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Culture as an Important Facet of Society

Decent Essays

A society without culture is as good as dead. Discuss.
A society according to Thomas, L (1995:25) is defined as “a group of mutually interdependent people who have organized in such a way as to share a common culture and feeling of unity”. In other ways society consists of people, and culture consists of products that people create.
Culture according to Giddens (2005:45) refers to “the pattern of human activity and the symbols, which give significance to this activity”. Culture is represented through the art, literature, costumes, customs and traditions of a community. Different cultures exist in different parts of the world. The natural environment greatly affects the lifestyle of the people of that region, thus shaping their culture. The …show more content…

As Ruth Benedict has pointed out every culture will provide its special type or types of personality.
Culture Makes Man a Human Being; It is culture that makes the human, a man, regulates his conduct and prepares him for group life. It provides to him a complete design for living. It teaches him what type of food he should take and in what mariner, how he should cover himself and behave with his fellows, how he should speak with the people and how he should co-operate or compete with others. An individual abstained from culture is less than human; he is what we call feral, man. The individual to be truly human must participate in cultural stream without it he would have been forced to find his own way, which would mean a loss of energy in satisfying his elementary needs.
Culture Provides Solution for Complicated Situation; culture provides man with a set of behavior even for complicated situation. It has so thoroughly influenced that often he does not require any external force to keep himself in conformity with the social requirements. His action becomes automatic. Forming queues when there is rush at the booking window or driving left in the busy streets. In the absence of culture, he should have been baffled even at the simplest situations. He need not go through painful trial and error learning to know what food can be taken without poisoning himself and fellow. His culture directs and confines his behavior, limits his goals and measures his

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