Elements of culture
Elements of culture
The Arts – vast subdivision of culture, composed
of many creative endeavors and disciplines. The arts encompasses visual arts,
literary arts and the performing arts.
·
Gastronomy – the art and science of good eating, including the study of food
and culture.
·
Food
preparation – act of preparing foodstuffs for eating. It encompasses
a vast range of methods, tools, and combinations of ingredients to improve the
flavour and digestibility of food.
·
Food and drink
·
Cuisines – a
cuisine is a specific set of cooking traditions and practices, often associated
with a specific culture.
·
Chocolate –
raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao
tree.
·
Wine – alcoholic
beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes.
Literature –
the art of written works.
·
Fiction – any
form of narrative which deals, in part or in whole, with events that are not
factual, but rather, imaginary and invented by its author(s).
·
Poetry – literary
art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in
addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning.
·
Critical
theory – examination and critique of society and culture, drawing
from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities.
·
Visual
arts – art forms that create works which are primarily visual in
nature.
·
Architecture
– The art and science of designing and erecting buildings and other physical
structures.
·
Classical architecture – architecture of
classical antiquity and later architectural styles influenced by it.
·
Crafts –
recreational activities and hobbies that involve making things with one’s hands
and skill.
·
Drawing – visual art that makes use of any number of drawing
instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium.
·
Film – moving
pictures.
·
Painting –
practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface with a
brush or other object.
·
Photography
– art, science, and practice of creating pictures by recording radiation on a
radiation-sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or electronic image
sensors.
·
Sculpture –
three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials -
typically stone such as marble - or metal, glass, or wood.
Performing arts
– those forms of art that use the artist’s own body, face, and presence as a
medium.
·
Dance – art form
of movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of
expression, social interaction, or presented in a spiritual or performance
setting.
·
Film – moving
pictures, the art form that records performances visually.
·
Theatre –
collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the
experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific
place.
·
Music – art form
the medium of which is sound and silence.
·
Music genres
·
Jazz – musical
style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American
communities in the Southern United States, mixing African and European music
traditions.
·
Opera – art
form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text
(called a libretto) and musical score.
·
Musical instruments – devices created or adapted for the purpose of making
musical sounds.
·
Guitars – the
guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick.
The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally
six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various
woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with either nylon or steel
strings.
·
Stagecraft –
technical aspects of theatrical, film, and video production. It includes, but
is not limited to, constructing and rigging scenery, hanging and focusing of
lighting, design and procurement of costumes, makeup, procurement of props,
stage management, and recording and mixing of sound.
·
Celebration –
·
Festivals –
entertainment events centering on and celebrating a unique aspect of a
community, usually staged by that community.
·
Entertainment
– any activity which provides a diversion or permits people to amuse themselves
in their leisure time. Entertainment is generally passive, such as watching
opera or a movie.
·
Fiction – any
form of narrative which deals, in part or in whole, with events that are not
factual, but rather, imaginary and invented by its author(s).
·
James Bond –
fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming. Since then, the
character has grown to icon status, featured in many novels, movies, video
games and other media.
·
Fantasy – genre of fiction using magic and the
supernatural as primary elements of plot, theme or setting, often in imaginary
worlds, generally avoiding the technical/scientific content typical of Science
fiction, but overlapping with it
·
Middle-earth
– fantasy setting by writer J.R.R. Tolkien, home to hobbits, orcs, and many
other mystical races and creatures.
·
Science
fiction – a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less
plausible (or at least nonsupernatural) content such as future settings,
futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal
abilities. Exploring the consequences of scientific innovations is one purpose of
science fiction, making it a “literature of ideas”.
·
Games – structured
playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment, involving goals, rules, challenge,
and interaction.
·
Board games
·
Chess – two-player
board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares
arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. Each player begins the game with sixteen
pieces: One king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight
pawns.
·
Card games
·
Poker – family of
card games that share betting rules and usually (but not always) hand rankings.
·
Video games
– electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface to generate
visual feedback on a video device.
·
Sports –
organized, competitive, entertaining, and skillful activity requiring
commitment, strategy, and fair play, in which a winner can be defined by
objective means. Generally speaking, a sport is a game based in physical
athleticism.
·
Ball games
·
Basketball –
team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing
or “shooting” a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set
of rules.
·
Cricket –
bat-and-ball team sport, the most popular form played on an oval-shaped outdoor
arena known as a cricket field at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard
(20.12 m) long pitch that is the focus of the game.
·
Tennis – sport
usually played between two players (singles) or between two teams of two
players each (doubles), using specialized racquets to strike a felt-covered
hollow rubber ball over a net into the opponent’s court.
·
Canoeing and kayaking – two closely related forms
of watercraft paddling, involving manually propelling and navigating
specialized boats called canoes and kayaks using a blade that is joined to a
shaft, known as a paddle, in the water.
·
Combat sports
· Fencing – family
of combat sports using bladed weapons. It is also known as French swordfighting
or French swordfencing.
· Martial arts
– extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced
for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health
and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development.
·
Motorcycling – riding a motorcycle. A variety of
subcultures and lifestyles have been built up around motorcycling and
motorcycle racing.
·
Running – moving
rapidly on foot, during which both feet are off the ground at regular
intervals.
·
Humanities
– academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are
primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the
mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences.
·
Area studies – comprehensive interdisciplinary research and academic study of
the people and communities of particular regions. Disciplines applied include
history, political science, sociology, cultural studies, languages, geography,
literature, and related disciplines.
·
Sinology –
study of China and things related to China, such as its classical language and
literature.
·
Classical
studies – branch of the Humanities comprising the languages,
literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and all other cultural
elements of the ancient Mediterranean world (Bronze Age ca. BC 3000 – Late
Antiquity ca. AD 300–600); especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.
The Difference Between Culture and
Civilization
Civilization in theory is bigger
than culture in which an entire civilization can encompass one single unit of
culture. Civilization is a bigger unit than culture because it is a complex
aggregate of the society that dwells within a certain area, along with its
forms of government, norms, and even culture. Thus, culture is just a spec or a
portion of an entire civilization. For example, the Egyptian civilization has
an Egyptian culture in the same way as the Greek civilization has their Greek
culture.
A culture ordinarily exists within a
civilization. In this regard, each civilization can contain not only one but
several cultures. Comparing culture and civilization is like showing the
difference between language and the country to which it is being used.
Culture can exist in itself whereas
civilization cannot be called a civilization if it does not possess a certain culture.
It’s just like asking how a nation can exist on its own without the use of a
medium of communication. Hence, a civilization will become empty if it does not
have its culture, no matter how little it is.
Culture can be something that is
tangible and it can also be something that isn’t. Culture can become a physical
material if it is a product of the beliefs, customs and practices of a certain
people with a definite culture. But a civilization is something that can be
seen as a whole and it is more or less tangible although its basic components,
like culture, can be immaterial.
Culture can be learned and in the
same manner it can also be transmitted from one generation to the next. Using a
medium of speech and communication, it is possible for a certain type of
culture to evolve and even be inherited by another group of people. On the
other hand, civilization cannot be transferred by mere language alone. Because
of its complexity and magnitude, you need to transfer all of the raw aggregates
of a civilization for it to be entirely passed on. It just grows, degrades and
may eventually end if all its subunits will fail.
Definition Culture According to
Experts
·
Sir E. B. Tylor, in the opening lines of his book Primitive Cultures
(1871): “Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art,
morals, law, customs and other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a
member of society”.
·
Margaret Mead (1901-1978): Culture is the learned behaviour of a society or a
subgroup.
·
Clifford Geertz (1926-2006): Culture is simply the ensemble of stories we tell
ourselves about ourselves.
·
Raymond Williams (1921-1988, Cultural Studies): Culture is ordinary: that is
the first fact. Every human society has its own shape, its own purposes, its
own meanings. Every human society expresses these, in institutions, and in arts
and learning.
·
During, S. (1993): Culture is a notoriously ambiguous concept as the above
definition demonstrates. Refracted through centuries of usage, the word has
acquired a number of quite different, often contradictory, meanings. More
specifically, since the end of the eighteenth century, it has been used by
English intellectuals and literary figures to focus critical attention on a
whole range of controversial issues.
·
Hall, S. (Ed.) (1997): ‘Culture’ is one of the most difficult concepts in the
human and social sciences and there are many different ways of defining it. In
more traditional definitions of the term, culture is said to embody the ‘best
that has been thought and said’ in a society. It is the sum of the great ideas,
as represented in the classic works of literature, painting, music and
philosophy – the ‘high culture’ of an era.
·
Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917 Anthropology): “Culture taken, in its wide
ethnographic sense is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art,
morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a
member of society. The conditions of culture among the various societies of
mankind, in so far as it is capable of being investigated on general
principles, is a subject apt for the study of laws of human thought and
action”.
·
Franz Boas (1858-1942, Anthropology): “Culture embraces all the manifestations
of social habits of a community, the reactions of the individual as affected by
the habits of the group in which he lives, and the product of human activities
as determined by these habits.”
Definition Cultural Interaction and
Example
Cultural Interaction is a complex
process, involving different human beings within different formations. It is an
interactive process between two or more partners. When many different cultures
live together in one society, misunderstandings, biases, and judgments are
inevitable—but fair evaluations, relationships, and learning experiences are
also possible. Cultures cannot remain entirely separate, no matter how
different they are, and the resulting effects are varied and widespread.
Ethnocentrism is the tendency to judge another culture by the standards of
one’s own culture. Ethnocentrism usually entails the notion that one’s
own culture is superior to everyone else’s. Example: Americans tend to value
technological advancement, industrialization, and the accumulation of wealth.
An American, applying his or her own standards to a culture that does not value
those things, may view that culture as “primitive” or “uncivilized.” Such
labels are not just statements but judgments: they imply that it is better to
be urbanized and industrialized than it is to carry on another kind of
lifestyle. People in other cultures, such as some European cultures, also see American
culture through the lens of their own ethnocentrism. To members of other
cultures, Americans may seem materialistic, brash, or arrogant, with little
intellectual subtlety or spirituality. Many Americans would disagree with that
assessment.
Bibliography
Arlt, Herbert. “Culture,
Civilization and Human Society – Vol. II – Cultural Interaction” Retrived
from http://www.eolss.net/Sample-Chapters/C04/E6-23-04.pdf.
(Last Accessed on October 20th,2012).
http://www.google.co.id/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nca.edu.pk%2Fcultural%2Fculturedemocracy%2Fdownloads%2FCulture%2520Handout.doc&ei=8_-BUNqKEsHHrQfI44GQDQ&usg=AFQjCNH0OeoRnLPE7J42XOmAvK0YjjsnYg.
(Last Accessed on October 20th,2012).
“Outline of Culture” Retrived from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_culture.
(Last Accessed on October 20th,2012).
“The Interaction of Culture” Retrived from http://www.sparknotes.com/sociology/society-and-culture/section7.rhtml.
(Last Accessed on October 20th,2012).
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