Cultural Change Research Paper

Improved Essays
Culture is part of every society and is the basis on how people within the society react and live their lives. Every culture is subject to change in order to match the society around the world. However, there are several obstacles that are in the way of such cultural change. Through the different surroundings, a deep social connection to religion, and a lack of technology, cultures have a resistance against change. An example will be given of how it prohibits the growth in certain societies, because within each society, there are certain things that hinder the change and growth of a culture, as well as keep a culture together and unique. Culture is always present and never the same between different societies. Cultures, societies, and their …show more content…
In fact it is the basis on which America was founded upon. The freedom of a religion, the American dollar reads, ‘In God We Trust’. With something so prominent in life, something to believe in, it can and does have a direct link to the ability to have change and evolve. It is easy to follow a religion, as humans we like to have rules, not necessarily follow them, but have rules and a religion gives us just that. ‘Societies with religion were more likely to survive than those without because of the community, compassion, lack of anarchy or murder, family structure, etc. enforced by religious beliefs’. An example of a society that is highly dictated by religion would be, the Islamic ones such as Pakistan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. These countries base their laws on sharia law, and follow strict Islamic culture. Islamic culture is very simple and easily defined. ‘Submit freely to The Commandments and Will of The One and Only God (Allah). This submission should come from within, from sound belief in and conviction to Allah, with no doubt. It should also come from love, trust, and affection’. It is very simple and yet dictates so much about how a society can react within itself and with others. Muslims practice this, although there are many Muslims around the world, Islamic countries are more incline to be led by Muslims in the Islamic belief system. In Islamic culture women must keep their faces covered, and eat in …show more content…
With technology many things can and have been achieved through religious, scientific, health, and educational aspects of the world. The world is ever growing in technological advances. With these changes cultures must learn to adapt to be able to keep up with the rest of the world. Most cultures and countries try to out do the other in scientific achievement. Like the great space race from 1955-1972, which was a competition between USA and the USSR to see who could get to the moon the fastest. It was a way of showing of superior intellect and technologies, in a non-violent way. ‘Each side sought to prove the superiority of its technology’. However in poorer country the cultures there have not been able to adapt to the change in technology and have fallen far behind. For instance Cambodia in homes and outside of the tourist areas there are only old, bulky, windows 98 computers, and never a Television over twenty-five inches. The lack of being able to have, access to, even the smallest amount of technology has little, to no, hope of ever being able to progress technologically. Technology helps society in a way that can be good or bad. It can make daily and work related tasks easier, like the coffee machine or tractor. Or it can cause laziness in people, like the television and video games. Since Cambodia, among other cultures, do not have access to these technologies; they rely on

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    A quote by Dr. Felipe Korzenny “Culture is a cluster of intangibles and tangible aspects of life passed down from generation to generation.” This quote is true; culture affects the way people see the world because it has been shown and taught. In addition to the argument, culture has been around since day one, and there are some pieces to show it. Some pieces that were “Everyday Use” and “An Indian Father’s Plea”. Culture has made an impression since Birth.…

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One of the most common ways people change is through their culture. Culture can be defined as the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. As civilizations develop, they tend to share these ideas and routines with other civilizations. This happens for many different reasons, but the most relevant ways are conquering, trade, and slavery. First, one of the main ways of culture spread is conquering.…

    • 498 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Culture is a generalized term that is not limited to one definition. It may be described as “the sum of the social categories and concepts we recognize in addition to our beliefs, behaviors, and practices” (Conley 78). The topic includes nonmaterial and material culture and it varies from country to country due to the different languages, meanings, and concepts everywhere. Culture affects our lives as much as we affect it. Whereas nature is often seen as an opposite idea to the development of culture because of the result of human intervention.…

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    External Identity Factors

    • 635 Words
    • 3 Pages

    External Factors and Identity The Webster Dictionary definition of Identity is, “the distinguishing character or personality of an individual.” Many things influence our identity. Not all of them are good or positive. Our identities make us who we are and how we live our life.…

    • 635 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    It’s fascinating how people have been able to make so many different definitions for the word culture; a word that was thought to have one singular definition. People of all cultures are unique not just in their methods and ways of life, but also in their definitions of culture. One person can describe culture as something that can bring family and a community together, but another person may define it as the exact opposite; something that tears people apart and in turn will rip apart a community. Neither of them are wrong or right however, because culture is something that is tangible. Culture is something that changes with time instead of against it.…

    • 1377 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Advantages Of Single Voice

    • 1328 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Coherent identity and single voice Through the human history, human beings have been establishing their own cultures in various ways. Since the ancient times, human developed the way how they can survive themselves and it made people to be together. By the time goes, people established community and it formed as the ‘country’. When the country formed in formal way, people started sharing their opinions, rules, instructions, and even their life styles. Among this processes, it has been settled as a certain way and people called it ‘culture’.…

    • 1328 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Imagine a world where everyone has technology, whether it’s a cell phone, laptop, tablet, you name it, everyone has it. Even those living in the far away depths of America, and those who can’t even afford free school lunch. This is hard to image and poses many questions, but in general, it is unrealistic. “Our Future Selves,” an article written by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, informs readers on the importance of technology in revolutionizing our today. Both authors are highly involved with the technical world as Schmidt is the former CEO of Google and Cohen is currently the director of Google Ideas.…

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    What Influences Culture Culture is a blend of beliefs, ideas, values, bloodlines, communication patterns, artistic expressions, and ways of life. In many ways, culture makes up every part of a human, it makes them unique and at the same time culture is capable of uniting people. Culture defines how people identify themselves, how people act, and it even defines how people think. People view the world and the things that compose it in different ways, these ways are composed of a variety of factors, and those factors compose one’s culture, factors such as, how one was raised, the environment that said person was raised in, and societal stigmas and norms.…

    • 1212 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Modern America, many values that people live by are influenced by the concept of religion. Religion teaches the values in life, whether the religion is Christianity, Islam, Hinduism or any kind. The concept of religion being the overarching idea that teaches people values even goes back centuries ago. For instance, the Puritan society was heavily influenced by religion. Even the government was controlled by the power of religion.…

    • 840 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Culture explains every part of a person’s life. It is the knowledge and characteristics of a particular group of individuals, defined by factors such as religion, language, social habits, cuisine, music, and arts. The world is full of people that belong to different cultures but they are sometimes forced to relate and interact in various ways. The Americans and the Chinese are examples of people with different cultures as anthropologist Francis Hsu illustrates. Hessler shares the sentiments in his book titled Hassle`s River Town.…

    • 1149 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Culture is a way of life for a group of people—behaviors, beliefs and values are all shaped by culture. Culture is a relative concept because different cultural groups think, feel and act differently. There is no scientific way of proving one group is superior or inferior to another. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz described culture as a “web of significance”—what he means by this is that culture is a semiotic concept. Culture, as seen by Geertz, is not “complexes of concrete behavior patterns” but as a set of control mechanisms.…

    • 1129 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Throughout time man is possessed with the question, what is culture? The question results in two answers. There is one with positive feedback or one with negative feedback. Culture is dependent upon the influences of people and how they interact with each other in their said culture and others in a different said culture, by which they create societal norms for people to categorize themselves. The interpretation of what culture is or should be like differs upon each individual’s own beliefs.…

    • 1807 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Each country has unique and distinctive culture practices; with culture difference’s even law exists within each country. Each culture has its own particular belief, values and social practices. Due to lack of knowledge there may be a tendency to misunderstand different cultures and sub-cultures. Being the constrain that it is, culture of one nation ought not be judged as better than the culture of another. Each culture has its own specific qualities and social practices.…

    • 1014 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sharia In The Modern World

    • 1641 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The sharia was used in past centuries to direct the everyday living of the Islamic community (Ernest, 2004). The sharia is believed to be the instructions given by Prophet Mohammed to the Islamic people to dwell by on a daily basis. Social exigencies of the Islam community require all members to follow the sharia to the later failure to which punishment is administered according to the directions in the sharia. The Islamic community believes that the sharia is the rules given from god to guide their lives and help them sort issues within the society (Ernest, 2004). The modern world is open since the world has been reduced to a global village, it gives the formation of laws an international outlook in which the laws governing a society or a nation are scrutinized to establish their validity.…

    • 1641 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A culture is the identity of a place. It includes some aspects such as entertainment, education, and people’s lifestyles. Because people who live in different regions show different ways of living, the culture in one place is different from the cultures of other places. Both residents from big cities and small towns have their own unique culture. Although it’s complicated for people to perfectly understand the comparisons between the culture of different places, there are three differences and a similarity between the culture of a small town and the culture of a big city. The first difference between the culture of a small town and the culture of a big city is in the area of entertainment.…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics