What do we mean by culture?
We usually associate culture with art and music. But culture is really a
great deal more than just symphonies or paintings, it's the environment that
shapes our personalities and characterizes how we interact with others. Culture is the way we speak, work, dance, and love, even what we eat.
The evolutionary concept of culture:
- Some cultures are better and more right than others.
- Some cultures rank higher than others on a "developing ladder"
- The goal (at least from those on the top of the ladder) must be always to move up the ladder- to become more and more developed towards Western standards.
the relativistic concept of culture:
- all cultures are equal
- culture as homogenic islands
- Cultural relativisim is the principle that an individuals human beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture.
Today we worked with different cases and talked about how we would react in these different situations. When I think about culture I think that it's important that we understand our own culture in order
to be able to understand and appreciate others.