Definition Of Culture Essay

Whenever someone hears the term culture, many things will come to their mind. If you even “Google” the definiton of culture, you will get many different definitions of just this one word. Growing up, I just thought is was the mix of everyone’s beliefs, all of their traditions, and whatever else made them who they were, and that everyone had a different culture. After reading this chapter, I didn’t realize how much could come from such a small word. In the book, Conley breaks culture into many different groups. One is culture concerning humans and nature. This is where he defines culture as 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 (Conley, pg 75). One of the main examples for this form of culture, is humans starting to grow crops instead of hunting and gathering for all of their food. The next way he describes culture is by using superior man and inferior man and the concept of ethnocentrism, which makes your culture superior to another persons culture, which I don’t agree with at all. Then there is culture between man and machine, and how things used to be handmade, and then they started being mass produced and relatively cheaper. The one that makes the most sense to me is when Conley describes material …show more content…
It represents the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It’s also right where all the immigrants from the other countries came into the United States through Ellis Island. The Statue of Liberty is a key cultural icon to the history of the United States and our freedom on July 4, 1776. There are many other cultural icons in the United States like the Empire State building, baseball, and even the Beatles, but the Statue of Liberty shows our