Mababakas ang mayamang kasaysayan ng Pilipinas sa nakaraan, at hindi lang ito makikita sa mga sikat

na museo sa bansa dahil kung iyong pagmamasadan at susuriing mabuti, Kulturang Pilipino ang
sumasalamin at nakadadagdag ng ganda sa bansang Pilipinas.

Ang kultura ay ang pagsasalin-salin ng tradisyon ng isang tao o komunidad. Ito ay pinaghalong tradisyon
ng mga bansang sumakop at mga katutubo. The concepts, culture and society are closely related.
People in society create culture; culture shapes the way people interact and understand the world
around them.

Culture determines what we know-- the sum of all the angles in a triangle; what a screw driver is used
for; how to use a computer to find out where Peloponnesians are...
Culture also determines what we don't know-- how to catch a fish by hand; how to build a dugout
canoe and navigate the South Seas without chart or compass.

Culture determines what we want to be-- lawyer; farmer; computer programmer; doctor pero Culture
Varies It varies with the physical setting or geography: (A good example here is music. Think of all the
differences in music that are related to geography. We're a mixed society in the Philippines, but think of
the regional origins of much of our our music

Values, Norms, and Social Control

Values are socially shared ideas about what is "right" and "wrong;" "good" and "bad" in society. Values
are general ideas-- broad and abstract. They vary from one society to another and one way to study
society is to examine the values held by its members. Values are important because it is from them that
we derive the norms or rules that govern our everyday lives. Values help guide conduct in unfamiliar
situations and may lead to the formation of specific norms. Generally speaking, we tend to hold on to
our values and are unlikely to compromise them. American values have been intensively studied by
numerous scholars:

Individuals as well as entire societies may experience value conflict. A great example of value conflict at
the individual level is provided by the 1941 movie, "Sergeant York," (starring Gary Cooper). The movie
tells the story of Alvin Cullum York, regarded as one of the outstanding heroes of World War I, who was
awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for killing 20 enemy soldiers and capturing over 100
prisoners. At first, York was a conscientious objector who held deep religions convictions against killing.
The value conflict in this case involved the Sixth Commandment's prohibition against killing and what he
felt were his duties as a patriotic American-- to answer his country's call. Cooper, who won an Oscar for
his portrayal of Sgt. York, did a wonderful job showing how individuals "freeze up" and are unable to do
anything until they resolve these kinds of internal value conflicts.

One very powerful example of a value conflict at the societal level is the current debate over abortion.
Values are not readily compromised and it is often impossible to find "common ground" in these kinds
of disputes. The debate over slavery and states' rights in the 1850s is an example of a value conflict that
was eventually resolved through war-- the bloodiest war in this nation's history. The deplorable state of
affairs we are now observing in what was formerly Yugoslavia, is essentially another value conflict.
Norms are derived from a society's overall values. Values determine norms. Remember, norms are
classified into several types.

Folkways (weak norms customs, etiquette; three meals a day, wearing shoes to class, tipping after a
meal, taking same seat in class)
Mores (strong norms considered vital to our well-being, values, morals; cheating on spouse, child abuse
and murder)
Laws (Norms established and punished by the state with punishments fixed in advance: written or
encoded mores, folkways, and taboos; from traffic laws to laws against rape and murder).
Taboos (Very strong norms whose violation is considered loathsome and disgusting)

Signs and Symbols

There is an important difference between signs and symbols that you should know. Symbols set man
apart from animals. Animals use signs.

Signs are representational: There is a direct connection between the sign and the reality it refers to. The
meaning is clear and unambiguous. Sort of like stimulus and response. There is no need to interpret
meanings.

Smoke indicates that fire is present (or will soon be present)

A symbol is an object, gesture, sound, color, or design which stands for something other than itself. We
humans give meaning to these things. Examples-- wedding band; leather jacket; sports car; the length
and color of a person's hair; (punk rockers; T.V. ministries where people are neatly dressed; flag
burnings). Symbols may have multiple meanings. Example-- the cross on a church steeple; a burning
cross; a red cross on the side of an ambulance. (A smile can take on many different meanings). Symbols
can change meaning over time. Example-- "V" sign was once obscene. It stood for victory in World War
II. During the Vietnam War it meant peace. Symbols are capable of stirring up deep emotions. In the
debate over abortion, individuals don't classify themselves as "pro" or "anti" abortion. Rather, they use
the terms "pro-choice", or "pro-life"-- "choice" and "life" are two important values in U.S. society.
People often disagree over whether or not a symbol is appropriate for a given place or circumstance.
Several years ago, there was much debate over whether or not McDonalds' "golden arches," an
internationally recognized symbol in its own right, should be displayed so prominently over the VCU
Student Commons' entrances. Eventually, the arches were taken down.

Most people feel that language is unique to human beings. Other species use signs with genetically fixed
meanings and can learn to respond to specified stimuli-- (Pavlov's dogs salivating at the ring of a bell)--
but only humans can be said to have language. Language consists primarily of verbal and written
symbols with rules for putting them together. (Language also consists of the nonverbal expressions
which accompany speech in face-to-face interaction. Raising an eyebrow or winking an eye often relays
more meaning than a hundred words. We can therefore modify our definition to include "verbal, visual,
and written symbols and their associated rules for putting them together."

Is language really unique to humans? There are a number of very interesting studies that suggest that
certain animals have a highly developed capacity for language. Click on the links, below for some
serious and scholarly references on animal communication.

§ Birds

§ Chimpanzees

§ Gorillas

This next site has some interesting material on

§ Dolphins and Whales

Language is truly the "keystone to culture" for without it, we could not pass on the collective experience
of society and the lessons it teaches for survival. It is the primary way that we pass on our culture from
one generation to the next. It enables us to store meanings so we don't have to relearn everything with
each generation.
Language allows us to create worlds we've never seen and develop new ideas to explain the world
around us. A good example is atomic theory. Before the advent of the scanning electron microscope
men had predicted the existence of atoms and molecules using the symbols of language. Language also
allows us to develop new ideas to apply to the future.
George Orwell realized the importance of language in his epic work, 1984. Why did the rulers of Oceania
develop "Newspeak"? They wanted to restrict the creative ability of humankind so they wouldn't have
the concepts of freedom, free enterprise, individuality. "The purpose of newspeak was not only to
provide a medium of expression for the worldview and mental habits proper to devotees of Ingsoc, but
to make all other modes of thought impossible." (Orwell, p. 246)
The SapirWhorf Hypothesis states that language not only reproduces our ideas, but it also shapes the
way we think. It orders our reality. It may prevent people from being aware of things in the environment
and focuses our attention on certain things. Examples:

Sexist language shapes our thinking about women. Coaches who ridiculed male players when they
weren't playing well by calling them ladies? Language that treats women as objects; "chick, fox, babe,
hot cakes, skirts, etc. will tend to make us think of women as objects, not people.
Racist language, ethnic language; Micks, Spicks, Whops, Pollocks, Degos, Ollies, etc. tend to lower our
image of people.
Color: The human eye can discern thousands of different shades of color, yet in our society we identify
only 6 to 8 particular ones. A tribe in New Guinea breaks colors into categories of "warm" and "cold" (so
much for the science of spectroscopy in that society)!
The Eskimos have many different words for snow. Unless we ski a lot, most of us use one-- "snow."
Christian missionaries in Hawaii were shocked to find no word or concept for sin.
In (North) American society, we tend to treat physical objects as if they had wills of their own. If a pen
rolls off a table, we'll say "It fell off." or "It rolled off the table and fell on the floor." The Russian culture
works differently. Their response would be something like "They did it." or "They caused it to fall on the
floor."
Are we slaves to our language? The language we speak predisposes us to see the world in certain ways,
but language is extremely flexible. As we find ourselves lacking words to describe new ideas, machines,
processes, and technologies, we coin new terms and phrases. "Black holes," "Quarks," and even "Supply
side economics," are all creations of the mind and examples showing where language has lagged behind
conceptual ideas in the mind.

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Terms and Definitions

Related terms and definitions:

Cultural universals: These imply practices common to every culture. We've already discussed the
Anthropologist, George Murdock's proposed list of general traits found in every culture. It seems that
there are a large number of very general traits common to all cultures, but no specific ones like what,
exactly, defines murder, incest, etc. in a society?
Ethnocentrism: This is the tendency to judge other cultures by the standards of our own. ("Body Ritual
Among the Nacirema").
Cultural relativism: The recognition that one culture cannot be arbitrarily judged by the standards of
another. We need to adopt this stance when studying other cultures.
Cultural Integration: Culture is not a random assemblage of skills, customs, values, and beliefs. These
elements are woven into a definite pattern and are somehow related to one another.
Cultural Diversity: Common culture gives us a sense of identity but there is a great deal of variation
among groups. We witness cultural diversity on both the international and national levels. We've
already talked about regional differences when we compared the North with the South in the United
States.
Subcultures: Within a culture there may exist groups of people who have their own distinct sets of
values, customs, and lifestyles. (Italian Americans, African Americans, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, the
young, the middle-aged, the old, etc.). We can even say that there is a subculture of college life.
Countercultures: a counterculture that is fundamentally at odds with the dominant culture. (The youth
movement of the 1960's, for example).
Real and Ideal culture: Ideal culture is what the values say we believe in, what we should practice, while
real culture is what actually exists. Often there is a discrepancy between the two resulting in cultural
strain.
Approaches to the Study of Culture

There are several approaches to the study of culture. Here are two examples:

Functionalism looks at the roles that components of culture play in maintaining the social order as a
whole. What are the consequences for a society if we remove or change one element of its culture? (i.e.
in America, the computer). The problem with this approach is that it tends to overlook change when
stressing the functional relationships between variables. It also has a pejorative or negative view of
unbalance in the system, even when such unbalance may mean social improvement.
.

The Ecological approach examines the culture of a given society in relation to the total environment in
which it exists. For example, why do people in India let sacred cows roam the streets by the millions
(100 million) when so many people are hungry? One reason is that cows are needed to produce the
oxen which Indian farmers must have to plow the fields. Without them, even more people will starve.
Also, the cows produce over 700 million tons of manure each year. Half of it is used for fertilizer; the
other half is used for fuel. When the cows die, they are eaten by the untouchables or outcasts who are
the hungriest people in the population. The cows' hides are used in the leather industry.

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Are we prisoners of our Culture?

No. Culture does make humans what they are, but humans also make culture. We constantly make
changes to our culture. It guides us through life, but we also change and modify it to our needs and
desires. If we could not do this, everything would be the same from generation to generation just like
the bees and termites. It's hard for 2. Processes of cultural change: Cultural change is usually slow and
deliberate. When changes occur in one cultural element (the economy) changes can be expected
elsewhere (politics). Things generally tend to be linked together.

There are three mechanisms by which cultural change occurs:

Discovery the perception or recognition of something that already exists-- fire, the New World.
Invention combining old knowledge to produce something that did not exist before, the compass, for
example.
Diffusion the spread of cultural elements from one culture to another. i.e. gun powder from China to the
West. Most cultural change occurs in this manner-- (Linton's "One hundred Percent American" article).
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