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assignment 1 culture

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What is Culture?
Culture plays an important role in the life of man and society, which consists primarily in
the fact that culture, is a means of accumulating, storing and transmitting human experience.
Culture makes a person a person. The individual becomes a member of society, a person as he
socializes, that is, the mastering of knowledge, language, symbols, values, norms, customs, and
traditions of his people, his social group and all humankind. Culture, concentrating the best social
experience of many generations of people, acquires the ability to accumulate the richest knowledge
about the world and thereby create favorable opportunities for its cognition and development.
Culture is the totality of the most diverse manifestations of human activity, including selfexpression, self-knowledge, the accumulation of skills and abilities. Simply put, culture is all that
is created by man, that is, it is not nature. Culture as a kind of activity always has a result.
Depending on the nature of this result (refers to material values or spiritual values), culture is
differentiated into material and spiritual (Carhart 2007).
Culture shapes the personalities of members of society, thus it largely regulates their
behavior. In addition, culture plays an integral role in the life of every person. It provides a full
life of people and the development of society as a whole. In addition, each person meets such a
phenomenon as culture, since from the very birth we are in a certain sphere of culture: spiritual
and material (Kim 2001).
Culture can mean the traditions of the people, their achievements, skills, knowledge. Can
mean the values accumulated by the people of a particular country. Values can be spiritual,
material, moral (Tomasello 1999).
The totality of material and spiritual values created by society and characterizing a certain
level of its development. Here the culture is different material and spiritual. In a narrower sense,
the term refers specifically to a spiritual culture. According to Z. Freud, culture is the sum total of
achievements and institutions that distinguish our life from the life of ancestral animals and serves
the purposes of protection from nature and the regulation of relationships. It is based on two
principles: on the mastery of the forces of nature and on the limitation of human inclinations. There
is one more of its grounds: compulsion to work. 2. The level, degree of development achieved in
a certain field of knowledge or activity: the culture of work, the culture of speech, etc. 3. The
degree of social and mental development inherent in a certain person (Carhart 2007).
A person cannot exist outside culture and cannot develop without his influence. In this
case, the person is the creator of culture; however, he depends on it and falls under its influence.
Spiritual and personal development, the measure of its development as a subject of society depends
on the level of acquaintance of a person with national or world culture. When a person becomes
attached to the world values of culture, his horizon expands significantly and becomes more
diverse.
Thus, a person can receive new knowledge and experience, develop their abilities and
talents, create new subjects and communicate with other people. Nevertheless, since culture is
considered a dynamic process, the introduction to traditions, customs and norms of behavior
occurs throughout the life of a person. This is an ongoing process when it allows each individual
to grow spiritually and fruitfully.
The importance of culture for the functioning of the individual and society can be judged
by the behavior of people who are not covered by socialization. The uncontrolled, or infantile,
behavior of the so-called jungle children, who were completely devoid of human contact, shows
that without socialization people are not able to learn an orderly way of life (Wolfram 2002).
Culture unites people, integrates them, and ensures the integrity of the community.
However, by rallying some because of some subculture, it opposes them to others, divides the
wider communities and communities. Within these wider communities and communities, cultural
conflicts can arise. Thus, culture can and often performs a disintegrating function.
Assimilation of culture is carried out with the help of learning. Culture is created, culture
is trained. Because it, not acquired by biological means, every generation reproduces it and
transmits it to the next generation. This process is the basis of socialization. As a result of the
assimilation of values, beliefs, norms, rules and ideals, the formation of the child's personality and
the regulation of his behavior take place. If the process of socialization stopped on a mass scale,
this would lead to the destruction of culture (Wolfram 2002).
Culture is a diverse concept, which includes many types of cultures. This is scientific,
economic, political, moral, aesthetic, ecological types of cultures. Each of them displays a certain
type of human activity. In addition, culture is divided into spiritual and material. Spiritual is the
result of spiritual production, and the material is the result of material production (Tomasello
1999).
In addition to the fact that culture is an artistic phenomenon, in a broad sense it embodies
the process of consumption. About the culture of consumption speak, as about partial
programming of people and directions of their activity. This is due to the main function of the
culture of consumption, which is mass and accessible to all. This process is also necessary for the
constant improvement of the cultural level of the social masses and the dynamic development of
the world. Moreover, the involvement of each person in the process of culture plays an important
role in this case, since then it is possible to ensure the development of culture through the unity of
innovations and traditions (Paul 2010).
In modern society, along with the prevailing system of culture shared by the majority of a
member of society, there are numerous subcultures expressing the interests of different strata and
groups. They are characterized by specific means of vital activity, modes of existence. For
example, different ethnic, sex-age, criminal, etc. layers and groups create and use only inherent
jargons, or language subcultures. You can talk about the existence in society of youth, men and
women, professional, criminal subcultures (Paul 2010).
Culture - the carrier of social information, which persists and accumulates in society. The
main carriers of information are signs. There are three main types of values (or information) that
they denote. It not only accumulates and stores information (this is primarily the prerogative of the
cultural heritage). Actual information, thanks to culture, is constantly circulating in the society,
transferring experience and knowledge. Culture forms the conditions and means of human
communication. In principle, any artifact reports information. However, in culture there are special
means of communication - sign systems and, first of all, language. Culture - a field of human
communication, it connects, unites people. The development of forms and methods of
communication is the most important factor in the cultural history of humanity. In the course of
history, the power and range of communication equipment is growing: from primitive signal drums
to satellite television. The mass media, radio and television have replaced the writing. In the short
term - the development of computer networks covering the whole world and making available
instant access to contact with any source of information. The development of a culture of
communication promotes mutual understanding and empathy (Ankerl 2000).
According to Edward Sepir (2002) uses the definition, saying that the term "culture" means
"any socially inherited element of human life - both material and spiritual." Ralph Linton (2002)
joins this view, arguing: "The social heritage is called culture ... culture means the entire social
heritage of mankind ..." The above statements are real definitions, because they state that the
meaning of the word "culture" is equivalent to the meaning of the expression "social heritage".
Culture in the broadest sense of the word - is all that is produced, made by a person, to
which he imposed an imprint of his activities. Culture - the measure of development and
achievements of man. American culturologist J. Spreadley (1979) believes that culture is an
acquired set of knowledge that is used by people to interpret their life experiences and choose a
line of behavior. Allocate material and spiritual culture. The culture of different peoples is
distinguished by the technology of activity and its value-semantic values, customs, traditions,
productive and spiritual results of social practice, language specifics, worldview. The culture of
each people accumulates the experience of his life, promotes communication and the establishment
of mutual understanding between people, suggests ways and means to solve many problems,
including interethnic problems.
In conclusion it is important to mention that the role of culture in public life can not be
overemphasized, because, by and large, culture is the medium in which human life flows, and
hence the life of the whole society. Man as a rational creature created a completely unique living
space - culture. In addition, this space has become the life environment of man. It is culture that is
the key component that allows a certain set of individuals to create social integrity, that is, society.
Common methods of communication, common goals and values, common notions of the proper,
the right and the wrong allow society to maintain stability and continuity not only throughout the
life of one generation, but also for much longer periods of time - hundreds, and sometimes even
thousands of years.
References
Ankerl, Guy. 2000. Global communication without universal civilization. Vol.1: Coexisting
contemporary civilizations: Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western. INU societal
research. Geneva: INU Press. ISBN 2881550045.
James, Paul.
2010. Globalization and Culture : Global-Local Consumption. London: Sage
Publications.
Kim, Uichol. 2001. Culture, Science and Indigenous Psychologies: An Integrated Analysis." In D.
Matsumoto .Ed. Handbook of culture and psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Michael Tomasello. 1999. The Human Adaptation for Culture. Annual Review of
Anthropology. 2(8): 509–29. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.28.1.509.
Michael
C.
Carhart.
2007. The
Science
of
Culture
in
Enlightenment
Germany.
Cambridge, Harvard University press.
Reese, W.L. 1980. Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion: Eastern and Western Thought. New
Jersey U.S., Sussex, U.K: Humanities Press.
UNESCO. 2002. Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, issued on International Mother
Language Day, February 21, 2002. Retrieved: 2006-06-23.
Wolfram, Stephen. 2002. A New Kind of Science. Wolfram Media, Inc. ISBN 978-1579550080
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