What is Culture?

1. What is Culture? Consists of the shared products of human groups including physical object as well as beliefs and values.

2. **Humans are NOT controlled by instincts like animals. We adapt to and change to our environment on a variety of ways. Culture is learned and shared. • Material Culture – Physical objects that people create EX: Clothing (Bell Bottoms), buildings (WTC), and automobiles (Volkswagon bugs in the 60’s)

4. Non – Material Culture – Things we create that are abstract. EXAMPLES: • Language • Ideas • Beliefs • Economic Systems (Kobe, Japan – earthquakes in 1995 – worldwide aid sent, Japan refused – if they accept help it would mean they violated the belief of self-reliance.)

6. Society– Group of mutually interdependent people who share a common culture. ***Society consists of people and culture is the products they create***

7. All cultures consist of 4 basic components: • Symbols – Anything that stands for something else.

8. Freedom

9. Get out a piece of paper and a pen/pencil. • Please number from 1-15. • Earn extra credit points! Symbol Quiz How many symbols out of 15 do you think you know? You have 7 seconds to view each one. Here we go- ready?

26. Origins of Red Cross Clara Barton and a circle of acquaintances founded the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C. on May 21, 1881. Barton first heard of the Swiss-inspired International Red Cross Movement while visiting Europe following the Civil War. Returning home, she campaigned for an American Red Cross society and for ratification of the Geneva Convention protecting the war-injured, which the United States ratified in 1882.

27. The pentagram is a five pointed star commonly associated with Wicca, Ritual magick, Satanism, and Masonry. The Pentagram has a complex history as a religious symbol. Found scrawled in caves of ancient Babylonia, the five pointed star was copied from the star shaped pattern formed by the travels of the planet Venus in the sky. The emblem remained popular through many cultures and time periods- The Greeks believed it had magical properties. For a time, it was the official seal of the city of Jerusalem: It was not until the twentieth century that the pentagram became associated with Satanism, probably due to misinterpretation of symbols used by ceremonial magicians.

28. The five Olympic rings were designed in 1913, adopted in 1914 and debuted at the Games at Antwerp, 1920. "The Olympic flag [...] has a white background, with five interlaced rings in the centre : blue, yellow, black, green and red [...] This design is symbolic ; it represents the five continents of the world, united by Olympism, while the six colours are those that appear on all the national flags of the world at the present time." (1931) Textes choisis II, p.470.

31. This ostentatious symbol served as a name for the musician Prince for more than five years After a publishing dispute with his recording company (Warner Brothers). Adapted from the alchemical symbol for soapstone (by the addition of a circle) as illustrated in a Dover Clip Art Book, the symbol was most likely chosen for its resemblance to the planetary symbols of Mars and Venus, making it a particularly fitting symbol for the androgynous artist. The glyph was unpronounceable and caused much consternation amongst members of the media, who took to calling him "The Artist formerly known as Prince," a mouthful eventually shortened to the acronym "TAFKAP."

32. Taoist symbol of the interplay of forces in the universe. In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang represent the two primal cosmic forces in the universe. Yin (moon) is the receptive, passive, cold female force. Yang (sun) is masculine- force, movement, heat. The Yin Yang symbol represents the idealized balance of the forces; equilibrium in the universe.

33. Mathematicians began notating this ratio with the Greek letter Pi around 1706. Perhaps the letter Pi was chosen to represent "periphery" (Pi is the ratio of the circumference (periphery) to the diameter). Pi- Math symbol ***It is important to remember Pi does not equal 3.14; instead, 3.14 is an approximation for Pi. -Really Pi = 3.141592653... (it is an infinite decimal).

34. Christian Fish symbol • Christians found themselves being persecuted by both Romans and Jews. It became dangerous to be a Christian. Thus, when two strangers met and thought they were fellow believers, one of them would draw, on the ground, the upper half of the fish symbol. • . Recognizing the symbol, the stranger would add a second curved line and complete the drawing of a fish. • .It is a very simple shape to draw - just two curved strokes. It could be drawn quickly, and erased just as quickly if there was no sign of recognition on the part of the stranger.

36. Language– The organization of written or spoken symbols into a system • EX. 1 Text messaging PCMnwwan2tlkTUsry4L@ULYAlwz&4evr EX:

37. 3.Values – Shared beliefs about what good/bad, right/wrong, desirable/undesirable • Norms - Shared rules of conduct that tell people how to act (or behave) in specific situations • *** Used to enforce cultural values • EX: Wait your turn, respect handicap parking • What are some other norms in our culture?

38. Folkways:Norms w/ no moral significance attached to them EX. Opening doors for women, apologizing for burping, getting to class on time. • Mores:Norms w/ moral significance EX. Do not kill, steal, etc. • Laws – Written rules of conduct enforced by the government ranging from folkways (no parking) to very strict mores (murder and rape) • Hammurabi’s Code – 1st set of laws

39. Mores & Norms: A Selection From The Code Of Hammurabi • If a judge tries a case, reaches a decision, and presents his judgment in writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it was his own fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judgment. • *If anyone owe a debt for a loan, and a storm prostrates the grain, or the harvest fails, or the grain does not grow for lack of water; in that year he need not give his creditor any grain, he washes his debt-tablet in water and pays no rent for this year. • *If any one be too lazy to keep his dam in proper condition, and does not keep it; and then the dam breaks and all the fields become flooded, then he shall sell the dam and that money shall replace the corn that he ruined.

40. Continued Code of Hammurabi • If anyone gives another silver, gold, or anything else to keep, he shall show everything to some witness, draw up a contract, and then hand it over for safe keeping. • If anyone places his property with another for safe keeping, and there either through thieves or robbers, his property and the property of the other man be lost, the owner of the house, through whose neglect the loss took place, shall compensate the owner for all that was given to charge. But the owner of the house shall try to follow up and recover his property, and take it away from the thief. • If a man wishes to put his son out of his house, and declares before the judge: “I want to put my son out” then the judge shall examine his reason. If the son be guilty of no great fault, for which he can be rightfully put out, the father shall not put him out.

41. Continued Code of Hammurabi • If a man has a wife, and she is seized by disease, and then he desires to take a second wife, he shall not put away his sick wife, who has been attacked by disease, but he shall keep her in the house which he has built and support her so long as she lives. • If a builder builds a house for someone, even though he has not yet completed it; if then the walls topple, the builder must make the walls solid from his own means. If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death. • If a veterinary surgeon performs a serious operation on an ass or an ox, and cures it, the owner shall pay the surgeon one-sixth of a shekel as a fee. If he performs a serious operation on an ass or ox, and kills it, he shall pay the owner one-fourth of its value.

42. Culture isdynamic – which means constantly changing *Sociologists break down culture in order to understand it better. Here’s the breakdown: • Cultural Trait:Smallest unit of culture *An individual tool, act or belief • Cultural Complexes: Cluster of interrelated traits • Cultural Patterns:Combination of cultural complexes into an interrelated whole

43. Example: Football • Traits – Cleats, warm-up bench, football • Complex – The actual game of football is full of cultural traits which make up the game • Pattern – American athletic program

44. Cultural Universals George Murdock (an anthropologist) found 60 common traits among cultures. Know these: 1. Feasting 7. Dancing 2. Cooking 8. Body Adornment 3. Toolmaking 9. Music 4. Religion 10. Funeral Services 5. Sports 6. Medicine Check out these slides featuring examples of Body Adornment…hope your ready!

45. Arapesh vs. Mundugmor • Create a one sentence conclusion of Margearet Mead’s study of these two tribes. * Human behavior is influenced by culture. * • Cultural Relativism – The belief that cultures should be judged by their own standards (have an open-mind) *Beauty is in the eyes of the Beholder!

46. Sacred Cows of India • The sanctity of the cow in Hinduism, the belief that associates the cow with certain deities and thus accords it veneration. Though oxen and bulls were sacrificed and their flesh consumed in ancient India, the slaughter of milk – producing cows was prohibited, and verses of the Rgveda refer to the cow as Devil (goddess), identified with Aditi (mother of the gods) herself. By the early centuries of the Common era, the killing of a cow was equated to the sin of killing a Brahman (a member of the highest, priestly, caste). The degree of veneration afforded the cow is indicated by the use in rites of purification and the five products of the cow – milk, curd, butter, urine, and dung. In modern India the question of the slaughtering of cattle is often a political issue.

48. Subcultures – Groups of people whose norms of behavior and values are different from those of the dominant culture. EX: Deadheads, Amish, doctors • Countercultures- created as a reaction against the values of the dominant culture (usually for political or moral reasons) EX: Hippies, White-Supremacist groups Countercultures can be source for cultural change