Culture creates who we are as individuals; it guides us in making every day choices and gives us a foundation on which to live our life’s and to run others. Our culture sets us aside from others, making us unique to the eye and to the heart. It gives us values to set the norms we live by, the capability to communicate and the drive to create the technology of which we use day by day.
So what exactly is Culture? Culture is basically a human’s society’s total way of life; which is learned and shared through generations and it includes values, customs, material objects and symbols. In short it is the very thing that creates who you are. You don’t know it but as your culture changes you do you and so does your outlook on life.
There are two major segments of culture: material culture and nonmaterial culture. Material culture includes all physical objects found in a society, while nonmaterial culture are our values traditions and beliefs. Even though they both seem so different they are both linked within each other. Think of it this way; everyone is different; we all have out own beliefs, thoughts, hopes, ambitions, and dreams. Yet many of our feelings beliefs and customs are a reflection of our culture. For example: rats are a problem here in the States, they come in our house unwanted eat our food and carry diseases. Yet in some cultures like in China, rats are considered a meal.
The Essay on One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr Isaevich. One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, New YorkPress, 1963. The novel, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is intentionally not sensational. It is an expose of Stalinist labor camps, and of the Soviet system generally, but it accomplishes this through understatement and indirection. This work, however, is much more than a political indictment. Its power derives ...
With in each culture is a set of values, values that help create culture. It’s like a big circle: values create norms and norms are a large part of culture.
Values are cultural ideas about what is good and mad, moral and immoral, ying and yang. Starting from childhood we are taught good from bad. It’s sorta like society warps and forms our minds to grow up to be a good person so they don’t have to deal with us in the future. Kinda like if they start when we are young then we have a less of a chance to be a menace to society when we are older and harder to control.
Each culture has its own set of values for example: in the Japanese culture friendship, peace, and respect are all values that rank before family. Yet in the American culture family is ranked number one fallowed by: education, friendship, and wealth.