culture (idea)
"Culture" as defined by the venerable and pleasant archaeologist/anthropologist Stuart McRae, the instructor of my college class on anthropology: (1)Culture is an organized system (2)of learned behavior and thought patterns (3)always made manifest by a group (4)making that group distinctive from other groups. (5)It is not instinctive, but rests on a biological base of: a. Binocular stereoscopic color vision; b. Habitual upright bipedal locomotion; c. Generalized forelimb with opposable thumb; and d. The Symbolic Capacity (750-950 cubic centimeters) (6)Culture is transmitted through language, (7)is cumulative, (8)embraces both artifacts and attitudes, (9)and functions as humankind's chief adaptive mechanism. The numbers 1-9 mark the 9 main ideas embedded in this concept.
|