Understanding Culture: Human Behavior and Socialization
1. Are there people without culture? There are no people without culture because humans are products of both culture and nature. Biology and culture make us who we are. To understand human beings, we must consider both components.
2. Multiculturalism leads to three attitudes: ethnocentrism, relativism, and cultural pluralism/interculturalism (with positives and negatives):
Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own culture is superior to others. This can lead to identifying cultural development exclusively with one’s own culture and viewing alien cultures as irrational or primitive. Ethnocentrism is linked to racism, xenophobia, and even genocide.
Relativism argues that any cultural event is a source of ideas and values resulting from its particular history. In this view, we can only understand a cultural trait within its originating culture. While promoting tolerance, relativism lacks a critical perspective on different cultures.
Cultural Pluralism/Interculturalism advocates for dialogue and respect among different cultures coexisting in the same geographical area within the framework of human rights. It proposes a model where all cultures are equal and harmonious coexistence is valued. Ethical values like justice, freedom, and human rights are considered universal. Cultural pluralism is the most appropriate model to follow today.
3. Different Perspectives on Cultural Interaction:
a) Cultural pluralism: there are many ways of doing things (positive and enriching)
b) Relativism: anything goes
c) Ethnocentrism: there are better ways to do things
d) Cultural pluralism: (repeated option)
4. Freud’s Structure of Personality:
- Conscious: ideas, thoughts, and feelings we are aware of
- Pre-conscious: material that can be easily remembered
- Ego (self): reality principle
- Unconscious: far below the surface of consciousness
- Super-ego: the moral guardian
- Id: pleasure principle, drives, and desires
5. Culture: Equality and Difference: Culture makes us equal by imposing a shared social framework, yet it also allows for individual differences through unique interpretations and social roles.
6. Socialization and its Stages: The socialization process develops essential skills for living in society. Its stages are:
- Primary socialization: covers the first five years of life, occurring within the family environment, with significant demonstrations of affection.
- Secondary socialization: lasts the rest of a person’s life, involving less firm learning but allowing for changes in previously learned behavior patterns.
- Resocialization: involves internalizing a different culture or way of understanding the world, restructuring previously learned knowledge.
7. Agents of Socialization: Socialization occurs through groups or media known as agents of socialization, which permit or impose different types of learning.
8. Rousseau’s Noble Savage Myth: Rousseau imagined that in a state of nature, before culture, humans lived happily. Civilization, in contrast, causes problems and selfishness. Thus, for Rousseau, the state of nature and civilization are antagonistic, representing primal goodness versus corruption.
9. Nature vs. Nurture: Competitiveness: Competitiveness is primarily learned through education and social conditioning, teaching us to strive for success from childhood.
10. Nature vs. Culture: Human Essence: Behaviorism suggests that our minds are shaped by culture; we are what we think. Culture plays a significant role in forming our essence.
11. Behaviorism’s View of Human Nature: Behaviorism rejects the existence of instincts in humans, explaining behavior through learning and conditioning. Skinner argued that culture shapes our behavior, making humans a tabula rasa (blank slate).
12. Freud’s States of the Human Mind:
- Conscious: the region of the mind where priorities are set.
- Preconscious: dependent on goals and their developmental importance.
- Unconscious: irrational impulses and unseen conditioning; often feelings we perceive as good.
13. Development of the Superego: The superego develops through social interaction and the internalization of the father figure and moral/ethical thoughts received from culture.
Vocabulary:
Neoteny: a process of heterochrony characterized by the preservation of juvenile traits in the adult organism.