Culture as a concept
Over so many decades, many researchers, sociologists, scholars among others have debated on how to define culture as a concept. However, there are some ideas featured in every theory developed in the bid to define culture as a concept. These common ideas can be used to describe culture as a set of beliefs values shared and determine the behaviors of a social group. In other words, these beliefs and values determine the behavior of a certain group hence giving it an identity. The group referred to as the culture defines a society has two core elements, values, and beliefs. The element values are described as the standards that distinguish what the society desires while beliefs are the convictions that people cling on to as the truth. The two elements relate so much in that behind every value; there is an underlying belief.
Since ancient times, cultures have always differed hence shaping societies in different ways. Human beings organized in these groups the societies or communities for their survival with culture enhancing their stability have had different cultures. Society stability is enhanced by ensuring values are put into action using social controls like sanctions. Apart from values and beliefs, there are symbols as well as signs that identify every society. One of the most important symbols is the language used for communication and cultural transmission. Language can be either spoken communication or nonverbal actions through which people can experience their world and also pass on their cultures as described by the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It means that through language, people of different societies can interact and share culture. The interaction effects that have led to cultural interchanges are pervasive.
Although the communities have interacted and shared cultures, which are the unseen or unwritten rules to make people feel secure and doing some things a norm, cultural differences still exist. These differences in the cultures are what have caused cultural diversity. Diversity as a characteristic distinguishes one culture from another due to issues to do with innovations as well as restrictions. Every culture is innovative and restrictive in the sense that different societies have different solutions to particular life challenges while retaining their distinctive patterns. The study has it that there exists some sough of a correlation between culture and biology. The relationship is in the sense that although human behavior is influenced by culture, some biological factors can explain certain complex behaviors deviations from the cultural norms. The logics are described under the concepts of biological determinism framework and within the sociobiology paradigm. Sociobiology helps in the provision of biological reasons behind human behavior as well as social organization evolution.
Cultures share common elements which are usually in the form of traits or patterns. However, there are differences which make people question other people’s behavior without minding what themselves do something that is known as ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism may make some people undermine others by judging their behavior as per their own culture hence overlooking the cultural believes of the person. Being ethnocentric can be bad, and so there is the need to appreciate the existence of cultural relativism whereby one can assess other cultures by their standards. It is essential to be open-minded and flexible to be in a position to understand as well as appreciate or adapt to new norms and values, which leads to multiculturalism. The theoretical point of view is that a society is a system with functional parts stabilized by culture.