The Concept of Culture

Culture, a word that is so personal to everyone. Culture can be something you this about of something you do not even realize is a part of you. Culture, to me, are beliefs we hold, the clothes we wear, how we see beauty, things we hold important. Culture are our traditions, the food we eat, and how we eat it. The smells, colors, sounds you hear on a daily basis. Whether its birds chirping or sirens at midnight. Culture deals with the places we call home and what home means. Culture can be a big as a whole society or what happens inside of a family. Culture is whether or not you kiss your loved one in a park on a sunny day, or if you see that as disgraceful. Culture by definition is the learned and shared knowledge that people use to generate behavior and interpret experience. 

In my own experience, culture is what makes a person, whether or not you identify with your culture, it dictates your experiences. But culture is a changing thing. As I have travelled to various countries in Europe, i find that each place i go and each culture i experience, i pick something up and it becomes important to me and relative to my life. I build that upon things I've learned or use it to reevaluate things i have learned. Culture is a combination of experience and reflection. Enculturation is the process by which we learn our culture.  Because we all know, we are not born with culture but learn it as we grow. Culture is all around us, so by engaging in society, living in different groups we are constantly learning culture. As a baby you are with your family all the time, they are teaching you about life, bestowing their culture upon you, then you get older and go to school. Children learn culture from their teachers, what is right and wrong, then they learn things from the peers and create groups where cultures combine and new culture is created. Television imparts culture upon you. When you grow older and are in relationships, your partners culture rubs off on you. Because culture is everywhere, we are constantly being affected, so the process of enculturation never ends and is constantly happening.

We are constantly in contact with culture, and the ways in which culture is imparted upon us, happens in different ways. Cultural analysis helps the anthropologist to break down culture in terms of elements in order to understand it more clearly.There are two different kinds of culture, explicit and tacit culture. Explicit culture is cultural knowledge that people can talk about, its those obvious things about your culture. Most importantly explicit culture is what anthropologists use the to make observations, and understand cultures and can help them discover important key words and objects in culture. Words in a culture, either written or spoken, help to discover and understand cultures. Tacit culture is culture that is not expressed, its subtle, and not clear from just observations. Tacit culture can be seen in speaking differences, in the book it speaks about the different sound differences. In the United States, most people speak English, but from coast to coast, accents and pronunciation of words distinguish culture and geographical regions. Tacit culture can only be seen through behavioral observation. Culture can be words you pick up from a friends to a certain way you view the world. I was a nanny for a while, and the little girl I watch picked up culture when she started kindergarten. Her favorite show when she was still at home all the time was Dora the Explorer, she was on her on and enjoyed the show. She started in kindergarten in the fall, and her new "best friends" we little boys. She came home, and i asked her, would you like to watch Dora, and she said, nope! Dora is for little girls, I don't like girlie things. She had learned the show she watched was for girls, and because she was associating with boys more, she had picked up their ideas, that the show was for babies and little girls only.

culture is our guide to experience the world. it shapes our views.

culture events involve the arrangement of knowledge, practices and artifacts. it is a time when culture is exchanged, ideals, values, beliefs, thoughts are exchanged. The objects, spaces, actions are also important during a cultural event. These cultural events give life, shape to our experiences and life and further interactions. During my trip to Europe I took part in a cultural event, that is an experience, that I do not experience often, but that shapes the lives of people. When I was in Paris, it was the morning and we woke up and started walking down the street, we heard loud noises and their was a large group of people in the street. Their were police standing and watching the people. The people were chanting in French, they were laughing and talking, holding up signs, with the newly elected President Sarokzy. Cars were stopping and honking, smiling and going on. The French are known for protesting political matters that they do not like or agree with. That was something that I have never seen happen in the US. We had stopped and asked what was going on, the young man told us, that we were near the Sorbonne, which is a university in Paris, and they were having a protest against the newly elected President that they did not like. I thought something was wrong, but he informed us that protest happen all the time. Protesting is something that the French value. Having a voice and using it to influence change, is an ideal that they have had since the French Revolution. The idea that they could stand in the middle of Paris and make a statement, getting the people involved. There were many children with the parents, that had stopped to listen to the protest. For a child walking by, seeing this empowers them, and changes how they view themselves in a political system, and implants the idea that you can stand up for your rights. In another country, that might not be as acceptable. In the US, where we have freedom of speech, that is not something we see. It is a cultural event that is inherent in the Parisian culture. It is an cultural event that shapes their view and shapes how they influence things.

Culture is important, there are so many different cultures worldwide, that differ from each other so much. But once you have a look inside the culture, and understand the meaning behind beliefs and behavior, it brings depth to the people and the culture. Something you might have looked at as strange, becomes clearer and the importance of objects, ideas, beliefs becomes meaningful, and full of substance.