Ruth Benedict Patterns Of Culture

“Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures,” says the late civil rights activist Cesar Chavez. In other words, although it is easy to stay within your own culture, you can gain the most benefit by learning to appreciate and respect the ways that others live their lives. Culture was the topic of the book Patterns of Culture by Ruth Benedict. It offered an anthropological look into culture and how it affects our daily lives. The culture that we live in today has its positives and negatives, and so does every culture. With this in mind, we need to look at other’s culture through a broader lens rather than the narrow one that we in western society tend to use. The definition of culture is one that is ever evolving and changing depending on the person. It can be defined as the environment, norms, and behaviors that a person is inundated with on a daily basis. The environment plays a role because the way in which you are brought up, affects you greatly later on in life. Benedict reiterates these thoughts when …show more content…
In Benedict’s Patterns of Culture, she describes some primitive tribes who literally only view themselves as people, and all those around them are not. Even though they trade and share cultural values with the tribes around them, they still think in this way. In this case, “outsiders” aren’t even considered people. In Promises I Can Keep, the poor women were considered “outsiders” for living their lives outside the norm. These people are considered “outsiders” because they are different than what the culture dictates. They are treated differently as a result and oftentimes looked down upon. Clearly, this is definitely something that needs changing in our society. We need to make sure that everyone is treated the same as we never can truly put ourselves in someone else’s