Culture : The Mind's Eye : What The Blind See

Take a moment to think about the following question: what is culture? Culture is everything a person does, believes in, creates, came from, and has done. It is also so much more than this simple list, but this is a good idea of what it generally is. Culture affects a lot of things as well. It can affect what you do, how you do certain things, and how you see things comparison to others. Culture is a major factor in how people perceive the world and those around them. Everybody sees the world differently through their cultural glasses. Some people see things as foreign and confusing, while others see the same things as daily life. The idea of different cultural viewpoints is shown in many articles throughout the years. Each of these stories

The classic definition for culture was proposed by Tylor (1871/1958) and still commonly cited: Culture is “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and many other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (p. 1). This definition focuses on attributes that are acquired through growing up or living in a particular society, rather than through biological inheritance (Kottak, 2002). In Giger and Davidhizar’s (1991) Model for transcultural care, culture was defined as a patterned behavioral response that develops over time as a result of imprinting the mind through social and religious structures and intellectual and artistic manifestations.

“Culture comprises traditional ideas and related values, and it is the product of actions” (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952); “it is learned, shared, and transmitted from one generation to the next (Linton, 1945); and it organizes life and helps interpret existence” (Gordon, 1964).

Culture plays a paramount role in our lives. “It is what shapes who we are and how we view the world” (Thorp & Sanchez, 1998,

Culture is one of the most relevant elements that can define not only a society but also a country’s cumulative beliefs and system. Often noted as the origins of a country, culture is definitive in the sense that it harbors all the elements that can provide justification on the traditions and norms set by the society for its members. More often than not, the society members follow norms in order to create a harmonious community, and the beliefs and the traditions serve as the poles or grounding rules for each member to follow. Culture is very dynamic in the way that it can change over a variety of foreign influences but what is permanent about it is that original elements about it often lingers with the influences, therefore making it multi-faceted and broad. More importantly, culture serves as an individual and unique trait each society has, and therefore sets it apart from other countries and other societies.

A culture typically portrays the character traits or identity of a particular group of people. Each culture has diverse ideologies and perceptions; therefore, every group is different. On a large scale, these ideas merge together and give shape to cultural norms, which in turn form the foundation of reality. In "The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan," Ethan Watters explores the relationship between cultural norms and actuality. The article talks about the influence of pharmaceutical companies on the paradigm shift in Japan's psychiatry. Watters explains, "The objective was to influence, at the most fundamental level, the Japanese understanding of sadness and depression" (516). In other words, Pharmaceutical companies attempted to alter

Becoming an individual’s true self is a form of that person becoming a better person. By becoming in touch with who an individual truly wants to be, he or she can live the life that he or she wants to live. The person can also begin to understand what he or she values and what he or she wants in life. The practices of blindness demonstrated that “It was possible to move forward only if you had the courage to let go of the present” (Armstrong 13). Blind individuals had to have the courage to let go of the present in identifying how their life would become different since they would no longer have the ability to physically see. Buddhists define Nirvana as a “a still center that gave meaning to life” (Armstrong 16) The practices of blindness allowed for blind individuals to give a meaning to their life through their mind. In the practices of blindness, blind individuals “opened ourselves [themselves] to it wholeheartedly and allow [allowed] it to change us [them]” (Armstrong 6). The blind individuals had to change and as mentioned earlier they had to adapt. Jacques Lusseyren became blind in an accident at a very young age. “I stopped caring whether people were dark or fair, with blue eyes or green” (Sacks 334) Lusseyren realized that he didn’t care about the many artificial things in life that most people care about. His practices as a blind individual opened his eyes on what he valued through his visualization skills. Lusseyren was able to “identify himself as belonging to a special category, the “visual blind” (Sacks 334). In society, finding an individual’s true self is a very difficult undertaking. Through the stresses of society people lose touch in what they want. They begin to desire what social standards want them to

Culture is an intermingling mesh of traits that, although unique to each person, brings groups of people together. It is comprised of numerous different aspects that are passed down through generations, including religion, food, clothing, language, music, morals, and greetings. Because of its extensive range, it is easy to see how much culture impacts a person’s life. One’s culture vastly affects how he or she views the world due to ingrained traditions, stereotypes, and values within his or her heritage.

Bevan & Sole (2014) proposes that culture is the cumulative knowledge deposits, opinions, morals, occurrences, outlooks, positions, consequences, orders, moments, spatial relations, the views of the world and the significant things that a collection of people has developed over generations throughout groups and personal endeavors. Culture is not stationary; it is lively and is continuously changing through human conduct, viewpoints, occurrences, concepts and manners including other things said.

Culture is found everywhere. It is found in art, music, tradition, religion, language and law. Culture is hard to ignore, for it is the environment of a person’s upbringing, making us who we are as humans today. These three books, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and Learning to Bow, Inside the Heart of Japan by Bruce Feiler, discuss different cultures and the effects that cohabitation have on them. When two unfamiliar cultures cohabit both cultural groups are effected. Belief systems are challenge, perceptions continue to be predetermined and one when cultures work mutually to understand each other are there positive outcomes.

What I found was that when looking at culture it is important to hold a holistic view. What I mean is that it is important to understand that no one is without culture, we as humans find ourselves as being a part of some sort of group and by observing the myths, rituals, key metaphors, and customs of these groups we can gain insights into the values and beliefs of the people within it. However, insights can only be gained by keeping an open mind, which can only be done by wholeheartedly accepting that there are customs, and beliefs that exist beyond our own culture

Culture refers to socially shared and transmitted patterns of ideas (values, norms, and beliefs) that are instantiated in everyday practices, institutions, and artifacts (Tsai, Levenson, & McCoy, 2006). Culture may play an important role in emotional regulation and expression. Of particular interest is the interplay between collectivistic and individualistic societies and social expectations and customs.

For the purposes of this piece, culture is defined as “the full range of human patterned experience” as described by Cole (1996) cited in Gla ̆veanu & Jovchelovitch (2017, p.113). This chapter also provides a description of the importance culture plays in psychological research.

Culture can be described as a representation of ones background and heritage, the views of music, art, and food are all taken into account when viewing an individual’s culture. Culture is actually a psychological word that describes a range of learned behaviors according individuals ethnic and social beliefs. There are variances in the understanding of abnormal behavior among different cultures. Which has an influence on how abnormalities are diagnosed and

Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1962) identify over 150 scientific definitions of the concept of culture. Indeed, many authors have tried to define culture and this is why there are so many definitions and that a unique one is hard to find. First of all, Kroeber and Kluckholn (1952) assume that culture is a suite of patterns, implicit and explicit, “of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts” (p.47). Later, Hofstede adds that culture is “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another” (Hofstede, 1991, p.51). This definition is the most widely accepted one amongst practitioners. For Winthrop (1991), culture is the distinctive models of thoughts, actions and values that composed members of a society or a social group. In other words,