What a great conversation and inquiry in the 4:10 section today! The 2:30 Section wasn't bad either but 4:10 rocked my world with their questions. Come on, great ones! Do it up!Questions like:
- What is cultural and what is not?
- Is hunger cultural or biological?
- Is hearing cultural and/or biological? Is seeing cultural?? Thanks Liping for your inquiry with me after class ended.
What could you then play with about who you are?? What cultural processes that we are reading about could you use to play with??
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17 comments:
I to do agree, I enjoyed listening, and being confused and coming closer to really understanding culture, yaY. The bit about our names I think was what really stuck with me. How they are just symbols of who we are. How they are neither INTRINSIC nor natural, because they were given to us. [I think, wow I’m losing my thought now]..I'll post another comment -_- darn
After reading our textbook and observing some explanations in class, I’ve learned that almost everything is cultured and everyone is cultured. What I consider is not cultural is that something born naturally. For instance, we were born as babies, we had not learned anything yet, but we were able to cry, and express our feelings in certain ways. There was no culture involve until we learned and observed from our parents or others how to do things to follow our custom rules, and so forth.
I believe that the way we live or see things in life engage both culture and biological. Hunger seems biological to me, because people need to feed themselves. However, hunger is also cultural because no one can survive without eating. The same point of view, I’d say that hearing is biological because almost everyone was born be able to respond to sounds. Hearing is also cultural when it comes to the point that people need to alter themselves to hear better or choose what to hear, or what not to hear. Seeing seems biological because it is natural. Furthermore, seeing also seems culture since people seeing things differently when they explore to the world and learn new things.
(Am I on the right track??) Chau
After the reading and the discussion that we had in class help me understand about what's cultural and biological. Hunger is both cultural and biological because people are born with the needing to eat but how they get there food is cultural. Also seeing and hearing is both, we were born with ears and eyes to see and hear but how we use them and interpret is cultural. Before I only thought that cultural was just base on different groups of people from different country or language. Almost everything is cultural.
Okay so now I do understand a bit more. Things that are biological or cultural, i have a bit of a clearer understanding. Like the third comment down thers says about "Hunger is both cultural and natural" I understand that, and it makes it all more interesting. Still the example of symbols with the name is the more interesting to me. i am really likeing the discussions in this class, best!!
What I found most intriguing while I was reading the chapter was the personal space. This just proves that everybody takes things for granted. An American is so use to personal space and at times would be rude and say “can I have some space!” At times people will say it with attitude and maybe snap at you as well. In Brazil what people do is kiss in the cheek to everybody they know even the opposite sex. Kissing other people seems to me like a respectful way to salute someone or say bye. Brazilians also don’t mind the space between people. That is just so weird how they don’t mind kissing others and peoples space. Maybe it’s weird because I am accustom to personal space and not kissing other men in the cheek that I feel it’s weird.
Is playing video games a culture? I think is it because it is something learned as a kid and as kids we they tend to want to have fun and play virtual reality. We learned to play video games and we continue to do so in a daily basis. Playing video games is culture because it’s learned, shared, adaptive, and maladaptive. When we play video games there are times were we teach our younger siblings to play video games so we don’t play by ourselves. We play video games when we feel there is nothing to do and feel extremely bored. A maladaptive thing about video games is your eye sight will worsen if you play too close to the TV.
In my point of view I believe that hunger is both cultural and biological because due to our body system food is required. However, people can not eat for a certain amount of time due to religious reasons.
Our name is a symbol that represent who we are. It is just a word everyone calls us by. Names can be cultural since a name can run in a family for generations. However, a name of a person is not the person itself.
I really enjoyed the chapter on culture. The class discussion was very informative. I would have never realized how much culture effects everything. Our culture truly shapes just about every aspect of our life.
Before having the opportunity of taking Cultural Anthropology, culture to me was the traditions that were passed from generation to generation:such as music and food. This chapter changed my personal definition of culture. I was able to learn that culture is everything around us.Through the class discussing I was able to clearly understand that a symbol has no natural connection with the thing it stands for.The example giving in class how your name is a representation of you, but your name is not you. When I was first introduced to this concept I was confused.
Something that called my attention in this chapter was the reading titled "Touching,Affection,Love and Sex." I would agree with the information provided in this reading.Countries in Latin American encourage physical contact and easily show affection.Being that the United States is based on individualism, we don't like people to invade what we called "our personal space." Being raised in a Latin household I learned at a young age to show affection to those around me.We say hello and good-bye with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I believe that this has lead me to be comfortable with a person "invading my personal space."
I have a question. Is Fear apart of culture? Is one born with fear or is it learned?
Wow, Hunter, what a awesome question. You all this semester are really on to some new ways of thinking that none of my previous classes have asked. That means new results.
To answer your question, I have to ask another. This is an EXCELLENT question.
Where you born with it do you think? Are there different kinds of fear? Is fear shared? Is is integrated? Is it learned from your parents? and how?
Anyone care to guess if it is one or other or both? You could also consider searching "culture of fear" on web and see what you learn.
Hey Hunter. Look at this quote that serendipitously came through my email just now:
"Fear knocked at the door, Faith answered and no one was there."
What do you think? Learned or biological?
lol
JianYun
From my point of view, culture is something in a certain group that all people are agree and associate with it. People may confuse between what is culture and biological and symbols. such as our names, it is not the culture, it just offer to identify who we are. Hunger is biological, what we choose to eat may refer to culture.It is also the truth for seeing, listening and scaring.From this chapter, i learn more about the culture, and what is culture, but i have curious in how the culture differential effect the way of thinking.
Hello this is Iqra. I believe culture can be concentrated on the people who we are being influenced by. Who we live around, talk to, go to school with, etc., can inifluence the way we act and assciate ourself with. Biologically speaking, culture can be used in a science term also as to saying that it is natural for a person to act in a certain way.
Professor G and Hunter, I personally I believe that fear is learned along with culture. When we are children our parent teach us what we should be afraid us. For example, since very young I was thought to not lie because it was bad and God didn’t like that (you would go to hell). When we are young with don’t know the difference between what is good or bad, but through enculturation we learn varies lesson and learn about fear. Someone once told me, “Faith is based on fear.”
This chapter is a very interesting topic to me because culture has a large scope and there is a lot to learn from culture to culture. When speaking of hunger, I see it to be more of biological than cultural. Being able to feel hungry is a biological feature of the body. We are born to feel hungry, aren’t we? Isn’t it culturally universal that human being in every culture is born with a stomach to feel hungry when not eaten? Can you choose to be hungry or not be hungry? You can’t stop yourself from being hungry because it’s biological that our bodies behave this way since we were born. However, eating is cultural because the kind of food that we choose to eat varies from different cultures.
Prior to the discussion of the topic, I’d always thought that hearing is always biological, but now I see it two ways. Just like hunger, we are born with ears biologically to hear the beauty of sounds around us. However, what people choose to hear or not hear is different from culture to culture. Therefore, hearing is also cultural. Similarly, seeing is both biological and cultural. Humans are born with eyes to see, this is biological. But what we see is different from culture to culture. We may choose to see things that are more valued to our culture.
As I started thinking about topic for my mini ethnography, I found it useful to come back to this chapter. Sometimes, it is hard to distinguish action from being inborn, in our genes from being cultural.
You question about hunger is interesting. I believe that the action or the process (not sure what exactly I should call it) is biological. Every human can be hungry and it does not depend on culture. Yes, in some cultures, like in Africa, more people are hungry than in the US. However, the feeling of hunger is the same everywhere. What I mean is that if I did not eat for three days, I will be as hungry as someone from Africa who did not eat for three day; it does not even matter that I purposely did it and someone from Africa just did not have food.
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