Specifying Culture Essay, Research Paper

How to Find Culture

Do you hold civilization? I ever thought that people act and behave the manner they do because they were born that manner. It ne’er occurred to me that their beliefs and actions could be caused by an external stimulation that makes them who they are. All this clip and it was right under my olfactory organ. They were non born this manner at all ; they were brought up this manner. They are all merchandises of this thing called civilization. But what is civilization? What is this unseeable force that has affected every individual that has of all time lived? Take a measure back and expression at yourself for a minute. Every small activity you embark on during your life is influenced by this entity named civilization. It invariably surrounds you in a soundless cloud that does non discontinue till the twenty-four hours you die. The nutrient you eat, the apparels you wear, the linguistic communication you speak, the films you watch, they are all traits of the topic. Your full life style has formed around a base of a civilization that you likely didn t even recognize is at that place, but it is. Wherever you go, it follows. But, once more, I ask, what is civilization? How do you set a label on something so abstract, without unequivocal lines to mensurate? To understand civilization, one must larn about his or her past, present, and foresee the hereafter.

The first measure in understanding civilization, one must toss back through the pages of clip, and regard into the past. This is where it all begins. The twenty-four hours you are born to be exact. You are a clean canvas and are really receptive. Your first relationships are created at this phase, and by the clip you are five old ages of age, you are self-conscious. You know you are alive and exist, but merely because your parents have told you so. You look up to your

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parents and seek to mime their actions. You think that they are perfect and cognize all. You strive to suit into their image every bit much as possible, but sometimes it is really hard. This is shown in M.H Kingston s essay, The Woman Warrior, in which China s cultural norm is to eschew girls. Bing a female, the character has great trouble delighting her parents no affair what she does. In one case, the character gets directly A s in category and when she brings place the good intelligence to state her ma, she replies with, you can t eat straight A s ( 190 ) , connoting that her work is worthless. But as one continues to turn, the parents become less of import, and the equal group becomes the primary beginning of contact. This is one of the most of import facets in understanding 1s cultural foundation. At this point, you are picking up speaking manners, linguistic communication, manner, eating wonts, and edifice upon what the family has already instilled into you. This is where interior struggle can happen within a individual, for the newer taught cultural norms might non be the same as to what ma and pa had been prophesying a few old ages before. An illustration of this came approximately in the short authorship by J. O. Cofer, The Myth of the Latin Woman. This narrative was about a immature Puerto Rican miss turning up in the United States. This transition efficaciously shows the struggles that can take topographic point:

But it was a at odds message I received, since the Puerto Rican female parents besides encouraged their girls to look and move like a adult female and to dress in apparels our Anglo friends and their female parents found excessively mature and brassy. The difference was, and is, cultural ; yet I frequently felt humiliated when I appeared at an American friend s party have oning a frock more suited to a semiformal than to a rumpus room birthday jubilation. ( 178 )

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It s easy to see how one can be torn between the household and the equal group. The character has been taught the ways of showing 1s self as a proper Puerto Rican adult female. The environment she lives in, nevertheless, has a wholly different cultural norm attached to it. This can do turning up a really hard procedure. As a individual approaches maturity, he or she is bombarded with many influences from the outside universe, and it can be an all out battle between one s ego image and how others perceive them. Many stereotypes float around for merely about every type of individual on the planet, and for a turning kid on the brink of coming of age, non falling into the cultural stereotypes is of import. Another illustration of maturating alongside a civilized environment came, once more, in the same authorship by Cofer. This clip the character describes some of the stereotypes she encountered in her yesteryear. She says, Mixed cultural signals have perpetuated certain stereotypes & # 8211 ; for illustration, that of the Hispanic adult female as the hot Tamale or sexual firebrand. It is a one dimensional position that the media have found easy to advance ( 178 ) . I m merely seeking to exemplify that there are many facets that determine cultural traits in a individual. In short, seeking into the yesteryear is a great manner to understand civilization because you can larn what attributed to the result of 1s personal diverseness and societal background.

The 2nd measure in understanding civilization is to analyse the present, the here and now. It s of import to look at 1s self and to see the many cultural traits that lay within. The society you live in casts your ideas and actions on a day-to-day footing. The calling you have or leisure times you spend on the weekend are wholly dependent on your societal

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environing. For illustration, if one lives in a big urban population, he or she may hold a occupation in a big tower block, or may supply some kind of societal service to the populace. Besides, for leisure, he or she may travel out into the countryside and seek diversion in the wilderness.

But if a individual lives in the countryside, there would be no tower blocks and non that many people to supply service so one may head into the metropolis for some shopping or amusement non found where he or she lives. Another illustration of society act uponing 1s present province arose in the essay The Arab World, written by Edward T. Hall, who has a Ph.D. in anthropology at Columbia University. He states that, Arabs find northern Europeans and Americans pushy ( 200 ) , and at the same clip Americans and Europeans find Arabs to be the same manner. Unless being Arabic yourself or holding grow

n up with person of Arabic beginning, it would be really hard to understand the ground for this clang. He besides writes that this is because Arab states have wholly different cultural guidelines on the subject of privateness and experience that in public scenes, there is nil private. What Hall is acquiring at is that mores and folkways differ greatly from one state to the following. This besides came approximately in the extract by Alexis de Tocqueville, entitled, Some Contemplations on American Manners. He discusses the logistics of the American mode system and some of its democratic properties. Besides, he tells how England, makes game ( 213 ) of America because of its mode system. This authorship shows how societies differ, and, depending on the state, province, or metropolis of one s place, cultural influences can be drastically different. Another point to do in understanding 1s present cultural province is, the overmastering effects of the media on one s thought procedure. For the most

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portion, in all major societies of the universe, telecasting, wireless, and the imperativeness are readily available for digestion by the populace. Wherever you turn, there is ever a newspaper or Television speaking about the newest manner fad, the top vocal on the charts, or spiting out biased sentiments about a certain controversial subject. It, without a uncertainty, plays a large portion in today s modern civilization, and should be understood and accepted. A great point was made in the essay by Margaret Atwood, entitled, Canadians: What Do They Desire? The essay is about America and its cultural position on Canada. The undermentioned section is an fanciful scenario picturing Mexico as the U.S. and how strong their media ties are. It writes:

Here is interlingual rendition: Picture a Mexico with a population 10 times larger than that of the United States. That would set it at approximately two billion. Now suppose that the official American linguistic communication is Spanish, that 75 per centum of the books Americans buy and 90 per centum of the films they see are Mexican, and that the net incomes flow across the boundary line to Mexico ( 209 ) .

As you can see media genuinely is a power non to be forgotten in analysing the present province of civilization within one s life. It is of import to add that there are many other facets that make up a individual s cultural temperament. In brief, when analysing the present, one must recognize that external beginnings, merely like in the yesteryear, continue to act upon the civilization within them.

The 3rd measure in the apprehension of civilization is to look in front into the hereafter and anticipate the on traveling forms of socialization. Since the morning of civilisation, civilization has played function in doing the human race what it is, and its non traveling to halt now. Many of

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the same tendencies that have been established in the 19th century will go on into the twentieth. Media will play an even bigger function, particularly with the highly widespread usage of the Internet and other cellular signifiers of communicating. And as the universe becomes more populated, new civilizations will finally originate. Author Richard Rodriguez paperss a perfect illustration of germinating civilization. In his authorship entitled, Children of a Marriage, Rodriguez negotiations about Hispanic-American civilization and how it s germinating into a new intercrossed civilization. He writes quote, Hispanic-American civilization is where the past meets the

hereafter ( 197 ) . He is speaking about how past Spanish imposts are being updated in a more modern American civilization. Recognizing that clip alterations everything, Rodriguez understands that his Latino heritage will non stay the same. When it comes to civilization and the hereafter, development is the cardinal word. Society tendencies will alter and in bend, change the cultural temperament of all that live in it. Imagine have oning the same types of vesture and listening to the same signifiers of music for the remainder of one s life. It s non really likely. It s traveling to alter due to the simple fact that one s environments will one twenty-four hours finally alteration. Some good penetration into understanding the hereafter of civilization came approximately in The Cult of Ethnicity, an essay by author Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. He states, Modern communicating and conveyance accelerate mass migrations from continent to another. Ethnic and racial diverseness is more than of all time a outstanding fact of age ( 220 ) . In this quotation mark he writes on how the motion of engineering and population growing can convey about the blending of civilization. Schlesinger besides mentions how ethnocentrism can do

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struggle between blending civilizations. Another point he made was that, it might be a piece

before jobs between dueling civilizations subside. He is positive, nevertheless, and writes, I remain optimistic ( 222 ) , connoting that the rhythms of civilization and society will take its class and everything will turn out to be all right. In a nutshell, anticipating the hereafter will help in the apprehension of civilization because it will give penetration into the repetition forms and development of civilization.

After delving deep and reading between the timeline of one s life, it s easy to see how the universe around us can alter the universe within us. So many things contribute to doing a society of people that think, talk, and act likewise. It is imperative to see how a individual s yesteryear has gotten them into the present and how it will finally impact their

hereafter. I feel that civilization is at its most complex province than of all time before. Never has at that place been such a huge array of communicating, due to the monolithic progresss of engineering. This in consequence has influenced more lives than antecedently possible. It s no admiration, such a battalion of different life styles exist on this planet today. It is a good thing, nevertheless, to be able to be so many people at the same clip. One individual can be an creative person, man of affairs, parent, and a pupil all in the same twenty-four hours. A runing pot of civilization is what gives life colour and exhilaration, the opportunity to see all the joys of a diverse universe. I know that understanding one s ain cultural background can do it easy to understand one s cultural nowadays, and understanding one s civilization present makes it easy to anticipate their cultural hereafter, but person who is non on the interior of a civilization will merely acquire lost in stereotypes.