Culture is a complex and multifaceted concept that encompasses the shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts of a particular group of people. It is a fundamental aspect of human societies and plays a crucial role in shaping individual identities, social interactions, and the way people perceive and interpret the world around them. In this article we will study meaning, nature and characteristics of Culture. Here are some key aspects of culture:
Table of Contents
Meaning of Culture
By culture we mean the system of norms and standards that a society develops over the course of many generations and which profoundly influences the everyday behaviour of people in that society. More simply, culture is as people do. It is that complete whole which includes knowledge, belief, customs, art, morals, law and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man or a member of the society. Ottaway Kleberg defines culture as a way of life.
The term culture has been derived from the verb cultivate and its noun is cultivation. As such culture means to refine or to civilize. It is refinement of the individual as a result of cultivation. It also means to civilize man. The purpose of culture is to give to the society by conscious process of learning and experience, patterns of behaviour which are found useful for a harmonious existence and smooth functioning in all occupations and interactions and thereby ensure individual and group survival and perpetuation. It is the integrated social, biological, and ethnic, modes of behaviour of a group or a society. It is implied that even the possession of ideas, attitudes, values etc. from culture.
University Education Commission (1948-49) remarked, “Culture is an attitude of mind, an inclination of the Spirit and those who yearn for it, wish to have a vision of greatness, sit in the presence of nobility, see the highest reach and scope of the spirit of man”.
The National Policy on Education (1986) observed, “The curricula and process of education will be enriched by cultural content in as many manifestations as possible”. It also observed, “Education can and must bring about the fine synthesis between change-oriented technologies and the country’s continuity of cultural traditions”.
Definitions of Culture
“Culture is that complex whole that consists of everything we think, do and have, as members of society.” – Bierstedt
“A culture is a common way of adjustment of man to his natural surrounding and his economic needs.” – Dawson
“Culture consists of all effort at adjustment.” – Blumenthal
“Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief and morals, law, custom and any other capabilities acquired by man as a member of society.” – Taylor, F.B.
“Culture is the expression of our nature in our modes of living and thinking in our everyday intercourse in art, in literature in reaction and enjoyment.” – Mac Iver
“The ideals, values and beliefs members of a society share to interpret experience and generate behaviour and that are reflected by their behaviour.” – Haviland
Nature of Culture
The nature of Culture as follows:
➤ Culture refers to the pattern of human activity and the symbols that give significance to these activities.
➤ Culture manifests itself in terms of the art, literature, costumes, customs, language, religion and religious rituals. The people and their pattern of life make up the culture of a region.
➤ Cultures vary in different parts of the world. They are different across the land boundaries and the diversity in cultures result in the diversity in people around the world.
➤ Culture also consists of the system of beliefs held by the people of the region, their principles of life and their moral values. The patterns of behaviour of the people of a particular region also form part of the region’s culture.
➤ The word culture that hails from the Latin word, ‘cultura’ derived from ‘colere’, means, ‘to cultivate’. Hence the way in which the minds of the masses inhabiting a particular region are cultivated, in some way determines the culture of region.
The Characteristics of Culture
George Peter Murdock has stated the following characteristics of Culture:
1. The Learned Quality: Man is not born with culture. Hence, it is a learned process and man moulds himself according to his environment.
2. The Transmitter Quality: Culture is transmitted from person to person. The individual is moulded according to his family and society of which he is the member.
3. The Social Quality: Each society has culture. Each member of the society is dependent on the other and each expects from the other. This expectation binds the society.
4. The Quality of Idealism: Culture is based on some ideals and each generation acquires it from its predecessors and each member has to follow it.
5. Gratifying Quality: Man as a member of the society has various needs and these needs are satisfied by the culture.
6. The Adaptive and Integrative Quality: Each culture tries to adopt the qualities from outside, its own environment. The contact of two or more cultures takes place and this interaction lends the adaptive quality to the culture. The different aspects of culture join hands to form a whole integrative culture.
7. Culture is Always Idealized: Human beings are continuously refining and polishing their behaviour, action and thought. Culture stands for ideals and norms of human behaviour.
8. Culture Meets the Recurring Demands of Mankind: Culture meets the various recurring demands of mankind demand of reproduction, nursing an infant to maturity, marriage, and finally disposal of the dead. All these demands are met by culture from generation to generation. Culture points out the smooth way to meet the perceptual demands of individuals.
Culture has the following some more characteristics:
1. Culture is Shared
Group of people who have a common homeland are interdependent, and share a common culture. Depending on the region they live in, the climatic conditions they thrive in and their historical heritage, they form a set of values and beliefs. This set of their principles of life shapes their culture. No culture belongs to an individual. It is rather shared among many people of a certain part of the world. It belongs to a single community and not to any single human being.
2. Culture is based on Symbols
Culture is based on symbols. Much of human behaviour is mediated by symbols-signs, sounds, emblems, and other things that represent meaningful concepts. The most important symbolic aspect of culture is language. Language represents the most pervasive use of symbols in a culture because it uses symbols to represent objects and ideas.
3. Culture is Dynamic
Culture is dynamic. When one element within the system shifts, the entire system shifts to accommodate it. When the women leave their cultural homeland and flock to the city to work, they provide an example of dynamic nature of culture. They and their families must adapt to new circumstances without losing their cultural identities.