The world culture has many different meanings. For example, we sometimes say the people who know about art, music, and literature are cultured. However, the word culture has a different meaning for anthropologist (people who study humankind). To an anthropologist the word culture means all the ways in which a group of people of act, dress, think, and feel. People have to learn the cultural ways of their community; they are not something that the people in group are born with.
Instinctive behavior, on the other hand, is a pattern of behavior that an animal is born with. Spiders spinning their webs are examples of instinctive behavior. The mother spider doesn’t teach her babies how spin the webs. (In fact, she is not even there when they born.) They know how to do it when they are born. This is what we mean by instinctive behavior. Baby bird will instinctive run away if cardboard shape of a hawk is moved forwards over their heads. However, they do not run if the cardboard shape is moved backward. Hawk do not flay backwards, so the baby bird’s instinct does not tell them that their instinct is quite specific: the shape of hawk must be moving in the correct direction.
As human, we learn some of ways our culture by being taught by our teacher or parents. We learn more of ways of our culture by growing up in it. We see how other people in our culture do things, and we do them the same way. We even learn how to think and feel in this way.
All human beings have certain basic needs, such as eating, drinking, keeping, warm and dry, and so on. However, the way in which they take care of these needs depends on the culture in which they grow up. All cultures have ways of eating, drinking, dressing, finding shelter, marrying, and dealing with death. The foods that we think are good to eat, the kinds of clothes we wear, and how many people we can marry at one time are all parts of our culture.
Our own culture seems very natural to us. We feel our hearts that the way that we do things is the only right way to do them. Other people’s cultures often make us laugh or feel disgusted or shocked. We many laugh at clothing that seems ridiculous to us. Many people think that eating octopus or juice red piece of roast beef disgusting. The idea that a man can have more than one wife or that brothers and sisters can marry each other many shock other culture.
Ideas of what is beautiful differ from one culture to another. The flathead Indians of North America used bind the heads of babies are between boards so they would have long sloping foreheads. In the flathead culture, long sloping foreheads were beautiful. Other culture might think that they are strange-looking and unattractive. A tribe of Peruvian Indians shaped their children’s skull into tall, narrow domes. The Chinese used bind women’s feet because they regarded small feet as beautiful. (These small feet were also a sign that husband was wealthy because the women could not walk very well, they could not much housework, and so the small feet showed that husband could afford to have many servants.) Many people cut scars into their bodies or tattoo themselves so that others in their culture will think they are beautiful. Objects are inserted in holes in the nose, lips, and ears in a number of different cultures. in many twentieth-century societies, rogue, lipstick, eye shadow, perfume, and hair spray are all used to increase attractiveness.
when people die, different cultures dispose of their bodies in different ways. Sometimes bodies are burned. Sometimes bodies are buried in the ground. In many cultures in the past, people were buried with food, weapons, jewelry, and another things that might be useful in the next live. For example, the ancient Egyptians buried with little human figures made from clay. These clay figures supposed to work for the dead person in the other world. A religious group called the Parsees exposed their dead on platforms for birds to eat. Some people practice a second burial. After the bodies have been in the earth for several years, the bones are dug up and reburied, sometimes in a smaller container.
These are just a few of the many different customs that are found in different cultures. Most of the time, the different ways that are the customs of different cultures are neither right nor wrong. It is simply different people do the same things in different ways.
Source: More Reason for Reading, 1992 p.4
Instinctive behavior, on the other hand, is a pattern of behavior that an animal is born with. Spiders spinning their webs are examples of instinctive behavior. The mother spider doesn’t teach her babies how spin the webs. (In fact, she is not even there when they born.) They know how to do it when they are born. This is what we mean by instinctive behavior. Baby bird will instinctive run away if cardboard shape of a hawk is moved forwards over their heads. However, they do not run if the cardboard shape is moved backward. Hawk do not flay backwards, so the baby bird’s instinct does not tell them that their instinct is quite specific: the shape of hawk must be moving in the correct direction.
As human, we learn some of ways our culture by being taught by our teacher or parents. We learn more of ways of our culture by growing up in it. We see how other people in our culture do things, and we do them the same way. We even learn how to think and feel in this way.
All human beings have certain basic needs, such as eating, drinking, keeping, warm and dry, and so on. However, the way in which they take care of these needs depends on the culture in which they grow up. All cultures have ways of eating, drinking, dressing, finding shelter, marrying, and dealing with death. The foods that we think are good to eat, the kinds of clothes we wear, and how many people we can marry at one time are all parts of our culture.
Our own culture seems very natural to us. We feel our hearts that the way that we do things is the only right way to do them. Other people’s cultures often make us laugh or feel disgusted or shocked. We many laugh at clothing that seems ridiculous to us. Many people think that eating octopus or juice red piece of roast beef disgusting. The idea that a man can have more than one wife or that brothers and sisters can marry each other many shock other culture.
Ideas of what is beautiful differ from one culture to another. The flathead Indians of North America used bind the heads of babies are between boards so they would have long sloping foreheads. In the flathead culture, long sloping foreheads were beautiful. Other culture might think that they are strange-looking and unattractive. A tribe of Peruvian Indians shaped their children’s skull into tall, narrow domes. The Chinese used bind women’s feet because they regarded small feet as beautiful. (These small feet were also a sign that husband was wealthy because the women could not walk very well, they could not much housework, and so the small feet showed that husband could afford to have many servants.) Many people cut scars into their bodies or tattoo themselves so that others in their culture will think they are beautiful. Objects are inserted in holes in the nose, lips, and ears in a number of different cultures. in many twentieth-century societies, rogue, lipstick, eye shadow, perfume, and hair spray are all used to increase attractiveness.
when people die, different cultures dispose of their bodies in different ways. Sometimes bodies are burned. Sometimes bodies are buried in the ground. In many cultures in the past, people were buried with food, weapons, jewelry, and another things that might be useful in the next live. For example, the ancient Egyptians buried with little human figures made from clay. These clay figures supposed to work for the dead person in the other world. A religious group called the Parsees exposed their dead on platforms for birds to eat. Some people practice a second burial. After the bodies have been in the earth for several years, the bones are dug up and reburied, sometimes in a smaller container.
These are just a few of the many different customs that are found in different cultures. Most of the time, the different ways that are the customs of different cultures are neither right nor wrong. It is simply different people do the same things in different ways.
Source: More Reason for Reading, 1992 p.4
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