Ruth Benedict Essay

In the reading The Erosion of Classic Norms by Renato Rosaldo, the author attempts to persuade his readers to recognize that “cultures are learned, not genetically encoded”(2). We are born without a culture and as a social animal we acquire a set of beliefs, values and assumptions as a member of a society, influenced by the immediate surrounding. This set of beliefs, values and assumptions that we adopt refers to culture. For culture is a powerful tool for human survival, Rosaldo highlights the importance of global dexterity for a successful cross-cultural understanding. “Because the range of human possibilities is so great, one cannot predict cultural patterns from one case to the next, except to say that they will not match.

Some may ask what it means to be a part of a specific culture. It may be believed that it merely means to share the same qualities of race, language, and social beliefs. What is not really known are the rise of expectations to fill, repressed wants and needs, or even the binding religious beliefs. A person must begin to recognize the holdings a culture may have on them and how it affects their free will as an individual.

Since the inception of human civilization there have been countless cultures and societies which have helped shape the current world today as we know it. The modern human race dates back more than 200,000 years and in that time frame many cultures have risen to great virtue and success only to deteriorate or cease to exist altogether. First before examining one of these cultures we must know what culture truly means. The Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Culture Center defines culture as a “dynamic social system,” containing the beliefs, behaviors, values and norms of a “specific organization, group, society or other collectivity” learned, shared, internalized, and changeable by all members of the society (Watson, 2010). In

According to cultural anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor, culture is a “complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” In other words, culture is a concept that social organizations practice in order to explain certain phenomena in nature whether through mythology, rituals, art, music, and language. However, as explained by Ethan Watters in “The Mega Marketing of Depression in Japan,” culture is not permanent, since it has the ability, and more than ever in the present society, to “move across boundaries of race, culture, class, and nation” (Watters 519). In addition, as demonstrated by Oliver Sacks in the articled called “The Mind’s Eye: What the Blind See,” it is a mistake to think that individuals are bound to behave in a way that culture told them to behave. Instead, individuals are free to create his or her own unique experience of interpreting the world. We might consider the “reality” that we live in to be fiction to the extent that we are willing to use different faculties and analyze what we are witnessing; this gives us the power, as individuals, to think and search for each of us’s unique interpretation of reality. .

Several factors affect the formation of one’s culture, Palispis, E. (2007) quoted Sir Edward Tylor, “Culture… refers to that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as member of society.” (Palispis, E., 2007) In this context culture is something we acquire from the people we have lived with since we were born, it is not something a person can learn overnight nor can be disposed effortlessly.

In Elise Trumbull and Maria Pacheco’s essay “What is Culture Identity?” it explains how culture has a lot to do with the way someone views other. “Nonetheless, one’s beliefs and action; they have emerged from the ways one’s own group has dealt with and interpreted the particular conditions it has faced” (Trumbull 10). With this text it is basically saying that as a person the choices that are made are based on culture. People stick to how others from their culture have deal with a similar choice. “When we encounter a culture that is different from our own, one of the things we are faced with is a set of beliefs that manifest themselves in behaviors that differ from our own” (Trumbull 01). This quote gives a real world example where a different person with different thoughts, and behaviors are shown up when with someone completely different from their own culture. Ones behaviors are

Culture builds up and shapes how people view the world and the people in it. It determines how we judge and view the way others act, look, and even how they think. In the texts “Where worlds collide”, “An Indian Father’s Plea”, and “Two Kinds”, it is shown that a person’s views of others and the world are solely determined by their culture.

We examine the individual in relation to their historical background, cultural environment, and social life world, or in other words, the context in which they exist. We can see that the individual is able to rise above their cultures through reflection, they are not stuck. We also see that there are more possibilities to understand philosophical subjects such as ethics, political philosophy, etc (Lebech, 221). However, he says that this could also be wrong, since we would expect one to be completely autonomous and free from cultural influences. Lebech thinks this example leads to some misunderstanding the concept of the subject and how it is related to its culture, history, and tradition (Lebech,

In this paper I will begin by defining personal culture and national culture. After, I will then elaborate my own personal and national culture. I will continue to talk about the subject with the person that I have chosen for my cultural group, my mother, and I will identify her personal and national culture. Lastly, I will talk about my own personality and how it has a connection with my own natural culture; knowing this is important, it lets us know who we are, and how we act with people who are from different cultures.

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.

The culture of a space has a powerful influence on the people inhabiting that space, an influence that alters inhabitants to varying degrees. Through the writings of Kant, Montaigne, and Shakespeare–in particular their works What is Enlightenment?, Of Cannibals, and The Tempest, respectively–this idea of cultural influence is able to take shape. Culture is something that all people carry with them, pieces of places and people they have known and groups to which they have been a member. The natural state of people is twisted by culture until there default worldview is changed as if looking through a bias lens. All people carry with them a view of normalcy that is a product of their environments.

Benedict’s Patterns of Culture introduced the non-anthropologist to cultural relativity and the socially constructed nature of race in the 1930s post World War era. Beyond political agenda, Benedict offers a theory of culture that attempts to explain how individual behavior is molded by the overarching ethos or spirit of a culture. Benedict argues that culture exists as patterns, which are dominant themes woven throughout cultural institutions that have their own goals and ambitions. These themes determine culturally appropriate behavior by selecting from a metaphorical ‘arc’ of behavioral potentialities that comply with its chosen theme (Benedict 1934:35). In this way, cultural institutions do not exist simply to meet physiological or psychological needs but rather are articulations of a culture’s goals or

72). Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict popularized this concept as they humanized Anthropology by incorporating observations of human feelings and other psychological states. Following Boas, Lowie rejected and criticized Morgan’s cultural evolutionary approach, and insisted that there is “no one determinant of culture” (Erickson and Murphy, p. 68). Furthermore, Kroeber promoted the concept of the “superorganic”, which emphasizes the “importance of environment over heredity”; thus endorsing Boas’ theory that human behavior results more from nurture than nature (Erickson and Murphy, p. 69). Accordingly, Kroeber launched the search for cultural patterns and its adaptations that correspond to the variation of environments. The results rendered by these scholars promoted the idea that each society contains its own unique culture and social constructs that conflict with Morgan’s theory of uniform progress towards a civilized society.

As a baby we aren’t born with culture. The people who are responsible for our socialization are our parents and others who we might associate with…teachers, friends, etc. As a very small child we learn about the culture we were born in as well as our gender roles. Depending on some cultures women for example are taught that they will be homemakers and do a large share of work. In my culture I learned my future role which would be a daughter, friend, sister, a wife in the future possibly, and then maybe a mother. This is also the time we learn what society expects of us; the norms per say. This is also the time in our lives that our personality forms. While our personality has much to do with our upbringing and genes it also is created by the culture we are in. “Research in geographical sciences has shown regional variation on a number of indicators—including public

'Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another.' (Hofstede, 1991)