How Does Culture Affect Society?

Culture can be defined as the way people behave and what people believe within a given society. Every society has its own unique culture and no two are exactly alike. Culture is so vital to human life because it controls nearly every aspect of it. It is engrained in us from birth and shapes nearly all parts of the way a person thinks. Culture determines the norms of a society, how people behave in all types of relationships, and how institutions are organized and ran. It includes not only how people act and feel, but also their material culture such as dress or artifacts. Culture is imbedded in every feature and facet of peoples’ days that most do not even know that they are conforming to it. Important decisions are dictated almost entirely …show more content…
Among tribes in Papua New Guinea is a trading system known as the “Kula Ring,” in which handmade items are traded between villages for honor. The longer an item stays within the cycle of trading, the more valued it becomes, and items that are worn and weathered are even more revered. Each clan only keeps the prized items for a short amount of time and then they are passed on again. These ideas almost directly contradict the way that Americans view their possessions. In the United States, people regard their property as solely their own, and mutual ownership of goods is rarely seen. This need for personal belongings causes Americans to place a high value in how newly made something is. In this way, products in the United States actually lose value as they get older, and especially if they appear to be worn. To people in the U.S., the idea of keeping a tattered bracelet or shell for a short period of time just to give it away again may seem pointless, but this is only because it is outside of the normal behavior of their culture. Tribes in New Guinea might see Americans as selfish and wasteful for needing new things that they then only keep to …show more content…
Another strong example of cultures that differs from that of the United States are those of Muslim states that require women wear burkas in public. To the men and women of countries Americans view as “oppressed,” these laws are not to condemn women, but to revere them. Women are viewed as sacred, and to see any part of their bodies is a gift and that should only be seen by their husbands. People of the United States perceive this as preventing women from expressing themselves because they are used to women wearing as much or as little as they see fit. These Muslim women, however, might see the women of America as oppressed. They might consider the way women are valued, in some cases for nothing but their bodies, as degrading as those same American girls might consider having to wear a hajib just to go out in public. No one group is right or wrong, each is just acting exactly how their culture trained them to react in that