, offering profound insights into the complexities of human societies.
Society with Diverse Cultural Behaviors

Integrated Societal Dynamics

Anthropologists, in their quest to comprehend the intricate structures of societies, engage in a profound exploration of the interconnections between institutions and their functions in sustaining the overall social fabric. One crucial aspect of this exploration is functional integration, which involves aligning values with action systems. This process entails prioritizing and appropriately allocating diverse values in various situations and relationships, including an examination of how functions and resources are shared between disabled and nondisabled individuals within a given environment.

Metaphorically likened to a biological organism, society exhibits a dynamic nature where interconnected parts contribute uniquely to sustain the entire system. Structural changes within society prompt reactions and compensations among its institutions, creating a continuous and integrated unit.

In the context of the United States, anthropologists can analyze the nation's democratic political system, free enterprise economic system, and Judeo-Christian ethic emphasizing hard work, savings, and achievement. This combination forms an integrated unit with a core theme. The emphasis on personal achievement within the Judeo-Christian ethic, for example, plays a pivotal role in discouraging the exploitation of the economic and political freedoms present in American society, fostering a delicate balance.

An observation worth noting is that a highly integrated society tends toward equilibrium, with changes in one part inducing corresponding changes elsewhere. For instance, if there were a sudden shift towards a religious outlook emphasizing withdrawal over work or a decline in democratic principles, the effectiveness of the free enterprise system could diminish. Such a scenario might potentially lead to the replacement of the existing socio-political and economic structures, illustrating the delicate interplay between different facets of a society.

In summary, anthropologists explore the multifaceted dimensions of society, recognizing its dynamic and interconnected nature. Through the lens of functional integration, they scrutinize the allocation of values and resources, highlighting the importance of balance and equilibrium in sustaining the overall societal framework. The United States serves as an example, showcasing how its integrated political, economic, and ethical systems contribute to the stability and functionality of the society at large.
Integrated Societal Dynamics

Culture of child rearing

Because different society emphasized on different parenting goals, child rearing practices differ widely from society to society.

It have been see, that in societies where infant mortality is high and survival goal is hard to achieve, parent keep their infants close 24 hours a day to protect them. In some of these societies, babies not even named until they seem to survive.

These practices are not necessary in any society where infant mortality is low. As parent attempt to achieve the economic goal of parenting they emphasize the values and skills that are most necessary to make a living in their society.

In societies with agricultural or pastoral economy, parents stressed cooperation and obedience  raising their children because their agricultural activities demanded family team work.

By contrast, hunting, trapping, and fishing societies (groups that do not accumulate food) stressed quite different values; independence, assertiveness, self-reliance and other traits important in hunting.
Culture of child rearing

Inca society and corn

Corn was one of the most important foods in Inca society.  They worshipped the goddess Mother Corn. When a new land was conquered, one of the first things the Inca did was to prepare the soil for corn crops.

The Inca of Peru had a well-developed system around corn which included ceremonies for planting and harvest.   At planting they asked the sun to protect the corn from excessive heat, and offered a drink made from maize onto the rivers to ask for water for their fields.

Chicha and alcoholic beverage made from fermented corn, played an central role in the ceremonial and social life of Andean peoples before contact with the Old World. It is a type of beer drunk mostly by Inca rulers and nobles after battle victories and during ceremonies.

They threw corn into the river they were about to cross, or fish in, to propitiate its god.

Corn was a currency with each kernel being a coin. In a transaction, the buyer placed a fistful of kernels on a table. If the seller deemed the number of kernels insufficient, she said nothing but instead stared at the kernels.
Inca society and corn

Color symbolism in ancient culture and society

Color is an informative yet frequently overlooked subject of anthropological inquiry. Cultures frequently attach particular importance to specific colors and this selection may be due to a multiplicity of factors such as subsistence processes, the natural world, biological processes, the rarity of a dye used to produce a color, or the raw material of which the object is made.

The most powerfully effective color symbols in art have always been those taken directly from nature and especially from natural phenomena already standing for universal ideas.

Blood and bile, vegetable, fore and the sky, for example have an obvious elemental symbolisms associated with fire and passion, sensation, fertility and spiritually.

In primitive art the most important source of color symbolisms was that of the phases of the moon: white, blood red, and black or blue.

The ancient Hebrews experienced color primarily through nature; color suggested to them elements of the physical world. Blue was the color of the sky, green the color of grass and plants, red the color do blood, white the color of wool and snow.

In ancient Egypt, the use of color on the sarcophagi and papyri doubtless also had a symbolic significance, though no consistent meaning seems to have been attached to a particular color, Th headless goddesses perched on mounds in the concluding scene of the papyrus of Djehutymesyu are black.

In ancient culture the blue, purple and scarlet suggested wealth and royalty. Colored textiles were produced from natural dyes that were rare and expensive.
Color symbolism in ancient culture and society

What is socialism?

Socialism is a way to organize a society. It deals mostly with the economy, or the part of a society that creates wealth. The goal of socialism is to spread wealth more evenly and to treat all people fairly.

The term ‘socialism’ originates from the writings of the utopian socialist of the 1830s: Robert Owen in Britain and Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier in France.

Socialist ideology runs the gamut from religious communalism at one end of the spectrum to revolutionaries at the other end. As a rule, socialist reject the individuals associated with capitalism and believe that the collective needs of society should take priority over individual’s desires.

Socialist offer alternative but divergent forms of economic organization that attempt to voeroicme the overcome the defects of industrial capitalism.

These can range form a fully planned economy to more mixed economy, combining public and private provision.

People have had different ideas about how to create a socialist society. But most have agreed that the government, not individuals, should control at least some business and properties.

Since it s first appearance on the political scene, the ocmcep0t of social has undergone a long and unique process of evolution. Its creator, Marx and subsequently Engels spoke of the possibility of socialism’s triumphing simultaneously throughout the world or at least in the most industrially advanced countries.
What is socialism?

Study of Human and Languages in Nineteenth Century

Throughout the nineteenth century, as physical anthropologists were puzzling over the differences among humans. Evidence of earlier and somewhat different human forms poured in from around the world. Fossil forms of humanlike animals.

Some with thicker skulls or larger teeth of slightly different facial shapes, forced scholars to rethink their theories of human evolution or creation. But even more important, in many cases the bones of ancient people were found in association with tools and other material possessions, often indicating not only that they must have looked different from modern human beings but that they lived by different means as well: that is, they had a different culture.

As archeologists provided more information about ancient peoples around the world, their work became more valuable to physical anthropology. At the same time, knowledge of past civilizations contributed to other areas of interest and formed the link that tied them to the growing field of anthropology. One such area was linguistics, the study of human language and languages.

Much of the work in linguistics in the nineteenth century and even earlier was devoted to detailed descriptions or peculiarities in the speech of various groups of people, or to tracing the history of related languages in an attempt to find some common form from which they had developed.

Increased interest in language was a result of the expansion of European economic and political interest throughout the world, but for a long time it remained more of an art form than a science. People who, for one reason or another, had an opportunity to learn another language might do so, but often without any attempt at developing a scientific approach to the study of language as a whole.
Study of Human and Languages in Nineteenth Century

Tlingit Indians of Alaska

When the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, the Tlingit Indians occupied the narrow coastal strip and the outlying islands from Dixon Entrance to the Copper River, except for the southern portion of Prince of Wales.

Tlingit art was highly developed, and it was coveted by Westerners for its beauty and craftsmanship.

United by a common language and a culture, members of this society are divided into two groups, or moieties: the Eagles and the Ravens. Every member of the Tlingit nation is born with the absolute right to one or the other.

These moieties are further divided into clans, which are in turn subdivided into house groups.  The term moiety is a word meaning ’half’. Each moiety also includes many clans. The clan was the major traditional unit of social, political, ceremonial identity and interaction, but this system has weakened in the past one hundred years.

The Tlingit was primarily a fisherman, sea hunter and canoeman.  Living at the edge of the tide, they looked for the water for their food. They hunted on land and sea. The primary tools used in the hunt were bows and arrows, spears, slings, darts, daggers, clubs and harpoons. They also used all kinds of traps and snares.

Fish were procured with the aid of wood or stone dams or fish traps, as well as hooks, leisters, harpoon and nets and dipnets. Herring and candlefish, during spawning, were caught by distinctive rakes that consisted of wooden lath with teeth of bone or copper.

In spring, the Tlingit in the mainland coast hunt and trap bear, marten and mink. Those in the island shores hunt fur seals in April and May.
Tlingit Indians of Alaska

Traditional Civilizations

The same processes that obliged human beings to group themselves in semisettled, warring and trading tribal communities also obliged some of them, in historically distinct times and places, to settle down in cities and to develop the state out of their political behaviors.

Under pressure to reap new resources from crowded, often degraded habitat, and reacting to a more complicated internal social structure and to competition from nearby groups, certain horticulturalists develop more intensive gardening in appropriate habitats – always river valleys.

Internally, their tribal politics and competitive feasting gave way to priestly rule followed by military rule and the rise of dynasties.

Cities are accompanied by the greater factoring out of the array of human institutions into full time specialization. Rural, food producing communities fall into satellite arrangements around urban centers, two forms of such traditional civilizations are possible: one, the green city, has decentralized urban institutions and dispersed populations; the other the nucleated, walled city, has centralized cities and aggregated populations.

That is, in the one form a monarch may inhibit an isolated palace, his council may convene someplace else, his army may be scattered in barracks around the realm, and collective royal ceremonies may be performed at yet some other place – a shrine or royal tomb perhaps.

The rural population of food producers is spread more or less evenly over the cultivable land. In the other kind of city the central institutions of state, army, religion, and trade are all concentrated in a single settlement, side by side in usually distinct architecture.

Moreover, the population is densely packed around the urban center, usually defended by strong wall. The food producing population lives in village scattered around, but there is strong tendency, encouraged by defense in warfare, to bring the villagers inside the city and settle each one in an urban ward.

At this level of community, ritual becomes a full time specialty of priests at shrines, which are at once the intellectual, economic, and often – especially in start-up phases of civilization – political centers of civilization. Temples and their plazas form the stage-drop for the dialogue of civilization, that communication taking place between particular local “folk” peoples and the elites – full time leaders specializing in the emerging institutions.
Traditional Civilizations

Definition of society II

Definition of society II
Society is an artificial construct that is used by anthropologists to see pattern in people’s behavior. As we group these patterns together they take on a structure, and the unit of that are called institution. An institution is simply a pattern of behavior that focuses on a central theme. We may speak of a market as an economic institution, but there is more to a market than a place where people buy and sell things. By market we also mean the activities involved in production, distribution, selling, and consumption. We refer to the patterns of behavior involved in exchanging goods, and the values and preferences and others factors that effect the exchange. Thus a market as an economic institution is much more than a matter of supply and demand or a set of sales figure – it is the whole set of behaviors involved in any exchange of goods.

The same is true for religion. When we speak if a religious institution we are referring to much more than a church and what goes on inside it. We include all behaviors that might be considered religious, such as the extent to which behavior is controlled by religious beliefs or the extent to which belief systems serve to integrate the community. When we combine all these patterns of behavior, we can begin to see how various institutions are tied together and how they affect one another. This tells is the basic structure of the society.
Definition of society II

Definition of society

The term society refers to an association of individuals. When we speak of social relations, we are referring to interactions among members of that group.

Further, when we speak of social organization, we are referring to pattern of interaction. We assume that the personal interactions within a society have some sort of structure, and in analyzing that structure we tend to assign behavior to certain category.

In doing so, we tend divide the people of the society into various groups, such as families, clans, classes, clubs, and so on. Further, we can analyses behavior in political, economic, or religions terms, although people might not keep these categories separate in their life everyday.

Society

Society is the cohesive unit because its members are in the same language, values, knowledge, and beliefs. In short the society is unified by its members’ way of life and the fact that they tend to think of themselves as belonging to the same group. Society ranges from a complex organization like “American Society” to a small unit such as an army company or a ship’s crew.

There need not be political boundaries to set it off from other societies we tend to thinking terms of nation-states , a society can exists below the national level or across national boundaries. For example, we might speak of Chinese society as existing within many separate political units.

Latent Function of Funeral

Latent Function of Funeral
One of latent function of funeral is to provide a break in the routine for those who attend, although most people will argue that they rather have the deceased back among the living than use the funeral as an excuse to have a family reunion.

In the process of bringing people together, a funeral also serves the latent function of reinforcing the solidarity of the group.

Members of the typical American middle-class family often are scattered throughout the city, state, and even the country, making close contact difficult and family gatherings relatively rare occurrence.

However, the funeral offers the family chance to get together (weddings serve the same purpose). A funeral can also have the latent function of raising another person to a higher social position.

When someone does, the position he or she held is vacated and must be filled by someone else. A son, for example, might be called upon to take an active role in the funeral, or he might at least be mentioned by the clergyman who performs the ceremony – a subtle hint that he has a new role to fill.

Finally, a funeral can help alleviate the fear of death. Those who participate in ceremony become aware of their concern for the decease, and in the process they convinces themselves that, as they have not forgotten the deceased , they will not be forgotten by their friends and relatives when they are gone.

Of course, it might be difficult to get most people to admit they had any of these feelings when they attended a funeral, which is one reason anthropologists stress the importance of studying the latent functions of social behavior as well as its manifest functions.

Only by analyzing what, to the objective and impartial observer, people appear to be doing, as well as what they think or say they are doing, can we get a full and clear picture of how a society work.

The functions of various institutions cannot be limited to those listed by the people involved, for as we have seen in the example funeral, there are many more functions that are obvious to outside observers.

To ignore these functions would be to ignore a large portion of the structure of society.
Latent Function of Funeral

Society of Sumerian in Mesopotamian: Death of Kings

Society of Sumerian in Mesopotamian: Death of Kings
When a king of the Sumerian city state of Ur died he did not go alone to his tomb. His entire household of some 70 people was buried with him, having taken poison in order to follow their sovereign into the next life – where they would continue to serve him loyally as before. The preparation for this mass burial was meticulous. First along, sloping shaft was dug down to a pit that would serve as the tomb chamber. This was filled with rich offerings, and the king’s corpse was placed in it. The chamber was then sealed, and a great procession of attendants moves down into the shaft. These included court ladies in resplendent golden headdresses, guard with sheathed daggers, musicians strumming bulls’ head lyres, grooms with ox-drawn chariots, and soldiers wearing coppers spears.

All carried small cup from which they drank a lethal drug before lying down by the tomb chamber to prepare for the eternity. The musicians continued to play their lyres until the end, when they took poison and succumbed. The shaft was then filled in with several layers of earth and clay, amid further ritual offerings and libations. The lack of resistance on the part of the attendants indicated a fatalistic obedience both of their sovereign and to their gods. Certainly all the evidences suggest that religion was very importance to the Sumerians. They believe that gods ruled the earth and that men were created to be their servants. Each city was regarded as belonging to a particular god and goddess, whose earthly home was the city’s temple, the scene of elaborate rituals conducted by a hierarchy priests.
Society of Sumerian in Mesopotamian: Death of Kings

Culture and Definition

As anthropologist use the term, culture is the way of life shared by a group of people.

It is what makes people similar to one another and unites them as a group, overcoming individual differences in personality. Culture is acquired behavior; it is learned rather than inherited genetically.

Culture is passed on from one generation to the next through the process known as socialization.

Although the methods of teaching children the appropriate behavior patterns may vary from one society to another, all societies engage in some form of child training.

It is assume that early childhood experiences will last effect on an individual, and insofar as the same basic experiences are shared by most children in a society, a general personality pattern will be shared among most adults in that society.
Culture and Definition

Society with culture

Although the basic types of cultural behavior are universal, in most cases they differ in form from one culture to another.

The potential for cultural variation is enormous; the only limits are that a particular way of doing something must get the job done and that it must fit in with the rest of the culture.

Take endorsement of the body. In the United States, it has many ways of changing the natural appearance of the human body.

On a fairly simple level, some people do things such as comb their hair a certain way, pierce their ears, or polish their nails. Others have parts of their body designed with tattoos, permanent mutilations of the body following patterns that are unique to our culture.

Tattoos in other cultures are quite different. Still others have cosmetic surgery such as nose jobs, hair transplant, and silicone injections to change their appearance.

Young people often try to look older – men grow facial hair; women arrange their hair in certain ways – while older people try to look younger by having their faces lifted, wearing trendy clothes, or dyeing their hair.

In other cultures the ways in which the body is adorned are quite different. Some of the better known examples, such as the extended lower lip of the Ubangi women, or a bone inserted into a pierced nose, seem bizarre to us. But in every culture we find some form of adornment.

Among some South American Indian tribes boards are tied firmly against the head of an infant to change the shape of the skull.

Among the Dugum Dani, a highland tribe in New Guinea, women and young girls have a finger imputed as part of the funeral service for a close relative so that they will be reminded of that person for the rest of their live.
Society with culture

Manifest and Latent Functions

Manifest and Latent Functions
Sociologist Robert Merton points out that an activity may have some more than one function and one or more of its functions may be unintended or at least not obvious to those who practice it.

What is the manifest function?
The manifest function of a pattern of behavior is the effect or result that is apparent to the members of the society. We can ask people why they do a certain thing; they will give the reason the manifest function of that behavior – the agreed upon value of action, the ideal as opposed to the real.

What is the latent function?
The latent function of the behavior is the effect or result that is not apparent to the members of the society who engage in it. In American society, when a person dies we often follow a pattern of behavior called a funeral. This can include a religious service, a meeting of family and friends either before or after the service, and a service in which the body is buried.

If we were to ask American who engage in this practice what its functions were, we would probably get some of the following answer:
1. The funeral serves to dispose of the body of the deceased, an obvious necessity
2. The gathering of the friends and relatives at the funeral helps console the family of the deceased, supporting them and comforting them in their time of sorrow
3. The religious service, in which prayers are offered for the deceased, is designed to aid the soul or spirit in its journey to whatever awaits in the afterlife
4 In addition, part of the funeral service can be devoted to the achievements of the deceased, and thus can served as a memorial to that person, which also comfort to the family.

All this functions are fairly obvious because they are known to the participants.
Manifest and Latent Functions

Functional Integration

Anthropologists seek to understand the structure of a society – how its institutions fit together and how each element in the structure functions to maintain the whole.

Functional integration refers to the integration of values with systems of action and it therefore involves priorities and allocations of diverse value component among proper occasion and relationships.

It is referred to the extent to which disabled and nondisabled persons were using the same functions and resources in the environment.

We sometimes speak of the “functional integration” of society because the concepts of structure and function are intertwined and interdependent.

Society is in a dynamic state to always include integration and disintegration between people. It is like a biological organism with many interconnected parts and each of which contributes something different by functioning in its own way to keep the system intact.

As an institution changes, the others react to that change and compensate for it, thereby changing themselves in the process. But all the parts remain integrated into the single unit.

The United States political system is basically democratic. The economics system is a free enterprise. Personal achievement is fostered by political freedom.

Judeo-Christian ethic stresses on hard working, saving , and achievement, where a religious person is not expected to devote all of his or her time to work hard for the sake of family and community. The person is discourage to take advantage of the economics and political freedoms of American society.

Due to this, the political ideology of democracy, the economic systems of free enterprise, and the religions ideology of Judeo-Christian ethic combine to form an integral unit centered on a basic theme.

With high level of integration, societies tend to be in a state of equilibrium; change in one part of the system brings change in other part.

If American suddenly adopted s religious outlook that stress withdrawal and prayer rather than work, or if the political system became less democratic, the free enterprise would no longer be effective and would probably be replaced by something else.
Functional Integration