Sociology SOC-R 100 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Cockfight, Franz Boas, Cultural Relativism
18 Dec 2016
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Culture: a set of beliefs, traditions, and practices; the sum of the social categories and concepts we embrace in addition to beliefs, behaviors (except instinctual ones), and practices; everything but the natural environment around us. In other words, culture is everything but nature. The word culture derives from the latin verb colere ( to cultivate or till ), suggesting the refinement of crops to meet human needs. The more common meaning of culture as a noun developed from the same kind of human control and domination over nature. We could say that culture began when humans started acting as the architects of nature by growing crops rather than hunting and gathering, hence the terms agriculture and aquaculture (growing fish and other aquatic organisms for human consumption). Dating back centuries, the term culture has referred to the distinction between what is natural and what is modified or created by humans and follows (or breaks) the laws of the state.
