ANTH-2010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Edward Burnett Tylor, Incest Taboo, Cultural Relativism
31 Oct 2017
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Document Summary
Enculturation: a process of conscious and unconscious learning and internalizing a cultural tradition, which guides a person"s behavior and perceptions. We are different from animals because they learn only from experience but we learn from symbols. Particularity : culture trait that is confined to a single place, social group, or society. Generality : exist in some but not all societies. Assessing the extent of homogeneity/heterogeneity of a society. Maladaptive: cultural traits that in the long run may threaten humans" well-being and continued existence. Cultural relativism : behavior should not be evaluated by outside standards but in the context of the culture it occurs. Ethnocentrism : the tendency to view one"s own culture as superior and to use one"s own standards and values in judging outsiders. Cultural relativism is a research method, not a moral position for anthropologists. The purpose of holding a cultural relativistic view is to achieve a more complete and objective understanding of another culture.
