Culture and Its Influence

The word "culture" is derived from the Latin word "colere" meaning "to cultivate". Culture is an essential part of every society. It is the learned pattern of manners and ways in which a person lives his or her life. Culture is vital for the survival of a society because it binds people together. It constitutes the music, food, arts and literature of a society. Culture is necessary to establish an order and discipline in the society. It is not only a means of communication between people, but also creates a feeling of belonging and togetherness among people in the society. Culture is something that a person learns from his family and environment, and is not embedded in him from birth. It does not have any biological connection because even if a person is brought up in a culture different from that in which he was born, he absorbs the culture of the society where he grows up. It is also not a veiled fact that some people feel the need to follow the beliefs and traditions of their own culture, even though they might be not pledging to certain principles within. It acts in a subconscious way and whatever we see and perceive, seems to be normal and natural. Sometimes, other societies and people seem to be a little odd because they have a different culture from ours. We must remember that every society has a distinctive culture that forms the backbone of the society. Culture does not remain stagnant; on the other hand it is developing frequently and is in fact somewhat inclined by the other cultures and societies.

Layers of Culture

There are very likely three layers or levels of culture that are part of your learned behavior patterns and perceptions. Most obviously is the body of cultural traditions that distinguish your specific society. When people speak of Italian, Samoan, or Japanese culture, they are referring to the shared language, traditions, and beliefs that set each of these peoples apart from others. In most cases, those who share your culture do so because they acquired it as they were raised by parents and other family members who have it.

The second layer of culture that may be part of your identity is a subculture. In complex, diverse societies in which people have come from many different parts of the world, they often retain much of their original cultural traditions. As a result, they are likely to be part of an identifiable subculture in their new society. The shared cultural traits of subcultures set them apart from the rest of their society. Examples of easily identifiable subcultures in the United States include ethnic groups such as Vietnamese Americans, African Americans, and Mexican Americans. Members of each of these subcultures share a common identity, food tradition, dialect or language, and other cultural traits that come from their common ancestral background and experience. As the cultural differences between members of a subculture and the dominant national culture blur and eventually disappear, the subculture ceases to exist except as a group of people who claim a common ancestry. That is generally the case with German Americans and Irish Americans in the United States today. Most of them identify themselves as Americans first. They also see themselves as being part of the cultural mainstream of the nation.

The third layer of culture consists of cultural universals. These are learned behavior patterns that are shared by all of humanity collectively. No matter where people live in the world, they share these universal traits. Examples of such "human cultural" traits include:

1. communicating with a verbal language consisting of a limited set of sounds and grammatical rules for constructing sentences

2. using age and gender to classify people (e.g., teenager, senior citizen, woman, man)

3. classifying people based on marriage and descent relationships and having kinship terms to refer to

them (e.g., wife, mother, uncle, cousin)

4. raising children in some sort of family setting

5. having a sexual division of labor (e.g., men's work versus women's work)

6. having a concept of privacy

7. having rules to regulate sexual behavior

8. distinguishing between good and bad behavior

9. having some sort of body ornamentation

10. making jokes and playing games

11. having art

12. having some sort of leadership roles for the implementation of community decisions

While all cultures