Culture

This culture unit has taught me a lot. It's taught me that America isn't the only country in the world. I realize that sounds kind of dumb, because obviously America isn't the only country in the world, but I've been raised in suburbia. Suburban life really is all that I've known, aside from the family trips to more tropical places, but even then, resorts and luxury hotels don't really count as exploring other worlds.

I see that there is no such thing as wrong. There is no such thing as right, and there is no such thing as normal, for what is normal to one's culture is taboo for another culture. For example, if an American drank blood as a source of nutrition that would be taboo and that person would be shunned by society, or a horror film would be made after that person, but in some cultures it is normal to drink blood. Using my sociological mind, I know that although this is strange for my culture, it is acceptable in other cultures and I respect that. To some cultures, our fast food and Big Macs and microwavable pizza is revolting, and I now realize that Americans aren't normal. We don't set the bar for the norms of society and other countries fall above or below our bar. We have different culture because of where we're from, how we grew up, what our surroundings have to offer.

Using my sociological imagination, I clearly see that the times have changed in America. Society is constantly changing and with that our culture and values change as well. When we talked about all of the different terms for sex, it clearly showed that our society today has become much more vulgar and open about sex, but not necessarily in a good way. We are more open about sex but we also look at it as something casual, where as when our parents were our age it was a much more private subject.

What may have been considered a more in our parents time, like dancing half naked or swearing, is now the norm in our society. We see half naked girls in music videos and our curse words are used as common as pronouns. Our society has changed and the times have changed.

Through this unit I have realized that cultures have extremely different material culture and symbolic culture. As Americans, we are so used to eating with forks and knives (material culture), but go to an Ethiopian restaurant and there won't be a fork in sight. Different cultures perceive objects in different ways. To us, utensils are necessary to eat. To others, hands were given to be used, so you might as well eat with them. Americans value money, jewelry, cars, pets, themselves, clothing, shoes, sports, and purses among other things, but some cultures don't have the need for those sorts of things.

Americans like everything bigger. Bigger is better in America, but as shown in the video we watched about Denmark, space is not as important and therefore rooms are smaller, fridges are smaller, and homes are smaller.

Our symbolic culture differs from other countries as well. Gestures are a big representations of the differences between cultures. A wave in America is taken as a friendly hello or what's up, where as in other cultures it can be a sign of disrespect or ignorance. We have a lot of symbolic culture in the United States. Our cereal boxes are covered with characters who we automatically associate with food. Tony the Tiger=Frosted Flakes. Snap Crackle Pop=Rice Crispies. We see these characters and know what we're buying or what product is being advertised. Symbolic culture is very important to American culture, and it is just as important to other cultures. We just can't be surprised when a person from a different culture doesn't understand our symbolic culture, and we can't be surprised when we don't understand their culture.

Because of this unit, I realize that we are all different. One culture is not weird or stupid, it's just different. Different isn't bad. Different is different. And the sooner we step out of our boxes and realize that America is not the only country in the world, we'll be a better functioning society.