Intro Cultural: Chap. 2
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- [00:00:01.305]All right, hello everyone.
- [00:00:02.935]Now we're on to Chapter 2: What is Culture
- [00:00:05.066]and Culture Change.
- [00:00:06.336]This set of slides is a bit long
- [00:00:08.389]I think there are 28 in them,
- [00:00:10.364]but it's important because we're gonna be talking
- [00:00:12.323]about defining culture, cultural constraints,
- [00:00:15.192]attitudes that hinder the study of culture,
- [00:00:17.794]cultural relativism, and pay attention to this,
- [00:00:20.834]because it has to do
- [00:00:22.072]with a contextual understanding of culture,
- [00:00:25.223]and then how to describe a culture.
- [00:00:28.093]So we have about 28 slides to go through.
- [00:00:33.070]And then also, we're gonna talk about culture change.
- [00:00:35.821]How and why cultures change, culture change and adaptation.
- [00:00:39.834]That is when culture changes, do they allow people
- [00:00:42.781]to become better adapted to the social
- [00:00:46.448]and physical environment.
- [00:00:49.473]Globalization, which I think many of you
- [00:00:51.370]have a sense about some problems and opportunities there.
- [00:00:55.320]Ethnogenesis, or the emergence of new cultures,
- [00:00:58.548]and also kind of some speculation the authors make
- [00:01:01.636]about cultural diversity in the future.
- [00:01:06.260]So, a culture is a set of learned behaviors and ideas
- [00:01:09.050]that are characteristic of a particular society
- [00:01:12.091]or other social group, so it can have subcultures.
- [00:01:15.257]Some anthropologists would include material culture
- [00:01:18.909]in defining culture.
- [00:01:21.181]I don't know why it's controversial, but for some it is.
- [00:01:23.752]To me, it's not.
- [00:01:25.351]The kind of objects we make,
- [00:01:27.106]whether they're computers, cellphones, or forks,
- [00:01:30.241]are all part of our culture
- [00:01:32.404]and they're part of our material culture
- [00:01:34.144]that powerfully interact with us on a daily basis.
- [00:01:39.865]Here's the very old, but I think useful definition
- [00:01:43.826]developed by Edward B. Tylor in 1871,
- [00:01:47.567]and it bears some kind of strong consideration.
- [00:01:51.407]And he says is that complex whole
- [00:01:53.303]which includes knowledge, belief, art,
- [00:01:55.121]morals, law, customs, and any other behavior
- [00:01:58.303]or any other capabilities and habits acquired
- [00:02:01.109]by man as a member of society.
- [00:02:04.327]By man, 1871, so you understand that term,
- [00:02:07.642]but the condition of culture among various societies
- [00:02:10.792]in mankind, insofar as it is capable
- [00:02:13.049]of being investigated on general principles,
- [00:02:16.231]is a subject apt for the study of laws
- [00:02:19.221]of human thought and action,
- [00:02:21.322]or what we would say as behavior.
- [00:02:23.422]So, you know, look at those bold faced terms.
- [00:02:26.384]Complex whole, capabilities and habits,
- [00:02:29.801]gained as a member of a particular society,
- [00:02:33.610]and how it's useful for understanding laws of human thought,
- [00:02:38.672]which we would call psychology today, and behavior.
- [00:02:43.187]So that 1871 definition is quite good.
- [00:02:51.568]Something we want to emphasize in defining culture
- [00:02:55.653]is that it's commonly shared.
- [00:02:57.613]It's learned, and language is a means for transmission.
- [00:03:00.983]This is really critical, because many species,
- [00:03:04.258]whether they're chimpanzees or killer whales,
- [00:03:07.080]do have culture.
- [00:03:08.255]They do have traditions that are learned
- [00:03:10.387]and passed on from generation to generation,
- [00:03:13.130]and the means by which this is passed on in nonhumans
- [00:03:17.236]is usually by observational kinds of learning.
- [00:03:20.308]But for humans, we can use language to pass on information
- [00:03:25.167]about our culture to individuals,
- [00:03:27.440]so they don't actually have to see the behavior,
- [00:03:29.995]they can just be told about the behavior,
- [00:03:32.252]and know in the appropriate circumstances
- [00:03:35.089]whether or not to exhibit that sort of behavior.
- [00:03:38.772]So language is really, really critical,
- [00:03:41.625]and many would argue that language is,
- [00:03:44.399]if you had to look at anything, any one thing,
- [00:03:47.910]language is the thing that really defines us as a species,
- [00:03:51.541]because it's so important in the kind
- [00:03:55.095]of culture that we have.
- [00:03:57.320]Culture is commonly shared.
- [00:03:59.530]The size of a group within which culture traits are shared
- [00:04:02.226]can vary from particular society or a segment
- [00:04:05.925]of that society, so a subculture.
- [00:04:07.681]So that we have subcultures within cultures.
- [00:04:10.721]We can talk about certain kinds of millennial culture
- [00:04:16.333]or teen culture or the culture of old people.
- [00:04:20.348]There's some variation from generation to generation
- [00:04:23.176]or there's some sorts of ethnic modifications
- [00:04:26.557]in those societies that are multiethnic,
- [00:04:28.994]or sometimes a regional sorts of subcultures,
- [00:04:32.635]if we're talking about rural areas versus urban areas.
- [00:04:39.283]Culture is learned, that's pretty evident.
- [00:04:41.851]A defining feature of culture is that
- [00:04:43.493]it is learned often through observation,
- [00:04:45.768]but humans have a unique way of, as I mentioned,
- [00:04:48.402]for transmitting their culture through the use
- [00:04:51.067]of spoken, symbolic language.
- [00:04:53.131]Again, that's what distinguishes our form of culture,
- [00:04:56.155]human culture, from other animal forms of culture.
- [00:05:00.448]There's some controversies, as I mentioned,
- [00:05:02.786]disagreement on whether the concept of culture
- [00:05:04.947]should refer to rules and ideas behind behaviors
- [00:05:08.865]or should include the behaviors and products of behaviors.
- [00:05:12.343]I would say that it should include both.
- [00:05:15.171]The rules and ideas and attitudes and orientations
- [00:05:18.324]on the one hand are kind of like deep pyschological
- [00:05:21.310]sorts of phenomena, but then behavior, too,
- [00:05:25.102]that's when those ideas and rules hit the road
- [00:05:29.540]and develop into human interactions.
- [00:05:32.026]So culture has to do with these two dimensions
- [00:05:34.952]of the internal and then the external,
- [00:05:37.862]and also the products of external behaviors,
- [00:05:40.998]such as material culture.
- [00:05:44.070]Culture shock.
- [00:05:45.045]Here's something that's interesting.
- [00:05:46.394]When traveling abroad and encountering
- [00:05:47.906]a radically different culture on an intimate level,
- [00:05:50.344]one can experience culture shock
- [00:05:52.327]or a sense of confusion and uncertainty,
- [00:05:55.155]sometimes with feelings of anxiety
- [00:05:56.971]that may affect people exposed to an alien culture
- [00:06:00.243]or environment without adequate preparation.
- [00:06:04.550]You know, anybody who has traveled abroad
- [00:06:06.663]will kind of experience this.
- [00:06:08.305]You have a set of reflexes that are cultural reflexes
- [00:06:11.100]that affect the way you respond to other individuals,
- [00:06:14.920]yet they're on a different kind of page, their own culture,
- [00:06:18.723]so you kind of get this kind of confusion,
- [00:06:21.730]this sort of lack of match.
- [00:06:23.892]Your expectations aren't being met.
- [00:06:26.802]And then, so anthropologists can also experience this
- [00:06:30.215]in the early days of your initial fieldwork,
- [00:06:34.323]but also you kind of, when you come home,
- [00:06:36.861]you experience sometimes reverse culture shock,
- [00:06:40.713]where after you've been in the field
- [00:06:43.314]for a long period of time,
- [00:06:44.972]you've developed a different set of habits
- [00:06:47.296]which really don't fit because they're appropriate
- [00:06:50.076]for that culture you were studying,
- [00:06:52.514]and you come home, you kind of get
- [00:06:53.977]this reverse culture shock.
- [00:06:55.846]It's nothing really serious, but what it is allows you to do
- [00:06:59.048]is to kind of realize how unconscious
- [00:07:01.746]or almost reflexive your behavior has become
- [00:07:05.663]in a certain cultural milieu,
- [00:07:07.728]and that's disrupted by moving
- [00:07:09.678]to a different kind of cultural milieu.
- [00:07:11.954]You wonder what in the heck is going on
- [00:07:14.603]because your expectations and habits
- [00:07:16.927]aren't being met the way you think they should be met,
- [00:07:19.674]or you're not being understood
- [00:07:21.348]the way you intended to be understood.
- [00:07:24.583]Cultural constraints.
- [00:07:26.582]There's a mention of Emile Durkheim,
- [00:07:28.695]who was a French social theorist,
- [00:07:32.120]and he was kind of a godfather, if you will,
- [00:07:38.122]to both anthropology and sociology,
- [00:07:41.243]and it points out that culture is something
- [00:07:43.356]that is outside us exerting a strong
- [00:07:45.827]and coercive power on us.
- [00:07:48.184]And he's talked about norms are standards
- [00:07:50.037]or rules concerning what is acceptable behavior,
- [00:07:52.735]and this is kind of like imposed on the outside of us,
- [00:07:55.807]because we are living in a social group
- [00:07:59.643]where certain sets of habits and regulations are expected.
- [00:08:05.055]So, it kinda constrains what we can do
- [00:08:07.275]and we do our best to fit in.
- [00:08:12.286]Here's some important concepts here
- [00:08:15.391]that are surely gonna be on the test.
- [00:08:17.699]Attitudes that hinder the study of culture.
- [00:08:20.819]The person who judges other cultures
- [00:08:22.460]solely in terms of his or her own culture
- [00:08:24.833]is practicing ethnocentrism,
- [00:08:27.873]and so by judging, if you look up here,
- [00:08:30.441]we mean by making a moralistic evaluation like good or bad.
- [00:08:34.131]This does not mean that researchers
- [00:08:35.961]or students don't have their own views,
- [00:08:38.355]but such views are not scientific.
- [00:08:41.200]For example, if you have a reaction
- [00:08:43.443]to eating a certain kind of food,
- [00:08:46.661]let's say a fried grasshopper, that occurs in some cultures,
- [00:08:52.106]then you kind of get this, maybe,
- [00:08:54.642]perhaps a disgusted feeling and make a judgment
- [00:08:59.957]about whether it's good or bad,
- [00:09:01.940]but as anthropologists we wanna understand the practices
- [00:09:06.978]and not make judgements.
- [00:09:08.522]By making judgements it's not scientific,
- [00:09:10.896]it's into the area of morality,
- [00:09:13.431]which science can provide information on,
- [00:09:16.682]whether certain moral traits are effective or ineffective,
- [00:09:21.834]but that's not the job of science.
- [00:09:24.403]That's the job of ethics and morality,
- [00:09:28.742]so be aware of ethnocentrism.
- [00:09:32.383]And it also has to do with the fact
- [00:09:33.992]that not only do you make moral judgements,
- [00:09:35.927]but you kinda see the world
- [00:09:37.357]in the context of your own culture.
- [00:09:40.589]When you start making judgments,
- [00:09:43.435]then you're engaging in ethnocentrism.
- [00:09:46.101]This is common to everybody.
- [00:09:47.873]We all have our ethnocentric views,
- [00:09:49.726]whether we're a scientist or non-scientist,
- [00:09:52.229]but it's really important to be aware of them
- [00:09:54.260]to make a naked evaluation of a particular culture.
- [00:09:58.438]Cultural relativism.
- [00:10:00.925]Here we're talking about the idea
- [00:10:03.134]that a society's customs and ideas
- [00:10:05.377]should be described objectively,
- [00:10:07.442]and this is the important part, objectively is important,
- [00:10:10.497]but also understood in the context
- [00:10:12.643]of that society's culture.
- [00:10:14.593]So that's what cultural relativism is all about,
- [00:10:17.405]trying to understand, not judge, a particular cultural trait
- [00:10:21.518]in the context of the culture that it's found in,
- [00:10:24.925]and so this is an important kind of concept.
- [00:10:32.162]It is, however, different from something called
- [00:10:34.406]ethical relativism, which is alive and well
- [00:10:38.851]in lots of dimensions of our life,
- [00:10:42.740]and that is the idea that ethical relativism,
- [00:10:45.501]which means that all cultures or cultural traits
- [00:10:47.521]ought to be respected.
- [00:10:50.568]But ethical relativism is not a scientific approach
- [00:10:53.767]because science attempts to understand,
- [00:10:55.534]as I mentioned before, explain, or predict
- [00:10:57.521]without making a moral evaluation
- [00:11:00.046]by saying a cultural practice is bad or good.
- [00:11:02.339]We just want to understand it objectively.
- [00:11:04.662]Therefore, ethical relativism is not a part
- [00:11:06.598]of scientific anthropology.
- [00:11:09.628]And you know, for example,
- [00:11:11.413]some societies engage in infanticide,
- [00:11:15.167]the killing of the newborn.
- [00:11:17.827]It's an allowable kind of cultural trait,
- [00:11:21.850]and to say that, for example,
- [00:11:28.013]that sort of behavior ought to be respected
- [00:11:31.160]is really dubious.
- [00:11:36.093]Or, for example, genital operations on females
- [00:11:41.312]in certain cultures are required,
- [00:11:43.875]and some of us would have a hard time
- [00:11:46.699]respecting that sort of practice.
- [00:11:51.076]So, think about the difference between
- [00:11:53.565]science has to do with accurate description,
- [00:11:57.204]ethics, morality have to do with making judgements
- [00:12:00.184]about the goodness or badness
- [00:12:02.456]of a particular kind of trait.
- [00:12:04.173]They're two different kind of ways of looking at the world
- [00:12:08.786]and we're doing anthropology here,
- [00:12:12.490]so we're trying to inculcate the scientific approach
- [00:12:16.278]to understanding cultures and not a moralistic one.
- [00:12:20.385]Describing a culture.
- [00:12:21.581]We have individual variation,
- [00:12:23.281]ideal versus actual cultural patterns,
- [00:12:26.008]how to discover cultural patterns,
- [00:12:28.113]and one thing that we use are key informants.
- [00:12:31.177]These are people who we come to know
- [00:12:35.352]because of their intelligence,
- [00:12:37.995]their ability to understand the sorts of questions
- [00:12:40.789]that we're interested in asking and understanding,
- [00:12:44.861]and then another way to learn about cultural patterns
- [00:12:48.800]is through observation and participation.
- [00:12:51.772]Participant observation,
- [00:12:53.422]as it's commonly known in anthropology,
- [00:12:55.594]is the idea is that you observe what's going on.
- [00:12:58.355]And then also, to gain perhaps a deeper understanding,
- [00:13:00.846]you participate in certain activities
- [00:13:02.951]to get a kind of feel for them.
- [00:13:05.530]Key informants, observation and participation
- [00:13:08.409]are two important methods.
- [00:13:09.789]There are other methods, such as standard survey
- [00:13:12.769]sorts of approaches that are widespread
- [00:13:16.338]in the social sciences, or experiments, etc., etc.
- [00:13:23.813]But, these are two things
- [00:13:26.506]that anthropologists bring to the table
- [00:13:28.476]as really important in understanding another culture.
- [00:13:31.573]Key informants and observation and participation,
- [00:13:35.806]known as participant observation for that last point.
- [00:13:39.843]Ideal versus actual cultural patterns.
- [00:13:44.035]The point here is that what people say they do
- [00:13:46.560]is not always what they do.
- [00:13:48.715]And so while we can interview and talk to people,
- [00:13:51.812]it's really important to see how
- [00:13:54.759]what they say they do really maps out in actual behaviors.
- [00:13:59.506]So the behavioral dimension of it is really important.
- [00:14:02.688]This is where the anthropology
- [00:14:04.001]that's mentioned in Chapter 1 is really different
- [00:14:07.841]because we actually live the life of other peoples,
- [00:14:12.139]or as close as we can, and we see actually
- [00:14:14.883]whether or not their ideal values
- [00:14:17.240]from the culture play out in their real world
- [00:14:20.034]or under what conditions they actually do play out.
- [00:14:27.004]People follow cultural rules without knowing it.
- [00:14:29.799]You really see this, for example, in cultural shock
- [00:14:34.706]where you go to a different culture
- [00:14:36.482]and things just aren't working, you're not understanding,
- [00:14:39.950]you're not getting through to people,
- [00:14:41.920]you're making mistakes, and so for example,
- [00:14:46.465]we typically don't really understand these rules.
- [00:14:51.200]Look at this example here
- [00:14:53.351]that has to do with personal space.
- [00:14:56.532]When we're talking to someone,
- [00:14:58.586]we automatically adjust that conversational distance
- [00:15:03.822]and also, we may adjust the kind of tenor in which we speak
- [00:15:09.462]when we're making jokes or we're very formal
- [00:15:11.701]or we're using slang, or are we using a slang
- [00:15:14.108]that is really understood by someone
- [00:15:16.970]because they're a member of your particular social group,
- [00:15:19.647]whether we touch people, etc.
- [00:15:22.004]And so, you know, we try to look at these kind of behaviors
- [00:15:25.135]in some sort of frequency and distribution, and here's one.
- [00:15:29.916]Three feet seems to be the kind of distance
- [00:15:33.586]that people, when they're intently conversing.
- [00:15:37.138]But there's some variation.
- [00:15:39.327]Some people get really close, but most people stand,
- [00:15:42.408]or you know, have this mode,
- [00:15:43.923]although I'd think for kind of casual acquaintances,
- [00:15:48.081]that mode would be shifted a little bit more
- [00:15:50.825]to the right, more to four feet,
- [00:15:52.256]with a kind of more narrow distribution.
- [00:15:56.041]When someone you don't know very well
- [00:15:57.764]gets really close to you, really in your face,
- [00:16:00.340]you kind of back off a little bit
- [00:16:01.822]because that's not the appropriate distance,
- [00:16:06.131]given your relationship with that person.
- [00:16:09.313]And so we kind of do these things automatically
- [00:16:11.838]and we're kind of unconscious of them
- [00:16:15.424]in a very fundamental way.
- [00:16:16.771]It's hard for us to formalize these rules,
- [00:16:19.751]but we have these patterns of behavior
- [00:16:23.185]that we only come to realize when the rules are broken,
- [00:16:27.545]somebody gets too close to you, in your face,
- [00:16:30.155]and you feel uncomfortable.
- [00:16:34.077]Culture is usually adaptive.
- [00:16:36.316]Adaptation to the environment is a major reason
- [00:16:40.075]for traits to be patterned.
- [00:16:42.081]And some would say that many cultural traits
- [00:16:46.753]are adaptive, they help people survive
- [00:16:51.141]and reproduce in a particular environment.
- [00:16:56.579]But there are some culture's traits
- [00:16:59.155]that are maladaptive, and we'll get into these
- [00:17:02.218]a little bit later in the course.
- [00:17:03.872]But many, for example, genital operations,
- [00:17:08.282]are really maladaptive.
- [00:17:10.589]They reduce one's chances of survival and reproduction.
- [00:17:14.932]But for the most part, cultural patterns are adaptive.
- [00:17:20.420]They're good for us in terms of getting along.
- [00:17:24.453]So, adaptive customs enhance survival and reproduction
- [00:17:28.100]and in the next week, in week two,
- [00:17:32.353]you're going to be reading an article on spice use
- [00:17:36.686]entitled "Some like it hot" and it'll give you a sense
- [00:17:40.107]of the kind of spices that are in a culture
- [00:17:43.424]and those spices that relate to the consumption of meat
- [00:17:47.296]and fish are very adaptive,
- [00:17:51.588]because spices, in fact, are antimicrobial agents
- [00:17:57.178]that allow meat to not grow old and rancid,
- [00:18:03.712]but you're gonna read that in the next week.
- [00:18:10.800]How and why culture changes.
- [00:18:12.400]So, discovery and invention, diffusion, and acculturation.
- [00:18:15.986]So these are three sorts of things
- [00:18:17.972]that lead to cultural change,
- [00:18:20.514]because culture changes through time.
- [00:18:23.443]It doesn't remain stagnant,
- [00:18:25.632]even if we're going into a tribal population,
- [00:18:28.561]the idea that they've been doing what they've been doing
- [00:18:32.029]for the last couple thousand years is largely wrong.
- [00:18:37.905]Cultures do change through time,
- [00:18:40.245]even those cultures that are very traditional.
- [00:18:43.999]However, it's really clear at the same time,
- [00:18:46.187]to some extent, in this rapidly changing cultural world
- [00:18:53.662]and this'll be taken into consideration,
- [00:18:57.669]so culture is dynamic, it's not fixed.
- [00:19:04.154]As the textbook talks about,
- [00:19:05.447]we have unconscious invention, intentional invention,
- [00:19:08.275]people trying to make things work.
- [00:19:10.854]A better mousetrap, or whatever.
- [00:19:12.655]Who adopts innovations is also mentioned,
- [00:19:17.369]and whether a particular thing is adopted, a cultural trait,
- [00:19:24.497]depends on the costs and benefits.
- [00:19:26.265]And when the benefits outweigh the costs of the trait,
- [00:19:29.564]then that trait tends to spread through a population.
- [00:19:33.201]Again, this is kind of an examination
- [00:19:36.147]through an evolutionary and natural selection
- [00:19:39.766]sort of perspective.
- [00:19:41.955]Diffusion is a process by which cultural elements
- [00:19:44.227]are borrowed from another society
- [00:19:46.062]and incorporated into the culture of the recipient group.
- [00:19:49.227]So the text talks about direct contact,
- [00:19:52.426]intermediate contact, and stimulus diffusion.
- [00:19:56.349]There's a section in the chapter on the Cherokee alphabet,
- [00:20:01.012]but the idea here is that cultures don't exist in isolation.
- [00:20:05.793]They can borrow traits through diffusion
- [00:20:09.581]from other cultures and incorporate them
- [00:20:13.049]in their own culture and in the area
- [00:20:16.096]that's doing this diffusion.
- [00:20:17.298]The idea here is that a particular cultural trait
- [00:20:22.062]is kind of modified from the originating context
- [00:20:28.426]or culture to fit into the culture
- [00:20:33.224]of the people that are adopting the trait.
- [00:20:35.244]For example, if you'll look at McDonald's.
- [00:20:40.764]You can call it the going to McDonald's cultural trait,
- [00:20:43.628]McDonald's are all over the world,
- [00:20:46.304]but the kinds of food they serve in India,
- [00:20:49.234]especially among those of Hindu religion don't eat meat,
- [00:20:57.129]and you think how can you have McDonald's
- [00:20:58.846]without hamburgers?
- [00:21:02.585]They do work in India, but what's served
- [00:21:05.609]at Indian McDonald's is completely different,
- [00:21:08.277]essentially vegetarian compared to what's served
- [00:21:11.156]at American McDonald's.
- [00:21:14.473]Acculturation refers to the changes that occur
- [00:21:16.897]when a different cultural group
- [00:21:18.412]comes into intensive contact.
- [00:21:21.072]Now here we have a situation in which one of the societies
- [00:21:23.378]in contact is much more powerful than the other,
- [00:21:25.752]and so we get acculturation where the weaker society
- [00:21:29.085]or the dependent or the colonial society
- [00:21:31.829]essentially changes its cultural repertoire
- [00:21:35.550]to become closer to the more dominant society.
- [00:21:38.951]This is another mode of culture change.
- [00:21:40.971]It's happened again and again,
- [00:21:45.169]so this should be borne in mind.
- [00:21:47.806]So it has to do with the kind of diffusion
- [00:21:50.129]that is a consequence of a dominant culture invading
- [00:21:54.641]or colonizing or somehow controlling another culture
- [00:21:58.513]and we get this process of acculturation.
- [00:22:02.334]Culture change and adaptation.
- [00:22:05.987]While customs are not genetically inherited,
- [00:22:09.203]cultural adaptations may be somewhat similar
- [00:22:11.711]to biological adaptations, and here the idea, again,
- [00:22:16.071]we can use the idea of the spice used on meat
- [00:22:20.398]and how it varies.
- [00:22:22.048]We have very hot, humid environments
- [00:22:24.842]where meat rapidly spoils, then you find a lot of spice use
- [00:22:31.475]and the use of spices that are, you know,
- [00:22:34.169]have strong antimicrobial properties.
- [00:22:37.755]Again, you'll be reading that next week.
- [00:22:41.290]And then, also, culture can cause genetic change.
- [00:22:45.213]For example, cooking was invented
- [00:22:48.479]and it was probably invented, and we're not surely sure,
- [00:22:52.115]but around 200,000 years ago.
- [00:22:56.879]And so we kind of added that to our cultural repertoire
- [00:23:01.879]and to prepare our food, and what has happened
- [00:23:05.662]as a consequence is that it's caused
- [00:23:07.573]biological changes in us.
- [00:23:09.997]It caused a reduction in our jaw size, our teeth size,
- [00:23:15.216]because essentially cooking makes food more palatable
- [00:23:19.273]and makes it softer, makes it easier to digest,
- [00:23:22.404]and so our stomach and intestines
- [00:23:24.256]are much smaller than they ought to be.
- [00:23:27.034]And it has to do with the fact
- [00:23:28.381]that we've essentially pre-processed the food
- [00:23:31.276]through cooking, which has had a biological
- [00:23:38.027]and genetic change on us in that we didn't need
- [00:23:41.158]the kind of robust digestive system
- [00:23:44.610]that we had before cooking came onto the scene,
- [00:23:49.913]and so culture can cause biological changes in humans,
- [00:23:54.980]and cooking is probably the easiest one to understand
- [00:24:00.502]and probably one of the most profound cultural traits
- [00:24:05.047]to understand in terms of how it's led
- [00:24:07.354]to genetic changes in humans.
- [00:24:10.434]Culture change and adaptation again.
- [00:24:12.943]Some conditions that may give rise
- [00:24:14.576]to rebellion and revolution.
- [00:24:16.714]Loss of prestige of established authority,
- [00:24:19.172]threat to recent economic improvement,
- [00:24:21.411]indecisiveness of government,
- [00:24:23.128]loss of support of the intellectual class,
- [00:24:25.401]so some culture change occurs very rapidly.
- [00:24:29.155]We're talking about not evolution here but revolution,
- [00:24:33.549]and these are some of the four factors
- [00:24:35.906]that historians, for example, have identified
- [00:24:38.198]as leading to a kind of serious, especially political change
- [00:24:45.134]and sometimes economic change in a culture
- [00:24:48.417]that happens very rapidly.
- [00:24:52.256]Globalization is the spread
- [00:24:54.023]of cultural features around the world.
- [00:24:56.144]And so here we're talking about a kind of hyper diffusion.
- [00:25:00.808]The diffusion of a cultural trait
- [00:25:02.205]does not mean that it is incorporated exactly the same way.
- [00:25:05.825]For example, I gave on McDonald's in India,
- [00:25:09.814]but we have examples of music, food, cellphones,
- [00:25:15.084]social media, fashion, etc., etc.,
- [00:25:17.659]so as the communication network around the world
- [00:25:21.026]becomes broader and broader and more intensive,
- [00:25:25.649]we have this ability to kind of pick and choose
- [00:25:31.653]cultural traits from around the world
- [00:25:33.538]that we find interesting.
- [00:25:35.592]We're a dominant society, so American culture
- [00:25:37.865]is diffusing much more powerfully around the world,
- [00:25:41.366]but still, elements of other cultures
- [00:25:44.245]are diffused into American society
- [00:25:47.831]in the areas of certain kinds of fashion,
- [00:25:50.137]certain kinds of music, think about world music,
- [00:25:53.555]and things of that nature.
- [00:25:55.104]And they're all kind of mediated by the internet
- [00:25:58.976]and cellphones and things of that nature.
- [00:26:03.100]Ethnogenesis is a process whereby new cultures
- [00:26:05.719]are created, usually in the aftermath of violent events
- [00:26:09.420]such as depopulation, relocation,
- [00:26:11.137]enslavement, and genocide.
- [00:26:12.922]And the example that we probably all understand here
- [00:26:16.659]is the transformation of some Native American cultures
- [00:26:19.572]as they merged is a good example
- [00:26:22.628]in that they were dominated, colonized,
- [00:26:28.164]put onto reservations, and as a consequence
- [00:26:31.918]you have this development of new cultures
- [00:26:35.191]become through ethnogenesis
- [00:26:37.464]that usually are consequence
- [00:26:41.605]of domination and subordination.
- [00:26:47.093]The process of globalization
- [00:26:48.878]is minimizing cultural diversity.
- [00:26:50.898]So, cultural diversity is beginning to become diminished.
- [00:26:56.386]However, in the last 30 years or so,
- [00:26:58.575]it has been increasingly apparent
- [00:27:00.056]that many people are affirming their ethnic identity.
- [00:27:03.170]Here we're talking about nationalism.
- [00:27:04.770]For example, at Brexit, where Britain voted
- [00:27:08.372]to get out of the European Union
- [00:27:11.201]or as it's commonly known as the common market,
- [00:27:13.995]because they don't like to be controlled
- [00:27:16.049]by the bureaucrats in the EU,
- [00:27:19.147]so it's an example of trying to maintain
- [00:27:21.335]your cultural autonomy.
- [00:27:24.787]Another element of nationalism is discrimination
- [00:27:27.425]against other ethnic minorities.
- [00:27:29.557]For example, there's been an influx of immigrants
- [00:27:34.339]into Europe and other parts of the world
- [00:27:36.871]and nationalism is rearing its head
- [00:27:41.089]because we have patterns of discrimination
- [00:27:44.642]by the majority against the minority,
- [00:27:47.015]and so that's an example of the opposite of globalization,
- [00:27:52.335]is kind of retreat into your nationalistic cultures,
- [00:27:55.971]trying to maintain the so called purity of it, etc., etc.
- [00:28:00.921]And so we've got this process of increasing diffusion
- [00:28:05.988]of cultural traits making us more and more similar
- [00:28:08.918]but at the same time, an opposite movement
- [00:28:11.493]to maintain a cultural distinctiveness.
- [00:28:15.180]Here are some key terms that you should learn
- [00:28:20.399]and take a look at this list, make sure you understand them,
- [00:28:24.355]because surely some of these are gonna be on the exam.
- [00:28:27.857]So until Chapter 3, we'll see you then.
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