[MUSIC] The second item on our plan for this week is components and characteristics of culture. We won't be characterizing culture in full detail, of course, it's really a big topic, just to mention a few things. When we talk about culture, what we mean is actually, for a given group, we mean these group's dominant values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. And these are for ideas, for processes, that characterize both observable and non-observable, below the water level, aspects of culture. Behaviors, then cognitive things like attitudes, and beliefs, and values, which are not purely, but which are very much part of our emotional aspect, part of our emotional mind. Speaking about characteristics, or sometimes they say levels of culture, we can say that a culture is both collective, situational, learned, complex, dynamic, and contradictory. Let me say a few words about some of these features of characteristics. Culture as collective is clear, one person doesn't create a culture. It's always about a certain group, or collective, or teams sometimes they say, or organization, but it's always some group. It is situational, because if it were not situational, we would be able to give general characteristics about everything that French culture is this, this, and that. But this is stupid because we know how many aspects any culture has. And also, even speaking about some aspect, for instance, like how French treat gender issues, or how French behave at the dinner, or what they prefer to do in past time. We need to give certain context, and this is the central topic of this course. We need to have certain context, certain situations in which we will see how this cultural features or parameters, whatever we find, or variables, will perform in this situation. Culture is learned, because we are not born with a culture built into us, it's not hereditary. It is complex, and contradictory, and dynamic. Let me give some details on this three features together, because they are related to each other. It is so complex that sometimes, and it's so situational that sometimes we'll find some contradictory patterns. The easiest thing to see is if we look at the proverbs that each culture has, everyone knows that you may find very different and contradictory proverbs in one and the same language from one and the same time because, well, they were applicable in different situations. And the dynamics of culture which evolves in time and which sometimes evolves very quickly at different period of history of this or that in a group of people, it's what we understand as dynamic. For instance, the end of 20th century, the beginning of the 21st century, what we call the newest Russian history is a very dynamic period for the Russian culture. So many changes taking place in the society. So many revolutionary changes taking place also influenced the culture very much, and it has, we can say about some tectonic changes, or maybe if you use a more humble word, would just say that it develops, at the moment is very dynamically. To elaborate on this again, let's look again on this iceberg metaphor of a culture. And we'll see, to fill this iceberg with certain items, below the water and above the water. What we see when we enter, when we encounter another culture, when we get to know it going across the communication borders. We see how people dress, we see their fashions, we see how they gesticulate, whether they do, how much. We see their dancing, we see their manners in public places. We see sculptures, theater. We hear how they speak, so we see their language. We look at the furniture in their houses, at the architecture. We see rituals. We hear music. We participate and we see certain ceremonies. We look at their paintings, at their artists. What we don't see, we don't know how they, for instance, grant social status to people in this culture. How in this culture people experience time, is it a commodity or a value? What are their ideas about authority? How they approach problems, how they solve problems. What do they consider beautiful, and what they consider ugly? How they define truth. And the most important, probably the deepest, what is considered to be good and evil in this culture? Because although we're all human beings, and the understandings of good and evil normally must be more or less the same for all of us, it's still very much defined in terms of culture and time. Just remember the middle ages, when it wasn't considered to be a bad thing to torture people because it was done for some purposes, and something that we now can not accept. So let's summarize with characteristics of culture. It is transmitted from one generation to another. That's what is considered to be dynamic and development in time, but at the same time, it is not genetically transmitted. It is transmitted through some other means that humankind developed in the course of its life. And sometimes using the metaphors from the way the language emerged, we can say that humanity developed culture as its environmental niche in this world. Culture is a whole thing. We can talk about American culture, Russian culture, Chinese culture. So we have some idea of something whole behind it, or the culture of some other groups. But at the same time, and it is continued because when we talk about Russian culture, we mean some continuation, some time that passes through when this culture passes through time starting from the beginnings of the first millennium and to our days. So it is both whole and continual. At the same time, it consists of different very heterogeneous components, and it changes with the time. It is symbolic, and it in itself creates symbols. The culture consists of symbols and creates them as well. And the last very important point is that culture is ethnocentric. Which means that for any observer, he or she would look at certain things happening in the world from the point of view of his or her own culture, which is not even being conscious within the person, still influences the way we see things. And the issue of ethnocentrism is very important, we will cover it a little bit later. The central thing in any culture is values. And here on the screen, you can see a very long quotation, but a very important quotation, from a very important man in the history of cultural anthropology and intercultural communication. Clyde Kluickhohn, who was one of the first cultural anthropologists to start comparing cultures according to the same lines of behavior and parameters. We'll come to this in a few minutes. So what is stressed here in this quotation? No society is healthy, or creative, or strong, unless the society has a set of common values that give meaning and purpose to group life. This giving of meaning is actually what we understand as creating symbols by culture. Culture is much more than just the appearance of people, of their dwellings, of their cities. It's something that is inside us and gives us the meaning of what we do, gives us understanding of why we are here in this world and what is expected from us. Speaking about values, are really these values so different for different cultures? In a way, if we look at the most basic values that people would have about life, about the world, about themselves, as some studies show actually for many countries, including Russia, most important values are the same. Because this is what makes us human beings, living the life we have. Here on the screen you see a chart, a graph showing the results of the survey where groups of people from many countries, it was performed in 1999, so quite a long ago, but I don't think there are other surveys of this kind that would give really differing results. This chart shows the percentage of people who say that value is extremely important for them. And the top t10 values will be then, protecting the family, 47% of the respondents, honesty, health and fitness, self esteem, self-reliance, justice, freedom, friendship, knowledge, and learning. These are basic values of that make human life in its private, in its family circle, in its attitude to what people want to do in this world, what they would like to have and how they would like to live. An interesting thing is that with all this talk about cultures as islands in the ocean that really started in the mid 20th century, we came to understanding in the process of developing these ideas and following the strengths to something what some scholars calls inter-culture that emerges as a result of globalization of the world, be it good or bad. This is called new values and styles of global culture which are reflected partly in such an interesting trend, I would say, movement, or maybe approach, which is called cultural creatives. Values of cultural creatives, cultural creatives as a loosely defined group of people who probably live all around the world. They don't have any special connections between them, but they believe in the same values. Because current paradigm usually defines culture according to the national borders. That's how I was using it, French, Chinese, American, Russian. But the future is linked to global trends. And one of these global trends is what we could develop as cultural creatives attitude to life. And most important values of cultural creatives include ecological sustainability and concern for the planet. Not just environmentalism, it's a concern for the planet as a whole. Liking what is foreign and exotic in other cultures, it came from the 20th century. Then what is often called women's issues by politicians and the media, and this include concern about the condition of the women and children both at home and around the world. Concern for better healthcare and education, desire to rebuild neighborhoods and community, desire to improve caring relationships and family life. Usually considered as women's issues, which is already saying a lot about our cultures. Then social conscience, a demand for authenticity in social life and a guarded social optimism. So belief in that we can do something about life, about changing life, that we should be active in trying to change life around us and making it better for us and other people. And then giving importance altruism, to self-actualization and spirituality as a single complex of values. Self-actualization is something that is available when you have already fulfilled other probably aspects of human needs. But the value self actualization is extremely important for those people who believe that they are a new trend, a new type of culture in this world, the community of cultural creatives. And please look at the link at the screen, because you can get more information there. And there is also a very funny test that you can try to take in order to find out whether you also are a culture creative. [MUSIC]
