LIR 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Franz Boas, Cultural Relativism, Abrahamic Religions
26 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Technical Senses of “Culture”:
Human Creations
oArtifacts
The things people make to enhance their lives
oSociofacts
The practices people follow to regulate their lives
oTechnifacts
Something you use to produce an artifact (tools)
oMentifacts
The cognitive and affective elements that influence human
thinking such as beliefs, values, and attitudes
Developmental Outcomes
oLearning process in which children learn about their culture
Mental and Environmental Programming
oProgrammed by the environment that you grow up in
Surface Culture
oArtifacts
oDress
oCustoms
oSpeech
Deep Culture
oStructures
oAttitudes
oValues
oBeliefs
oIdeologies
oWorldview
Characteristics
oPervasive- happens all the time and you can’t get away from it
oConditioned (learned what not to and what to ignore)- positive and
negative reinforcement
oShared- provides cohesion and unity for a group of individuals
oAdaptive- must be willing to change or it can lead to extinction
oEvolving- as it adapts, culture evolves
oPrivileged- in-group is always more privileged than out-group (out-
group is at a disadvantage)
oUniversal- people figure out how to cooperate and work with each
other
George Murdoch listed 75 commonalities across cultures
oRelative- diversity
Patterns (Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961)
oWhat is a human’s relation to Nature?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
The things people make to enhance their lives: sociofacts. The practices people follow to regulate their lives: technifacts. Something you use to produce an artifact (tools: mentifacts. The cognitive and affective elements that influence human thinking such as beliefs, values, and attitudes. Developmental outcomes: learning process in which children learn about their culture. Mental and environmental programming: programmed by the environment that you grow up in. Surface culture: artifacts, dress, customs, speech. Deep culture: structures, attitudes, values, beliefs. George murdoch listed 75 commonalities across cultures: relative- diversity. Cultural relativism: not good, not bad, just different. In order to understand the practices or beliefs of another group, it is necessary to understand their social, cultural and historical context. Linguistic relativity: say it differently, see it differently. Differences in vocabulary and grammar are entangled with differences in culture and worldview. A change in language can transform our appreciation of the cosmos--
