Ishmael Beah Influence On Culture

A culture is the body of ideas, ways of looking at the world, values, and standards for conduct and behavior that a given people or nation hold in common. It includes the range of meanings that people assign to their own perceptions and behavior, as well as to the natural world around them. We can define the elements of that culture, and understand how they fit together as a culture, by examining that people's customs, language, religion, material artifacts, and social and political institutions.

The psychological effects, the mentality of fighting and killing another human, and the sheer decimation of human values is what makes war atrocious. War is not only fought on the battlefield though. This book also describes the feelings of a soldier fighting his own demons that war has brought on. The battle that the soldier has with himself, is almost if not more damaging than the physical battle of war. He will never forget his experience with battle, no matter how hard he tries the memories of artillery, blood, and death cannot be erased. “I prayed like you to survive, but look at me now. It is over for us who are dead, but you must struggle, and will carry the memories all your life. People back home will wonder why you can't forget.” (Sledge). This struggle still happens to soldiers today. Sledge’s words of the struggles still captures the effects of warfare that lingers today. The other effects that war has on the men is the instability that surrounds them at every hour of the day. They are either engaged in battle having bullets and artillery fired at them, or waiting for battle just so they can be deposited back in the pressure cooker of survival. “Lying in a foxhole sweating out an enemy artillery or mortar barrage or waiting to dash across open ground under machine-gun or artillery fire defied any concept of time.”

Culture is the characteristics of a group of people defined by language, cuisine, religion social habits music and art. There are many different types of culture including western culture, eastern culture, African culture and many more. Culture is influenced by the groups of people that make up the country (Zimmermann, 2012). The term culture was first used by an English Anthropologist named Edward B. Tyler. It was first mentioned in 1871 in his book named ‘Primitive Culture’. He stated that culture is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”. Since then culture is the main focus of anthropology.

Throughout American history a multitude of issues has plagued society that has caused people to feel oppressed and imprisoned within themselves and society. However, through the utilization and expression of language people have been able to find freedom. Writing and reading allows someone to be free for the reason - it creates opportunities for more compassion. Above all, language allows the exploration of different viewpoints which allows a greater audience, or even oneself, to garner a greater understanding of issues such as racism, and sexual orientation, and mental wellness.

A culture can be defined as a way of life of a group of people- their behaviors, beliefs, values that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next. It also includes the customs, arts, literature, morals/values and traditions of a particular society or group (Virginia Encyclopedia). Culture can also be considered as a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in places or organizations. This topic is of huge importance to our society mainly in the state of

Ishmael’s philosophical teachings relate to our culture through the creation and armament of nuclear weapons in the attempt to establish oneself (such as Soviet Union and United States during the Cold war) as a world super power, not considering the effects testing had on our environment.

The story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is an enormously detailed fictional account of a wartime scenario in which jimmy Cross (the story’s main character) grows as a person, and the emotional and physical baggage of wartime are brought to light. The most obvious and prominent feature of O’Brien’s writing is a repetition of detail. O’brien also passively analyzes the effects of wartime on the underdeveloped psyche by giving the reader close up insight into common tribulations of war, but not in a necessarily expositorial sense.. He takes us into the minds of mere kids as they cope with the unbelievable and under-talked-about effects or rationalizing

I believe this allows the reader to empathize with the soldiers for how tough they had to be. The tale allows one to understand what the soldiers had to eat, how they had to sleep, and what they had to carry with them. This makes the war seem astonishingly real and imaginable. This type of writing does a great job of painting a picture for the reader. For me, the picture the writer painted made me feel fortunate and grateful for the people who have fought for me.

Culture, according to the Webster-Merriam Dictionary, is human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. The world is brimming with diverse, unique cultures. The way one is raised, determined by one’s culture, forms how a person acts, thinks, speaks, and much more. Culture dictates much of one’s life, from the philosophies we adhere to all the way to what we eat for dinner. The way someone's culture impacts or influences their perspective of others and the world depends on the culture they come from since there is notisn't a such thing as “normal” because every culture has different ways of doing things, as shown in the short passages “An Indian Father's Plea”, “Dave Perry Does Japan”, and “Where Worlds Collide”.

The term culture is described as ‘a verb’. However it is explained that culture is difficult to define as it can be associated in different ways by different people. Some people think of culture as a thing while others term it as a set of beliefs,

Culture can be defined as “the sum total of the beliefs, rules, techniques, institutions, and artifacts that characterize human populations” or “the collective programming of the mind.

Culture is a group of people’s way of thinking, and is passed down and expressed through their art; art first appeared in the Paleolithic area with homo sapiens.

The definition of culture offered in one textbook is “That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man person as a member of society.”

Culture can be defined in many ways due to the fact that everyone can have their own distinct and traditional beliefs and values. “ Culture is fluid, it is not a static entity which one takes out of the box on occasion. It is with us daily” (Cultural Handout). Someone’s culture is set as the characteristics of the group practices in language, religion, types of food, social traits and habits, and the distinct arts and music. There are a variety of different cultures for example, Western Culture, Eastern Culture, Latin Culture, Middle Eastern Culture, and African Culture. All of these different cultures have their own ideas, values, and individualism, laws that are implied, civil rights, and even technology. In our, “ Culture Handout” culture is defined as the tool of the mind, “ it is an individual’s way seeing and interacting within the world. It encompasses one’s values systems, beliefs, and perceptions of the world around them. Race, socio-economic class gender, sexual orientation, ability, geographic location, age, religion language, etc. all impact the formation of culture, but these various context are not culture” (Cultural Handout).

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,