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Ben Bogart: Video Analysis

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Cultural Perception

When watching the video in which artist Ben Bogart discusses the different aspects of how we perceive the world, he asks his audience to think about why is it normal to sit down on a chair which is very interesting. Towards the ending of the clip he revisits his opening remark and answers the question about why is it important to sit in a chair, and he draws an interesting conclusion. The first part of his conclusion was the obvious answer as to why we sit in chairs, his answer was, because it’s a chair; the second part was a little bit of an eye opener he discusses how it’s not a biological necessity for us to sit down on a chair but it’s the basic cultural norm for us to sit in chairs because all of our life’s we have been told to sit on a chair. …show more content…

For example, here in the United States we eat sitting on a table with chairs, and utensils; but if you were to go to Afghanistan and were invited into somebodies dwelling to eat you will be seated on the floor on top of a cushion instead of a chair, everyone will be served from the main dish and will use vinyl tablecloths as plates. I find it amazing how people who share the same planet can be very different we would perceive a table as a place to eat and the Afghanis would not. I believe a difference in upbringing or a difference in religion beliefs can lead to a difference in cultural perspectives, for example, me and my wife were at a camera store up here in New York City that was a Jewish-owned business. We purchased a camera and upon completing the deal my wife went to shake the salesman's hand and he politely declined because he said he was Orthodox, we did not take any offense we said thank you and kept it moving. Another person who would not be understanding to someone else’s culture might have gotten

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