Importance of Culture Essay

Importance of Culture Essay Introduction: Culture is the characteristic of group of people defined by everything such as language, religion, lifestyle etc. Different people in different societies have different culture but they also have some similarities. The culture varies in different things such as clothes, foods, religion and many others. Culture is the identity of a group of people living in specific place; they have their own sketch of life what the culture says they follow that. We have seen that a lot of people do some specific thing they first thought about their culture, what my culture says on this occasion. Especially on the occasion of wedding, and some other celebrating days they follow strictly their culture. Those who do not follow their culture or do some changes in that, they havent give any values to them because they are not following their religion. Different people define culture in different ways, for example Culture: learned and shared human patterns or models for living; day- to-day living patterns, these patterns and models pervade all aspects of human social interaction. Culture is mankinds primary adaptive mechanism1. Another author says that Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another.2. from these definitions it is clear that both explains the same idea but in different words, says that culture is first learned after learning it is then shared so its a common fact that the younger first learn the culture from their elders and when these young become elders they transfer it to the next generation. But the culture learned it includes all the aspects of human interaction and thus it become the mankinds adoptive mechanism. In the second definition the author says that the culture is the programming of mind so it includes everything related with the mind programming and because of these different minds programming different group of people distinguish from each others. Characteristics: Culture has its own characteristics; we will discuss some of its characteristics here. Learnt Shared Social Continuous Adaptive Varies Learnt: As we discussed earlier that culture are learnt from their elders, culture is not the thing you study for it and you know it but it is just the process you pass from it, after that you will know about the culture. It is just like the thing that inherited in someone nature. All action the action we do like eating, dressing wearing ornaments etc is the result of culture we learned. One author says about learning culture Babies and children learn about their culture by watching their parents and close family. They copy behavior they have seen and adopt different roles3 and thats fact that babies and children learned culture by watching their parents and close family and then they apply these different roles in their Daily life and thus adapt their culture. Shared: Culture is something that is shared among groups of people. It is not the thing that someone posses it individually. Culture is always transferred through sharing so it mean that for transferring the culture the sharing is must. The sharing of culture refers to the term called enculturation according to author Process of learning culture is called enculturation4. Culture is shared in many ways; the main way for transferring the culture is the language. Language is the form of social communication and the knowledge is transferred through group discussion, public speaking and informal communication. The second way is the use of communication technologies nowadays like TV, DVD, internet etc play also important role in sharing the culture. These modern technologies have exposed every culture to the whole world. Social: Culture is social it is not the individual phenomena. it is the product of society and originates and grows through social interaction. Something is differentiable to us through comparison, so for distinguishes culture we have to compare it with some other then we will know about all aspects of that culture therefore the culture must be social and without it there is no concept of culture. One author says that culture can be thought of as the normative order, operating through operational and social influence, that guide and constrains the behavior of people in collectives5 .so from above statement it is clear that culture is the overall thought in a normative order, and these thoughts are pass through several operational and social influences, it means that their also occur some changes in culture but these changes are collectively and thus people of that culture adopt their behavior to the culture. Continuous: Culture is the continuous process, Culture is growing whole which includes in itself, the achievements of the past and present and makes provision for the future achievements of mankind. Culture is the result of past and present changes that occur in it, and thus it absorb that changes in itself and the culture become the result of past and present experiences and the process continue to next generation and so on. Hence some sociologists like Lotion called culture the social heritage of man6. Adaptive: Culture is always adaptive, even changes occur in culture but is very slow process and generally it is adaptive to all the people associated with that culture. when their occur some changes in the culture then at the same time people become use to with it and thus they feel nothing about their culture even people of other cultures will says anything about that culture but the people of that culture they are adapt with it. One author says about it that The biological modifications and adjustments are always flexible to adapt even in the harsh conditions of the environment7.it means that the changes occur in the culture is flexible, easy for everyone to follow. Varies: Culture always varies. All the elements of culture like dressing, ways of eating, speaking etc varies from society to society. In every culture there always changes occur in some interval of time, almost the changes speed is very slow but we never say that culture is not variable. Types of culture: There are several types of culture: Material culture Dressing Food Buildings Non-material culture Language Family Religion Education Material culture: Material culture includes all those things that people creates and gives meaning to it. Material culture include lot of things, some of them are given below: Dressing: Dressing is the important thing in culture. It identify the cultural society, for example when a stranger from other country come to Pakistan and he know little about here culture dressing so he will definitely identify the place. Every culture gives most importance to their culture. They did not appreciate those who are not wearing their own cultural dress. Gradually the dressing importance is also disappearing from the people. There a lot of people when they goes to the other cultural society, they adopt that and forget about their culture. According to my survey I have done some days ago a lot of people say that we are not giving so much importance to our culture. Nowadays the culture is changing so much fast because of this reason that the people not giving so much importance to their culture, especially dress. Food: According to the Colombia university press everything having to do with foodÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ its capture, cultivation, preparation, and consumptionÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ represents a cultural act8 so definitely food when reach to us first it pass from different stages like its cultivation, every culture has its own process of cultivation, capturing and preparation. This mean that food is also one of the important part of the material culture. Buildings: Building means construction. Building also plays important role in culture identity. Different cultures have different type of buildings. Some cultures have big houses while some have small. There are also some cultural people who dont construct houses also, all life they pass in different places. Usually the cultural people from rural areas have big houses while those living in the city have small houses. The reason may be in rural areas the population is so much low and the place available for the house is very cheap as compare to the city. May be of this reason this culture is raised in the rural areas. Non-material culture: Non-material culture consists of thoughts and behavior that people learn as part of the culture they live in. It includes language, rules, customs, family, religion or beliefs, values, and knowledge. We will discuss some of them; Language: Language is one of the most important forms of material culture, without language there is no concept of culture. Different cultures have different speaking of language. Even when the language is same between the two cultures but still there will be difference in speaking and one will easily difference between them. Sometime because of cultures a large number of cultures are treated as one culture, for example in Pakistan there is a lot of cultures but still to the out countries they treat as just like one culture and is known as Pakistani culture. Even subcontinent is also treated as one culture but this in a specific occasion for example Asia is the largest subcontinent but the countries outside the Asia also says the words like Asian culture and we says the European culture or African culture. Language is the root cause of culture. Humans learn their culture through language, the parents first learned language to the kids after that they gradually also learn their culture. Family: Family is one of the most important concept in the culture. Different cultures define family in different ways. Some says that those who have a blood relation with you is your family member, other says that only your wife and kids are included in your family. According to an author Anthropologists say a cultures biological and marital kinship rules and patterns of reciprocal obligations define family9, the definition varies of different cultures. The people from rural background define family in a large sense they include all of their relatives in the family and those from urban background define family in a little narrow sense as compared to the urban background people. Religion: Religion is the most important in cultural society. In most of the culture the religion is very respectful to all of the culture members and they also strictly obey their religion. And the most respectful religion among all the culture is Islam. Those cultures that have Islam as religion they apply the order of Islam in their daily life and mostly these people led a very happy life without much resources. According to my survey a lot of my audience says that they follow their religion strictly and says five time prayers which is the most important thing as considered to Islam, and those audiences whose religion was other than Islam they mostly says that we are not so much following our religion. Education: Education also play important role in building a cultural society. Education is the basic need of human. Without education humanity is not possible, therefore almost all the cultures gives importance to education and they possess only education for their success. But still there are also so cultures which do not gives focus to education. Some cultures give importance only to boys education and not to female. The number of these types of cultures is decreasing slowly. In general most cultures gives importance to education and they love the educated people of their culture. Importance of culture: Culture has great importance. Culture is the identity of the nation, without culture the society is impossible. An author says about the importance of culture that culture is the set of transmitted and learned behavior patterns, beliefs, institutions and all other products of human work and thought that characterize the functioning of particular population, profession, organization or community10, so the only representative of the particular community or population is the culture. Culture is the basic root of any community which gives them the ways of life. The culture provides solution to the critical problem that is faced to community. Culture teach us to think for the whole nation not individually, it provide the concept of family, nation etc. References Damen, L. (1987). Culture Learning: The Fifth Dimension on the Language Classroom. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Hofstede, G. (1984). National cultures and corporate cultures. In L.A. Samovar R.E. Porter (Eds.), Communication Between Cultures. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. http://open.jorum.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/123456789/13597/025/access/culture.html Understanding culture (DatoDr Sothi Rachagan) (Kotter and heskatt, 1992, reusseau, 1990) http://www.preservearticles.com/201107048767/1321-words-short-essay-on-the-culture.html http://savior.hubpages.com/hub/Characteristics-of-Culture food is culture (Massimo montanari nov. 2006) The Definition of Family in a Free Society (Gordon Neal Diem, D.A. 1997) hofstede G. culture and organization. New York: MC graw-hill; 1997

Free Merchant of Venice Essays: Noble and Worthy Jessica? :: Merchant Venice Essays

Noble and Worthy Jessica? While researching for this paper I reviewed numerous essays, assessments, and commentaries concerning The Merchant of Venice. One essay used the terms "noble" and "worthy" in relation to Jessica. The author stated that "sometimes what they [the characters of the play] 'sell out' for is worthy and shows them to be noble (Jessica for example)." The author goes on to say that Shylock's reasons for selling out "seem ignoble." Those statements really got me thinking, so I strolled over to my trusty dictionary to look up "noble" and "worthy." Noble--1. a: possessing outstanding qualities. 2: of high birth or exalted rank. 3. a: possessing very high or excellent qualities or properties. Worthy-1. a: having worth or value. Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th edition) The most common connotation of "noble," in my opinion, is a combination of the first and third listings. While Jessica certainly fits the second meaning listed of "noble" and the meaning of "worthy" (financially anyway), I didn't see any proof of her being such an outstanding person or "possessing very high or excellent qualities" within the context of this play. She may very well be a wonderful person, but I didn't see anything that would lead me to that conclusion in the play itself. Let's look at the facts. Jessica robs her father of all the jewels and money she can carry to marry Lorenzo. She casts aside her religion as if it were an old hat. The only outstanding quality I see is that she can do all this without the slightest remorse. We are told by Jessica that Shylock's "house is hell," but within the play I did not see any proof of this (II.iii.2). It is true that Shylock did not know which to weep for more, his daughter or his ducats, but does that make that house a hell? Because we didn't see what life was like in the house, we can only take Jessica's word for it. I, for one, am not terribly comfortable with her word as she has proven herself to be a thief and liar already. How do we know she isn't just an incredibly ungrateful daughter blinded by love (as she herself proclaimed love to be a blinding force--II.vi.36)? Frankly, Shakespeare did not give us much to work with as far as

The Modern Presidency of Theodore Roosevlet

Despite ridicule from his educated and respectable friends, Roosevelt entered politics immediately after graduating from Harvard College in 1880. In 1881,Roosevelt showed the strength of his intention by winning election to the New York State Assembly. He gained reelection twice before personal tragedy, On February 14,1884, in a tragic coincidence, Roosevelt†s young wife died in childbirth just hours after the death of his beloved mother. Emotionally shattered, Roosevelt left politics and fled New York for the Dakota Territory. In 1886, after a disastrous winter demolished most of his cattle herd, Roosevelt returned east to politics, his first love. For the next 12 years, he held various government positions, from Civil Service Commissioner to Assistant Secretary of the Navy. When the United States went to war against Spain in 1898, Roosevelt resigned and organized a group of volunteers called the Rough Riders. Their successful assault on San Juan Hill in Cuba made Roosevelt a National hero. He rode his new fame to victory in the 1898 race for governor of New York. When President McKinley prepared to run for reelection in 1900, he needed someone to replace Garret Hobart, his first vice president, who had died in 1899. Roosevelt seemed a logical choice. Basically a man of action, Roosevelt considered the vice presidency a do-nothing position leading to political oblivion. The bosses schemed to kick Roosevelt out of New York to serve as McKinley†s vice president. After he and McKinley won the election, Roosevelt sadly wrote to a friend, â€Å"I do not expect to go any further in politics. † Wherever Roosevelt went he became the center of attention. During the late 1800s, the country had been designated by strong Congresses and relatively weak presidents. Roosevelt reversed that traditional division of power. The new president employed the considerable powers of his office and his own personal magnetism to bypass congressional opposition. In doing so, Roosevelt became the first modern president. In 1902 Roosevelt supported passage of the Newlands Reclamation Act, which authorized the use of federal funds from the sale of public lands to pay for irrigation and land development projects in the dry farms and cities of the West. Under new law, Roosevelt supported the construction of 25irrigation or reclamation projects. Roosevelt also backed efforts to save the nation†s forests by preventing shortsighted lumbering companies from overcutting. He appointed close friend Gifford Pinchot to head the U. S. Forest Service. Like President Roosevelt, Pinchot was a firm believer in resource management, the rational scientific management of natural resources such as forests. He added 150 million acres to the national forests, quadrupling the amount of land they contained. Roosevelt also established five new national parks, created 51 federal bird reservations, and started four national game preserves. Other issues were already on the national agenda when Roosevelt took office. One involved the growth of large trusts, which were giant firms that controlled whole areas of industry by buying up all the companies with which they did business. Buy-outs, takeovers, and mergers reached a feverish pitch between 1897 and 1903. Indeed, by 1899 an elite group of six companies controlled about 95 percent of the railroads in the country. In 1890 Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, which was designed to prohibit such monopolies, but it had proven hard to enforce. Industrialists simply devised substitute methods of retaining control, for example, the holding company. Holding companies bought controlling shares of stock in the member companies instead of purchasing the companies outright. While the â€Å"held† companies remained separate businesses on paper, in reality the holding company controlled them. In 1902 J. P. Morgan, a powerful banker, had joined with a handful of the nation†s wealthiest men to finance the Northern Securities Company. This holding company combined the stock of the Union Pacific, Northern Pacific, and Burlington railroads to dominate rail service from Chicago to the Pacific Ocean. Roosevelt, deciding that the company was a monopoly in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, ordered his attorney general to file suit against the company in 1902. In 1904 the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, sided with Roosevelt, ruling that the Northern Securities Company had indeed violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. In May 1902 the United Mine Workers (UMW) called a strike of the miners who dug the anthracite, or hard, coal that fired most of the furnaces in the United States. The UMW hoped to win a 20 percent pay increase and to reduce their long workday to eight hours. They simply refused to negotiate the striking workers. As the reality of a cold winter approached, the shivering public demanded a settlement. President Roosevelt stepped in and urged the union and the owners to accept arbitration. A settlement imposed by an outside party. The minors won a nine-hour workday and a 10 percent pay increase, which was passed along to consumers in the form of higher coal prices. Roosevelt also defended the public interest on consumer issue. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906outlawed misleading labels and dangerous chemical preservatives. Roosevelt agreed that the government, rather than the packers should pay for the inspection. In addition, he dropped the requirement that meat be dated, which would have informed consumers about the meat†s age. Quick doctors sold concoctions of alcohol, cocaine, opium, and other drugs that claimed to heal everything from liver ailments to baldness. On the same day that Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act, It also passed the Pure Food and Drug Act. This act prohibited the manufacture, sale, or shipment of impure or falsely labeled food and drugs in interstate commerce. The food and Drug Administration (FDA) was not established until much later in 1938. Roosevelt decided not to run for reelection in 1908, Instead, Roosevelt chose his fellow Republican, William Howard Taft, an experienced diplomat and administrator to run for president on the Republican ticket. Taft, a large, slow-moving, but extremely intelligent man, ran a mild-mannered campaign. Nevertheless, thanks to Roosevelt†s energetic efforts on his behalf, Taft won the election. Although he had none of Roosevelt†s flair, Taft carried out- and went beyond-many of his predecessor†s policies. In only four years as president, Taft prosecuted almost twice as many trusts as did Roosevelt in nearly eight years, including two of the most powerful, Standard Oil and the American Tobacco Company. He expanded the number of acres of national forests. He supported laws requiring mine owners to improve safety. He established the Children†s Bureau, a federal agency that protected the rights and interests of children. By 1912 Roosevelt had become completely disillusioned with Taft, he was upset over Taft†s failure to exert strong public leadership. With a new presidential eledion on the horizon, Roosevelt wondered if Taft was enough of a progressive activists to warrant his continued support.

Frankenstein, By Mary Shelley - 1134 Words

Mary Shelley’s classic work, Frankenstein, has captured the imagination of readers for almost 200 years and has inspired numerous retellings and adaptations. Numerous depictions of Dr. Frankenstein and his Creature in plays, films, novels, comic books, television programs, and even video games have caused the familiar image of the lumbering giant to become embedded as one of the classic horror villains in the psyche of the average American. Most of these adaptations show the creature to be cruel, ignorant, and blood-thirsty by nature, but on examination of the original story there is ample evidence that the popular depiction of the creature is wrong. The creature does not enter the world bent on destruction, he is originally a kind,†¦show more content†¦The Creature is knows nothing but rejection from the very moment he is created. No sooner does the Creature breath his first breath than Victor declare his experiment to be a catastrophe and flee from his laboratory (Shelley)⠁  . To Victor the experiment was a terrible failure, a â€Å"frightening mistake that he wishes did not exist† (Hogsette)⠁  . According to Soyka, this rejection by a father, and a creator, can be compared to God s rejection of Satan in Milton s Paradise Lost. After experiencing this first, and perhaps greatest, rejection the Creature flees the confines of Frankenstein s house and finds himself alone in the forest outside the city. When the Creature later recounts this period of his life, he remembers very little other than the physical sensations he experienced at this stage. Light and dark, heat and cold are all he knows before he gains self-awareness. The first non-physical sensations he remembers on his evolution toward self-consciousness are the feelings of loneliness and fear (Gardner)⠁  . In this state of being the mind is like a blank slate, all of his emotions and motivations are innocent and child-like with no evil intentions or malice toward any one. The