Speaking of Culture
SPEAKING OF CULTURE
Nolan Weil
Speaking of Culture by Nolan Weil is licensed under a Creative Commons
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Contents
A Note to Students
Nolan Weil ix
Introduction
Nolan Weil 1
PART I. MAIN BODY
1. Chapter 1: What is Culture?
Nolan Weil
Culture, simply de=ned 8 Brief history of a concept 10 Franz Boas and the birth of American anthropology
14
Later 20th & 21st century developments 16 Final reflections 19
7
2. Chapter 2: The Human Family
Nolan Weil
Origins and Diversity of Humanity 28 Where did we all come from? 31 The Multiregional Origin Hypothesis 31 The Recent African Origin Hypothesis 32 But why do we all look so different on the surface?
35
Race is not a biologically meaningful concept 39 Final Reflection 44
27
3. Chapter 3: Origins and Early Developments of
Culture
Nolan Weil
Culture as a product of human activity 49 Paleolithic material culture 50 Stone tools 53 Carved Figurines 55 Painting 58 Origins of mythology 61 Stories of creation – A sampling 62 Similarities among creation stories 69 Accounting for common motifs 72 The Laurasian “Novel” 75 Final Reflection 82 Video Clips & Documentaries 83 References 84
48
4. Chapter 4: Material Culture
Nolan Weil
The things we make 89 Taking to the road 89 From one end of the country to another 100 Final reflection 103
88
5. Chapter 5: Culture as Thought and Action
Nolan Weil
Non-material aspects of culture 107 Beliefs 108 Values 109 Norms 110 Customs and Traditions 111 Rituals 112 Final reflection 116
106
6. Chapter 6: Beliefs, Values, and Cultural
Universals
Nolan Weil
Value Orientations Theory 120 Hofstede’s dimensions of culture theory 124 Critique of Hofstede’s theory 133 Final reflection 135
119
7. Chapter 7: Group Membership and Identity
Nolan Weil
Preliminary remarks 139 Cultures and subcultures 140 Ethnicity 141 Racial identity 144 Social class and culture 148 Nationality 150 The origin of nations 154 National identity 159 Final reflection 161
138
8. Chapter 8: Religion and Culture
Eliza Rosenberg
What is religion? 167 What religion is not 169 The world’s religions 170 Some common religious questions 171 Religion and right behavior 179 Conclusion 183
166
9. Chapter 9: Roots of American National
Culture
Nolan Weil
Preliminary remarks 187 American beliefs and values 188 A closer look at American cultural diversity 195 Understanding U.S. Cultural Landscapes 197 Spanish influence 199 French influence 200 Dutch influence 201 Albion’s Seed 204 Englanders from Barbados 213 The Westward Expansion 216 Final reflection 218
186
A Note to Students
Nolan Weil
If you are a student, you may be reading this book because
you are enrolled in:
• IELI 2470—Cross-Cultural Perspectives, or perhaps
• IELI 2475—Cross-Cultural Explorations
These courses are designed to ful<ll General Education
breadth requirements in social sciences at USU (Utah
State University). As the USU Catalog states:
General Education breadth requirements are intended to
introduce students to the nature, history, and methods of
different disciplines; and to help students understand the
cultural, historical, and natural contexts shaping the human
experience.
The title of this book is Speaking of Culture and its
purpose is to de<ne culture and other concepts associated
with it. My hope is that the readings in this book will help
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | I X
you to better understand the breadth of the concept of
culture and provide you with a vocabulary for discussing it
more articulately.
Culture is one of those broad concepts that is used
widely, although somewhat imprecisely, in everyday
English. It also cuts across many academic disciplines, and
this book draws on many of them. It touches, for instance,
on anthropology, biology, history, mythology, political
science, psychology, and sociology.
This book will not be the only material you will study in
IELI 2470/2475. Your professor may provide you with
additional readings and/or encourage you to do
independent research on topics of interest. You may watch
culturally relevant movies or documentaries. You will, I
hope, also have grand conversations with your peers.
My name, by the way, is Nolan Weil. I have been a
professor in the Intensive English Language Institute
(IELI) since 2004 and have taught this course or similar
courses many times over the years. Perhaps I will be your
teacher for this course, or perhaps you will have another
professor from IELI. If I am your teacher, you will get to
know me better as we meet regularly face-to face
throughout the semester. If I am not your teacher, you
may know me perhaps only as the voice behind this text.
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Introduction
Nolan Weil
Suggested Focus
This introduction to the book will give you a brief survey of the
topics covered in each chapter. Identify two chapters that you think
might be particularly interesting. Why do you think so? Be
prepared to discuss your choices with other readers.
The word culture is among the most frequently used words
in English. We use it frequently in daily speech and
encounter it often in both popular and academic texts.
Directly or indirectly, it is the subject matter of many
university courses. Even when it is not the exclusive focus,
it plays a role in many discussions across the humanities
and social sciences. But most of the time, we use it without
de<ning it or even thinking much about exactly what we
mean by it.
Despite the ease with which we use the term, culture is
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1
not a simple concept. The primary purpose of this book is
to promote a better understanding of the scope of the idea.
Indeed, the word has a very wide range of meanings, and
they are not all consistent with one another. For one thing,
it has a relatively long history, and its primary uses have
changed markedly over several centuries. Even in my
lifetime (I was born in 1953) the ways in which scholars
have de<ned culture have only become more diverse.
To come to grips with culture then will require that we
give an account of the various ways that culture has come
to be de<ned. It also goes without saying that one cannot
de<ne any concept without introducing still other
associated concepts, so this book is rich in such secondary
concepts.
We begin our mission of de<ning culture in Chapter 1
with a brief recounting of the history of the word. We
point to its Latin root and recount the senses attached to it
in 18th century France, and later, in 19th century England,
before 20th century anthropologists made it a central
concept of their discipline. We round out the chapter by
calling attention to the proliferation of de<nitions of
culture over the last 50 years. We end by introducing seven
themes that Faulkner, Baldwin, Lindsley and Hecht (2006)
have identi<ed as encompassing all of the most common
ways in which scholars have sought to de<ne culture.
In Chapter 2, we put de<nitions of culture on the shelf
temporarily, and put on the hat of the physical
anthropologist. Our purpose is to emphasize the idea that
culture, as anthropologists originally conceived it, is
characteristic of the human species. That being the case,
we want to remind readers of the antiquity of our species
because it lays a foundation for putting human culture
into a historical perspective in the chapter that follows. We
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also want to shine a light on the relationship between
human diversity and geography and advance the
argument that “race” is, biologically speaking, a
meaningless category. Concepts such as those of race and
ethnicity are often seen as bound up with culture, but my
hope is that readers leave Chapter 2 with a sense that when
it comes to humanity, the only “race” is the “human race.”
In Chapter 3, we return to an explicit focus on culture,
de<ning it as a product of human activity. We learn that
the <rst modern humans came into a world already
swimming in culture. Their hominid precursors, for
example, were already tool users. The <rst half of the
chapter features a discussion of the material culture of the
Paleolithic, a time stretching from roughly 50,000 to
10,000 years ago. You will no doubt marvel at the
remarkable tools of stone, bone, horn and ivory, and the
various other artifacts that are hard to describe as
anything less than art. The second half deals with the
remarkable similarities in the world’s mythologies, tracing
their major themes back to Africa, and proposing that a
major innovation that took place roughly 40,000 years ago
may have given rise to most of the world’s mythologies as
they have come down to us today.
Chapter 4 might best be regarded as a bridge from the
Paleolithic to the present. There is no grand theory in the
chapter and no technical terminology to master. It merely
begins with a quote from a renowned folklorist, who
declared that “Material culture records human intrusion in
the environment” (Henry Glassie, 1999: 1). Taking
inspiration from the quote and from Glassie’s descriptive
approach to material culture, I was moved to write a
simple homely narrative based on my travels across several
regions of the country. I caught hold of the <rst
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 3
impressions that came to mind when I recalled several
memorable travels. These recollections were of
waterscapes and landscapes, and the most obvious
intrusions were boats and buildings.
Structural de<nitions of culture often consist of lists of
elements that refer to products of thought (or those things
that can be expressed by means of language) and those
things which are recognizable primarily as actions (i.e.
performances, or ways of doing things). The intent of
Chapter 5 is to de<ne a handful of terms that are generally
regarded as aspects of culture: beliefs, values, norms,
customs, traditions, and rituals. This certainly does not
exhaust the list of elements typically mentioned as integral
to culture, but they are terms that we routinely fall back on
when challenged to de<ne culture. They are also terms that
we <nd dif<cult to differentiate. What, for example, is the
difference between a custom and a tradition? Although it
may be a fool’s errand, we will do our best to distinguish
this handful of interrelated terms one from another.
In Chapter 6, we take a closer look at several ways in
which anthropologists have put beliefs and values to work
in the service of cultural inquiry. We look at the theory of
Florence Kluckhohn and Fred Strodtbeck, known as Values
Orientation Theory, which proposes that human societies
can be compared on the basis of how they answer a limited
number of universal questions. We then summarize the
results from another approach to universal values, that of
Geert Hofstede, who has proposed a theory purporting to
identify different orientations across national cultures.
We contrast that with a Chinese Values Survey reflecting a
Confucian worldview. We wrap up the chapter with a
critique of Hofstede’s theory, motivated by a suspicion
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that the persistence of the theory is due more to charisma
than to the veracity of the theory.
Chapter 7 takes up the theme of culture as group-
membership, questioning the labeling of large national
groups as cultures on the grounds that few people in
today’s multicultural societies actually live in groups where
everyone shares the same culture. In other words, we
argue, culture is not something that is contained within
groups. We de<ne some social categories often discussed
by sociologists including race, ethnicity and social class.
We then examine group-membership as historians and
political scientists have often discussed them through the
lens of nationalism.
Chapter 8 explores some relationships between religion
and culture, not the least of which is the fact that the word
“religion,” like the word “culture,” comes to us from the
Latin. Therefore, like the word, “culture,” the word
“religion” does not have exact equivalents in many
languages. Throughout the chapter, we will touch on many
of the world’s historically prominent religions. Along the
way, we will see that while some religions are rooted in
particular shared beliefs, other religions place more
emphasis on everyday practices. In the end, exploring all
the various aspects of religion might lead us to wonder
whether “religion” and “culture” aren’t simply two different
terms for referring to the same things. On the other hand,
it seems unlikely that ordinary speakers of English could
get by without distinguishing that which is simultaneously
religious and cultural from that which is “merely” cultural.
In Chapter 9, we explore the roots of American culture.
In doing so, we employ many of the elements of culture
discussed in Chapters 5 and 6, most particularly: beliefs,
values, and folkways. But whereas Chapter 5 focused on
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 5
de<ning the terms, and Chapter 6 looked into beliefs and
values as cultural universals, Chapter 9 examines some
beliefs and values particularly associated with the United
States. We start with a conventional depiction of the
United States as exemplifying values such as
individualism, freedom, equality, and beliefs in change and
progress, and as embracing norms of competitiveness,
informality, and so on. We continue by challenging that
as perhaps too much of a stereotype. Then, drawing on
the “nation” concept from Chapter 7, we take a historical
view of the United States as a country of eleven nations
all exerting regional influence, and four dominant cultures
dueling for political authority.
This book does not explicitly cover all of the seven
themes introduced in Chapter 1. There isn’t really much
about culture as process or culture as re<nement. And
culture as power and ideology is only suggested in Chapter
9. However, perhaps there is enough here for every student
to gain some small measure of appreciation for the many
ideas we might want to keep in mind when speaking of
culture.
References
Faulkner, S. L., Baldwin, J. R., Lindsley, S. L. & Hecht, M. L.
(2006). Layers of meaning: An analysis of de<nitions of
culture. In J. R. Balwin, S. L. Faulkner, M. L. Hecht & S.
L. Lindsley, (Eds.), RedeQning culture: Perspectives across the
disciplines. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Glassie, H. (1999). Material culture. Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press.
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1
Chapter 1: What is Culture?
Nolan Weil
Suggested Focus
Here are some questions and some tasks to guide you in your
reading of the chapter. If you can address everything on this list,
you will be off to a good start.
1. Simply stated, what is culture?
2. How has the meaning of the word changed over time?
Trace its evolution over the centuries.
3. Contrast Sir Edward Tylor’s 19th century view of culture
with that of Franz Boas at the beginning of the 20th
century. How are they similar? How are they different?
4. What is the signiTcance of Kroeber and Kluckhohn’s
classic work published in 1952?
5. List the seven themes that seem to capture the
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 7
scholarly literature on culture. Which theme(s) do you
Tnd most compelling?
Culture, simply deTned
Trying to settle on a simple de<nition of culture is not an
easy task. Maybe you will feel the same as you work your
way through this chapter. You will see, for example, that
the idea of culture has changed many times over the
centuries and that in the last 50 years, scholars have made
the idea more and more dif<cult to understand. But in this
chapter, I will try to offer the simplest de<nition that
seems reasonably up to date. Scholars might object that
this de<nition is too simple, but I hope it will be useful for
the purpose of furthering cross-cultural understanding. In
that spirit, we shall regard ‘culture’ simply as a term
pointing to:
all the products of human thought and action both material
and non-material, particularly those that exist because we live
in groups.
Or to repeat the same idea in a slightly different way:
culture consists of all the things we make and nearly
everything that we think and do, again, to the extent that
what we make, think and do is conditioned by our experience
of life in groups.
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The <rst thing to emphasize is that we are not born with
culture, like we are born with blue or brown eyes, or black
hair. We are born into culture, and we learn it by living in
human social groups. The way this idea is often expressed
is to say that culture is something that is transmitted from
one generation to the next. This is how we become
‘enculturated.’
But we humans are clever animals, so although much of
what we make, think, and do is a result of the cultural
environment into which we were born, not every material
object that a person may make, or every thought, or every
action is the result of enculturation. Think about it for a
moment. While much of what we call culture is
transmitted from generation to generation, new items of
culture are invented from time to time. That is to say,
sometimes, some of us make things, think things, or do
things that are new and different. We are then either
honored as innovators or even geniuses, or we are
punished as heretics or criminals, or dismissed as
eccentric, depending on how open or how closed our
societies are to change.
Of course, few things are ever entirely new. For the most
part, we stand on the shoulders of those who came before
us. Still, suppose some clever person creates a completely
unique tool to serve some entirely personal purpose of no
interest or use to another living person. Then by our
de<nition of culture (above), that tool would seem to have
all the marks of culture except one; it would play no role in
the life of any group. The same would go for an idea. Any
idea not shared by one’s fellow group members would not
seem to belong to culture. And similarly, a completely
idiosyncratic practice marks a person as merely different,
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 9
if not strange, not as a person participating in a shared
cultural practice.
Having proposed a brief, simple and fairly modern
de<nition of culture that not every scholar of culture
would <nd satisfactory, let us next survey some of the
complications one <nds in academic studies of culture.
Brief history of a concept
Since this discussion is intended for an international
audience, it is important to know that the English word
‘culture’ does not refer to a universal concept. In fact, it
may not even have direct counterparts in other European
languages closely related to English. For example, even
though the German word ‘Kultur’ and the Polish
word ‘kultura’ resemble the English ‘culture’, there are
important differences in meaning, and in more distant
languages like Mandarin Chinese (wen hua), we might
expect the differences to be even greater (Goddard, 2005).
What this means is that if you are a speaker of Mandarin,
you cannot rely on a simple translation of the term from a
bilingual dictionary or Google Translate.
Scholars often begin their attempts to de<ne culture by
recounting the historical uses of the word. As Jahoda
(2012) has noted, the word ‘culture’ comes originally from
the Latin, colere, meaning “to till the ground” and so it has
connections to agriculture. Now for historical reasons, a
great many English words have Latin and French origins,
so maybe it is not surprising that the word ‘culture’ was
used centuries ago in English when talking about
agricultural production, for example, ‘the culture of
barley.’ Gardeners today still speak of ‘cultivating’
tomatoes or strawberries, although if they want to be more
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plain-spoken, they may just speak of ‘growing’ them.
Moreover, biologists still use the word culture in a similar
way when they speak of preparing ‘cultures of bacteria.’
Later, in 18th century France, says Jahoda, culture was
thought to be “training or re<nement of the mind or
taste.” In everyday English, we still use the word in this
sense. For instance, we might call someone a cultured
person if he or she enjoys <ne wine, or appreciates
classical music, or visiting art museums. In other words,
by the 18th century, plants were no longer the only things
that could be cultured; people could be cultured as well.
Still later, culture came to be associated with “the
qualities of an educated person.” On the other hand, an
uneducated person might be referred to as “uncultured.”
Indeed, throughout the 19th century, culture was thought
of as “re<nement through education.” For example, the
English writer Matthew Arnold (1896, p. xi) referred to
“acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known
and said in the world.” If Arnold were still alive today, he
would no doubt think that the person who reads
Shakespeare is ‘cultured’ while the one who watches The
Simpsons or Family Guy is not.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 1
Sir Edward Tylor
Near the end of the 19th
century, the meaning of
culture began to converge on
the meaning that
anthropologists would adopt
in the 20th century. Sir
Edward Tylor (1871, p. 1), for
instance, wrote that:
Culture, or civilization … is that
complex whole which includes
knowledge, belief, arts, morals,
laws, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired
by man as a member of society.
Notice that Tylor viewed culture as synonymous with
civilization, which he claimed evolved in three stages.
CAUTION: Today we generally regard Tylor’s theory as
mistaken, so please do not get too excited about the details
that follow, but according to Tylor, the <rst stage of the
evolution of culture was “savagery.” People who lived by
hunting and gathering, Tylor claimed, exempli<ed this
stage. The second stage, “barbarism,” Tylor said, described
nomadic pastoralists, or people who lived by tending
animals. The third stage, the civilized stage, described
societies characterized by: urbanization, social
strati<cation, specialization of labor, and centralization of
political authority.
As a result, European observers of 19th century North
America, noticing that many Indian tribes lived by
hunting and gathering, thought of America as a “land of
savagery” (Billington, 1985). Presumably, tribes that
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farmed and tended sheep were not savages but merely
barbarians. But by this de<nition, many early English
settlers in North America, as well as some populations still
living in England, in so far as they lived mainly by farming
and tending animals, could rightly be called barbarians. In
fact, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, many
‘cultured Europeans’ did regard Americans in the colonies
as barbarians.
Now just to be clear, Europeans were not the only
people with an inflated sense of their own superiority. In
China, those living within the various imperial dynasties
thought of people living far away from the center of the
empire as barbarians. Moreover, they regarded everyone
outside of China as barbarians. And this included the
British.
But let’s return to Sir Edward Tylor and the elements
that he identi<ed as belonging to culture–knowledge,
beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs, and so on. This view of
culture is certainly not far from 20th and 21st century
views. But contemporary cultural scholars <nd Tylor
mistaken in equating culture with civilization. Among the
<rst scholars to drive this point home was Franz Boas.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 3
Franz Boas
Franz Boas and the birth of American
anthropology
Franz Boas is widely
regarded as the father of
cultural anthropology in
the United States. Boas
was a German of Jewish
heritage (though from a
not religiously observant
family). Educated in
Germany, Boas was
exposed to two competing
intellectual traditions, the
Naturwissenschaften
(natural sciences) and the Geisteswissenschaften (human
sciences). Boas embraced both, as a student of physics on
the one hand and geography on the other. In 1896, Boas
immigrated to the United States (Liron, 2003). Without
the contributions of Boas, American anthropology might
have developed very differently.
Unlike the British scholars of the time, Boas insisted
that the study of culture should be based on careful
observation, not speculation, which was the tendency of
writers like Matthews and Tylor. Boas spent many years
studying Native American cultures, and over the course of
his career, he collected volumes of information on
linguistics, art, dance, and archaeology. Boas’ studies
convinced him of the sophistication of Native cultures, so
in contrast to Tylor, Boas and his students rejected the
idea of indigenous cultures as inferior stages along the
route to civilized re<nement presumably represented by
“Western” cultures (Franz Boas, 2017).
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In fact, Boas is responsible for a number of tendencies
in American anthropology:
For one thing, as we have just suggested, Boas rejected
the idea that culture was something that evolved within
societies by stages from lower forms to higher. Instead, he
argued that culture was a historical, not an evolutionary
development. Boas insisted that cultural ideas and
practices diffused across groups who were living in
proximity and interacting within similar environments.
For Boas cultural developments were in many ways just
accidents of history (Franz Boas, 2017).
Moreover, Boas was a vehement opponent of the
scienti<c racism of the era (Liron, 2003). Scienti<c racists
pushed the idea that race was a biological characteristic
and that it was possible to explain human behavior by
appealing to racial differences. During the 19th and 20th
centuries, scienti<c racism had many proponents, not just
in Europe and North America but as far away as China and
Japan (Dikötter, 1992). Many anthropologists in Boas’ day
busied themselves in activities like describing and
measuring the skulls of various groups of people and using
this data to draw conclusions about the intellectual and
moral characteristics of people. Boas, however, conducted
his own studies of skeletal anatomy, and argued that the
shape and size of the human skull was greatly affected by
environmental factors like health and nutrition (Franz
Boas, 2017).
For better or for worse, Boas is also responsible for
transforming culture into a count noun, or a noun with
both singular and plural forms. Before Boas, culture was
an abstract idea, not countable, like beauty, knowledge, or
love. After Boas, one could refer to “cultures,” that is,
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 5
groups sharing a common set of ideas, beliefs, practices,
etc.
Finally, we also owe the notion of cultural relativism to
Franz Boas. Cultural relativism is the idea that cultures
cannot be objectively evaluated as higher or lower, better
or worse, right or wrong. From the perspective of the
cultural relativist, cultures can only be judged on their own
terms. For the cultural relativist, the job of the
anthropologist is to understand how a culture works, not
to make aesthetic or moral judgments about other
cultures. (Cultural relativism though was a double-edged
sword. On the one hand, it may have helped students of
culture combat their own ethnocentrism. After all, most of
the practices of any given culture are surely neither right
nor wrong relative to those of another culture but only
different. On the other hand, a cultural relativist would be
forced to admit that there was nothing morally wrong with
chattel slavery as practiced across wide regions of the
country in 19th
century America. That idea clearly offends
the moral intuitions of most contemporary Americans.)
Franz Boas had extraordinary influence on American
anthropology. He not only introduced important ideas and
methods but also nurtured a generation of students that
would turn anthropology into a thriving and popular
academic <eld. Alfred Kroeber, Ruth Benedict, Edward
Sapir, and Margaret Mead were just a few of Boas’ most
well-known students (Franz Boas, 2017).
Later 20th & 21st century developments
Academic interest in culture flourished in the 20th century
and still continues today. Scholars who try to de<ne the
subject often begin with the classic work of Kroeber and
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Kluckhohn who in 1952 reviewed over 160 de<nitions from
the literature of their day. And as if 160 de<nitions were
not enough, Kroeber and Kluckhohn went on to offer their
own:
Culture consists of patterns … of … behavior acquired and
transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive
achievement of human groups, including their embodiments
in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional,
… historical … ideas and especially their attached values;
culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as
products of action, on the other as conditioning elements of
further action. (Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1952: 181)
Since Kroeber and Kluckhohn, scholars have continued
to revise old de<nitions and invent new ones. A recent
survey identi<ed 313 de<nitions in the scholarly literature
comprising seven distinct themes! These included
de<nitions framed in terms of:
1. Structure/pattern – culture as a system or framework
of elements (e.g., ideas, behavior, symbols, or any
combination of these or other elements)
2. Function – culture as a means for achieving some
end
3. Process – culture as an ongoing process of social
construction
4. Product – culture as a collection of artifacts (with or
without deliberate symbolic intent)
5. ReQnement – culture as individual or group
cultivation to higher intellect or morality
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 7
6. Group membership – culture as signifying a place or
group of people, including a focus on belonging to
a place or group
7. Power or ideology – culture as an expression of
group-based domination and power
(Faulkner, Baldwin, Lindsley & Hecht, 2006: 29-30)
Given so many themes, you might feel like agreeing with
Jahoda (2012: 299) who complained that:
more than half a century after Kroeber and Kluckhohn, and
a literature that could easily Tll a sizeable library, the most
striking feature of these deTnitions is their diversity.
But perhaps this laundry list of themes need not be
confusing. Perhaps they are not even as inconsistent as
they might seem. I am reminded of the parable of the blind
men and the elephant.
Six blind men confronting an elephant for the <rst time,
came away from the experience with six different
descriptions owing to their different angles of approach.
One blind man, reaching up to touch the animal’s broad
side, concluded that the elephant was like a wall. Another
man running into a leg, decided that an elephant was like
a tree. A third man seizing the elephant’s trunk,
proclaimed the elephant to be a snake, while the fourth
man grasping the tail, declared the elephant to be more
like a rope. Meanwhile, a <fth man grasping the ear was
sure the elephant was like a fan, while the sixth man
encountering a tusk was equally sure the elephant was a
spear. Only by bringing all of the separate parts of the
1 8 | N O L A N W E I L
elephant together could anyone hope to acquire a complete
and coherent impression of an elephant. Perhaps culture is
a bit like this. Our concept of it is enriched when we are
able to see it from many different angles.
Blind monks examining an elephant by Itcho Hanabusa (1652-1724)
Still maybe some of the themes of Faulkner and
colleagues seem more basic than others, so in rounding
out this chapter, I attempt a <nal synthesis bringing
together the simple de<nition with which I started the
chapter and relating it to the seven themes of Faulkner et
al.
Final reflections
How does the simple de<nition of culture offered at the
beginning of the chapter intersect with those of Faulkner
and colleagues? If you go back and review the simple
de<nition carefully, you will see that it encompasses items
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 9
1 and 4 from the list, with a nod to item 6 as well. It
emphasizes that culture is a product of human making. It
allows that those products can be material artifacts, or
merely expressions of cognitive activities, i.e., thoughts, or
both. A story passed along by word of mouth is a product
of thought. Retelling the story to an audience is an action.
A story written down on a scroll or printed in a book
means that the thoughts of the story-teller are preserved in
material form. In emphasizing that culture consists of
elements, we have tried to reduce those elements down to
two basic categories: thought and action. In later chapters,
we will expand upon each category.
Our de<nition does not rule out the possibility that
some elements of culture, what we call material culture,
can remain long after the people that produced it are gone,
e.g., stone tools from prehistoric times. On the other hand,
it implies that material artifacts do not come into being
without human intervention. Somebody made the stone
tools. And it leaves open the possibility that some elements
of culture are behavioral; in other words, they are
performances that require no props, e.g., shaking hands in
greeting. Finally, my simple de<nition acknowledges that
in so far as people are not solitary animals but live in
groups, culture is a collective phenomenon. We will revisit
all of these themes in the chapters that follow.
As for de<nitions that emphasize culture as a function
or culture as a process, my de<nition is silent. I would say,
of course, one can look at culture from a functional point
of view, or one can emphasize the processual aspects of
cultural phenomena. But are these not secondary
considerations? Don’t they follow only after some initial
observation and description? We <nd a stone arrow head
buried in the ground. Isn’t the <rst order of business to
2 0 | N O L A N W E I L
gaze in wonder at the object, to describe it and name it? Of
course, we soon want to know: What was this used for?
What was its function? In what ways does it <t together
with other objects? And how was it made? And knowing
full well that crafting a tool requires learning, we wonder,
how did novices learn this craft, by what process? But in
the interest of brevity, I have purposely tried not to cram
every conceivable quali<cation into the basic de<nition.
Looking over Faulkner et al’s list for other items about
which our opening de<nition is silent, we also note the
preservation of one of the oldest notions of culture, culture
as re<nement. With the career of Franz Boas freshly in
mind, we might imagine that Boas would wonder how
such an anachronism appears in our modern context. (An
anachronism is something old-fashioned, something
belonging to an earlier time and place than the one
portrayed.) However, while Tylor may have been wrong to
think that the culture of Native Americans or Africans was
rudimentary compared to that of Englishmen, perhaps we
should not be too quick to banish the idea of re<nement as
an integral aspect of culture. One could well imagine our
stone-age tool master, for instance, becoming better and
better at the craft and teaching others the <ner points of
arrowhead making. Indeed, human culture may have built
into it the urge to perfection, and so the idea of culture as
re<nement need not necessarily be an elite pretension of
either Western (or imperial Chinese) “high society.”
Finally, there is the idea that culture is an expression of
group-based domination and power. In my <rst
reflections on this theme I was inclined to say that surely
this does not reflect the most basic de<nition of culture
but is instead an observation about a dynamic that might
come about when populations grow and splinter into
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 2 1
multiple groups that inevitably vie with each other. (Come
to think of it, isn’t that exactly what a study of Neolithic
China will reveal.) And so I may be forced to acknowledge
that perhaps culture as power and domination over others
deserves a more prominent place in my scheme of things,
but for now I will have to leave things stand as they are,
i.e., incomplete.
To sum it all up, the English word, “culture,” has a long
history, and it has also undergone many modern
developments. In contemporary discourse, it continues to
be used in all the old ways, even as it has acquired new
meanings. It is a product of human thought and action.
Some products are tangible and some are not. Culture is
learned. Culture is passed from one generation to another.
Sometimes culture is invented anew. Culture is the
instrument by means of which humans both adapt to the
physical environment and regulate their lives in groups.
Culture is not <xed once and for all but changes in
response to changing circumstances. Culture can be a
source as well as an instrument of conflict. Culture is
complicated.
Application
For Further Thought and Discussion
Below are some excerpts of deTnitions from various sources,
organized in seven groups. Keep in mind the proposal of Faulkner,
Baldwin, Lindsley and Hecht that scholarly deTnitions tend to fall
into one (or more) thematic categories:
1. Structure
2 2 | N O L A N W E I L
2. Function
3. Process
4. Product
5. ReTnement
6. Group Membership
7. Power/Ideology
For each cluster of deTnitions below, name the category from
above that best describes the theme represented by the items
included in the cluster.
Cluster 1: Culture as _______________
• the moral and social passion for doing good; it is the study and pursuit of perfection, and this perfection is the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, as distinguished from our animality (Harrison, 1971)
• the attainment of higher awareness, with the aid of which one succeeds in understanding one’s own historical value, one’s own function in life, one’s own rights and obligations (Gramsci, 1981)
Cluster 2: Culture as _______________
• what happens when people makes sense of their lives and the behavior of other people with whom they have to deal (Spindler and Spindler, 1990)
• how information is transmitted, particularly in teaching and learning (Bonner, 1980)
Cluster 3: Culture as ________________
• a community or population sufFciently large enough to be self-sustaining, i.e., large enough to produce new generations of members without relying on outside people (Jandt, 2016)
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 2 3
• people who share learned patterns of behavior (Winkelman, 1993)
Cluster 4: Culture as ________________
• a contested zone in which different groups struggle to deFne issues in their own interests (Moon, 2002)
• a Feld on which a cacophonous cluster of diverse voices plays itself out (Shore, 1996)
Cluster 5: Culture as ________________
• the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving (Samovar and Porter, 1991)
• an organized group of learned responses characteristic of a particular society (Linton, 1955)
• a commonly shared system of symbols, the meanings of which are understood on both sides with an approximation to agreement (Parsons, 1964)
Cluster 6: Culture as ________________
• that which gives people a sense of who they are, of belonging, of how they should behave, and of what they should be doing (Harris & Moran, 1996)
• means and mechanisms through which the general biological nature of the individuals comprising the society is regulated, their behavior is programmed and directed … (Markarian, 1973)
Cluster 7: Culture as _________________
• the artifacts that are produced by society, e.g., clothing, food, technology, etc. (Barnett & Kincaid, 1983)
2 4 | N O L A N W E I L
• popular production of images . . . as part of a larger process which . . . may be called popular culture (Fabian, 1999)
References
Arnold, M. (1896). Literature and dogma. (Preface). New
York, NY: The Macmillan Co.
Baldwin, J. R., Faulkner, S. L., Hecht, M. L. & Lindsley, S. L.
(Eds.), (2006). RedeQning culture: Perspectives across the
disciplines. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Billington, R. A. (1985). Land of savagery, land of promise: The
European image of the American frontier in the nineteenth
century. University of Oklahoma Press.
Dikötter, F. (1992). Discourse of race in modern
China. Stanford University Press.
Faulkner, S. L., Baldwin, J. R., Lindsley, S. L. & Hecht, M. L.
(2006). Layers of meaning: An analysis of de<nitions of
culture. In RedeQning culture: Perspectives across the
disciplines. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Franz Boas. (2017, June 2). In Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia.
Goddard, C. (2005). The lexical semantics of ‘culture’.
Language Sciences, 27, 51–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.langsci.2004.05.001
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 2 5
Jahoda, G. (2012). Critical reflections on some recent
de<nitions of ‘‘culture.’’ Culture & Psychology, 18(3),
289–303.
Kroeber, A. L., & Kluckhohn, C. (1952). Culture: A critical
review of concepts and deQnitions. Cambridge, MA: Peabody
Museum.
Liron, T. (2003). Franz Boas and the discovery of culture.
Senior Honors Thesis, Amherst College.
Tylor, E. B. (1871/1958). The origins of culture. New York, NY:
Harper & Brothers.
Image Attribution
Image 1: “Edward Burnett Tylor” by The GNU Project is
licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
Image 2: “Franz Boas” from the Canadian Museum of
Civilization is licensed under Public Domain-1923
Image 3: “Blind monks examining an elephant” from
Wikimedia Commons is licensed under Public
Domain-1923
2 6 | N O L A N W E I L
2
Chapter 2: The Human
Family
Nolan Weil
Suggested Focus
There are several important arguments in this chapter. If you
follow them carefully, you may come away with all the necessary
resources to address the following questions and tasks.
1. What does it mean to say that human diversity is
geographically structured?
2. Explain the essential difference between the
Multiregional Origin Hypothesis and the Recent African
Origin Hypothesis. How does your previous
understanding of human origins compare with these
explanations?
3. List at least three genetically determined traits
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 2 7
discussed in the chapter. Which two seem linked to
geography and climate? Which one might be due
mainly to chance?
4. Explain the connection between geography, human
nutritional requirements, and skin color.
5. How has the concept of race changed since the time of
Carl Linnaeus?
Origins and Diversity of Humanity
In the chapter after this one, we will trace human culture
back to its earliest origins and then linger for a while in the
Upper Paleolithic, which lasted from about 50,000 to
10,000 years ago. But in this chapter, we will set the stage
for that story by looking at the origins and diversity of
Homo sapiens, which is the scienti<c name of our species.
Although we humans are not the only species to exhibit
culture, we depend on it in a way that no other species
does. Moreover, human culture is certainly as old as the
human species itself. But how old is that? And how do we
explain human diversity? Finally, how did our species
come to be distributed across the whole earth?
Anyone who has ever visited an ethnically diverse city
like New York, London, Toronto, or Sydney, is surely
impressed by the diversity of people living in these cities.
These cities, and others like them, have attracted migrants
from every corner of the world. Noticing this diversity may
naturally make some of us curious. Where is this or that
person from? Or to be more precise, where are the person’s
ancestors from (for the person in question may be truly
2 8 | N O L A N W E I L
from New York, having been born there and having never
lived anywhere else). Sometimes it is hard to guess from a
person’s appearance where his/her ancestors are from
originally. But sometimes it is not so hard. Where do you
suppose the ancestors of the people depicted below
probably originated?
Indeed, a person’s physical appearance can be a good
clue from where in the world the person’s ancestors came.
We see a person with a particular face, and we think —
India, while for others, we think — China, or Africa, or
Europe. Sometimes we can be even more precise—that
person looks Somali, we think (if we are familiar with
Somalis), while another we guess is an Eastern European
of some sort. Of course, we can be mistaken, but those of
us who have met people from many different places may
become quite good at guessing a person’s ancestral
origins. On the other hand, many people in the world
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 2 9
today have mixed ancestry, which complicates the point I
am trying to make. You may be wondering, “just what is
that point?”
Only that humans exhibit a lot of genetic diversity (for it
is our genes that determine our physical characteristics)
and also that genetic diversity is geographically
structured, which is the geneticist’s way of saying that
people from particular regions resemble each other more
than they resemble people from other regions. In the past,
this observation led both laymen and scholars to believe
that people could be neatly classi<ed into easily
distinguishable groups, called ‘races.’
Today, most biologists believe that (biologically
speaking) the only race is the human race. What does this
mean? Where did our respective ancestors come from in
the <rst place? Did our ancestral groups just spring into
existence independent of all other groups? Or is each
group a branch from the trunk of one great tree, which
came from a single seed? In other words, if we trace our
ancestry back far enough, will we discover that we really
belong, not to different regional tribes, but to one original
tribe?
The academic discipline most intimately connected with
the search for answers to questions about human origins
is physical anthropology (also known as biological
anthropology). We thus begin our cross-cultural
explorations by <rst situating ourselves as a species.
3 0 | N O L A N W E I L
Artist’s depiction of Homo erectus
Where did we all come from?
Scienti<c knowledge of
human origins is based on
the study of skulls and
other skeletal remains,
many of which were
unearthed in the 20th
century. In the last 30
years, advances in
molecular genetics have
also advanced our
knowledge. Based on this
material, many
anthropologists have concluded that our <rst fully human
(but not quite modern) ancestors appeared in Africa about
2 million years ago. We know them as Homo
erectus (“upright man”). We call ourselves Homo sapiens
(“wise man”), meaning that while we might see these
distant cousins as somehow human, we do not see them as
belonging to our species. But their exact relationship to us
has been a subject of controversy over the last half-century,
as scholars have debated two competing theories for
explaining how human beings populated the planet. Let’s
look at these two theories.
The Multiregional Origin Hypothesis
There are many variations of the Multiregional Origin
Hypothesis, making it hard to construct a simple narrative,
but the basic story goes something like this.
As suggested above, Homo erectus, <rst appeared in
Africa about 2 million years ago. From fossil evidence, we
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 3 1
guess that some groups migrated out of Africa reaching
Indonesia, China, and Georgia about 1.7 million years ago.
Other groups may have wandered into Europe about 1.5
million years ago. According to multi-regionalists, (e.g.,
Thorne & Wolpoff, 2003), as Homo erectus spread across
Asia and Europe, they established separate regional
populations. These populations gradually evolved with
some gene mixing occurring when migrating groups
sometimes came into contact with one another. Multi-
regionalists propose that Homo erectus gradually evolved to
eventually become Homo sapiens. If this theory is correct,
say the multi-regionalists, it explains why Homo sapiens
appeared suddenly across Europe, Asia and Australia
about 50,000 years ago.
The Recent African Origin Hypothesis
Not every anthropologist accepts the Multiregional Origin
Hypothesis. Supporters of the Recent African Origin
Hypothesis agree that various species of the genus Homo,
including Homo erectus <rst appeared in Africa and that
some groups migrated out of Africa. They doubt, however,
that Asian populations of Homo erectus gave rise to Homo
sapiens. Instead, they argue, there were many migrations
of various archaic humans out of Africa over 1.5-2.0 million
years, none of which gave rise to Homo sapiens. According
to the Recent African Origin Hypothesis, our immediate
ancestors evolved—perhaps from Homo erectus, yes,
although not of the world travelling Asian variety, but
instead from those Homo erectus who had remained,
evolving, in Africa (Cann & Wilson, 2003).
According to the Recent African Origin Hypothesis, our
closest ancestors originated in East Africa about 150,000 –
3 2 | N O L A N W E I L
200,000 years ago and migrated out of Africa in several
waves beginning about 100,000 years ago. Some of these
waves may have died out. But one wave, which began
about 90,000 years ago, carried early humans out of Africa,
possibly through present day Yemen. Over the next 15,000
years, groups of early moderns followed the coast of the
Indian Ocean, around the Indian subcontinent as far as
present day Indonesia and southern China. By about
65,000 years ago, some groups reached Australia, Borneo
and New Guinea. About 50,000 years ago, after the climate
in Europe began to warm following an Ice Age, some
groups moved north and east across the European
continent (Oppenheimer, 2003).
Map of hypothesized global migrations of humans out of Africa
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 3 3
Artist’s depiction of Neanderthal Man
On these migrations,
Homo sapiens may have
encountered various
hominid cousins,
including Homo
neanderthalensis
(Neanderthal man). Some
geneticists believe modern
humans may carry a small
amount (~2.5%) of
Neanderthal DNA (Green,
et al., 2010). Otherwise
there is not much evidence of interbreeding between
moderns and archaic humans. Eventually, all
representatives of the genus Homo other than Homo sapiens
disappeared; we do not know exactly why.
About 40,000-45,000 years ago, modern humans began
spreading north throughout Asia. Then beginning about
25,000 years ago, some groups crossed over a Bering land
bridge from Siberia to Alaska. Gradually, over the next
10,000 years, these migrants from Asia spread throughout
all of North and South America. Of course, not everyone
left Africa. Some descendants of groups that left may have
even returned. We do not know all of the details, but over
the past 30 years, a lot of evidence has been discovered that
supports the Recent African Origin hypothesis
(Oppenheimer, 2003). Today, it is probably fair to say, it is
the consensus view among anthropologists although few
would say the matter is completely settled.
If the Recent African Origin theory is correct, it means
every living human being can trace his/her ancestry to
Africans who left Africa roughly 90,000 years ago. In other
words, there is a fundamental sense in which deep down
3 4 | N O L A N W E I L
we are all African, and ultimately as different as we may
seem to be, we are all one big family.
But why do we all look so different on the
surface?
If our ancestors all came from Africa, you may be
wondering, why do we all look as different as we do? To
answer this question, we have to draw on principles from
evolutionary biology and population genetics.
To survive, a species must be well adapted to its
environment. Some species occupy a very narrow
geographic range; we say it is specialized. For example,
the koala lives only in Australia and eats primarily the
leaves of eucalyptus trees. Koalas do not exhibit much
variation and cannot live in very many places. Other
species, however, are generalized; they inhabit a wide
range of environments and exhibit a greater degree of
variation. We humans are an example of a generalized
species. We inhabit environments from the tropics to the
arctic, from deserts to rainforests, and from sea level to
high mountains. Many of the traits we possess are what
biologists call polymorphic, that is they exist in many different forms, which allow us to adapt to a wider range
of environments (Feder and Park, 1993: p. 328).
One trait that shows great variation in humans is skin
color. If we look at a map showing the distribution of skin
color across the world today, we <nd that darker skin is
concentrated near the equator while lighter skin is
concentrated in the northern latitudes. If the recent
African origin theory is correct, our earliest modern
human ancestors evolved in Africa for about 100,000 years
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 3 5
before leaving on their journeys to the far ends of the
earth. Those ancient ancestors were most certainly black,
having evolved in the intense equatorial sun.
Global human skin color distribution
Black skin provides some protection against sunburn
and skin cancer. That much is true. But this is probably not
the reason our African ancestors evolved dark skin.
More important may have been a connection between
skin color, ultraviolet radiation (UV), and an important
vitamin. According to Jablonski & Chaplin (2010), dark
skin is the body’s way of preserving folate (Vitamin B),
which is rapidly destroyed by UV radiation leading to
folate de<ciency, a major cause of birth defects,
developmental disorders, and various degenerative
diseases (Lucock et al., 2003). Light skinned people would
not have thrived in such an environment; therefore, the
frequency of genes for light skin would have been greatly
reduced or eliminated from the gene pool.
When the earliest migrations out of Africa took humans
around the coast of India, the selective pressures (with
regard to skin color) remained the same. Indeed, people
indigenous to southern India tend to be quite dark. But as
human populations moved northward, selective pressure
for dark skin diminished. In fact, populations in the
3 6 | N O L A N W E I L
northern most latitudes encountered a different kind of
adaptive challenge. Adequate Vitamin D synthesis requires
exposure to UV radiation. Humans in the northern
latitudes needed to absorb all the UV light they could for
Vitamin D synthesis. Since white skin allows in more UV
while dark skin <lters it out, populations that settled in the
north underwent selection for white skin. Dark skinned
people in the far north would have suffered from rickets, a
bone disease caused by Vitamin D de<ciency. The fact that
some northern people (like the Inuit) are darker than we
would expect is explained by their diet of <sh and marine
mammals, which is rich in Vitamin D. Because the Inuit
got adequate Vitamin D from their food, they did not
depend on sunlight for Vitamin D synthesis and so did not
face selective pressure for lighter skin.
Populations that settled in the middle latitudes
(between 23° and 46°) evolved yet another adaptive trait. In
the middle latitudes, UV radiation varies greatly by season,
so people indigenous to the middle latitudes evolved white
skin with the ability to tan (i.e., become darker). In
essence, they could change their color considerably,
becoming several shades darker in summer, and getting
pale again with the winter. In the modern era, of course,
people of all colors have migrated, or been otherwise
displaced, to places not originally inhabited by their
ancestors. Cultural adaptations compensate for any
environmental disadvantages associated with particular
skin colors. For instance, white people in sun-drenched
regions shield themselves from UV radiation with
clothing, and black children in sun-deprived regions may
drink milk, which in places like the U.S. is routinely
forti<ed with Vitamin D.
Body build is another trait that may have undergone
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 3 7
selection. People like the Maasai of Kenya, who live in a hot
climate, are often long limbed and slender, which
promotes heat loss. People like the Inuit (mentioned
above), who live in a cold climate, are often stocky with
short <ngers and toes, a body build that helps preserve
body heat. Similarly, people whose ancestors settled in
cold or dry areas often have long noses to warm or moisten
the air before taking it into the lungs. People whose
ancestors stayed in hot humid places (where the air is
already warm and moist) have noses that are short and
broad.
So one explanation for human physical variation is
natural selection, which is the idea that the environment
(e.g., geography and climate) selected particular traits and
not others. Why? Because those traits enabled the
individuals that possessed them to reproduce more
successfully and therefore to pass these genetically
determined traits to their offspring. As our African
ancestors settled in different regions over tens of
thousands of years, they gradually acquired physical traits
well suited to their environments. They began to look more
and more like the people that today we would tag as
Indian, and Chinese, and Northern European, and for that
matter African too.
But while natural selection shapes the physical
characteristics of populations, random processes also play
a role. Gene flow and genetic drift are random processes that
also surely affected our ancestors on their global
migrations. For much of human history, humans lived in
small, geographically separated groups of interbreeding
individuals. Sometimes, different populations came into
contact and interbred. When this occurred, there was gene
flow, or the mixing of genes between two populations.
3 8 | N O L A N W E I L
Gene flow served to reduce the genetic variation between
interbreeding groups. Physical differences between the
groups became blurred as a result of mixing.
On the other hand, sometimes a population may have
split into two or more groups, each of which went its own
way. This led to genetic drift. Especially when populations
are small, chances are that the frequencies of particular
genes in populations that split will be quite different. For
example, it is not likely that the (many) genes that control
height will be equally distributed when a relatively small
population splits into two groups. One group may retain
more of the genes that contribute to a taller stature, and
after several generations, the average height of one group
will tend to be greater than that of another (Feder & Park,
1993).
In conclusion, nearly 100,000 years of migrations have
shaped from an original population of Africans an
assortment of regional groups differing phenotypically
from each other in ways shaped by geography, climate,
and chance. At the same time, Africans themselves have
also continued to evolve. Today Africa remains the
continent with the greatest amount of genetic (and
linguistic) diversity anywhere on the earth, further lending
support to the idea that it all started in Africa.
Race is not a biologically meaningful concept
The topic of race is a sensitive one because race is
historically tied to issues of inequality and oppression that
still trouble us today. But what is race? Simply stated, race
involves the idea that humans can be classi<ed into a few
basic groups based on genetic and physical traits, ancestry,
or social relations. Today scholars think of race as a folk
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 3 9
concept, not a scienti<c concept although once upon a time,
the concept was treated with great scienti<c authority.
It is true that most groups tend to classify other groups
in relationship to themselves. A group with limited
knowledge and experience of another group living nearby
may merely create a simple category that distinguishes the
in-group from the out-group. For instance, the Abenaki
who inhabited the northern regions of North America, and
referred to themselves as Alnôbak, “real people,” referred to
their neighbors in the arctic as Eskimo, “eaters of raw
flesh,” or so it is widely believed. Meanwhile, the ‘Eskimo’
called themselves Inuit, or … you guessed it, “real people.”
Each group thought of itself as “real people,” while they
thought of the other group as, well, perhaps not real
people.
On the other hand, complex societies with considerable
knowledge of other people may produce elaborate systems
of classi<cation. It is often said that Europeans had no
particular awareness of race until the 1700s; however, a
variety of cultural documents from the European Middle
Ages show that during the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries,
Europeans were already creating a discourse of race even
before the development of an explicit vocabulary of race
(Heng, 2011).
Europeans had, of course, long been familiar with the
peoples of Africa and the Middle East. But from the
15th-18th centuries, Europeans also began to encounter
many of the world’s other peoples for the <rst time,
especially in the Americas, Australia and the Paci<c
Islands. These encounters along with the rise of science set
the stage for the development of scienti<c attempts to
explain human diversity, and the concept of race became a
subject of scienti<c interest.
4 0 | N O L A N W E I L
Scientists such as the Swedish botanist, physician and
zoologist, Carl Linnaeus, laid the foundation for a
scienti<c racism that would last well into the 20th century.
In 1735, Linnaeus invented a system for classifying living
organisms that would greatly influence European ideas
about race. Linnaeus classi<ed humans into four racial
types based on skin color and facial and bodily features.
He named the types after their assumed place of origin,
associating each type with a color: Africanus (black),
Asiaticus (yellow), Americanus (red), and Europeaeaus
(white). He even described behavioral traits he thought
distinguished each race. While biologists still regard the
Linnaean system as useful for classifying living organisms
generally, modern biologists eventually rejected Linnaeus’
classi<cation of humans by racial type (Jandt, 2016, pp.
9-10).
For centuries though, racial classi<cation was
considered scienti<cally legitimate. Moreover, Europeans’
embrace of scienti<c racism assured them of their own
racial superiority. From the 16th to the mid-20th century,
scienti<c racism made it easy for Europeans to justify
their colonial domination and exploitation of indigenous
populations in North and South America, Africa, the
Middle East, South Asia, Australia and the Paci<c Islands.
The history of nations in the ‘New World,’ from the United
States to Brazil, is still tarnished by the legacy of black
slavery, justi<ed by a theory of race reinforced by the
science of the day. Unfortunately, even after slavery was
<nally ended, racist assumptions continued, casting a long
shadow over the lives of the descendants of enslaved
peoples.
In the mid to late 20th century, Western nations began
the slow and painful work of confronting and redressing
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 4 1
racial injustices of the past. Biologists, working with the
bene<t of advanced technologies, particularly in the <eld
of genetics, began to realize that the centuries old theory
of race was genetically incoherent. Today, the scienti<c
consensus is that while human diversity is undeniable,
traditional systems of racial classi<cation have no
biological basis (Feder & Park, 1993).
Nevertheless, it is dif<cult for many people to accept
that when we think we see people of different races, we are
deceived. To understand how this is so, we should realize
that despite the visibility of a few (genetically determined)
traits, humans vary (genetically) in many other ways that
are not visible. And if we are going to <nd a genetic basis
for race, we should look at all of our genes, not just the
ones that result in a few visible traits. For a theory of race
to have any genetic basis, geneticists should be able to <nd
large groups of people that are genetically homogeneous
within their group but heterogeneous with respect to
contrasting groups. This is just not the case. A tremendous
amount of genetic variability is actually shared among
supposed racial groups, and genetic variation between
individuals of the “same racial group” is sometimes greater
than the genetic variation between individuals of two
“different racial groups.” In other words, geneticists are
not able to <nd any non-arbitrary way to draw boundaries
around groups (Marks, 2010).
But surely, some people may still argue, the fact that one
person’s skin is as black as mahogany while another’s is
almost as white as snow is evidence of some typological
difference. Indeed, skin color, in particular, continues to
be a salient feature for many, even if they agree that skin
color is just one trait among many. For any reader that is
not persuaded by the arguments against the reality of race
4 2 | N O L A N W E I L
articulated above, Relethford (2009, p. 21) has suggested
that comparing traits such as skin color to height might
help us understand the problem better. Borrowing from
Relethford’s argument, we might note, for instance, that
like skin color, height too is a continuous variable. In other
words, people come in all sizes from very short to very tall
and everywhere in between just as people come in many
different shades of color. In daily conversation, we may
use crude labels such as ‘‘short,’’ ‘‘medium,’’ and ‘‘tall,’’ but
do we think that these represent three precisely de<ned
groups. In most places in the world, 198 cm would
certainly be tall. But how about someone who is 218 cm.
Suddenly, we might feel the need for a new
category—“very tall.” And where exactly should we draw
the line between tall and very tall: 207 cm, 208 cm, or 207.5
cm? And how many categories would we feel we needed to
cover people of every height? Relethford’s point is that we
know that the labels we use in everyday life are subjective
and imprecise, but no one thinks that terms like ‘‘short,’’
‘‘medium,’’ and ‘‘tall’’ refer to discrete groups, and that
human beings comes in only three, or <ve, or seven
varieties of height.
In the end, Relethford says:
Race is a crude Trst-order approximation to human biological
variation that is arbitrary in terms of the number and
deTnition of races. As such, race may not provide the best way
of describing or analyzing human variation.
This does not contradict what we have said earlier, that
human variability is geographically structured, and that
based on a person’s appearance, we can often guess at the
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 4 3
geographical origins of his/her ancestors. But that is not
the same thing as saying that the person in question
belongs to some genetically coherent category that one
could call a race. In the end, there is only one race, the
human race.
Final Reflection
Although socially constructed concepts of race do not
appear to rest on <rm biological foundations, race will no
doubt continue to occupy a prominent place in the social
and political discourse, especially in countries with
colonial legacies or histories stained by slavery and racial
injustice. And scienti<c or not, the social construction of
race is often a basis for the formation of identity, although
whether that identity can in every instance be legitimately
called a cultural identity is another matter for debate.
Application
For Further Thought and Discussion
1. Now that you have Tnished reading Chapter 2 what is
your response? What was familiar to you? Did anything
surprise you?
2. How was the origin of humans explained in the
community where you grew up? Was there more than
one explanation?
3. How much attention do people where you are from pay
to skin color? Is skin color seen as a basis for
differentiating people in any way? If so, how?
4 4 | N O L A N W E I L
4. What is the writer’s point of view on race? Do you Tnd it
persuasive? Why or why not?
For Further Reading
Human skin color. Wikipedia contributors, (2019,
September 4). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Retrieved 18:39, September 5, 2019, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/
index.php?title=Human_skin_color&oldid=914032650
References
Cann, R. L. & Wilson, A. C. (2003). The recent African
genesis of humans. ScientiQc American, 13, 54-61.
doi:10.1038/scienti<camerican0503-54sp
Feder, K. L. & Park, M. A. (1993). Human antiquity: An
introduction to physical anthropology and archaeology, (2nd
ed.). Mountain View, CA: May<eld.
Green, R. E., Krause, J., Briggs, A. W., et al. (2010). A draft
sequence of the Neanderthal genome. Science, 328(5979),
710-722. doi: 10.1126/science.1188021
Heng, G. (2011). The invention of race in the European
Middle Ages I: Race studies, modernity, and the Middle
Ages. Literature Compass 8(5), 315-331.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/
j.1741-4113.2011.00790.x
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 4 5
Jablonski, N. G. & Chaplin, G. (2010). Human skin
pigmentation as an adaptation to UV radiation.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107 (Suppl.
2), 8962-8968. doi:10.1073/pnas.0914628107
Jandt, F. E. (2016). An introduction to intercultural
communication: Identities in a global community, (8th ed.)
Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Lucock, M., Yates, Z., Glanville, T., Leeming, R., Simpson,
N. & Daskalakis, I. (2003). A critical role for B-vitamin
nutrition in human development and evolutionary
biology. Nutrition Research, 23, 1463-1475.
Marks, J. (2010). Ten facts about human variation. In M. P.
Muehlenbein (Ed.), Evolutionary Biology. New York:
Cambridge p. 270.
Oppenheimer, S. (2003). The real Eve: Modern man’s journey
out of Africa. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf.
Relethford, J. H. (2009). Race and global patterns of
phenotypic variation. American Journal of Physical
Anthropology, 139(1), 16–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/
ajpa.20900
Thorne, A. G. & Wolpoff, M. H. (2003). The multiregional
evolution of humans. ScientiQc American, 13, 46-53.
doi:10.1038/scienti<camerican0492-76
Image Attribution
Image 1: “Chinese woman” by Aldousleung is licensed
under Public Domain 1.0
Image 2: “Indian Man” is licensed under CC0 Public
Domain
Image 3: “Somali Man” is licensed under CC0 1.0
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Image 4: “Karolina Kurkova Shankbone 2009
Metropolitan Opera” by David Shankbone is licensed
under CC BY 3.0
Image 5: “Homo erectus adult female – head model –
Smithsonian Museum of Natural History” by Tim Evanson
is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Image 6: “Human Migration Out of Africa” by Ephert is
licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
Image 7: “Neanderthals, based on the skull from
Shanidar 1, Iraq.” Artwork: John Gurche. Image credit:
Human Origins Program. Copyright, Smithsonian
Institution.
Image 8: “Unlabeled Renatto Luschan Skin color map”
by Dark Tichondrias/Dark Tea is licensed under CC BY-SA
3.0
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 4 7
3
Chapter 3: Origins and Early
Developments of Culture
Nolan Weil
Suggested Focus
This chapter is full of details. The questions and tasks below will
help you pick out the most important ones. Of course, main ideas
are important as well. As you pick out details, be sure to ask what it
all adds up to.
1. Identify two ways in which human culture differs from
the culture-like behavior of other animals.
2. List all of the tools named in the chapter. Identify the
material they were made from and their use. Identify a
major innovation in tool making that increased the
effectiveness of single tools.
3. Make a list of all the objects mentioned in the reading
4 8 | S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E
that we moderns might regard as art. Indicate their
place of discovery, material, and a notable fact about
each item.
4. Explain the bold new theory of Michael Witzel. In what
way does Witzel’s theory draw on ideas from Chapter 2?
Culture as a product of human activity
Once upon a time, social scientists regarded humans as
the only species to exhibit culture. But if language and tool
use are both signs of culture, we must acknowledge that
other species may also possess some rudiments of culture.
Whales and dolphins, for instance, may have some
capacity for language. And chimpanzees have been
observed making tools, “<shing rods” so to speak, for
retrieving termites from their nests. Bottle-nosed dolphins
also appear to be tool-users. They have been observed to
break off pieces of sea sponge and use them in order to
probe for <sh along the sea bottom. Ethologists have even
observed that some species of songbirds, and some species
of <sh too, exhibit “socially learned cultural traditions”
(Mesoudi, 2011: 195-196).
However, no other species demonstrates the cultural
virtuosity of human beings. For one thing, the cultures of
non-human species do not seem to show the same
tendencies of development and innovation from one
generation to the next, as human culture does. For
example, the combining of two or more separate elements
into entirely new tools or practices does not seem to occur
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 4 9
among non-humans, whereas it is a hallmark of human
cultural development.
In the last chapter, we placed humanity in a biological
context. If the Recent African Origin theory is correct, we
said, our earliest ancestors came from Africa and spent
90,000 years migrating to every habitable continent on
earth. Along the way, they assumed a variety of different
regional appearances. But as they migrated to geographic
and climatic regions that sometimes differed from the
lands of their ancestors, they met new environmental
challenges. New environments required the invention of
new tools and new ways of doing things. In turn, the
continual development of culturally transmitted
knowledge and skill enabled people to become ever more
able to thrive in new environments.
In this chapter, we return to our story of human
migrations out of Africa and across the globe. This time,
however, we will focus on the origins of culture. As you
read, keep in mind the seven themes introduced in
Chapter 1. In this chapter, we shall frame culture as a
product of human activity. But be on the lookout for other
themes that may enter the discussion, in particular themes
that call attention to functions and processes.
Paleolithic material culture
Our knowledge of pre-historic culture is limited. We can
only guess at the beliefs and the daily social interactions of
early humans. Our best knowledge of pre-historic life
comes from the discoveries of archaeologists who have
uncovered many material objects buried or even laying
about in old river beds and elsewhere. Sometimes the
skeletal remains of early humans are found nearby. Of
5 0 | N O L A N W E I L
course, such found objects are limited to those made of
materials able to resist the natural forces of
decomposition. Among the most plentiful objects are
stone tools, the most important of which seem to have
served the purpose of securing and processing food. To the
casual modern observer, the tools seem rough and
unsophisticated. However, careful study of them suggests
that their creation required careful planning, detailed
knowledge of various materials, and skillful
craftsmanship.
To convince yourself that the knowledge and skill of
early humans is deserving of admiration and respect,
imagine the following situation. You (and a group of
friends) are dropped off in a remote wilderness, naked,
and with none of the tools or materials you now take for
granted. (OK, you may have some matches since it is
almost certain you would not know how to start a <re
without them.)
All around you is everything you need to survive: rock,
wood, edible plants and animals. How will you get food?
How about some clothing? You probably will not even
know what plants you can eat. You might have some idea
what animals you could eat. Suppose you are lucky enough
to catch a <sh, or a rabbit, perhaps a deer. What will you do
with it? With no metal knives, you will have to reinvent
stone blades for skinning and cutting up the deer. Stone
blades will also be your best bet for scraping the deerskin
to make leather for clothing. Good luck (unless you already
know something about both stone tools and leather
making).
Of course, the exercise imagined above is clearly unfair.
If you had been born in the Upper Paleolithic (say 40,000
years ago), you would have been born into a group of
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 5 1
people who already had all the necessary tools for hunting,
skinning, butchering, and everything else necessary for
survival. You would have grown up under the watchful eye
of people who knew how to make and use the tools. You
probably would have learned by watching and doing, and
those more skillful than you would have guided you
(Barham, 2013).
When our ancestors left Africa 90,000 years ago, they
already possessed technologies for exploiting the
environment. At that time, our people, Homo sapiens, were
not the only cultural species in the world. Our close
cousins, Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis were still
around, and there is evidence that both of them knew how
to control <re. They were makers and users of tools as well.
Even the much earlier Homo habilis may have been a
toolmaker. Maybe even Australopithecus. Many of the tools
that Homo sapiens used had already been in use for over 2
million years. In other words, our ancestors came from a
long line of hominid species that survived by means of
cultural know-how. So our ancestors ventured forth out of
Africa with the best (Stone Age) technology of the day.
Encountering new environments and new needs, they
re<ned those tools and developed new ones too (Brown,
1990).
Archaeologists refer to the time between 50,000 and
10,000 years ago as the Upper Paleolithic. It was a
remarkably creative period of human cultural
development (Feder & Park, 2007). Let’s have a look now at
some of the material culture typical of the Upper
Paleolithic.
5 2 | N O L A N W E I L
Stone tools
Stone tools were among the most important early tools.
Items like the ones shown below enabled early humans to
secure protein rich diets. Hammerstones and hand axes
were the oldest stone tools in the ancient human “toolkit.”
Hammerstones were
used for smashing animal
bones to get the nutritious
marrow inside (“Stone
Tool Technology,” 2015).
Hammerstones were also
used to manufacture sharp
stone tools such as hand axes, and a wide variety of other
stone blades and projectile points. Toolmakers used a
technique known as knapping. By striking a hard
sedimentary rock, such as flint, a toolmaker fractured the
stone to create a sharp edge. By carefully chipping the
edges of the entire rock, the knapper created large hand
axes and various smaller blades of stone. Hand axes and
blades were used for jobs like cutting meat, scrapping
animal skins to make leather for clothing, and for carving
or whittling wood (“Stone Age Tool Makers,” 2010; “Stone
Tool Technology,” 2015).
A major innovation involved the insight that blades
could be attached to shafts and handles. We call this
technology hafting. For example, a projectile point, such as
the one shown above, was attached to a long, straight
shaft, fashioned from an appropriate tree branch. This
involved considerable knowledge of materials and design.
The shaft had to be notched to create a slot to insert the
projectile point. A sticky material needed to be added to
help hold the stone projectile point in place. This required
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 5 3
Harpoons carved from bone
some knowledge of natural glues and how to get them,
e.g., the resins of tree bark, or bitumen from tar pits. The
point also had to be tightly bound to the shaft. This was
usually done with strips of leather or sinews. Toolmakers
learned that if the leather was soaked in water, and tightly
wrapped around the point and shaft, the leather would
shrink as it dried, creating a very tight wrap, holding the
point <rmly in place (Barham, 2013).
Besides stone,
early humans also used
bone to make things like
knives, <shhooks,
harpoons, and sewing
needles. Of course,
materials like stone and
bone remain long after
other types of materials
have decomposed. The
animal skin clothing, for instance, is long gone even
though the needles used to make it can still be found. And
speaking of clothes, early humans were not so busy with
survival that they had to neglect fashion. They may have
adorned their clothing with beads, made from soapstone
through which they punched small holes (Feder & Park,
2007; “Great Human Odyssey,” 2015).
5 4 | N O L A N W E I L
Bone Needles
Carved Figurines
In a sense, our species simply improved upon the tool
making traditions of earlier hominids. On the other hand,
as far as we know, we were the <rst to create objects of
art. Carved <gurines are found in abundance in the Upper
Paleolithic. Examples include items like the
Löwenmensch, found in a cave in Germany. The
Löwenmensch, carved from wholly mammoth ivory, is
about 35,000-40,000 years old (“Lion-Man,” 2017). The
“Venus of Dolní Věstonice,” (2017) depicting a nude female
was found in the Czech Republic. It is the oldest known
ceramic <gurine at about 25,000-30,000 years old. More
well-known perhaps is the “Venus of Willendorf,” (2017),
discovered in Austria. Carved out of limestone, it is about
27,000-29,000 years old. In fact, many <gurines
resembling, in form, these Venus <gurines have been
discovered, so many that we could regard the artifact as an
Upper Paleolithic meme. The “Venus of Brassempouy,”
(2017), made of ivory and discovered in a cave in France, is
one of the earliest realistic representations of a human
face. It is about 25,000 years old. Notice the hairstyles on
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 5 5
the Venuses. Don’t they suggest that hairstyling is a
thoroughly ancient cultural practice? (“Great Human
Odyssey,” 2015).
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Löwenmensch (upper left); Venus of Dolní Věstonice (upper right); Venus of Willendorf (lower left); Venus of Brassempouy (lower right)
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 5 7
Painting
Painting too is an ancient achievement. There is evidence
of it in every part of the world. Perhaps the oldest and
most remarkable paintings are those that have been
discovered in caves in France and Spain. Particularly
awesome are the 30,000-32,000-year-old paintings
discovered in the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave in France. In
the interest of preserving and protecting the site, the cave
is no longer open to the public, but today, tourists can visit
a facsimile of the cave, where full-scale replicas of the
paintings are on display. The museum faithfully
reproduces the ambience of the cave its silence, darkness,
temperature, humidity and acoustics (“Chauvet Cave,”
2017). The documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams by the
renowned German cinematographer, Werner Herzog, is
also a great way to experience the mystery of the Chauvet
Cave.
5 8 | N O L A N W E I L
Flute, discovered in Hohle Fels Cave (Germany), carved from wing bone of a griffon vulture
Paleolithic animals depicted with stunning realism (Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave, France)
Hundreds of animals of
at least 13 different species
are depicted with
astounding realism. The
paintings have a
3-dimensional quality
that suggests movement,
and some animals are
even depicted interacting,
for example, wholly
rhinoceroses butting horns. Of course, we do not know
what the artists of the Upper Paleolithic thought about
their painting. Was it simply an expression of aesthetic
sensibility? Or was it connected with ritual and magic
intent, as some interpreters have suggested? There is
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 5 9
more to know about the material culture of the Upper
Paleolithic than we can summarize here. There is evidence,
for instance, that the <rst musical instruments may have
emerged at that time. Indeed, flutes made of bone and
even ivory, some as old as 40,000 years, have been
discovered in caves in southern Germany (Conard, Malina
& Münzel, 2009).
Although this discussion has featured the Upper
Paleolithic of Europe as a center of pre-historic art, we
cannot conclude that therefore the early humans of
Europe were more advanced than people elsewhere on the
earth. It may simply be that Europe provided an
environment more conducive to the preservation of
artifacts such as cave paintings. In fact, in 2014 a cave
painting depicting a pig, and dated at 35,000 years old,
was discovered in Indonesia, and other paintings have
been discovered in Australia, depicting animals thought to
have become extinct 40,000 years ago. The Australian
<nds though have not been de<nitively dated, and it is
possible that scientists are wrong in their estimates of the
time of extinction of the depicted animals. But it seems
possible if not probable that people all over the world were
painting during the Upper Paleolithic.
In conclusion, with the tool use of Paleolithic humans,
we see cultural continuity with the hominids that came
before us. But we see evidence of a dramatic development
of culture in Homo sapiens beginning about 40,000 years
ago with the rise of art and music. If culture is de<ned as
“re<nement,” it was surely in full swing in the Upper
Paleolithic.
6 0 | N O L A N W E I L
Origins of mythology
While some products of human activity can be classi<ed as
material culture, other products are non-material. Stone
tools, for instance, that remain long after their creators are
gone, are obviously material. Music, on the other hand, is
ephemeral. We suppose, quite reasonably, that flute music
drifted through the valleys of Ice Age Europe only because
we have found flutes, and where there were flutes (a
material product), there must have been music (a non-
material product). Was there also spoken language? There
is certainly no good reason to doubt it. Then how about
stories? Music and stories would be examples of cultural
products that are non-material.
If anything, storytelling may be more ancient than
painting, sculpting, and music. Even more surprising is
that just as all humans may have come from an original
population of Africans, there may have also been a single
African source for all of our collective creation myths.
Creation myths are stories that seem intended to answer
our deepest human curiosities. On the surface, at least,
these myths seem to answer questions such as:
• Where did this world in which we <nd ourselves
come from?
• How did it arise?
• How did we humans come to be here?
• What will become of us?
In this section, we’ll summarize a remarkable piece of
scholarship by Michael Witzel (2012) on the origins of the
world’s mythologies. Witzel’s work was inspired, in part,
by the Recent African Origin hypothesis. In brief, Witzel
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 6 1
claims that when humans left Africa, they did so telling a
particular story about the origins of the world, (today we
would call it the universe). The story told of the beginnings
of the earth and everything in it, as well as the sky above. It
included a recounting of the appearance of generations of
humans, and it ended with a <nal destruction.
But before we examine Witzel’s ideas about the origin of
world mythology, let’s sample some of the creation stories
of various peoples around the world.
Stories of creation – A sampling
In the beginning, neither heaven nor earth had names.
Apsu, the god of fresh waters, and Tiamat, the goddess
of the salt oceans, and Mummu, the god of the mist
that rises from both of them, were still mingled as one.
There were no mountains, there was no pastureland,
and not even a reed-marsh could be found to break the
surface of the waters.
It was then that Apsu and Tiamat parented two gods,
and then two more who outgrew the Trst pair. These
further parented gods, until Ea, who was the god of
rivers and was Tiamat and Apsu’s great-grandson, was
born. Ea was the cleverest of the gods, and with his
magic Ea became the most powerful of the gods, ruling
even his forebears.
Apsu and Tiamat’s descendants became an unruly
crowd. Eventually Apsu, in his frustration and inability
6 2 | N O L A N W E I L
to sleep with the clamor, went to Tiamat, and he
proposed to her that he slay their noisy offspring.
Tiamat was furious at his suggestion to kill their clan,
but after leaving her Apsu resolved to proceed with his
murderous plan. When the young gods heard of his
plot against them, they were silent and fearful, but
soon Ea was hatching a scheme. He cast a spell on Apsu,
pulled Apsu’s crown from his head, and slew him. Ea
then built his palace on Apsu’s waters, and it was there
that, with the goddess Damkina, he fathered Marduk,
the four-eared, four-eyed giant who was god of the
rains and storms.
Enuma Elish – Babylonia, 1100 BCE in writing; possibly existed from c. 1800 BCE, (Creation Stories from Around the World)
* * *
There was neither “being” [sat] nor “nonbeing” [asat]
then, nor intermediate space, nor heaven beyond it.
What turned around? Where? In whose protection?
Was there water? —Only a deep abyss.
There was neither death nor immortality then, nor was
there a mark of day and night. It breathed, windless, by
its own determination, this One. Beyond this there was
nothing at all. Darkness was hidden by darkness, in the
beginning.
A featureless salty ocean was all this (universe). A germ,
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 6 3
covered by emptiness, was born through the power of
heat as the One. Desire arose then in this (One), in the
beginning, which was the Trst seed of mind. In
“nonbeing” the seers found the umbilical cord
[relationship] of being, searching (for it) in their hearts
with planning. Obliquely stretched out was their cord.
Was there really “below”? Was there really “above”?
There were the ones bestowing seed, there were
“greatnesses” [pregnancies]. Below were their own
determinations, above was granting.
Who then knows well, who will proclaim here, from
where they have been born, from where (came) this
wide emanation? Later than its emanation are the gods.
Who then knows from where it developed?
From where this emanation developed, whether it has
been created or not—if there is an “overseer” of this
(world) in the highest heaven, he alone knows it—or
(what) if he does not know?
Rig Veda – India, c. 1000 BCE, (Witzel, 2012: 107)
* * *
Verily, at Trst Chaos [void] came to be, but next wide-
bosomed Earth, the ever sure foundation of all … and
Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless gods… From
Chaos came forth Erebus [darkness] and black Night;
6 4 | N O L A N W E I L
but of Night were born Aether and Day, who she
conceived and bore in union with love from Erebus. And
Earth Trst bore starry heaven, equal to herself, to cover
her on every side.
Theogony – Greece, c. 700 BCE, (Witzel, 2012: 108)
* * *
In the beginning the Elohim made the sky and the
earth, but the earth was shapeless and everything was
dark. The Elohim said “Let there be light,” and there was
the light that made day different from night. And that
was the Trst day.
The Elohim said, “Let there be a dome to separate the
heavens from the waters below,” and there were the
heavens. And that was the second day.The Elohim said,
“Let the waters of the earth gather so that there are seas
and there is dry land,” and so it was. The Elohim said,
“Let there be vegetation on the land, with plants to yield
seeds and fruits,” and so it was. And that was the third
day.
The Elohim said, “Let there be light in the heavens, and
let them change with the seasons,” and so there were
stars. Then the Elohim made a sun and a moon to rule
over the day and to rule over the night. And that was the
fourth day.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 6 5
The Elohim said, “Let there be creatures in the waters,
and let there be birds in the skies,” and so there were
sea monsters and sea creatures and birds. The Elohim
blessed them, saying “Be fruitful and multiply”. And
that was the Tfth day.
The Elohim said, “Let the earth have animals of various
kinds”, and so it was. Then the Elohim said, “Let us make
humans after our own likeness, and let them rule over
the Tsh of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the
cattle and creeping things of the land, and over all the
earth.” The Elohim said to these humans, “Be fruitful
and multiply, and Tll the earth and subdue it, ruling
over the Tsh and the birds and the animals of the land.
We have given you every plant and tree yielding seed.
To every beast and bird of the Earth we have given every
green plant for food.” And that was the sixth day.
And on the seventh day the making of the heavens and
earth was Tnished, and the Elohim rested.
The Elohim – Hebrew, c. 600 BCE, (Creation Stories from Around the World)
* * *
In a time when Heaven and Earth still were without
form, was called the great beginning. The tao began in
the great emptiness… Then “breaths” were born from
space and time. What was light moved and formed the
6 6 | N O L A N W E I L
sky (easily); what was heavy, the earth … this process
was difTcult.
Huainan zi – China, c. 150 BCE, (Witzel, 2012: 107)
* * *
Once there was the age when Ymir lived.
There was neither sand, nor sea, nor salty waves,
Not was Earth found, not Upper Heaven,
A yawning gap [abyss], and grass nowhere.
Edda – Iceland, c. 1177 CE, (Witzel, 2012: 109)
* * *
Io dwelt within the breathing space of immensity.
The Universe was in darkness, with water everywhere.
There was no glimmer of dawn, no clearness, no light.
And he began by saying these words—
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 6 7
That he might cease remaining inactive:
“Darkness become a light-possessing darkness.”
And at once light appeared
…Then (he) looked to the waters which compassed him
about, and spake a fourth time, saying:
“The waters of Tai-kama, be ye separate.Heaven be
formed.” Then the sky became suspended.
“Bring forth thou Tupua-horo-nuku.”
And at once the moving earth lay stretched abroad.
Maori – New Zealand, compiled 1840-50s, (Witzel, 2012: 109)
* * *
The Trst world was Tokpela [Endless Space].
But Trst, they say, there was only the Creator, Taiowa. All
else was endless space. There was no beginning and no
end, no time, no shape, no life. Just an immeasurable
6 8 | N O L A N W E I L
void that had its beginning and end, time, shape, and
life in the mind of Taiowa the Creator.
Then he, the inTnite, conceived the Tnite. First he
created Sótuknang to make it manifest, saying to him,
“I have created you, the Trst power and instrument as a
person, to carry out my plan for life in endless space…
Go now and lay out these universes in proper order so
they may work harmoniously with one another
according to my plan.
Sótuknang did as he was commanded. From endless
space, he gathered that which was to be manifest as
solid substance, molded it into forms, and arranged
them in nine universal kingdoms: one for Taiowa the
Creator, one for himself, and seven universes for the life
to come…
Hopi – Arizona, compiled in 1950s, (Waters & Fredericks, 1977)
Similarities among creation stories
Upon <rst reading, the stories may seem quite different.
But perhaps you noticed that beyond the differences in
style, and in particular details, the basic theme is the same.
Each myth, for instance, begins in much the same way.
The world comes into existence out of chaos, formlessness,
and darkness. Or, in some cases, out of primordial sea. At
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 6 9
<rst, the world comes about not by an act of creation, but
as an emergence, an emanation.
Some accounts are more abstract and philosophical. The
passage from the Rig Veda, for instance, begins in
philosophical abstraction making the distinction between
“being” [sat] and “nonbeing” [asat]. Moreover, it remains
reflective, never quite becoming something the reader can
easily visualize. (If you need to be convinced, please read it
again.)
Other accounts, like the Babylonian Enuma Elish or the
Greek Theogony portray the emergence of the world using
more sensual, anthropomorphic images. However, the
basic theme is the same. You may have noticed in many of
these stories that powerful beings, such as gods, come only
after the world has emanated out of the void:
• Apsu, the god of fresh waters, and Tiamat, the goddess of
the salt oceans, and Mummu, the god of the mist that rises
from both of them, were still mingled as one. There were no
mountains, there was no pastureland, and not even a reed-
marsh could be found to break the surface of the waters. It
was then that Apsu and Tiamat parented two gods, and then
two more who outgrew the Qrst pair. (Enuma Elish)
• Later than its emanation are the gods. (Rig Veda)
• … at Qrst Chaos [void] came to be, but next wide-bosomed
Earth, the ever sure foundation of all … and Eros (Love),
fairest among the deathless gods… From Chaos came forth
Erebus [darkness] and black Night… (Theogony)
And notice how many of the narratives emphasize the
emergence of mind or a primordial consciousness arising
out of the void:
7 0 | N O L A N W E I L
• Desire arose then in this (One), in the beginning, which was
the Qrst seed of mind. (Rig Veda)
Sometimes this emergence is characterized in terms of
breath or breathing:
• The Tao began in the great emptiness… Then “breaths” were
born from space and time. (Huainan Zi)
Breathing, or mind are sometimes characterized as co-
existent with the void:
• Io dwelt within the breathing space of immensity. (Maori)
• There was no beginning and no end, no time, no shape, no
life. Just an immeasurable void that had its beginning and
end, time, shape, and life in the mind of Taiowa the Creator.
(Hopi)
In some versions of the story, the qualities of the material
world are sometimes brought into existence by an act of
imagination:
• Then he, the inQnite, conceived the Qnite. (Hopi)
In other versions, the qualities of the world are brought
about by an act of speech:
• And he began by saying these words—That he might cease
remaining inactive: “Darkness become a light-possessing
darkness.” And at once light appeared …etc. (Maori)
• … but the earth was shapeless and everything was dark. The
Elohim said “Let there be light,” and there was the light that
made day different from night. (Hebrew)
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 7 1
Witzel has hypothesized that the Laurasian myth complex originated in Southwest Asia
Accounting for common motifs
What do we make of these worldwide similarities? Are
they simply coincidental? Scholars of comparative
mythology have proposed several possible theories.
1. Diffusion
One theory is that
individual motifs spread
outward from an early
civilization, such as Egypt
or Mesopotamia to the
older hunter and gatherer
cultures living on the
frontiers of the empire.
These tribal peoples then
adopted the “parent”
myths and developed their
own local variations of the
myth based on their own local experiences.
Witzel acknowledges that some religious mythologies,
e.g., Judeo-Christian-Islamic and Buddhist are known to
have spread regionally in this way. However, he notes that
the many myths continue according to a complex
sequence of episodes. In literature, we would call this a
plot. Witzel questions whether an entire myth complex
could really successfully spread worldwide across such
great distances to end up as far away from the early
centers of civilization as South America and the Paci<c
Islands.
7 2 | N O L A N W E I L
2. Myths as universal features of human
psychology
Other scholars see myths as expressions of universal
patterns of human thought (Campbell, 1949; Jung, 1953).
According to this theory being human naturally involves
universal experiences: of human relationship, of
nurturance, of struggle for survival, of conflict, of passing
through life stages, of death, and so on. Moreover, humans
evolved as language using and concept-forming animals,
and as creators of symbolic forms of expression. As a
result, certain thoughts and images arise spontaneously in
human imagination by virtue of our common humanity.
Supporters of this theory suggest that the motifs
expressed in myths arose independently in many different
places around the world because human experience, out of
which the mythical imagination arises, is similar
everywhere. But the myths differ in speci<c details
because the imagery is also influenced by local geography
and history. (Hmmm, a kind of Multiregional Origins
hypothesis?)
Witzel agrees that humans may be biologically
structured, with the kind of brain that produces similar
images in people everywhere. However, he argues, it is
hard to believe that the motifs would be organized
everywhere into the same long, elaborately structured
tales. Instead, Witzel offers a third explanation.
3. Creation myths all arose from a single (very)
ancient source
Witzel has argued that an original mythology sprang up in
ancestral Africa. From there, it was told and retold by our
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 7 3
ancestors as they began their global migrations out of
Africa 90,000 years ago. Ah-ha, the Recent African Origin
hypothesis applied to mythology. Witzel’s argument is
quite persuasive and seems to be supported by major
discoveries over the last 30 years in linguistics, population
genetics, and archaeology.
Based on extensive study of the themes and storylines
across mythologies all over the world, Witzel has identi<ed
two classes of myths. He calls these two types Gondwana
and Laurasian. Of the two, the Gondwana type appears to
be older and less elaborately developed. Gondwana
mythology is still found today among people in sub-
Saharan Africa, and in Melanesia, Australia, and the
Andamanese Islands. Laurasian mythology is found across
Europe, Asia, northern and eastern Africa and the
Americas. (Witzel hypthesizes an even earlier, Pan-Gaian
mythology, ancestral to both the Gondwanan and
Laurasian but doubts that we have the means to learn very
much about it.)
Witzel thinks the Laurasian myth probably diverged
from the Gondwana myth at least 40,000 years ago,
originating somewhere in southwestern Asia, before
spreading to northern and eastern Africa, Europe,
northern and eastern Asia, and eventually throughout the
Americas. If Witzel is correct, Laurasian mythology
thrived long before the great early civilizations and the
major religious traditions of the world. In other words, the
world’s mythologies did not spread outward from the
great civilizations. On the contrary, the <rst great
civilizations (including those of Mesopotamia, Egypt,
India and China) adopted oral traditions that were already
tens of thousands of years old by the time these early
civilizations arose. Today we engage with Laurasian
7 4 | N O L A N W E I L
Pangu
mythology when we study the literature of classical
civilizations. And many of the motifs are still discernable
in the great religious traditions of today, in Hinduism,
Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The Laurasian “Novel”
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 7 5
The Laurasian Novel
Witzel characterizes
Laurasian mythology as a
sort of <rst novel. By this
he means that the creation
myths found among
people everywhere in the
world all seem to be
variations on one basic
plot as shown in the
sidebar. Although
particular elements may
be minimized or missing
in some myths, or more elaborately developed in others,
the basic storylines are remarkably similar. The Laurasian
novel begins with the primordial creation, the earth
emerging <nally out of chaos, darkness, or water. In
versions where the earth emerges out of water, an “earth
diver” pulls the earth up out of the sea. In some versions,
the earth comes out of a great, cosmic egg (for example
Pangu in Chinese mythology).
In some versions, the earth is formed when a giant who
existed before the world emerged is killed and carved into
pieces and whose body parts become the heavens and
earth (Pangu again, or Ymir in Norse mythology, and
Kronos in Greek mythology). In many creation myths, the
earth is closely associated with the idea of a Great Mother
and in many myths is personi<ed by woman. At the same
time, the sky makes an appearance as the counterpart of
the earth, and the idea, the image, of a Sky Father is born.
Interestingly, in the Egyptian relief from the Book of the
Dead of Nesitqnebtashru (below), the usual arrangement
is reversed. The sky is the goddess, Nut (held up by the air
god, Shu, and two ram-headed deities). The Earth God,
7 6 | N O L A N W E I L
Geb, reclines beneath. Originally, however, Nut was
regarded as goddess of the nighttime sky, so this may
depict the situation at night, when the daytime sky is
overshadowed by the darkness of earth (Campbell, 1988,
cited in Witzel, 2012: 380).
Egyptian relief from the Book of the Dead of Nesitanebtashru
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 7 7
Maori primal couple, Papa and Rangui
But <rst in the
imagination of some early
storytellers, the father is
laying with the mother in
sexual union and they
must be pulled apart. The
sky is pushed into place
sometimes by the children,
the offspring of the
original parents. The
theme is illustrated (right)
in a Maori carving
depicting the primal
couple, the earth
mother—Papa, and the sky
father—Rangui, locked
together in a tight
embrace.
Sometimes the sky is propped into place by a world tree,
or a stone pillar, or a world mountain. The cosmos is
beginning to take the shape that we know. Now there is an
earth and sky, but it is often a watery earth, and so the
early storytellers must make provisions for the creation of
dry land.
In many myths, there is a demiurge, a being who must form the whole of the material world, who must prepare
the world for habitation. The demiurge may come out of
the mind of a Supreme Being and be sent to build the
world and put into it all of the things, animate and
inanimate. The demiurge brings light to the world and sets
the sun in place. Once there is a sun and an alternation of
day and night, the earth is ready to support life. The earth
then receives moisture (water); in some traditions, there is
7 8 | N O L A N W E I L
The Fall of the Titans, oil painting by Cornelis van Haarlem (1588–1590)
the slaying of a dragon and the earth is fertilized in its
blood.
The demiurge, sometimes known too as a trickster, not
only prepares the world but brings human life into it as
well. The trickster also brings culturally important
elements to humans such as “<re” and “the heavenly
drink,” (i.e., alcoholic drink). But the creation of humans
and many of these cultural developments do not emerge
until later in the story, so as with any good novel, we can
leave the trickster, lurking in the background as we turn to
the next important chapter in our Laurasian novel.
Back to the two original
gods, Earth and Sky. Earth
and Sky produce children.
These are the <rst gods
and goddesses, and the
story progresses through
an epic spanning four or
<ve generations of gods/
goddesses and their
exploits. These are tales of
conflict and treachery
among the gods but in the process the lands of the earth
are laid out and the earth is peopled. In some versions of
the story an original giant, sometimes one of the
primordial gods is cut into pieces, and scattered to form
the dry land. Themes of incest among the various gods or
deities and continuing competition and conflict dominate
many versions of the Laurasian novel. There is often
warfare between two groups of gods who sometimes agree
to share power; sometimes, defeated gods leave the
inhabited center of the world. In Greek mythology, for
example, the younger generation of gods, the Olympians,
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 7 9
Huitzilopochtl, Aztec god of the sun
go to war with the older generation, the Titans, to see who
will reign over the universe.
After several
generations of gods,
human beings make their
appearance and the plot
follows the succession of
noble lineages of humans.
The <rst humans are
semidivine. Across the
globe, from Egypt and
Mesopotamia and on to
India, China, Japan, and
Polynesia, and into the
Americas, there are stories
of noble lineages; often the characters in these
lineages trace their ancestry to a sun deity. A common
feature of these stories is that after one or two
generations, the descendants of the sun deity lose their
immortality; i.e., humans become mortal.
In some myths, there is a competing storyline though.
Many creation stories involve the creation of humans from
clay. In other stories humans come from trees, maize, an
egg, or a gourd. However, according to Witzel, this
particular storyline is more representative of Gondwana
mythology. Witzel surmises that Laurasian mythology is
intimately tied to shamanism—a male vocation—and that
when older Gondwana motifs <nd their way into the
Laurasia storyline, it may be because of the co-existence in
various cultures of “grandmothers tales,” motifs kept alive
through stories told by women.
A dramatic chapter in the story of humans comes after
humans have lived for many generations on the earth.
8 0 | N O L A N W E I L
Somehow humans displease or anger a powerful being
who destroys most of humankind in a great flood. The
Laurasian saga then continues with the reemergence of
humans and there are many overlapping tales of heroes.
Some heroes are semidivine, and their exploits coincide
with those of the gods. Sometimes, there is an age of
heroes after the gods.
Finally, the Laurasian novel ends in a <nal destruction
of the world. Even the gods are destroyed. The Ragnarök in
Norse mythology is one of the most detailed stories of the
<nal destruction. Odin and Thor and all the major gods
and their adversaries, Fenrir, the wolf and the giant
poisonous serpent, Jörmungandr are all destroyed. The
sun turns black, the earth sinks into the sea, the stars
vanish, steam rises, and flames touch the heavens. After
the destruction, the world resurfaces new and fertile.
Some surviving gods return and the world will be
populated anew by two human survivors. The <nal
destruction is thus paired with the hope for a new, more
perfect world. In many myths, the world is created anew
and there are a series of Four or Five Ages, each age ending
in a <nal destruction.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 8 1
The Ragnarök in Norse mythology is one of the most detailed stories of the Snal destruction.
Final Reflection
What does this discussion about an apparently very old
plot have to do with us today? Well if Witzel is correct, the
basic storyline of creation and human origins found in
both oral and literary traditions worldwide was conceived
a very long time ago, and we humans have been telling
various versions of this same story for over 100,000 years.
Following the stories of our own traditions back to their
earliest origins, we all <nd ourselves, perhaps, sitting in
the same circle. In this chapter, we have suggested that the
well-known creation myths found in the literature and oral
traditions from every corner of the world are a dramatic
reminder of the power of cultural transmission in shaping
the human imagination.
8 2 | N O L A N W E I L
Application
For Further Thought and Discussion
1. Review the seven themes of culture from Chapter 1.
Which themes do you think are reflected (either
explicitly or implicitly) in this chapter? Make a case for
several of the themes, i.e., explain how they are relevant
to the chapter.
2. Read through the myths again in the Stories of Creation section. Which, if any, were you already familiar with?
Which were new? Which one do you Tnd the most
interesting? Why?
3. In what way is culture different from civilization? (This
question is not answered directly in the chapter. You
must infer it.)
4. In what way(s) has your knowledge of culture changed
after reading this chapter? What did you already know?
What was new? Did anything surprise you?
Video Clips & Documentaries
“Great human odyssey.” 5 Oct. 2016. Webcast. NOVA. PBS.
KUED, Salt Lake City. Accessed on 24 June 2017.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/great-human-
odyssey.html
Scenes from ‘Cave of Forgotten Dreams.’ YouTube.
“Stone Tool Technology of Our Human Ancestors.” 27
March 2015. HHMI BioInteractive Video. YouTube.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 8 3
Accessed on 24 June 2017. https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=L87Wdt044b0
“The Minds of Stone Age Tool Makers.” 3 Nov. 2010.
YouTube. Accessed on 24 June 2017.
References
Barham, L. (2013). From hand to handle: The Qrst industrial
revolution. Oxford, UK: Oxford.
Brown, M. H. (1990). The search for Eve. New York: Harper &
Row.
Campbell, J. (1968). The hero with a thousand faces, (2nd ed.).
Princeton, NJ: Princeton.
Campbell, J. (1988). Historical atlas of world mythology, (vol 1).
New York: Harper & Row.
“Chauvet Cave.” (2017, May 18). In Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 25, 2017 from
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/
index.php?title=Chauvet_Cave&oldid=780942868
Conard, N. J., Malina, M. & Münzel, S. C. (2009). New
flutes document the earliest musical tradition in
southwestern Germany. Nature 460,
737-740. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08169
Creation stories from around the world. Retrieved June 25, 2017
from http://railsback.org/CS/CSIndex.html
Feder, K. L. & Park, M. A. (2007). Human antiquity: An
introduction to physical anthropology and archaeology, (5th
ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
“Great human odyssey.” 5 Oct. 2016. Webcast. NOVA. PBS.
KUED, Salt Lake City. Accessed on 24 June 2017.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/great-
human-odyssey.html
8 4 | N O L A N W E I L
Herzog, W. (2010). “Cave of Forgotten Dream.” YouTube.
Jung, C. G. (1953). Two essays in analytical psychology.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton.
“Lion-man.” (2017, June 24). In Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 25, 2017 from
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lion-
man&oldid=787303025
Mesoudi, A. (2011). Cultural evolution: How Darwinian
evolution can explain human evolution and synthesize the
social sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
“Stone Tool Technology of Our Human Ancestors.” 27
March 2015. HHMI BioInteractive Video. YouTube.
Accessed on 24 June 2017. https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=L87Wdt044b0
“The Minds of Stone Age Tool Makers.” 3 Nov. 2010.
YouTube. Accessed on 24 June 2017.
“Venus of Brassempouy.” (2017, March 15). In Wikipedia,
The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 25, 2017
from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/
index.php?title=Venus_of_Brassempouy&oldid=770380
639
“Venus of Dolní Věstonice.” (2017, June 17). In Wikipedia,
The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 25, 2017
from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/
index.php?title=Venus_of_Doln%C3%AD_V%C4%9Bston
ice&oldid=786138534
Venus of Willendorf. (2017, May 28). In Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 25, 2017
from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/
index.php?title=Venus_of_Willendorf&oldid=782669278
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 8 5
Waters, F. & Fredericks, O. W. B. (1977). Book of the Hopi.
New York: Penguin.
Wilford, John N. (June 24, 2009). “Flutes Offer Clues to
Stone-Age Music”. Nature. 459 (7244): 248–52. Retrieved
June 25, 2017
from http://www.nature.com.dist.lib.usu.edu/articles/
nature08169
Witzel, E. J. M. (2012). The origins of the world’s mythologies.
New York: Oxford. Image Attribution
Image 1: “Makavot-even” by The GNU Project is licensed
under CC BY-SA 2.5; “Happisburg handaxe” by Portable
Antiquities Scheme is licensed under CC BY-SA
3.0; “Burins and blades – Bernifal – Meyrals – MNP” by
Sémhur is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; “Blombos point”
by Vincent Mourre is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0;
Image 2: “Hafted stone pick” by Mark Marathon is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Image 3: “Magdalenian” by Rama is licensed under CC
BY-SA 2.0 FR
Image 4: “Aiguille” by Didier Descouens is licensed
under CC BY-SA 4.0
Image 5: “Loewenmensch2” by Thilo Parg is licensed
under CC BY-SA 3.0; “Vestonicka venuse edit” by Petr
Novák, Wikipedia and is licensed under CC BY-SA
2.5; “Willendorf-Venus-1468” by Don Hitchcock is licensed
under CC BY-SA 3.0; “Venus of Brassempouy” by Jean-
Giles Berizzi is licensed under Public Domain 1.0
Image 6: “Paintings from Chauvet Cave” is licensed
under Public Domain-1923; “Rhinos” is licensed under
Public Domain-1923;“Chauvethorses” is licensed under
Public Domain-1923; “Lions” is licensed under Public
Domain-1923
8 6 | N O L A N W E I L
Image 7: “Bone flute from Hohle Fels archaeological
horizon Vb” is licensed under Nature Research
Image 8: “Southwest-Asia-map” by Vervictorio is
licensed under Public Domain 1.0
Image 9: “Laurasian Novel” by Nolan Weil is licensed
under CC BY 4.0
Image 10: “Pangu” by Wang Qui is licensed under Public
Domain-1923
Image 11: “Geb, Net, Shu” photographed by the British
Museum is licensed under Public Domain-1923
Image 12: “WahineTane” by Kahuroa is licensed under
Public Domain 1.0
Image 13: “Cornelis Cornelisz. Van Haarlem – The Fall of
the Titans” by Cornelis Van haarlem is licensed under
Public Domain 1.0
Image 14: “Huitzilopochtli telleriano” is licensed under
Public Domain-US
Image 15: “Kampf der untergehenden Götter” by F.W.
Heine is licensed under Public Domain 1.0
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 8 7
4
Chapter 4: Material Culture
Nolan Weil
Suggested Focus
This chapter is more impressionistic than the preceding ones. Don’t
expect to Tnd answers to the following questions in the text. The
best way to get something from the chapter is to read yourself into
the text.
1. In your own words, explain the point that Henry Glassie
is making in the quote that kicks off the chapter. Take it
apart and explain phrase by phrase with concrete
examples that might illustrate Glassie’s meaning.
2. This chapter discusses the differences (rather than the
similarities) in material culture from one region to
another in the U.S. What are some factors that seem to
affect material culture?
3. How is material culture a reflection of the life of
8 8 | S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E
particular places?
The things we make
“Material culture records human intrusion in the
environment,” says Henry Glassie (1999: 1) in his book
Material Culture. “It is the way we imagine a distinction
between nature and culture, and then rebuild nature to
our desire, shaping, reshaping, and arranging things
during life. We live in material culture, depend upon it,
take it for granted, and realize through it our grandest
aspirations.”
In many ways, material culture is the most obvious
element of culture. Of particular interest to the cross-
cultural explorer is the way that material culture changes
as one crosses otherwise invisible cultural boundaries. In
traveling from one place to another, it is often the visible
change in the manmade environment that <rst alerts the
traveler to the fact that she has crossed from one cultural
environment to another. This is not to ignore differences
one might notice in spoken (or written) language, or the
behavioral routines of people. There may be those too, of
course.
Taking to the road
Reflecting on Glassie’s characterization of culture as a
record of “human intrusion in the environment,” I am
reminded of my encounters with these intrusions in my
many travels–east, west, north, and south–across the
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 8 9
United States. Traveling by car in 1985 from my hometown
of Toledo, Ohio on the west end of Lake Erie through
Pennsylvania, upstate New York, Vermont, and New
Hampshire to the coast of Maine, I heard English
everywhere, of course. But when I arrived in Maine, the
accent of the natives was obviously different from my
northern Ohio, mid-Western accent. It amused me, for I
had previously traveled in the Deep South and was
familiar with the many accents of Southerners, but I had
never spoken with a native resident of Maine. However,
what impressed me more were the differences in cultural
landscapes.
In many respects, Maine was strangely familiar to me
although the geography is hardly the same as Ohio’s. Let
me explain. Northern Ohio is situated in a region of Ohio
known as the Lake Plains. Largely flat, much of northern
Ohio lies on the southern shores of Lake Erie, claiming
about 312 miles (502 km) of Lake Erie’s shoreline. On the
other hand, Maine, the northeastern most state of the U.S.,
is on the Atlantic coast and has a rugged, rocky coastline.
Both states have river systems that flow into large bodies
of water. The rivers of northern Ohio flow into Lake Erie.
The rivers of Maine flow to the Atlantic. Both states have
flourishing marine cultures. But it is not the geography I
want to focus on.
What struck me just as much as the differences in geography
were the differences in the marine cultures of Ohio and Maine. Of
course, whether traveling the shoreline of Lake Erie or the Atlantic
coast of Maine, one sees many boats. But my impression as a
traveler was that the proportion of boats of different types seemed
quite different.
On Lake Erie one sees huge lake freighters, especially near big
industrial cities like Toledo and Cleveland.
9 0 | N O L A N W E I L
“As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most, with a crew and good captain well seasoned” (song lyric from The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
I am old enough to remember when the Edmund Fitzgerald
went down in a ferocious storm on Lake Superior on November 9,
1975. It was subsequently immortalized by Canadian folk-rock
singer Gordon Lightfoot in a song called The Wreck of the Edmund
Fitzgerald.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 9 1
Powerboats docked in Skyway Marina, Toledo, Ohio
Commercial <shing boats are also sometimes spotted in the
Great Lakes too. Otherwise, the Great Lakes seascape is
dominated by recreational craft. Powerboats seem most popular
although sailboats can be seen as well. Marinas in Ohio are
generally laid out in a series of piers. Since there are no
appreciable tides in the Great Lakes, Lake Erie boaters can
tie their boats at docks near shore and walk right to them.
9 2 | N O L A N W E I L
Marinas lining the shore of Lake Erie in Sandusky, Ohio
The impression is quite different along the Maine coast. Large
ships, while sometimes spotted, are more often seen only on the
distant horizon. On the other hand, commercial <shing is the
lifeblood of coastal Maine, and the lobster boat is an especially
common sight. I saw them everywhere.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 9 3
Lobster boat on Maine coast
There are many recreational boats too, and these certainly
include powerboats, but somehow powerboats do not dominate
my recollections of the Maine coast as they do that of Lake Erie.
Instead Sailboats seem somewhat more prevalent. And because
there are substantial tides along the Atlantic coast, boats are
anchored to the sea floor at some distance from shore rather than
tied to docks on the edge of the shoreline. A boat owner typically
needs to use a small rowboat (or dinghy) to get to the boat (unless
she wants to swim). One is also much more likely to encounter a
sea kayak in the waters off the Maine coast than in Lake Erie.
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Northeast Harbor, Mt. Desert Island, Maine
Sea kayaking is popular along the Maine coast
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 9 5
Heading Inland
Leaving the shores of Lake Erie and the coast of Maine and
traveling inland, both states quickly undergo a cultural
metamorphosis. We leave the vehicles and implements of
the sea behind and encounter those of the farm and small
town. In this sense, whether in Ohio or in Maine, one
moves from one cultural setting to another by traveling
just a few miles inland. But as we did with coastal Ohio
and coastal Maine, let’s compare a couple of material
features found in abundance in both rural Ohio and rural
Maine.
Whether traveling across Ohio or Maine one cannot go
far without seeing a barn. Barns in both Ohio and Maine
are generally of two basic types. There are barns with
simple gabled roofs and gambrel style barns. Other shapes
are sometimes found as well, but the simple gable and the
gambrel are typical. Perhaps gambrel barns are more
numerous in Ohio than in Maine although I cannot prove
it. Barns are often painted red and sometimes white, or
maybe not painted at all. But whether red, white, or
unpainted, what is notable is that the siding on the barns
in Maine is sometimes nailed horizontally, while in Ohio,
the boards are often wider, and they are nailed vertically. If
there is a reason for these differences other than simple
local custom, I do not know. But it does not really matter,
for what concerns us here is the raw visual encounter.
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Red barn with simple gabled roof
Barn with gambrel-style roof
Another obvious example of “human intrusion in the
environment” is the existence of houses (and other buildings:
churches, stores, government buildings, etc.) Houses in both
states come in many styles. The ways of building in both states have
been influenced by other regions, of course, and by historical
developments in architecture. This makes it hard to summarize
similarities and differences in the ways of building.
But crossing Maine, the traveler will surely see an
abundance of variations on the simple, classic, cuboid
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 9 7
Cape Cod style house
designs found throughout New England, including the
Cape Cod and the Saltbox.
Saltbox style house
Moreover, it would not be hard to <nd houses sided with
cedar shakes.
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Cedar siding is common on traditional New England houses.
Nevertheless, except for differences in geography, it
might be hard for the traveler to tell from a casual
observation of houses whether she is in Ohio or in Maine.
And frankly, as an Ohioan, I would be hard pressed to
name the typical architectural style in Ohio. According to
Zillow, an online real estate database company, the most
prevalent architectural style in Maine is the Cape Cod
design, whereas in Ohio, it is Colonial. In this respect,
Ohio resembles Massachusetts or Connecticut more than
Maine does. Indeed, architectural preferences in Ohio are
somewhat more similar to those of New England
generally, than to those of other Midwestern states, such
as Minnesota or Nebraska (Home architecture, 2017).
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 9 9
Historic Moss-Foster house, Colonial Revival style home in Sandusky, Ohio
From one end of the country to another
For a more obvious contrast in American architectural
styles, the traveler can head south and west from Ohio,
down the Mississippi River to New Orleans where the
dominant building style is French.
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French Quarters in New Orleans
Continuing west into Texas, the traveler begins to
encounter Spanish architecture. Further west still, in New
Mexico, the cultural landscape features an abundance of
buildings in the Native American Pueblo style. Perhaps
nothing captures the differences between Texas and New Mexico
better than touring the campuses of the University of Texas, in
Austin and the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 0 1
Battle Hall, University of Texas, Austin
Zimmerman Library, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
While the Zimmerman Library at the University of New
Mexico was built in 1938, one <nds examples of the
indigenous architecture that inspired it 60 miles west of
Albuquerque atop a 365-foot high mesa in the village of Sky
City in Ácoma Pueblo, home to the Ácoma people.
According to legend, the Ácoma people have lived there
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since before the time of Christ. Archaeologists cannot be
certain of that but have con<rmed that the site has been
inhabited since at least 1200 CE, making it perhaps the
oldest continuously inhabited community in the United
States (Minge, 2002).
Ácoma Pueblo, village of Sky City, New Mexico
Final reflection
So far, we have barely scratched the surface in pointing
out some architectural differences across broad regions of
the United States. Our purpose, however, is not to make an
exhaustive study of American architectural styles. It is only
to illustrate Glassie’s characterization of material culture
as “human intrusion in the environment” and to call
attention to the ways in which that intrusion differs
according to local customs, heritage, needs, and tastes.
Buildings are obviously large intrusions in the natural
environment, and we have not even begun to look at all the
various kinds of structures that comprise the built
environment from churches, synagogues, and mosques to
government buildings, storefronts, and stadiums. Of
course, material culture also includes the associated
furnishings, appliances, tools, implements, and personal
possessions within buildings.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 0 3
We are surrounded by material culture. As Boivin (2008:
225) reminds us: “From the moment we are born, we
engage in an ongoing and increasingly intensive
interaction with environments that are to varying degrees
natural and human-made.” They are environments that we
have shaped and that in turn have shaped us, “and yet,”
notes Boivin, “in many ways, we have barely begun to
study its role in our lives.”
References
Boivin, N. (2008). Material cultures, material minds: The
impact of things on human thought, society, and evolution.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Celebrating Zimmerman@75. UNM University Libraries.
Retrieved December 28, 2017 from
https://library.unm.edu/zimmerman75/
Glassie, H. (1999). Material culture. Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press.
Home architecture style: Regional or not? Zillow.
Retrieved August 2, 2017 from https://www.zillow.com/
research/home-architecture-style-regional-or-not-4388/
Minge, W. A. (2002). Ácoma: Pueblo in the sky, (Revised
edition). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Image Attributions
Image 1: “Edmund Fitzgerald, 1971” by Greenmars is
licensed under CC 3.0
Image 2: “Skyway Marina (Formerly Glass City Marina) –
Toledo, Ohio, Ohio DNR” by USFWSmidwest is licensed
under CC 2.0
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Image 3: “Sandusky Ohio aerial view.jpg” by Ken Winters,
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is licensed under Public
Domain
Image 4: “ The Lobster Boat“ by DelberM is licensed under
CC0
Image 5: “Northeast Harbor Autumn – Mt. Desert Island,
Maine (29773118253).jpg” by Tony Webster licensed by CC
2.0
Image 6: “Sea Kayak” by Thruxton licensed by CC 3.0 “Wood
Shingles” by “Malcolm Jacobson” licensed by CC 2.0
Image 7: “Red Barn” by Daniel Case licensed by CC 3.0
Image 8: “Gambrel-Style Barn” by Nicholas Tonelli
licensed by CC 2.0
Image 9: “William and Jane Phinney House, 1730” by
Kenneth C. Zirkel licensed by CC 3.0
Image 10:“Nehemiah Royce House, Wallingford,
Connecticut” by Daderot licensed by CC 3.0
Image 11: “Wood Shingles” by “Malcolm Jacobson” licensed
by CC 2.0
Image 12: “Moss-Foster House” by Nyttend licensed by
Public Domain
Image 13: “French Quarter in New Orleans” by llambrano
licensed by CC0
Image 14: “Battle Hall” by Larry D. Moore licensed by CC
3.0
Image 15: “Public Library” by PerryPlanet licensed by
Public Domain
Image 16: “Pueblo Sky City” by Scott Catron licensed by CC
2.0
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 0 5
5
Chapter 5: Culture as
Thought and Action
Nolan Weil
Suggested Focus
The following task will help you gain a better grasp of some
commonly mentioned elements of culture. DeTne the following
terms. For each term provide the information indicated.
1. Belief: basic deTnition – three types – characteristics of
each type – unique examples from your own experience
2. Value: basic deTnition – examples from the reading –
unique examples from your own experience
3. Norm: basic deTnition – two types – deTnition of each
type – difference between each type – example of each
from text – unique example of each
1 0 6 | S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E
4. Custom: basic deTnition – several characteristics
5. Tradition: basic deTnition – several characteristics –
difference between custom and tradition
6. Ritual: basic deTnition – six genres of ritual – unique
example from your own experience of each genre
Non-material aspects of culture
Social scientists have long distinguished material from
non-material culture despite the fact that they are closely
intertwined. Material culture consists of tangible objects
that people create: tools, toys, buildings, furniture, images,
and even print and digital media—a seemingly endless list
of items. As we saw in Chapter 3, material culture can tell
us a lot about the activities of people as remote in time as
the Upper Paleolithic (and earlier). In fact, material culture
is almost all we have to inform us about human culture in
the deep past before the existence of written records.
While material culture provides clues about the lives of the
people who create and use it, material culture alone is
silent about many other details, for much of human
culture is non-material.
Non-material culture includes such things as: beliefs,
values, norms, customs, traditions, and rituals, to give just
a few examples. In this chapter, we will discuss these
typical categories of thought and action often associated
with the concept of culture.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 0 7
Beliefs
A belief is a propositional attitude, a settled way of
thinking. Beliefs when publicly expressed generally take
the form of declarative statements. As Schwitzgebel (2015)
has pointed out, the vast majority of our beliefs are
actually quite mundane. We rarely bother to express them
at all, and we certainly never question them. Here are a
couple of examples of some pretty mundane beliefs:
• All people have heads.
• The hand on the end of my arm is my hand (not
someone else’s).
Mundane beliefs are, for the most part, universally
shared by all normally functioning people. Of course, not
all beliefs are universally shared. Some beliefs are purely
personal. Mary may believe, with good reason, that eggs
give her indigestion. George may believe, without very
good evidence, that the best way to guarantee rain is to
wash his car. Personal beliefs may be well founded or not
so well founded. At any rate, mundane beliefs and purely
personal beliefs are of no particular cross-cultural interest.
Of greater interest for students of culture are the beliefs
(and systems of beliefs) that are widely shared among
members of particular communities of people. While
mundane beliefs may be universally shared across most
cultures, culturally shared beliefs tend to have boundaries.
The members of one group may consider their own,
shared cultural beliefs as self-evidently true, while
members of other groups might consider the same beliefs
as questionable, if not strange and arbitrary. Culturally
relevant beliefs govern every conceivable aspect of social
1 0 8 | N O L A N W E I L
life: religious, political, economic, and domestic to
mention only a few.
Values
Cultural values are closely associated with both the beliefs
and norms of a cultural community. Values can be de<ned
as the abstract concepts or standards that represent the
ideals of a group. They point to what the group most
regards as right, good, beautiful, desirable, etc. Values are
often identi<ed in discourse by means of words or
phrases, e.g., “freedom,” “equality,” “<lial piety,” “respect
for elders.” Values, though, go hand in hand with beliefs.
Think of a value, when articulated, as a short hand way of
referring to a belief. But of course, a value is hardly a value
unless it is acted upon. In other words, we generally think
of a value as a guide to conduct.
What purpose do values serve? – we might want to ask.
For one thing, shared cultural values may help promote
group cohesion. They encourage group members to behave
in ways that the group considers appropriate, proper,
honorable, praiseworthy, and the like. As is true also with
beliefs and norms though, not everyone necessarily
adheres to the widely shared values of a culture to the
same degree, and sometimes not at all. In fact, some
cultural values may even be in conflict with other values.
Cross-cultural comparisons of values using
questionnaires have been particularly popular with social
scientists for well over a half-century. Later in our
explorations, we will examine several different
frameworks that social scientists have proposed for
studying differences in values across cultures.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 0 9
Norms
Norms are the expectations or rules, formal or informal,
about how one should behave in a particular social
situation. Sociologists since the time of William Graham
Sumner (1906) have generally distinguished two different
types of norms: folkways and mores. Folkways are a loose
collection of usual or customary ways in which the
members of a particular cultural community behave.
Examples include: how people greet one another, how they
dress, what they eat, how they prepare it, and how they eat
it, how they handle inter-personal conflict, etc. Mores
(pronounced “more-rays”) are stricter than folkways. They
are the standards of moral conduct and ethical behavior
that the people in a cultural community expect of one
another. They include such things as rules against killing,
rules about who can or cannot have sex with whom, and so
on.
The mores of a society are enforced in various ways. The
most important mores are upheld by means of laws, which
are explicitly stated rules. People who violate laws may
have to pay a penalty, for example, going to jail, or paying a
monetary <ne. Other mores may not be strictly against the
law but are nevertheless strongly endorsed by a society.
Such mores may be upheld mainly by means of social
sanctions, which are ways of communicating disapproval
or putting pressure on people who violate a community’s
mores. For example, people who violate mores for which
there are no formal laws may <nd that the people of a
community make life uncomfortable for them. The
community may publically condemn the person
(“shaming”) or avoid interacting with the person
(“shunning”).
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One way to look at the difference between folkways and
mores is to say that folkways reflect what a cultural
community regards as appropriate or inappropriate, polite
or rude. Mores, however, reflect what a community
considers as morally or ethically right or wrong.
Customs and Traditions
Customs and traditions are two more terms often
employed in discussing culture. A custom is a widely
accepted way of doing something, speci<c to a particular
society, place or time, and that has developed through
repetition over a long period of time. So de<ned, it is hard
to see how customs differ from folkways as discussed
above. I am not sure they do. Whether a practice is called a
folkway or custom might revolve around whether the
practice is being discussed by a sociologist or a social
historian.
But what is a tradition? David Gross (1992: 8) de<nes
tradition as “a set of practices, a constellation of beliefs, or
mode of thinking that exists in the present, but was
inherited from the past.” Gross further elaborates, writing
that a tradition “can be a set of observances, a collection of
doctrines or teachings, a particular type of behavior, a way
of thinking about the world or oneself, a way of regarding
others or interpreting reality.”
Gross (1992: 12) acknowledges that customs and
traditions have much in common and that therefore the
differences between them are easily blurred. He insists,
however, that from the perspective of society as a whole,
customs are less important than traditions. Compared
with traditions, Gross claims, customs involve “mostly
super<cial modes of behavior” that “are not as heavily
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 1 1
invested with value.” For example, says Gross, long
standing forms of greeting, like bowing in Japan, or
shaking hands in the U.S. are “relatively insigni<cant
social habits,” better characterized as customs than as
traditions. Still, Gross admits, “the boundary separating
custom from tradition is not always easy to discern.”
To call any practice a tradition, however, is often taken
to imply that the practice is not just of great value but also
ancient, something that has been passed down through
many generations unchanged. Scholarly studies of
tradition, however, contradict this widely held
assumption. Although some traditions may have ancient
roots, rarely, if ever, does any practice remain <xed for all
time. Times change, and traditions disappear or are
signi<cantly transformed.
Even more startling, traditions are often invented and
passed off as ancient, when in fact they are fully modern.
As Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) have argued, the
invention of tradition is a hallmark of that “recent
historical innovation, the ‘nation,’ with its associated
phenomena: nationalism, the nation-state, national
symbols, histories and the rest.” Although today’s nation-
states are modern inventions, they “generally claim to be
the opposite … namely rooted in the remotest antiquity,”
representing human communities that are entirely
‘natural’ (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983: 13-14).
Rituals
Rituals are sequences of actions involving gestures,
objects, and sometimes the utterance of words performed
in prescribed ways and carried out at speci<c times and
1 1 2 | N O L A N W E I L
places. When I ask American students to identify rituals,
they sometimes give examples such as:
• gathering to watch <reworks on the 4th of July
• “trick or treating” on Halloween
• gathering around the TV on Thanksgiving to watch
parades and football
• enjoying Thanksgiving dinner, including turkey and
other dishes typical of the occasion
But these not good examples of ritual as most
anthropologists would de<ne it.
True, some activities that are not clearly rituals, may
seem to have some ritual-like characteristics, an
observation that prompted Catherine Bell in her
book, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, to propose a
distinction between ritual and ritual-like activities.
According to Bell, ritual-like activities have some
characteristics of ritual. Routines of greeting and parting,
and table manners, for instance, are performative and
exhibit formality both of which are characteristic of ritual.
On the other hand, the American celebration of
Thanksgiving is ritual-like because of its appeal to
tradition.
As for full-fledged rituals, scholars have found it
convenient for the purpose of study to group them into
categories according to shared characteristics. Religious
studies scholar, Catherine Bell, has identi<ed six basic
categories of ritual.
Rites of passage (or life-cycle rites) are ceremonies that call attention to major events in the social life of
individuals, such as birth, the transition from childhood to
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 1 3
adulthood, marriage, and death. Rites of passage can also
mark initiation into religious communities, for example,
baptism in Christian communities. Clubs, fraternities, and
secret societies often put new initiates through ritual
ordeals before accepting them into the new community.
In some societies, rites of passage may be short and
simple while in others they may be lengthy and complex.
In rural China, says Bell (2009: 96), birth rituals are often
still observed in all their traditional complexity. When a
young woman marries, she is brought to live with the
husband’s family, and she may be considered an outsider
of little importance until she bears a son to carry on the
family name. Her mother-in-law may engage in rituals
involving presentation of offerings to special maternal
deities. Pregnancy and childbirth are also surrounded by a
seemingly endless series of ritual observances. (This is not
generally the case, however, in modern, urban China.)
Calendrical rites fall into two subcategories. Seasonal celebrations are associated with cycles of planting and harvesting among agriculturalists and with grazing and
moving the herd among pastoralists. In many societies,
sowing seeds is accompanied by offerings to ancestors or
deities, and harvesting often involves giving the <rst yield
to the gods or ancestors. Communal feasting is also
common, accompanied by music, dance, and a relaxing of
social restraint. Commemorative celebrations revolve around remembrance or re-enactment of events with
religious signi<cance, or importance for national heritage.
The rite of Holy Communion in the Catholic Church, for
instance, is performed in remembrance of the Last
Supper.
Rites of exchange and communion involve the making of offerings to a god or gods, sometimes with the
1 1 4 | N O L A N W E I L
expectation of getting something in return, like a good
harvest. Offerings may also be made to praise or please or
appease a god or deity. In some cultures, the offering
consisted of the sacri<ce of an animal (e.g., the ancient
Hebrews), and some cultures have even practiced human
sacri<ce (e.g., the Aztecs).
Rituals of affliction involve actions taken to diagnose and deal with the unseen causes of misfortune or to
alleviate physical or mental illnesses. Many pre-modern
cultures believe such problems are caused by things like
evil spirits, spirits of the dead, magic or witchcraft. Rituals
of affliction often involve not just the afflicted but entire
communities and have as their objective the idea of
puri<cation or exorcism.
Rituals of feasting, fasting, and festivals are focused on public displays of cultural and religious commitment and
sentiment. A good example of ritual fasting is the
worldwide Muslim communal fasting during the month of
Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar.
During Ramadan, Muslims do not eat or drink anything
from the time the sun rises until it sets. (Exceptions are
made for the elderly, the sick, and for pregnant women, as
well as for people traveling.) After Ramadan, Muslims
celebrate Eid al Fitr, literally the “feast of breaking the
fast.” Well known festivals include Carnival in places like
New Orleans and Brazil and water festivals that take place
in many countries in East and Southeast Asia (e.g., China,
Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand).
Political rites are ceremonial practices that display and promote the power of political institutions. The
coronation of the Queen of England would be an example.
National salutes might also count as political rites, e.g., the
American pledge of allegiance, or to give a more sinister
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 1 5
example, the “Heil Hitler” salute in pre-World War II
Germany. Revolutionary or anti-establishment gestures
could also be counted as political rites, for instance, cross-
burning by the KKK.
Most of us living in modern secular societies are not
generally surrounded by rituals to the same extent as
people in traditional societies often are or were. In the
United States, for example, except for people who may
belong to a religious tradition in which ritual is important,
we tend to observe just a few rites to mark major life
transitions such as birth, marriage, and death (Bell, 2009).
Final reflection
The terms covered in this chapter are among the most
common terms used in enumerating what we have called
non-material aspects of culture. But to reiterate a point
made at the beginning of the chapter, it is not always
possible to separate material and non-material culture. For
instance, while we have de<ned a custom as a widely
accepted way of doing something, that doing may very
well include a material object. For instance, it might be
customary to send a friend or relative a birthday
greeting—an action, but that greeting may take material
form—a birthday card. Or let’s take ritual as an example.
Although a ritual is an action, ritual actions often employ
ritual objects: incense, candles, chalices, prayer beads,
bells, gongs, drums, and so on.
Not only can it be dif<cult to separate material and non-
material culture, it is also not always easy to distinguish
between some categories of non-material culture
discussed in this chapter. For instance, we have already
discussed the dif<culty of distinguishing between a
1 1 6 | N O L A N W E I L
custom and a tradition. Is there a difference between a
custom and a norm? If there is, it is surely subtle and
unimportant for our purposes. On the other hand, there
clearly is a difference between a law (at least in the modern
sense of the term) and a more.
At this point, I would invite you, dear reader, to go
through the list of terms introduced in the chapter and
provide original examples of beliefs, values, norms,
customs, traditions, and rituals that you consider to be
elements of a cultural community that you are familiar
with.
Application
For Further Thought and Discussion
1. Identify at least three beliefs that are important in a
cultural community that you identify with. Try to
discover beliefs that govern different aspects of life,
e.g., political, economic, social, or some other. Can you
name an associated value for each belief ?
2. See if you can discover a cultural belief that is at odds
with one of your own deeply held personal beliefs.
3. We often belong to more than one cultural community.
Sometimes the beliefs of one community are in conflict
with the beliefs of another community. Can you
identify any such situation in your own experience?
For Further Research
1. Culture is not something Txed. Cultures can change
over time. Can you discover a custom that has changed
in the lifetime of someone that you know (e.g., a parent
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 1 7
or grandparent)?
2. Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) have argued that what
we regard as ancient traditions are sometimes more
recent than we think. Can you discover any tradition
that is actually more recent than people commonly
believe?
References
Bell, C. (2009). Ritual: Perspectives and dimensions (Revised
Edition), Oxford University Press. ProQuest Ebook
Central.
Gross, D. (1992). The past in ruins. Amherst, MA: University
of Massachusetts Press.
Hobsbawm, E. & Ranger, T. (Eds.). (1983). The invention of
tradition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Schwitzgebel, E. (2015). “Belief.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward N.
Zalta (ed.). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/
archives/sum2015/entries/belief/
Stephenson, B. (2015). Ritual: A very short introduction.
Oxford University Press. Ebook.
Sumner, W. G. (1906/1940). Folkways: A study of the
sociological importance of usages, manners, customs, mores,
and morals. Boston: Ginn and Company.
1 1 8 | N O L A N W E I L
6
Chapter 6: Beliefs, Values,
and Cultural Universals
Nolan Weil
Suggested Focus
This chapter delves into two theories of cultural values in more
detail. The following tasks invite you not only to restate ideas from
the chapter but also to apply the theories to communities of your
own choosing.
1. What are the Tve questions that every society must
answer, according to Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck?
Identify the three potential responses to each question.
2. List and deTne Hofstede’s six dimensions of culture.
Choose two national cultures that interest you.
Compare and contrast them using Hofstede’s model.
3. Identify four problems that critics have identiTed with
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 1 9
Hofstede’s theory.
4. Do you think it is possible to identify national values, or
do you think values differ signiTcantly from person to
person and place to place? Explain.
Value Orientations Theory
The Kluckhohn-Strodtbeck Value Orientations theory
represents one of the earliest efforts to develop a cross-
cultural theory of values. According to Kluckhohn and
Strodtbeck (1961), every culture faces the same basic
survival needs and must answer the same universal
questions. It is out of this need that cultural values arise.
The basic questions faced by people everywhere fall into
<ve categories and reflect concerns about: 1) human
nature, 2) the relationship between human beings and the
natural world, 3) time, 4) human activity, and 5) social
relations. Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck hypothesized three
possible responses or orientations to each of the concerns.
Table 6.1 – Summary of Kluckhohn-Strodtbeck Values
Orientation Theory
Basic Concerns Orientations
Human nature Evil Mixed Good
Relationship to natural world Subordinate Harmony Dominant
Time Past Present Future
Activity Being Becoming Doing
Social relations Hierarchical Collateral Individual
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What is the inherent nature of human beings?
This is a question, say Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, that all
societies ask, and there are generally three different
responses. The people in some societies are inclined to
believe that people are inherently evil and that the society
must exercise strong measures to keep the evil impulses of
people in check. On the other hand, other societies are
more likely to see human beings as born basically good
and possessing an inherent tendency towards goodness.
Between these two poles are societies that see human
beings as possessing the potential to be either good or evil
depending upon the influences that surround them.
Societies also differ on whether human nature is
immutable (unchangeable) or mutable (changeable).
What is the relationship between human beings and the natural world?
Some societies believe nature is a powerful force in the
face of which human beings are essentially helpless. We
could describe this as “nature over humans.” Other
societies are more likely to believe that through
intelligence and the application of knowledge, humans can
control nature. In other words, they embrace a “humans
over nature” position. Between these two extremes are the
societies who believe humans are wise to strive to live in
“harmony with nature.”
What is the best way to think about time?
Some societies are rooted in the past, believing that people
should learn from history and strive to preserve the
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 2 1
traditions of the past. Other societies place more value on
the here and now, believing people should live fully in the
present. Then there are societies that place the greatest
value on the future, believing people should always delay
immediate satisfactions while they plan and work hard to
make a better future.
What is the proper mode of human activity?
In some societies, “being” is the most valued orientation.
Striving for great things is not necessary or important. In
other societies, “becoming” is what is most valued. Life is
regarded as a process of continual unfolding. Our purpose
on earth, the people might say, is to become fully human.
Finally, there are societies that are primarily oriented to
“doing.” In such societies, people are likely to think of the
inactive life as a wasted life. People are more likely to
express the view that we are here to work hard and that
human worth is measured by the sum of
accomplishments.
What is the ideal relationship between the individual and society?
Expressed another way, we can say the concern is about
how a society is best organized. People in some societies
think it most natural that a society be organized
hierarchically. They hold to the view that some people are
born to lead and others to follow. Leaders, they feel, should
make all the important decisions. Other societies are best
described as valuing collateral relationships. In such
societies, everyone has an important role to play in society;
therefore, important decisions should be made by
1 2 2 | N O L A N W E I L
consensus. In still other societies, the individual is the
primary unit of society. In societies that place great value
on individualism, people are likely to believe that each
person should have control over his/her own destiny.
When groups convene to make decisions, they should
follow the principle of “one person, one vote.”
In an early application of the theory, Kluckhohn and
Strodtbeck interviewed members of <ve cultural groups in
the American Southwest: 1) Navajo people traveling
around the Southwest seeking work, 2) white
homesteaders in Texas, 3) Mexican-Americans, 4) Mormon
villagers, and 5) Zuni pueblo dwellers. Researchers have
found the framework useful in making sense of diverse
cultures around the world.
As Hill (2002) has observed, Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck
did not consider the theory to be complete. In fact, they
originally proposed a sixth value orientation—Space: here,
there, or far away, which they could not quite <gure out
how to investigate at the time. And Hill has proposed a
number of additional questions that one might expect
cultural groups to grapple with:
• Space – Should space belong to individuals, to groups
(especially the family) or to everybody?
• Work – What should be the basic motivation for work?
To make a contribution to society, to have a sense of
personal achievement, or to attain <nancial security?
• Gender – How should society distribute roles, power
and responsibility between the sexes? Should
decision-making be done primarily by men, by
women, or by both?
• The Relationship between State and Individual –
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 2 3
Should rights and responsibilities be granted to the
nation or the individual?
Today, the Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck framework is just
one among many attempts to study universal human
values. Others include those of Hofstede (1997), Rokeach
(1979), and Schwartz (2006).
Hofstede’s dimensions of culture theory
Geert Hofstede articulated a Dimensions of Culture theory
in the 1980s, and has updated and revised it over the years.
Hofstede’s theory currently gets a lot of attention in basic
texts that include discussion of cultural values. Based on
survey data collected from IBM employees, Hofstede has
argued that his theory is particularly useful for
highlighting similarities and differences between national
cultures. Hofstede initially identi<ed four dimensions.
Power Distance
Power distance is a measure of the degree to which less
powerful members of society expect and accept an unequal
distribution of power. There is a certain degree of
inequality in all societies, notes Hofstede; however, there
is relatively more equality in some societies than in others.
Countries vary along a continuum from countries where
power distance is very low to countries where power
distance is very high. Measured on a scale of 1-100 for
instance, Denmark scores very low and Mexico scores
quite high. The U.S. falls somewhere in between.
Countries with lower PDI values tend to be more
egalitarian. For instance, there is more equality between
1 2 4 | N O L A N W E I L
parents and children with parents more likely to accept it
if children argue with them, or “talk back” to use a
common expression. In the work place, bosses are more
likely to ask employees for input, and in fact, subordinates
expect to be consulted. On the other hand, in countries
with high power distance, parents expect children to obey
without questioning. People of higher status may expect
conspicuous displays of respect from subordinates. In the
workplace, superiors and subordinates are not likely to see
each other as equals, and it is assumed that bosses will
make decisions without consulting employees. In general,
status is more important in high power distance countries.
Table 6.2 – Power distance index (PDI) for 50 countries
and 3 regions (Hofstede, 1997: 26)
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 2 5
Country/ Region PDI
Country/ Region PDI
Country/ Region PDI
Country/ Region PDI
Malaysia *104 France 68 South Korea 60 Australia 36
Guatemala 95 Hong Kong 68 Iran 58 Costa Rica 35
Panama 95 Colombia 67 Taiwan 58 Germany 35
Philippines 94 Salvador 66 Spain 57 Great Britain 35
Mexico 81 Turkey 66 Pakistan 55 Switzerland 34
Venezuela 81 Belgium 65 Japan 54 Finland 33
Arab countries 80
East Africa 64 Italy 50 Norway 31
Ecuador 78 Peru 64 Argentina 49 Sweden 31
Indonesia 78 Thailand 64 South Africa 49 Ireland 28
India 77 Chile 63 Jamaica 45 New Zealand 22
West Africa 77 Portugal 63 USA 40 Denmark 18
Yugoslavia 76 Uruguay 61 Canada 39 Israel 13
Singapore 74 Greece 60 Netherlands 38 Austria 11
Brazil 69
* A country may score above 100 if it was added after a
formula for the scale had already been <xed.
Table 6.3 – Individualism index (IDV) for 50 countries
and 3 regions (Hofstede, 1997: 53)
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Country/ Region IDV
Country/ Region IDV
Country/ Region IDV
Country/ Region IDV
USA 91 Germany 67 Turkey 37 Thailand 20
Australia 90 South Africa 65 Uruguay 36 Salvador 19
Great Britain 89 Finland 63 Greece 35
South Korea 18
Canada 80 Austria 55 Philippines 32 Taiwan 17
Netherlands 80 Israel 54 Mexico 30 Peru 16
New Zealand 79 Spain 51 Yugoslavia 27 Costa Rica 15
Italy 76 India 48 East Africa 27 Indonesia 14
Belgium 75 Japan 46 Portugal 27 Pakistan 14
Denmark 74 Argentina 46 Malaysia 26 Colombia 13
France 71 Iran 41 Hong Kong 25 Venezuela 12
Sweden 71 Jamaica 39 Chile 23 Panama 11
Ireland 70 Arab countries 38 West Africa 20 Ecuador 8
Norway 69 Brazil 38 Singapore 20 Guatemala 6
Switzerland 68
Individualism vs. collectivism
Individualism vs. collectivism anchor opposite ends of a
continuum that describes how people de<ne themselves
and their relationships with others. Countries that score
higher on individualism measure are considered by
de<nition less collectivistic than countries that score
lower. In more highly individualistic societies, the
interests of individuals receive more emphasis than those
of the group (e.g., the family, the company, etc.).
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 2 7
Individualistic societies put more value on self-striving
and personal accomplishment, while more collectivistic
societies put more emphasis on the importance of
relationships and loyalty. People are de<ned more by what
they do in individualistic societies while in collectivistic
societies, they are de<ned more by their membership in
particular groups. Communication is more direct in
individualistic societies but more indirect in collectivistic
societies. The U.S. ranks very high in individualism, and
South Korea ranks quite low. Japan falls close to the
middle.
Masculinity vs. femininity
Masculinity vs. femininity refers to a dimension that
describes the extent to which strong distinctions exist
between men’s and women’s roles in society. Societies that
score higher on the masculinity scale tend to value
assertiveness, competition, and material success.
Countries that score lower in masculinity tend to embrace
values more widely thought of as feminine values, e.g.,
modesty, quality of life, interpersonal relationships, and
greater concern for the disadvantaged of society. Societies
high in masculinity are also more likely to have strong
opinions about what constitutes men’s work vs. women’s
work while societies low in masculinity permit much
greater overlapping in the social roles of men and women.
Table 6.4 – Masculinity index (MAS) for 50 countries and
3 regions (Hofstede, 1997: 84)
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Country/ Region MAS
Country/ Region MAS
Country/ Region MAS
Country/ Region MAS
Japan 95 USA 62 Singapore 48 South Korea 39
Austria 79 Australia 61 Israel 47 Uruguay 38
Venezuela 73 New Zealand 58 Indonesia 46 Guatemala 37
Italy 70 Hong Kong 57 West Africa 46 Thailand 34
Switzerland 70 Greece 57 Turkey 45 Portugal 31
Mexico 69 India 56 Taiwan 45 Chile 28
Ireland 69 Argentina 56 Panama 44 Finland 26
Jamaica 68 Belgium 54 France 43 Yugoslavia 21
Germany 66 Arab countries 53 Iran 43 Costa Rica 21
Great Britain 66 Canada 52 Peru 42 Denmark 16
Philippines 64 Malaysia 50 Spain 42 Netherlands 14
Colombia 64 Pakistan 50 East Africa 41 Norway 8
Ecuador 63 Brazil 49 Salvador 40 Sweden 5
South Africa 63
Uncertainty avoidance
Uncertainty avoidance measures the extent to which people
value predictability and view uncertainty or the unknown
as threatening. People in societies that measure high in
uncertainty avoidance prefer to know exactly what to
expect in any given situation. They want <rm rules and
strict codes of behavior. They dislike ambiguity. People
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 2 9
from countries that score low on uncertainty avoidance
generally have a higher tolerance for ambiguity. They are
happy to have few rules and prefer less structured rather
than more tightly structured contexts. In educational
settings, people from countries high in uncertainty
avoidance expect their teachers to be experts with all of the
answers. People from countries low in uncertainty
avoidance don’t mind it when a teacher says, “I don’t
know.”
Table 6.5 – Uncertainty avoidance index (UAI)/ 50
countries and 3 regions (Hofstede, 1997: 113)
Country/ Region UAI
Country/ Region UAI
Country/ Region UAI
Country/ Region UAI
Greece 112 Costa Rica 86 Ecuador 67 Indonesia 48
Portugal 104 Turkey 85 Germany 65 Canada 48
Guatemala 101 South Korea 85 Thailand 64 USA 46
Uruguay 100 Mexico 82 Iran 59 Philippines 44
Salvador 94 Israel 81 Finland 59 India 40
Belgium 94 Colombia 80 Switzerland 58 Malaysia 36
Japan 92 Venezuela 76 West Africa 54 Great Britain 35
Yugoslavia 88 Brazil 76 Netherlands 53 Ireland 35
Peru 87 Italy 75 East Africa 52 Hong Kong 29
Panama 86 Pakistan 70 Australia 51 Sweden 29
France 86 Austria 70 Norway 50 Denmark 23
Chile 86 Taiwan 69 South Africa 49 Jamaica 13
Spain 86 Arab countries 68 New Zealand 49 Singapore 8
Argentina 86
1 3 0 | N O L A N W E I L
Long-term vs. short-term orientation
Long-term vs. short-term orientation is a 5th dimension
developed some years after the initial four. It emerged as a
result of an effort by a research group (The Chinese
Culture Connection, 1987) to develop a universal values
framework with a non-Western bias. According to
Hofstede (1997: 161), the resulting Chinese Values Survey
overlapped with three of Hofstede’s dimensions: power
distance, individualism, and masculinity although not
with the uncertainty avoidance dimension. In addition,
the group found a unique factor not reflected in Hofstede’s
work, which they called Confucian dynamism. Hofstede
has since incorporated Confucian dynamism into his own
theory as long-term vs. short-term orientation. Long-term
orientation is associated with thrift, savings, persistence
toward results, and the willingness to subordinate oneself
for a purpose. Short-term orientation is associated with
less saving, a preference for quick results, and
unrestrained spending in response to social pressure
(often referred to in English as “keeping up with the
Joneses”).
Table 6.6 – Long-term orientation (LTO) for 23 countries
(Hofstede, 1997: 166)
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 3 1
Country LTO Country LTO Country LTO Country LTO
China 118 India 61 Poland 32 Zimbabwe 25
Hong Kong 96 Thailand 56 Germany 31 Canada 23
Taiwan 87 Singapore 48 Australia 31 Philippines 19
Japan 80 Netherlands 44 New Zealand 30 Nigeria 16
South Korea 75 Bangladesh 40 USA 29 Pakistan 0
Brazil 65 Sweden 33 Great Britain 25
Indulgence vs. self-restraint
Indulgence vs. self-restraint represents another new
dimension. People living in countries that score high on
indulgence are more likely to value the free grati<cation of
human desires. Enjoying life and having fun are important
to them. On the other hand, people in countries high on
restraint are more likely to believe that grati<cation
should be curbed and that it should be regulated by strict
social norms (Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010: 281).
Table 6.7 – Indulgence vs. Restraint. Ranking of 40
countries from most to least indulgent (reproduced from
Jandt, 2016: 175)
1 3 2 | N O L A N W E I L
High-Indulgence Countries High-Restraint Countries
1 Venezuela 11 Australia 74 Morocco 83 Iraq
2 Mexico 12 Cyprus 75 China 85 Estonia
3 Puerto Rico 12 Denmark 76 Azerbaijan 85 Bulgaria
4 El Salvador 14 Great Britain 77 Russia 85 Lithuania
5 Nigeria 15 Canada 77 Montenegro 88 Belarus
6 Colombia 15 Netherlands 77 Romania 88 Albania
7 Trinidad 15 USA 77 Bangladesh 90 Ukraine
8 Sweden 18 Iceland 81 Moldova 91 Latvia
9 New Zealand 19 Switzerland 82 Burkina Faso 92 Egypt
10 Ghana 19 Malta 83 Hong Kong 93 Pakistan
Critique of Hofstede’s theory
Among the various attempts by social scientists to study
human values from a cultural perspective, Hofstede’s is
certainly popular. In fact, it would be a rare culture text
that did not pay special attention to Hofstede’s theory. The
current text is a case in point. However, Hofstede’s theory
has also been seriously questioned, and we will summarize
some of the most common criticisms below.
First, Hofstede’s methodology has been criticized. To
begin with, the way in which the questionnaire was
developed has been described as haphazard (Orr &
Hauser, 2008). Indeed, the questionnaire was not even
originally developed to explore cultural values but instead
to assess job satisfaction within IBM. It is hard to believe
that questions framed to explore workplace attitudes are
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 3 3
relevant to broader cultural attitudes outside of the work
place.
Critics also point out that Hofstede’s conclusions are
based on insuf<cient samples McSweeney, 2002).
Although 117,000 questionnaires were administered, only
the results from 40 countries were used. Furthermore,
only 6 countries had more than 1000 respondents, and in
15 countries, there were fewer than 200 respondents.
Surely it is not appropriate for 200 people to speak on
behalf of a country of millions.
Critics have also been skeptical about the assumption
that IBM employees are representative of national cultures
as a whole. And even within IBM, the surveys were
administered only to certain categories of workers, i.e.,
“marketing-plus-sales,” leaving out many other employee
categories, including blue-collar workers, full-time
students, retired employees, etc. (McSweeney, 2002).
Hofstede has suggested that restricting the sample in this
way effectively controls for the effects of occupational
category and class, insuring that the relevant variable of
comparison is nationality. However, it seems hard to
escape the conclusion that since the study consisted solely
of IBM employees, the results may have more to say about
IBM corporate culture than about anything broader.
Moreover, we should not forget that when Hofstede’s
research was <rst conducted, IBM employed mostly men,
so women’s perspectives are also largely missing (Orr &
Hauser, 2008).
Hofstede’s theory has also been faulted for promoting a
largely static view of culture (Hamden-Turner &
Trompenaars, 1997). As Orr and Hauser (2008) have
suggested, the world has changed in dramatic ways since
Hofstede’s research began. The world map has changed,
1 3 4 | N O L A N W E I L
cultures themselves may have changed, and the original
data is likely to be out of date. In fact, it is somewhat of a
puzzle why Hofstede’s theory continues to enjoy the
popularity that it does. Indeed, over the years, attempts by
many researchers to replicate Hofstede’s <ndings have not
been very successful (Orr & Hauser, 2008).
Final reflection
In this chapter, we have surveyed two approaches to the
study of cultural values: that of Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck,
that of Hofstede. The study of values will no doubt remain
a vibrant subject for cross-cultural researchers.
However, implicit in Hofstede’s work, in particular, is
the idea that there exists such a thing as a national culture.
In discussing cultural values, we have temporarily gone
along with this suggestion. However, in closing, let us
raise the question of whether the idea of national culture
actually makes any sense. McSweeney (2002: 110), echoing
the sentiments of many other scholars insists that, “the
pre<xing of the name of a country to something to imply
national uniformity is grossly over-used.” In his view,
Hofstede’s dimensions are little more than statistical
myths.
In the chapters to come, we will suggest that culture is a
term better applied to small collectivities and explain why
the idea that there is any such thing as national culture
may be a mere illusion.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 3 5
Application
For Further Thought and Discussion
1. Choose a community that you know well and decide
where you think most members of the community
would place themselves within Table 6.1—the
Kluckhohn-Strodtbeck Value Orientations framework.
Explain your reasoning. Are your views the same or
different from those of your primary community?
2. Is your primary cultural community a “high-indulgence”
or a “high-restraint” community? How does this cultural
orientation align with your own personal orientation?
Are you a “high-indulgence” or a “high-restraint”
person?
References
Hamden-Turner, C. & Trompenaars, F. (1997), “Response
to Geert Hofstede,” International Journal of Intercultural
Relations, 21(1) 149-159.
Hill, M. D. (2002). Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s Values
Orientation Theory. Online Readings in Psychology and
Culture, 4(4). https://doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1040
Hofstede, G. (1997). Cultures and organizations: Software of the
mind. New York: McGraw Hill.
Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G. J. & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures
and organizations: Software of the mind. (3rd ed.). New
York: McGraw Hill.
Jandt, F. E. (2016). An introduction to intercultural
communication: Identities in a global community, (8th ed.)
Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
1 3 6 | N O L A N W E I L
Kluckhohn, F. R. & Strodtbeck, F. L. (1961). Variations in
value orientations. Evanston, IL: Row Peterson.
McSweeney, B. (2002). Hofstede’s model of national
cultural differences and their consequences: A triumph
of faith – a failure of analysis. Human Relations, 55(1),
89–118.
Orr, L. M. & Hauser, W. J. (2008). A re-inquiry of
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions: A call for 21st century
cross-cultural research. The Marketing Management
Journal, 18(2), 1-19.
Rokeach, M. (1979) Understanding human values: Individual
and societal. New York: The Free Press.
Schwartz, S. H. (2006). A theory of cultural value
orientations: Explication and applications. Comparative
Sociology, 5(2-3), 137-182.
The Chinese Culture Connection. (1987). Chinese culture
and the search for culture-free dimensions of culture.
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 18(2), 143-164.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 3 7
7
Chapter 7: Group
Membership and Identity
Nolan Weil
Suggested Focus
This chapter deals with a complex topic that has generated much
scholarly debate. The following questions and tasks will get you
started on the road to understanding the issues.
1. Give a one-sentence deTnition of ethnicity. List some
features often associated with ethnicity. Identify some
other terms that also might suggest ethnicity?
2. Why do many scholars now think it is incorrect to
deTne ethnicity in terms of shared culture? How do
they now prefer to deTne it?
3. If race is not a biological category, and it is not a cultural
category, what is it? How does Appiah prove that racial
1 3 8 | S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E
identiTcation is not necessarily a cultural affair?
4. In what way do social classes seem to exhibit cultural
differences?
5. What is the difference between a country, a nation, and
a nation-state? How is a nation like an ethnic group,
and how is it different?
6. Identify two forms of nationalism. How are they similar
and how are they different? What does the work of
Theiss-Morse teach us about American national
identity?
Preliminary remarks
In this chapter, we will examine the theme of culture as
group membership. One of the most common ways that
we use the term culture in everyday English is to refer to
people who share the same nationality. We think of people
from Korea, for instance, as exemplifying “Korean
culture,” or people from Saudi Arabia as exemplifying
“Saudi culture.”
However, if we are interested in arriving at a coherent
understanding of the concept of culture, I believe this
usage leads us astray. The idea that culture is a product of
human activity and that it includes everything that people
make and everything they think and do (together) … that
idea of culture seems fairly clear and useful. However, to
turn around and call a whole nationality a culture, as we
are often tempted to do, is an invitation to confusion.
Perhaps it made sense for anthropologists in the 19th
and early 20th centuries who focused on traditional
societies to think of the small geographically isolated
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 3 9
groups they studied as cultures. Such groups were small
enough that for the most part they did share all aspects of
culture: language, beliefs, kinship patterns, technologies,
etc.
But the large collectives of the modern world that we call
nation-states are not culturally homogenous. In other
words, we will expect to <nd different cultures in different
places, or even different cultures intermingling with one
another in the same places. We say that the society in
question is multicultural. What this means for the idea of
culture as group membership is that we will need a
strategy for identifying the various groups that are
presumably the repositories of the many cultures of a
multicultural society. One way that sociologists have tried
to conceptualize the parts that together make up the whole
of a society is by means of the distinction between culture
and subculture. On the other hand, historians and political
scientists have been more interested in a macroscopic
view, inquiring into the origins of nationality and the
relationships between such things as nationality and
ethnicity.
Cultures and subcultures
According to many sociologists, the dominant culture of a
society is the one exempli<ed by the most powerful group
in the society. Taking the United States as an example,
Andersen, Taylor and Logio (2015: 36-37) suggest that while
it is hard to isolate a dominant culture, there seems to be a
“widely acknowledged ‘American’ culture,” epitomized by
“middle class values, habits, and economic resources,
strongly influenced by . . . television, the fashion industry,
and Anglo-European traditions,” and readily thought of as
1 4 0 | N O L A N W E I L
“including diverse elements such as fast food, Christmas
shopping, and professional sports.” Philosopher and
cultural theorist Kwame Appiah (1994: 116) is more pointed,
emphasizing America’s historically Christian beginnings,
its Englishness in terms both of language and traditions,
and the mark left on it by the dominant classes, including
government, business, and cultural elites.
In contrast to the dominant culture of a society, say
sociologists, are the various subcultures, conceived as
groups that are part of the dominant culture but that differ
from it in important ways. Many sociology textbooks are
quick to propose race and ethnicity as important bases for
the formation of subcultures. Other commonly mentioned
bases include geographic region, occupation, social or
economic class, and religion (Dowd & Dowd, 2003: 25).
Although this way of thinking about the connections
between culture and groups has now fallen somewhat out
of favor among cultural theorists, it is still common in
basic sociology texts. Therefore, we will outline it here
along with the caveat that there is an alternative way of
looking at group membership, one grounded in the
concept of identity rather than of culture.
Ethnicity
The term ethnicity has to do with the study of ethnic
groups and ethnic relations. But what is an ethnic group?
Let’s start by making clear what it is not. It is not a
biological category. Therefore, it is not possible to
establish a person’s ethnicity by genetic testing. Instead,
an ethnic group is one whose members share a common
ancestry, or at least believe that they do, and that also
share one or more other features, possibly including
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language, collective memory, culture, ritual, dress, and
religion (Meer, 2014; Zenner, 1996). According to Meer (p.
37), the shared features may be real or imagined. Although
sociologists once treated ethnic groups as if they were
categories that could be objectively established, at least in
principle, many scholars today see ethnicity primarily as a
form of self-identi<cation (Banton, 2015; Meer, 2014). In
other words, an individual’s ethnicity is not something
that can be tested for by checking off a list of de<ning
features that serve to establish that individual’s ethnicity.
If you ask an American about his/her ethnicity, you
might get a variety of different answers. Some people will
emphasize their American-ness, by which they mean they
do not think of themselves as belonging to any particular
ethnic group. Others may point to national origins,
emphasizing the fact that they are children of immigrants
(or even perhaps themselves immigrants). If they identify
strongly with their immigrant heritage, they might use a
term, such as Italian American, Cuban American, or
Mexican American. Americans of African ancestry are
likely to identify (or be automatically identi<ed by others)
as African American. Americans of various Asian
backgrounds, may specify that they are Chinese American,
Japanese American, Korean American, etc. (although if
they think they are speaking to someone that wouldn’t
know the difference, they might just say, Asian American.
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Many U.S. cities abound in ethnic neighborhoods. (Dragon Gate to Chinatown in San Francisco)
A common
phenomenon in the
United States is the
presence of
neighborhoods, popularly
characterized as ethnic,
especially in large
cosmopolitan cities. Such
neighborhoods result from
the fact that the U.S. has
historically been a country
open to immigration, and immigrants are often likely to
settle where their fellow countrymen have previously
settled. Many American cities, for instance, have their
Little Italy(s), China Towns, Korea Towns, and so on. The
residents of these ethnic enclaves might be more or less
integrated into the larger society depending upon such
factors as how long they have lived in the U.S., or how well
they speak English.
A Native American (i.e., an American Indian) might
interpret an inquiry about ethnicity as a question about
tribal identity. He or she might say—Ute, Shoshoni,
Navaho, Lakota, etc. On the other hand, since not all of
these tribal names are names that the tribes claim as their
own, they may refer to themselves in their native
language. For instance, the Navajo call themselves Diné.
Tribal af<liations would also be salient in Africa, the
Middle East and Central Asia. For instance, two major
tribes in Afghanistan are the Tajiks and Pashtuns.
In China, the term minzu (民族) is used to refer to what,
in English, we would call ethnic groups. Of<cially, the
Chinese government recognizes 56 minzu. Just how the
government decided on 56 as the de<nitive number of
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Hui people, third largest ethnic group in China
minzu in China, however, is an interesting story. More
about that at another time though.
It may be tempting to
think that people who
share an ethnic identity
also share a common
culture. Indeed, that is
what is implied in calling
an ethnic group a
subculture. Sometimes it
is the case that people who
share an ethnic identity
are also culturally similar.
But it is shared identity and not shared culture that makes
a group ethnic. In fact, scholars specializing in ethnic
studies have discovered many examples of different
groups claiming a common ethnic identity but not sharing
a common language, nor even common beliefs, values,
customs or traditions. This shows that the connections
between culture, group membership, and identity are
loose at best.
It is also important to note that ethnic identi<cation is
not an irreversible decision. Sometimes people change
ethnicity as easily as they might change clothes by simply
deciding to no longer identify as, for example, Han 汉族
(the largest minzu in China) but to identify instead as Hui
回族 (one of the largest “national minorities” in China).
Racial identity
Since the demise of the idea that race is grounded in biology—race, like ethnicity, has come to be regarded
primarily as a matter of social identity. Also like ethnicity,
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it is often presumed, incorrectly, that individuals who
share a racial identity must share a common culture. As
Appiah (1994: 117) has noted, “it is perfectly possible for a
black and a white American to grow up together in a
shared adoptive family—with the same knowledge and values—and still grow into separate racial identities, in
part because their experience outside the family, in public
space, is bound to be racially differentiated.” In other
words, it is a mistake, not only to assume that race and
ethnicity represent biological categories; it is also a
mistake to assume them to be cultural categories.
As we mentioned in the previous section, ethnic
identi<cation is typically (although not always) self-
determined. On the other hand, racial identities are more
likely to be imposed on an individual by others. For
example, “white” Americans are likely to presume certain
individuals to be “black” or African American based on
perceived physical characteristics, including skin color,
hair texture and various facial features alleged to be
characteristically African. Long before “African American”
children have ever had time to reflect on matters of
identity, that identity has been decided for them. As with
any identity, individuals have it within their power to
resist ethnic or racial identi<cation. Ironically, the best,
and perhaps only way to effectively resist an ascribed
identity is to proudly embrace it.
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Barack Obama and family in the Whitehouse Green Room
No doubt, one the most
well-known Americans to
reflect publicly on the
perplexities of racial
identi<cation in America
is Barack Obama, the 44th
president of the United
States and the <rst black
president. In his memoir,
Dreams from My Father,
Obama (1995), writes eloquently of the confusion he
experienced growing up the son of a white woman born in
Kansas and a black man from Kenya. How did Barack
Obama come to embrace a black, or African-American
identity?
Born in Hawaii, a cauldron of ethnic diversity, peopled
by groups from all across Asia and the Paci<c Islands,
Obama tells a story of race and identity that is nuanced
and reflective. Barack’s father was somewhat of a mystery
to him since his mother and father divorced and his father
returned to Kenya shortly before Barack turned 3 years old.
Throughout his childhood, Obama recounts, his white
family nurtured in him a sense of respect and pride in his
African heritage, anticipating that his appearance would
eventually require him to face questions of racial identity.
These questions surfaced gradually during adolescence,
when he began to experience a tug of war between his
white and his black identities.
Inspired by a nationally ranked University of Hawaii
basketball team with an all-black starting lineup, Barack
joined his high school basketball team. There, he says, he
made his closest white friends, and he met Ray (not his
real name), a biracial young man who introduced Barack
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to a number of African Americans from the Mainland.
Barack’s experiences in multiracial Hawaii caused him to
reflect deeply on the subtle, and sometimes not so subtle,
indignities frequently faced by blacks. Increasingly
confronted by the perspectives of his black friends and his
own experiences with discrimination, Obama writes:
I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white
worlds, understanding that each possessed its own language
and customs and structures of meaning, convinced that with
a little translation on my part the two worlds would cohere.
Still, the feeling that something wasn’t quite right stayed with
me (p. 82).
Amid growing confusion, Obama writes that he turned
for counsel to black writers: James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison,
Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, W. E. B. DuBois, and
Malcolm X. After high school, Barack’s quest continued
throughout two years of study at Occidental University in
LA before he transferred to Colombia University in New
York. Gradually, he constructed a provisional black
identity, while never really disavowing his white one.
But it seems to have been in Chicago that Barack Obama
<nally put the <nishing touches on the African American
identity that he would eventually embrace when he ran for
president in 2008. After years of working as a community
organizer in the black neighborhoods of Chicago, he had
become well known in the black community. He joined an
African American church. And he married Michelle
Robinson, herself African American and a lifelong
Chicagoan.
President Obama’s story illustrates some of the
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dynamics involved in racial identi<cation. Obama faced
questions of racial identity initially because his
appearance prompted people to label him as black. In the
end, after years of reflection and self-exploration,
including a pilgrimage to Kenya after the death of his
father to acquaint himself with his Kenyan heritage,
Obama eventually publicly embraced an African American
identity.
Social class and culture
Social class refers to the hierarchical ranking of people in
society based on presumably identi<able factors.
American sociologists, in trying to de<ne these relevant
factors more precisely have tended to use the term
socioeconomic status (SES) which is measured by
combining indices of family wealth and/or income,
educational attainment, and occupational prestige (Oakes
and Rossi, 2003). While Americans are sometimes
reluctant to acknowledge the existence of social class as a
determinant of social life in the U.S., scholars have long
argued that social class is a culturally marked category.
Clearly social class is reflected in the material lives of
people. For instance, lower class and upper class people
typically live in different neighborhoods, belong to
different social clubs, and attend different educational
institutions (Domhoff, 1998).
Sociologists argue that different social classes seem to
embrace a different system of values and that this is
reflected in childrearing. For instance, Kohn (1977) showed
that middle-class parents tended to value self-direction
while working class parents valued conformity to external
authority. Middle class parents aimed to instill in children
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qualities of intellectual curiosity, dependability,
consideration for others, and self-control, whereas
working class parents tended to emphasize obedience,
neatness, and good manners.
More recent research (e.g., Lareau, 2011) con<rms
Kohn’s <ndings, further emphasizing the advantages that
middle-class parenting tends to confer on middle-class
children. For example, in observational studies of families,
Lareau found “more talking in middle-class homes than in
working class and poor homes, leading to the
development,” among middle class children, of “greater
verbal agility, larger vocabularies, more comfort with
authority <gures, and more familiarity with abstract
concepts” (p. 5).
According to Kraus, Piff and Keltner (2011), social class
is also signaled behaviorally. For instance, in videotaped
interactions between people (in the U.S.) from different
social classes, lower-class individuals tended to show
greater social engagement as evidenced by non-verbal
signs such as eye contact, head nods, and laughs compared
to higher-class individuals who were less engaged (as
evidenced by less responsive head nodding and less eye
contact) and who were more likely to disengage by means
of actions such as checking their cell phones or doodling
(Kraus & Keltner, 2009).
Lower-class and upper class individuals also exhibit
different belief systems, with lower-class people more
likely to attribute social circumstances such as income
inequality to contextual forces (e.g., educational
opportunity). On the other hand, upper-class people are
more likely to explain inequality in dispositional terms
(e.g., as a result of differences in talent) Kluegel & Smith,
1986.
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In short, different social classes seem to be
distinguished from one another by many of the
characteristics that we have previously identi<ed as
elements of culture, e.g., patterns of beliefs, values,
collective habits, social behavior, material possessions, etc.
Nationality
In this section, we will discuss group membership and
identity as historians and political scientists are more
likely to view them. Although their interests overlap
somewhat with those of sociologists, the main focus of
historians and political scientists is somewhat different.
Rather than taking the “microscopic” view that seeks to
divide a larger culture into constituent subcultures,
political scientists tend to take a more “macroscopic” view.
Political scientists, in other words, are more interested in
exploring how the various subgroups of society relate to
the larger political units of the world. Rather than dwelling
on subcultural identities, they are more likely to inquire
into national identities and the implications this may have
for international relations. Let’s shift our focus then from
ethnicity to nationality.
Our everyday understanding of nationality is that it
refers to the particular country whose passport we carry.
But this is a loose way of speaking. According to
International Law, nationality refers to membership in a
nation or sovereign state (“Nationality” 2013). Before
elaborating further, it will be useful to clarify some terms
that are often wrongly taken to be synonymous: country,
nation, and state. These are terms that have more precise
meanings in the disciplines of history, political science,
and international relations than they do in everyday
1 5 0 | N O L A N W E I L
discourse. The non-expert uses terms like country and
nation with little reflection, but feels perhaps a bit
uncertain about the term state. Let’s de<ne these terms as
the political scientist uses them.
First, what is a country? A country is simply a geographic
area with relatively well-de<ned borders. Sometimes these
borders are natural, e.g., a river or mountain range. But
often they are best thought of more abstractly as lines on a
map.
A nation is something entirely different. A nation is not a
geographical entity. Instead, it is a group of people with a
shared identity. Drawing on the opinions of various
scholars, Barrington (1997: 713) has suggested that many
de<nitions seem to converge on the idea that nations are
united by shared cultural features, which often include
myths, religious beliefs, language, political ideologies,
etc.). Unfortunately, this de<nition of nation has much in
common with the de<nition of an ethnic group. What is
the difference? Some scholars believe the difference is only
a matter of scale, e.g., that an ethnic group is simply a
smaller unit than a nation but not otherwise different in
kind. Others insist that because nations imply a
relationship to a state, in a way that that of an ethnic
group usually does not, it is important to make a clear
distinction between ethnic groups and nations (Eriksen,
2002: 97). In other words, as Barrington further
emphasizes, in addition to shared cultural features,
nations are united in a belief in the right to territorial
control over a national homeland.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 5 1
The stateless Kurds occupy the border regions of Sve countries
What then is a state?
First, let’s note that by the
term state, as we are using it here, we do not mean
the subdivisions of a
country, as in “Utah is one
of the 50 states of the
United States.” Instead,
we mean the main
political unit that provides
the means by which
authority is exercised over a territory and its people. In
other words, the state, as we are de<ning it here, refers to
the instruments of government, including things like a
military to counter external threats, a police force to
maintain internal order, and various administrative and
legal institutions.
Finally, one sometimes encounters the term nation-state.
This refers to an ideal wherein a country, nation, and state
align perfectly. However, as Walby (2003: 531) has pointed
out, perfect examples of the nation-state are rarely found
in the real world where “there are far more nations than
states.” In fact, nations sometimes spill over the territorial
boundaries of multiple states. For example, the Kurds, who
can be found in parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and
Armenia, can be seen as a nation without a state. Because
they involve territorial claims, efforts on the part of some
Kurds to establish an autonomous state are resisted by the
governments of Turkey and others, sometimes leading to
violent conflict.
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Also stateless are the Palestinians in Israel
Another example of a
stateless nation involves
the case of the Palestinian
people currently living in
the state of Israel. Prior to
1948, the land in question
had been occupied by
Palestinian Arabs. But in
1948, the state of Israel was
established, the result of a
complicated set of post-
World War II
arrangements negotiated
principally by old
European colonial
administrators, in
particular for Palestine,
Great Britain. These
arrangements made it possible for many Jews returning
from war torn Europe to have a Jewish homeland for the
<rst time in 2000 years. At the same time, many
Palestinian people found themselves pushed by the
newcomers from homes where their families had lived for
generations.
Indeed, the conditions under which Israel was
established in 1948 sowed the seeds of perpetual conflict,
the details of which are too complicated to summarize
here. However, the result has been that Israel has become
an economically prosperous modern nation-state, and
Israelis on the average have thrived. Palestinians, on the
other hand, have found themselves dispossessed,
oppressed, and robbed of the possibility of national self-
determination. For decades, many Palestinians, and
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indeed most international observers have called for an
independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, a “two
state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Such a
solution, however, would require anti-Israel partisans to
acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and guarantee her
security, and it would require Israel to hand over some
coveted territories.
As the above discussion suggests, one reason that issues
of national identity are complicated is because the
relationships between nationhood, ethnicity, country,
territory and state are extraordinarily complex.
The origin of nations
Recall that a nation is a group of people who see
themselves as united by various shared cultural features,
including myths, religious beliefs, language, political
ideologies, etc. Some scholars see nations as having deep
roots extending back to ancient times. Smith (1986), for
instance, claims that most nations are rooted in ethnic
communities and that there is a sense in which nations
have existed in various forms throughout recorded history.
On the other hand, Gellner (1983) and Anderson (1991)
argue that nations merely imagine themselves as old,
when in fact they are really recent historical developments,
having only emerged in 19th century Europe with the rise
of sophisticated high cultures and literate populations.
Gellner and Anderson are counted among a group of
scholars often referred to as modernists who argue that
while there may have been elites in pre-modern societies
with visions of nationhood, national consciousness is a
mass phenomenon. According to this view, nations, as we
understand them today, only came into being when elites
1 5 4 | N O L A N W E I L
Two different historical processes of nationalism
acquired tools for conveying a feeling of national unity to
the masses. At <rst this occurred by means such as print
and the spread of universal schooling and later by means
of radio, <lm and television. What Gellner suggests, in
fact, is that nations are a product of nationalism, which is
not merely “the awakening of nations to self-
consciousness,” as nationalists often proclaim, but instead
“invents nations where they do not exist” (cited in Erikson,
2002: 96).
It is perhaps also useful
to point out that not all
nations came to be nations
in the same way, nor are
all nations constituted in
exactly the same way.
Looking at nations in
historical perspective, for
instance, a distinction is often made between ethnic nations
and civic nations. The difference turns on the question of
whether the members of a population developed a feeling of
national identity before or after the emergence of a
modern state. As an illustration, historians often point to
Britain and France as the <rst European nation-states to
emerge through a process often described as civic
nationalism. In other words, in Britain and France, the
rational, civic, and political units of modernity came <rst,
and the development of a national consciousness came
later. On the other hand, Germany and Russia followed a
path of ethnic nationalism in which the emergence of a
national consciousness came <rst, followed by the
development of a fully modern state (Nikolas, 1999).
Where does the United States <t into this scheme?
Opinions vary. As Erikson (2002: 138) has pointed out, the
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 5 5
U.S. differs in important ways from Europe. For one thing,
it has no myths pointing to some supposed ancient
origins. In fact, it was founded barely before the beginning
of the modern era. This is not to say, however, that the U.S.
lacks a national myth; only that it is not a myth lost in the
mists of memory.
The American myth is instead a historical narrative
stretching back only about 400 years when English settlers
began arriving on the continent. The most important
chapter perhaps (from the perspective of American
national identity) revolves around the dif<cult and
contentious negotiation of a set of founding ideals and
principles, articulated in two rather brief documents: The
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Thereafter,
the myth continues with an account of the rapid
population of the continent by successive waves of
immigration from four other continents, Europe, Africa,
Asia, and South America. However, in our telling of the
national myth, we often omit the shameful history of
injustice dealt to the indigenous First Nations (as they are
called in Canada) or make of these details only footnotes.
On the other hand, we usually do confront the history of
slavery that nearly tore the nation apart in a civil war. We
usually also recount the story of the more than 100-year
struggle of African Americans to secure the full rights of
citizenship, with its major 20th century victories, as these
reinforce a narrative of American striving to live up to its
ideals.
Today the United States is often described as
multiethnic in the sense that many of its people can trace
their ancestry to one or more geographic regions around
the world. Indeed, while most Americans speak English, at
least 350 different languages are spoken in U.S. homes,
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including languages from every (inhabited) continent, as
well as 150 Native American languages (U. S. Bureau, 2015).
But is the U.S. an ethnic nation or a civic nation? Or to
put it in historical terms, is the U.S. a product of ethnic
nationalism or civic nationalism? Social scientists have
often regarded the U.S. as a civic nation but not in the
same way as Britain or France. American national identity
is presumably based on shared cultural features rather
than on shared ethnic heritage. However, American
identity is complicated, and current public discourse
suggests a sharp divide among American people.
One sees among many American conservatives, for
instance, a tendency to stress the nation’s Colonial Era
origins (1629-1763) with its Protestant (Christian) roots and
its Revolutionary Era (1764-1800), featuring the Founding
Fathers, who were mostly, white (male) and English.
Theiss-Morse (2009: 15-16) sees this as at the root of an
ethnocultural view of American identity. While many
Americans may see this as only part of the story, there are
some who see it as the most important part. Some
Americans have embraced this particular narrative at
various points throughout American history, promoting
nativist political agendas and restrictive immigration
policies. White supremacists often seize upon it in their
efforts to marginalize, not only immigrants, but anyone
not perceived to be ethnically “white,” Christian, and of
European ancestry.
The liberal left, on the other hand, is more inclined to
emphasize a view, which Theiss-Morse has called
“American identity as a set of principles” (p. 18-20).
Liberals tend to acknowledge the revolutionary
achievements of the Founding Fathers in establishing the
noble ideals and liberal political principles of liberty,
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 5 7
equality, democracy, and constitutionalism. However, they
do not hesitate to recognize that the Founding Fathers
were flawed men, some of whom even defended the
institution of slavery, while others continued to own slaves
even after they saw that it contradicted the founding
ideals. Moreover, liberals give equal weight to the story of
American immigration, recognizing that the nation’s
founding principles made room for newcomers who could
come from anywhere and become American simply by
embracing those principles. Identity as a set of principles
seems more closely aligned to a multicultural, rather than
an ethnocultural view of the nation.
While the above contrast somewhat over simpli<es the
complexities of American national identity, it does
illustrate the fact that the question of American identity is
a highly contested one. Kaufmann (2000) has claimed that
the view of the U.S. as a civic nation is supported only if we
restrict our attention to developments that have occurred
since the 1960’s. According to Kaufmann, for almost its
entire history, the political and cultural elite de<ned the
U.S. in ethnic terms as white, Anglo-Saxon, and
Protestant. During periods of high immigration, this elite
expended great effort to assimilate immigrants to their
own ethnic ideal, and when the growth of immigrant
populations posed a challenge, defensive responses arose,
including restrictions to immigration. In fact, from
1920-1960, this defensive response was institutionalized.
After this long period in which national quotas kept a tight
lid on immigration, the U.S. only became more open to
immigration again in 1965 with the passage of the
Immigration and Nationality Act.
The tendency, then, to see the U.S. as a civic nation of
immigrants is a recent historical development. Nor is the
1 5 8 | N O L A N W E I L
U.S. exceptional in this respect. Rather, the U.S. is merely
part of a broader trend among “Western” nations to
rede<ne themselves in civic terms. In fact, Kaufmann
(2000: 31) cites research showing that contrary to popular
perceptions of the U.S. as a land of immigration, “Western
Europe … has had a higher immigrant population than the
United States since the 1970’s and by 1990 had
proportionately two to three times the number of foreign-
born” as the United States.
Whether the post-1960’s immigration trends will
continue is currently an open question across much of
Western Europe and the United States as evidenced by
such events as Great Britain’s decision in 2016 to withdraw
from the European Union, the rise of far-right challenges
to liberal European democracies, not to mention the 2016
U.S. election, which has brought in a president that
apparently seeks to recreate immigration policies
reminiscent of the exclusionary pre-1965 era.
National identity
Earlier we suggested that anthropologists and sociologists
have moved from trying to establish the cultural features
that de<ne groups to studying how the members of groups
self-identify. Political scientists have made similar moves
in their studies of nationalism. Rather than focusing
wholly on ethnocultural roots or civic transformations, the
recent trend among many scholars is to focus on the social
and psychological dynamics of national identity.
Let’s consider the issue of national identity in the
United States. Now the criteria of American citizenship
are quite clear. Anyone born in the United States or a U.S.
territory (e.g., Puerto Rico) is a citizen, regardless of
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 5 9
whether one’s parents are citizens or not. Anyone born
outside of the United States is a citizen as long as at least
one parent is a citizen. And anyone who goes through the
naturalization process becomes a U.S. citizen by virtue of
established law. Nevertheless, many Americans, despite
clearly being citizens (by either birth or naturalization) are
sometimes regarded by other Americans as somehow less
American. Some Americans, for instance, view themselves
as more American if they are white and of English descent,
or at least if their non-English ancestors immigrated
several generations ago instead of more recently. We refer
to this phenomenon as nativism, the belief that the longer
one’s ancestors have been here, the greater one’s claim on
an American identity. And we can call a person who
espouses such a belief, a nativist.
To what extent then do individual Americans differ in
the degree to which they embrace an American national
identity? Elizabeth Theiss-Morse (2009) has studied this
question and suggests that Americans can be
distinguished from one another according to whether they
are strong, medium, or weak identi<ers. Furthermore, the
strength of national identity appears to be tied to other
social characteristics.
For example, compared with weak identi<ers, strong
identi<ers are more likely to be: older, Christian, less
educated, more trusting of others, and more likely to
identify with other social groups in general. On the other
hand, black Americans and Americans with extremely
liberal political views are less likely to claim a strong
American identity. Strong identi<ers are also more likely
to describe themselves as “typical Americans.” People who
espouse a strong national identity are also more likely to
set exclusionary group boundaries on the national
1 6 0 | N O L A N W E I L
group—to claim, for instance, that a “true American” is
white, or Christian, or native-born. In contrast, weak
identi<ers are less likely to believe that their fellow
Americans must possess any particular qualities to be
counted as American.
While Theiss-Morse has utilized social identity theory to
describe American social identity, she has also noted that,
of course, the same kind of analysis can be made of any
national identity, German, Japanese, Brazilian, etc.
Final reflection
The relationship between culture and group membership
is complicated. Whereas scholars once de<ned certain
types of groups, e.g. ethnic and racial groups, or national
groups, on the basis of shared culture, group membership
is now more likely to be seen as a matter of social
identi<cation. Moreover, social identities are fluid rather
than <xed and are established by means of processes
whereby group members negotiate the boundaries of the
group as well as the degree to which they identify with
valued groups.
Application
For Further Thought and Discussion
1. Do you belong to a dominant culture in your country, or
are you a member of a minority community?
2. Do you identify with any particular ethnic group or
groups? For each group with which you identify, explain
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 6 1
how members of the group deTne themselves.
3. Do you think of yourself in terms of any racial identity?
Explain.
4. To what extent do you think you exhibit any signs of
social class afTliation?
5. How would you describe your national identity? How
typical are you of other people from your country? …
a) very typical, b) somewhat typical, or c) not very
typical. … What makes you typical or atypical?
6. Some people have more than one identity, or feel they
have different identities in different social contexts. We
refer to this as hybridity. Do you have a hybrid identity?
If so, what is that like?
References
Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the
origin and spread of nationalism, 2nd ed. London, Verso.
Anderson, M. L., Taylor, H. F. & Logio, K. A. (2015).
Sociology: The essentials, 8th ed. Belmont, Stamford, CT:
Cengage.
Appiah, K. A. (1994). Race, culture, identity: Misunderstood
connections. Retrieved from
https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/a/
Appiah96.pdf
Banton, M. (2015). Superseding race in sociology: The
perspective of critical rationalism. In K. Murji & J. Solomos
Balwin, (Eds.), Theories of race and ethnicity: Contemporary
debates and perspectives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Barrington, L. W. (1997). “Nation” and “nationalism”: The
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misuse of key concepts in political science. Political
Science and Politics, 30(4), 712-716.
Domhoff, G.W. (1998). Who rules America. Mountain View,
CA: May<eld Publishing.
Eriksen, T. H. (2002). Ethnicity and Nationalism:
Anthropological Perspectives, (2nd ed.). London: Pluto Press.
Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and nationalism. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Kaufmann, E. P. (2000) Ethnic or civic nation: Theorizing
the American case. Canadian Review of Studies in
Nationalism 27, 133-154.
Kluegel, J.R., & Smith, E.R. (1986). Beliefs about inequality:
Americans’ views of what is and what ought to be.
Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.
Kohn, M. (1977). Class and conformity: A study in values, (2nd
ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Kraus, M. W., Piff, P. K. & Keltner, D. (2011). Social class as
culture: The convergence of resources and rank in the
social realm. Current Directions in Psychological Science,
20(4), 246-250. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/
10.1177/0963721411414654
Kraus, M. W. & Keltner, D. (2009). Signs of socioeconomic
status: A thin-slicing approach. Psychological Science,
20(1), 99-106.
Lareau, A. (2011). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family
life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com.dist.lib.usu.edu
Meer, N. (2014). Key concepts in race and ethnicity. Thousand
Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Oakes and Rossi, (2003). The measurement of SES in
health research: Current practice and steps toward a
new approach. Social Science & Medicine, 56(4), 769-784.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0277-9536(02)00073-4
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 6 3
Obama, B. (1995). Dreams from my father. New York: Three
Rivers Press.
“Nationality” (2013). Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved
November 23, 2017 from https://www.britannica.com/
topics/nationality-international-law
Nikolas, M. M. (1999). False opposites in nationalism: An
examination of the dichotomy of civic nationalism and ethnic
nationalism in modern Europe. The Nationalism Project,
Madison, WI. Retrieved Nov 23, 2017 from
https://tamilnation.org/selfdetermination/nation/
civic_ethno/Nikolas.pdf
Smith, A. (1986). The ethnic origins of nations. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Theiss-Morse, E. (2009). Who counts as an American?: The
boundaries of national identity. New York: Cambridge.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2015, Nov 3). Census Bureau reports at
least 350 languages spoken in U.S. homes. (Release Number:
CB15-185). Retrieved from
https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USCENSUS/
bulletins/
122dd88#:~:text=Census%20Bureau%20Reports%20at%
20Least%20350%20Languages%20Spoken%20in%20U.S.
%20Homes,-
Most%20Comprehensive%20Language&text=NOV.,avai
lable%20for%20only%2039%20languages
Walby, S. (2003). The myth of the nation-state: Theorizing
society and polities in a global era. Sociology, 37(3),
529-546.
Zenner, W. (1996). Ethnicity. In D. Levinson & M. Ember
(Eds.), Encyclopedia of cultural anthropology. New York:
Holt.
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Image Attribution
Image 1: San Francisco Dragon Gate to Chinatown by Alice
Wiegand is licensed under CC 4.0
Image 2: Chinese Muslims by Hijau is licensed under
Public Domain
Image 3: Obama Family by Annie Leibovitz is licensed
under Public Domain
Image 4: Kurdish-Inhabited Area by U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency is licensed under Public Domain
Image 5: Israel and Surrounding Area by Chris O is
licensed under Public Domain
Image 6: Nationalism Diagram by Nolan Weil is
licensed under CC BY 4.0
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 6 5
8
Chapter 8: Religion and
Culture
Eliza Rosenberg
BY SPECIAL GUEST CONTRIBUTOR
ELIZA ROSENBERG
Lecturer in Religious Studies at USU
Suggested Focus
Keep the following questions in mind as you read the chapter.
1. What is the origin of the word religion? How do the
words “religion” and “culture” seem to overlap in
meaning?
2. What are some words in other languages that seem to
correspond to the word religion?
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Boys praying at the Western Wall, a holy site in Judaism
3. What is religion NOT?
4. What are some important questions that religions
often seek to answer?
5. What are some different aspects of daily living that are
often regulated by religious rules?
What is religion?
What do we mean when
we say “religion”? In some
ways, the answer seems
obvious. Most people can
tell you that they are
atheist, Buddhist,
Christian, Daoist, Hindu,
Jewish, Muslim, etc. In
other ways, the answer is
more complicated. The
English word “religion” comes from the Latin word religio.
Ancient Roman philosophers actually disagreed about
where the word came from, and modern scholars are not
sure either. Still, most ancient Romans knew what religio
meant. They used the word for their rituals, holidays,
beliefs, myths, and rules. They also applied it to those of
non-Romans around them, such as Greeks, Jews, and
Egyptians. But for hundreds of years, Greeks, Jews, and
Egyptians did not adopt the Latin word religio or come up
with their own words to express the concept. To everyone
except the Romans, the things that made up religio–
rituals, myths, holidays, rules, etc. – were just part of “the
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 6 7
way things were.” They did not need a separate category or
term.
Eventually, Christianity became widespread in Rome’s
empire, which included Greece, Egypt, and many other
places. When the Roman emperor became Christian,
Christians – including non-Roman Christians – started to
think of Christianity as their religio. The idea of “religion”
remained important even after the Roman empire fell. It
influenced Judaism and Islam, as well as other religions.
Today, many languages have words that were invented or
re-interpreted to translate religio. In western Europe,
many languages borrowed the Latin religio. In southern
Asia today, the ancient Sanskrit word dharma can be used
to mean about the same thing as “religion.” (It also has
many other meanings.) In Eastern Asia, the Chinese word
dao and loan words in neighboring languages works in a
similar way.
The term “religion” is useful, but like many words, it is
complicated. The concept of “religion” makes sense
because there are many elements that you can <nd in
many different religions. But no religion has every single
one of these elements, and there is probably no one
element that every religion has. In addition, the same
element may “mean” different things or “work” in different
ways in different religions. For example, Buddhism and
Islam both have beliefs about what happens to us when we
die. But they have very different ideas about what that is,
about what should happen, and even about who “we” are.
For at least the last hundred years, scholars have tried to
<nd a de<nition of religion that would always be useful
and accurate. Although their hard work did not succeed, it
has taught scholars today a valuable lesson: There is no
perfect de<nition of religion. Most people more or less
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understand what they mean when they use the term
“religion,” even if they cannot de<ne it perfectly. In this
chapter, we will not try to explain what religion “really
is.” Instead, we will explore some of the things that
different religions are. By doing so, we will understand all
of them better. There are many shared features and many
differences – not only between different religions, but
within the same religion.
Religion and culture are parts of each other. Culture
affects religion, and religion affects culture. The same
religion can have different forms in different cultures.
Within one culture, different religions can take similar
forms. And, of course, religion is practiced by people, who
are all different.
What religion is not
While religion is many different things, it is also
important to know what it (usually) is not. First, religion is
not (usually) a way to explain things that people did not
understand before modern science. In ancient China,
most people did not think that the flesh of the giant Pangu
had literally turned into the earth at some exact time. In
ancient Israel, most people knew perfectly well that the
whole universe was not formed in six days. How could it
have been, when there was no sun or moon until the
fourth “day”? Every religion has at least one example of
this. In ancient times, people did not know the scienti<c
history of the world, and they did not think their religions told
them. Stories of the cosmic tortoise, the <rst human, etc.
were (and are) important because people connected with
them emotionally and poetically. They allow people to
connect personally to the scope of the universe. But they
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 6 9
have rarely been pre-scienti<c answers to complicated
questions. In fact, religion has often been the cause of
science. We owe modern mathematics to Jain
contemplation of the nature of existence; modern
chemistry to Muslim ideas about the spiritual virtue of
observing nature; some branches of physics to the
Christian scholastic movement of the middle ages; and
many scienti<c ideas to various Daoist practices.
Second, religion is not “really about” any one simple
aspect of life. People who like religion sometimes say that
it expresses the highest human ideals; that it makes
communities strong; that it inspires goodness; that it
inspires people; and so on. People who dislike religion
sometimes say that it is used to control people; that it is
connected with ignorance; that it supports corrupt power;
that it provides false reassurances; etc. All of these things
can be true. Religion can and does promote good order and
oppress people; promote knowledge and ignorance; inspire
peace and violence; etc. It is not possible to reduce religion
to a single, simple factor. Religion is dynamic and
complex, just like the cultures that influence it (and that it
influences) – and just like the people who practice it (or
don’t practice it).
The world’s religions
There are probably more religious identities in the world
than there are religions!
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Yin and Yang, a Daoist symbol for the harmonious flow of the universe
That is because it can be
possible to be part of more
than one religion at a
time. For example, many
European Christians feel
that you cannot be a
Christian and any other
religion, but many Native
American Christians feel
that it is possible to
practice Christianity
without abandoning their
ancestral religions. In
Japan, most people practice both Buddhism and Shinto
and identify themselves accordingly. In traditional China,
Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism were known as the
“three great teachings,” and it was assumed that people
should learn from all of them. To be a Christian is to
commit to a religion that relies on Judaism for its very
existence. To be a Buddhist is to be an heir to the de<ning
concepts of Hinduism. To be an atheist is sometimes to
choose a speci<c system of thought as a reaction to a
particular religion. And so on.
Some common religious questions
Where do human beings St into the universe?
Religion, like culture, is something that humans do. This
may seem obvious, but it is not a statement that all
religions would <nd meaningful. In traditional Native
American religions, for example, there is no part of
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 7 1
existence that is separated from the sacred. Of course,
humans play a unique, human role in this – just as bears
play a unique, ursine role in it; rivers a unique river role;
etc. And Daoism teaches that “alone among the ten
thousand things, humans must be taught to follow the
dao.” That is, everything else that exists is naturally part of
the harmonious flow of the dao. The fact that human
beings need philosophy, religion, etc., shows that there is
something wrong with us!
An ancient painting of the “medicine wheel,” a Native American symbol of unity and holiness
Most Native American religions see human beings as
one kind of being among many. Just as human beings have
their own communities, social rules, life histories, and
individual personalities, so do all other animals. If human
beings are different from all other animals, according to
these religions, it is usually because we are worse! Until
recently, most Native Americans were hunter-gathers, and
many today hunt and gather as well as buying farmed food
at grocery stores. In Native American thought, hunted
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A painting of the Buddhist realms of rebirth. Buddhists hope to escape the endless cycle of death.
animals voluntarily give up their lives to let humans eat.
But human beings are not as generous, – no animal native
to North or South America normally preys on human
beings. (Only a handful – polar bears; grizzly bears;
mountain lions; and alligators – prey on humans at all, and
even then, it is rare.) Human beings are seen as more
sel<sh than animals, whereas animals are altruistic.
Judaism and Christianity both teach that God allows
human beings to rule over the rest of nature. Today, many
Jews and Christians interpret this as meaning that human
beings have a responsibility to care for nature. But some
today, like many in earlier times, interpret this as
permission to use nature however they want. Islam’s
concept has a subtle but critical difference. Muslims
believe that God entrusted human beings with the
responsibility to administer the natural world, but that,
rather than being worthy of God’s trust, humanity all too
often “has proved [to be] a sinner and a fool.”
Many religions that
believe in reincarnation
also place human beings
in a special category. In
Buddhism, the human
realm is one of six realms
in which it is possible to be
born (the other <ve are
divine; heavenly; animal;
hungry-ghost; and hell). In
Jainism, it is one of four
(the other three are
heavenly; animal; and
hell). Both Jainism and
Buddhism teach that you
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 7 3
The Christian Eucharist (the body and blood of Christ)
can only gain enlightenment during a human birth. If you
are born into another realm, you can proceed toward
enlightenment, but you can only actually reach it as a
human. Hinduism tends to think that being human is
helpful for reaching spiritual liberation, but not actually
necessary. Although it is less likely, a soul certainly can
attain liberation while existing as a flower, a butterfly, or
whatever else. In addition, all these religions teach that the
human realm is a high-risk birth. Human beings can think
abstractly and make moral choices, which is bene<cial for
true understanding. But by the same token, we can choose
ignorance, embrace delusion, and practice cruelty in a way
that no other creature can, and all too often, we in fact do
these things. This earns us (bad) karma and moves us away
from liberation instead of toward it.
What happens when we die?
It is easy to become
curious about death.
When someone we love
dies, are they gone
forever? Will we ever see
them again? Different
religions have different
ideas answers to these
questions, and different
members of the same
religion may also give different answers. In general,
though, most Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe that
each human being comes into existence either when they
are born or in the mother’s uterus, lives out one lifetime,
and then dies. They did not live before this and they will
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not be born again after this. Instead, these religions teach,
God will judge them for how they lived. They believe that
God is kind and forgives people for making mistakes, and
that because of God’s kindness, “good enough” people exist
at peace with God after they die. This existence may be
called Heaven or Paradise. Most Jews, Christians, and
Muslims say that it is impossible to understand it fully in
this life.Instead, they use metaphors and comparisons. For
example, Muslims may say that Paradise is like a beautiful
garden of fruit trees, or Christians that Heaven is like a
beautiful city <lled with fruit trees. In Judaism, it is more
common to say that we will know “in God’s own time” but
not before. As long as we live in this world, we should focus
on doing what it is right. All of these religions teach that
people who insist on choosing evil will be punished. For
example, a murderer who refuses even to admit their
actions were wrong might be punished in Hell, kept out of
Paradise, or just be completely “gone” when they die.
In contrast, Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs believe
in reincarnation (literally, “being put back in flesh”). This
is the idea that after death, the soul – the essence of the
person – is born again in another form. How you are born
depends on how well you lived in your previous life. If you
live wrongly, your soul earns karma (or bad karma,
according to Buddhists) that you must burn away through
suffering (punishment) and then living rightly. Right now,
you are a human being, but you might previously have
been a tree or a deer, and that you could be a tree or a deer
or a different human in a future life. The goal is to stop
being reincarnated, which is possible when you no longer
have any karma (or only have good karma, according to
Buddhism) and have reached spiritual enlightenment.
Hindus call this moksha and believe that it means being
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 7 5
fully aware that the individual soul is not truly separate
from the universal soul. After that, it is no longer
necessary to exist any one individual (who, after all, exists
only by being separate from every other individual).
Buddhists call it nirvana and believe that it means
understanding that the soul is only an illusion. Jains
believe that the enlightened individual remains an
individual but no longer needs a body, instead existing
forever as a being of pure light. Sikhism envisions
something more similar to the Muslim idea of jinnah,
Paradise.
Other religions do not have single, obvious ideas about
what happens after we die. Traditional Native American
religions, for example, did not see the soul or personality
as being completely different from the body, and they did
not believe that humans were somehow apart from the
rest of the world. Human beings were part of the world
before they lived, a part of the world while they lived, and a
part of the world after they died – just not the same part at
each time. Similarly, Daoism has never had a speci<c
teaching about death that all members of the religion
would agree on. Instead, it has ideas about timeless flow of
the dao and the harmonious cycle of yin and yang. This
allows Daoists to have different ideas about reincarnation,
heavenly existence, long life on earth, etc. And Confucius
taught that we should worry about the afterlife when we
get to it! If we spend too much time thinking about what
happens after death, it will distract us from how we should
behave during life. Many Jews would agree with
Confucius.
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The Qur’ān is the holy book of Islam.
Where do we look for answers?
Many religions in the
world today have a holy
book. For most of human
history, though, most
people learned sacred
teachings, stories, and
songs by hearing them
and repeating them. This
is an example of oral
tradition, and people could remember many stories, rules,
etc., very accurately. (Many societies had a few
professional singers and story-tellers, which helped.)
Actually, this is a “cost” of universal literacy – when
everyone in a society reads regularly from childhood,
people’s memories are not as good! In some religions
today, such as Native American religions, it is important to
many people to keep this oral tradition alive in the
religion. Hymns, rituals, and prayers are often the only
things that are notwritten down by people who practice
these religions. (All other kinds of literature are very
important.) And today, even in religions that have ancient
books and members who can all read them, non-written
aspects are very important! Here is one example: If you
have ever seen a painting or a display showing the birth of
Jesus, you will have seen an ox and a donkey with the baby
Jesus. The ox and the donkey are nowhere in the Bible! But
Christians, even those who read the Bible often, cannot
imagine the scene without the animals there. For highly
educated Buddhists and Muslims, it is still important to
learn mantras and parts of the Qur’ān by heart, and to
recite them from memory.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 7 7
But books are very important in many religions. Most
religions with written books have more than one! All
schools of Buddhism share the Palī canon, but different
Mahayana traditions also have different texts in addition.
Hinduism has a vast number of texts in many languages,
including ancient hymns and rituals like the Vedas;
philosophical texts like the Upanishads; mythological texts
called the Puranas; heroic epics such as the Mahabharata
and the Ramayana; devotional hymns; etc. No one Hindu
community uses all or even most of these texts. Instead,
most Hindus see this variety of texts as offering limitless
avenues to truth and goodness. Daoism’s central text is the
Daodejing, but the Zhuangzi is also extremely important,
and so are many of the more than 1,500 books that are
included in the Daozhong(“Daoist canon” or “Daoist list”).
Today, many Christians and Jews think of the Bible as a
book, but this is a mistake. The world “Bible” comes from
the Greek biblia, “books” – plural! The Bible is actually a
collection of different books, all of which can be printed in
a single volume. But until 1500 or so, it was not possible to
print all the books in one volume. Earlier Jews and
Christians understood that they had “scriptures”
(writings) rather than one single book. The Qur’ān in
Islam may be an exception to this rule. It is a single book (a
book with “chapters”). The Daodejing is also a single book,
but the Qur’ān has a unique status in Islam. While Islam
has other important religious writings, there is nothing
comparable to the Zhuangzi, for example.
There are subtle but important differences in how
religions view their books. Many Hindus view the Vedas as
divinely revealed in a speci<c way, but believe that humans
have been divinely guided to produce many other texts in
different ways. Speaking very generally, Daoists and
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Buddhists usually emphasize that their texts contain the
wisdom of enlightened teachers but consider the “how” of
these texts much less important than the “what.” Jews and
Christians generally believe that God inspired various
human authors to write the books of the Bible. Muslims
believe that the Qur’ān always existed and was simply
revealed to Muhammad (pbuh). The physical text obviously
had scribes (the prophet’s (pbuh) companions, may God be
well pleased with them), but they do not believe that the
contents have an author.
Religion and right behavior
Religions often have rules that their members are
supposed to follow. Within most religions, members may
disagree about some of what the rules are and about which
rules are most important. In addition, few people (if any!)
follow all the rules of their religion perfectly all the time.
Nevertheless, rules can be an important part of many
people’s religious experience.
There are some basic rules that most religions share.
Most of these are very basic rules that non-religious
systems also have. For example, no religion allows its
members to murder or steal, just as no government allows
its citizens to murder or steal. (Of course, murder and
stealing unfortunately still occur.) Many religions also
have some version of the “Golden Rule”: Treat others the
way you want others to treat you; do not do to others what
you would not want done to you. This, too, is a rule that
every child must be told at some point!
Religious rules apply to many kinds of behavior:
Worship; occupation; <nance; social structure; marriage;
clothing; and countless others. Instead of including all of
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 7 9
these, let’s discuss one type of rule – rules about food – as
an example.
Example: Rules about food
Native American religions rarely forbid any speci<c kind
of food. However, they usually limit how much people are
allowed to hunt and gather. Hunting too much is
disrespectful to animals that give up their lives to feed
humans. If animal communities feel disrespected, they
will go away and not allow hunters to get them. Wasting
any part of the animal’s body is also unacceptable, and
there are often strict rules about using every part
respectfully. For example, among some of the Cree nations
(formerly called “tribes”), it is forbidden to speak while
eating fresh hunted meat.
One of the most famous religious rules about food is
that Jews and Muslims do not eat pork. The Bible states
that pigs are unclean and that Jews may not eat them.
Most Christians (although not all!) interpret the New
Testament to mean that Christians do not need to obey
Jewish laws about food. But the Qur’ān also states that pigs
are unclean, so Muslims do not eat pork either. The Qur’ān
lists several other animals whose meat is forbidden to
Muslims, and the Bible has entire categories of land
animals, birds, and sea animals whose meat is forbidden
to Jews. The reason is always stated to be that these
animals are unclean – but in scienti<c terms, most of them
are no dirtier than the animals whose meat is permitted.
Judaism also has other food rules – for example, meat
products and dairy products must be eaten separately –
that are unrelated to cleanliness or health. Jews and
Muslims often say that these rules are really about obeying
1 8 0 | N O L A N W E I L
God. Having to think about whether a given food is okay is
a reminder to pay attention to God’s will at all times. (It is
easy to say that people should not need this reminder, but
much harder to apply the principle!) In a similar way, the
rule is a daily reminder to Jews and Muslims that they
cannot just do whatever they want. There is no obvious
practical reason not to eat pork if you want to – but
sometimes there seems to be no obvious practical reason to
ful<ll other desires that, if you think more carefully, might
be harmful to others or to you. Obeying food laws (called
kosher for Judaism and halal for Islam) is good practice.
(Kosher and halal also regulate slaughter to try to limit the
suffering of animals as much as possible, but the reason
for this is obvious.)
A vegetarian thali, sampler plate. Vegetarianism is important for many Hindus.
Another widely known religious food rule is that Hindus
are strongly encouraged to be vegetarian and strictly
forbidden to eat the meat of cows. The reason for
encouraging vegetarianism is straightforward: the duty of
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 8 1
ahimsa, “not harming.” Eating meat obviously harms
animals, so people should not do it. Some schools of
Mahayana Buddhism have similar teaching. Of course it is
natural for tigers to eat deer and for hawks to eat mice, but
for most Hindus (like all Jains and some Mahayana
Buddhists), this is not important. Tigers and hawks do not
have a choice, but humans do. Or – perhaps it is “natural”
for humans to eat meat. But, many Hindus (and others)
might counter, it is also “natural” for the human life
expectancy to be thirty-<ve years and for the child
mortality rate to be 50% or even higher. We do not accept
these things because they are “natural.”
The special prohibition of cows’ meat can seem more
complicated to non-Hindus. After all, dairy products (such
as milk, yogurt, ghee butter, paneer cheese) are an
important part of the diet in many regions of southern
Asia, the homeland of Hinduism. If Hindus are willing to
drink cows’ milk, why not eat their meat too?
Actually, Hindus do not eat cows’ meat because they
drink their milk. Humans take milk as sustenance from
dairy cows just as they take milk as sustenance from their
mothers. Therefore, a cow is a mother to people as well as
calves, and people have a duty to take care of cows just as
grown-up children have a duty to take care of their
parents. One of the duties of a Hindu son is to provide an
appropriate funeral for his parents when they die. For
Hindus, eating beef is equivalent to cutting up and eating
the dead body of your own mother. As such, it is one of the
most serious sins a Hindu could commit, far worse than
eating pork would be for a Jew or a Muslim. In fact,
Muslims are permitted to eat pork if it is the only way to
avoid starvation, and Jews are actually required to do so.
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But for many Hindus, the (bad) karma that would result
from cow-killing is far, far worse than death.
Not every religion has such speci<c rules about food.
Daoist practice, for example, is less likely to forbid speci<c
foods than to have a system of which foods are good to eat
(or to avoid) under which circumstances, and why.
Christianity also tends not to forbid speci<c foods, but
many Christians would feel that it was sinful to eat the
meat of an animal that is considered “special” in their
culture. An amusing example: My American Christian
auntie, visiting Sweden, was offered a common Swedish
food – reindeer meat – by a fellow Christian. She did not
want to eat one of Santa Claus’ helpers! Santa’s reindeer
are not “of<cially” Christian, and my auntie had not
believed in Santa since she was a small child. But in this
case, emotion was more important than “of<cial” religion!
Conclusion
Religion is a complex part of culture, and the two influence
each other in many ways. It is impossible to identify one
thing that religion is “really” or “always” about. However,
there are some questions that are often useful to ask.
Indeed, asking questions can be the most important part
of understanding religions! It is best to think about
different possibilities, rather than try to <nd the one “right
answer” to any of these questions. Thinking about the
possibilities can enrich our understanding of religions, the
people who practice them, and the communities in which
they live.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 8 3
Application
1. Do you identify with any particular religion? Why or
why not?
2. What do you believe happens to a person when they
die?
3. Do people in your home community observe any
religiously prescribed rules?
4. Do you think it is possible to adhere to more than one
religion? Why or why not?
For Further Reading
Ambalu, Shulamit, et al., editors. The Religions Book: Big
Ideas Simply Explained. DK Publishing, 2013.
Bowker, John. World Religions: The Great Faiths Explored &
Explained. DK Publishing, 2006.
Hinnells, John R. The Penguin Handbook of World Religions.
Penguin Books, 2010.
Mooney, Carla, and Lena Chandhok. Comparative Religion:
Investigate the World through Religious Tradition. 2015.
Shouler, Kenneth A., and Robert Pollock. The Everything
World’s Religions Book: Discover the Beliefs, Traditions, and
Cultures of Ancient and Modern Religions. Adams Media,
2010.
Smith, Huston. The World’s Religions. HarperOne, 2009.
Image Attribution
Image 1: “Jerusalem_Western Wall_4_Noam Chen_IMOT”
byIsrael_photo_gallery is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0
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Image 2: Klem, Public domain, via Wikimedia
Commons
Image 3: Medicine Wheel, Palatki Heritage Site and
Ruins, Coconino National Forest, AZ. Pixabay License.
Image 4: Tibetan Buddhist Wheel of Life. Pixabay
License.
Image 5: The Christian Eucharist. Pixabay License.
Image 6: Person reading the Qur’an. Pixabay License.
Image 7: Indian vegetarian thali sampler plate. Pixabay
License.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 8 5
9
Chapter 9: Roots of
American National Culture
Nolan Weil
Suggested Focus
This chapter is a crash course in American history from the
perspective of social history and cultural geography. If you can
grasp the argument of this chapter, you might begin to see
American culture in a completely new light.
1. Name from memory as many as you can of the
American beliefs and values discussed at the beginning
of the chapter.
2. What does Woodard mean when he says there are 11
nations in North America? (What is a nation?)
3. Besides the English, which three other European
powers established a major presence in North America?
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4. What makes New York the unique city that it is?
5. To which colonies does Albion’s Seed refer? From where did these colonists come exactly? How was the
understanding of “freedom” different in each of those
colonies?
6. From where did the founders of the Deep South come?
7. What happened during the Westward Expansion?
Preliminary remarks
The title of this chapter, The Roots of American Culture, may
require a bit of explaining; otherwise perhaps it may not
be apparent how the two parts of the chapter <t together.
Where does one look for the roots of a national culture?
This chapter suggests looking in two places. On one hand,
we might suppose those roots might be exposed if we
simply examine the beliefs and values that seem to
animate the culture as it lies before us in the present. This
then is how we begin this chapter on American national
culture, with a snapshot of American beliefs and values
that have been repeatedly identi<ed by observers of the
American scene.
On the other hand, we suggest, perhaps this view is too
super<cial, painting American culture in an overly
generalized, stereotypical way. We point out that there is
too much strife and political division in the United States
to suppose that the national culture can be so easily
captured. In fact, we question whether there is a “national
culture” at all and suggest that if we look at the founding
and settlement of the United States in historical
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 8 7
perspective, as we do throughout the remainder of the
chapter, we see not one national culture but many regional
cultures. And while an overwhelming majority of
Americans may say they hold dearly the value of
“freedom,” if we look closely, we begin to see that not all
Americans understand freedom in the same way. Once we
realize this, we may be better able to understand the
obvious divisions in contemporary American society.
American beliefs and values
As pointed out in the last chapter, it is a mistake to
automatically assume that everyone in a large
multicultural country like the U.S. shares a common
culture. But this hasn’t stopped many writers from
suggesting that they do. Among the most recent popular
essays to address the question of American beliefs and
values is Gary Althen’s “American Values and
Assumptions.” Here is a list of the beliefs and values that
Althen (2003) identi<es as typically American:
• individualism, freedom, competitiveness and privacy
• equality
• informality
• the future, change and progress
• the goodness of humanity
• time
• achievement, action, work and materialism
• directness and assertiveness
In what follows, I summarize Althen’s description of
1 8 8 | N O L A N W E I L
typical American values and assumptions, sometimes
extending his examples with my own.
Individualism
According to Althen (2003), “the most important thing to
understand about Americans is probably their devotion to
individualism. They are trained from very early in their
lives to consider themselves as separate individuals who
are responsible for their own situations . . . and . . .
destinies. They’re not trained to see themselves as
members of a close-knit interdependent family, religious
group, tribe, nation, or any other collectivity.”
Althen illustrates the above point by describing an
interaction he observed between a three-year-old boy and
his mother. They are at the mall, and the boy wants to
know if he can have an Orange Julius, (a kind of cold drink
made from orange juice and ice). The mother explains to
him that he doesn’t have enough money for an Orange
Julius because he bought a cookie earlier. He has enough
for a hot dog. Either he can have a hot dog now, she says,
or he can save his money and come back another day to
buy an Orange Julius.
Althen says that people from other countries often have
a hard time believing the story. They wonder, not just why
such a young child would have his own money, but how
anyone could reasonably expect a three-year-old to make
the kind of decision his mother has suggested. But
Americans, he says, understand perfectly. They know that
such decisions are beyond the abilities of three-year-olds,
but they see the mother as simply introducing the boy to
an American cultural ideal—that of making one’s own
decisions and being responsible for the consequences.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 8 9
Freedom
Americans feel strongly about their freedom as
individuals. They don’t want the government or other
authorities meddling in their personal affairs or telling
them what they can and cannot do. One consequence of
this respect for the individuality of persons, Althen claims
is that Americans tend not to show the kind of deference
to parents that people in more family-oriented societies
do. For example, Americans think that parents should not
interfere in their children’s choices regarding such things
as marriage partners or careers. This doesn’t mean that
children do not consider the advice of parents; quite the
contrary, psychologists <nd that American children
generally embrace the same general values as their parents
and respect their opinions. It is just that Americans
strongly believe everyone should be free to choose the life
he/she wishes to live.
Competitiveness
The strong emphasis on individualism pushes Americans
to be highly competitive. Althen sees this reflected not only
in the American enthusiasm for athletic events and sports
heroes, who are praised for being “real competitors,” but
also in the competitiveness that pervades schools and
extracurricular activities. According to Althen, Americans
are continually making social comparison aimed at
determining:
. . . who is faster, smarter, richer, better looking; whose
children are the most successful; whose husband is the best
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provider or the best cook or the best lover; which salesperson
sold the most during the past quarter; who earned his Trst
million dollars at the earliest age; and so on.
Privacy
Americans assign great value to personal privacy, says
Althen, assuming that everyone needs time alone to reflect
or replenish his or her psychic energy. Althen claims that
Americans don’t understand people who think they always
have to be in the company of others. He thinks foreigners
are often puzzled by the invisible boundaries that seem to
surround American homes, yards, and of<ces, which seem
open and inviting but in fact are not. Privacy in the home
is facilitated by the tendency of American houses to be
quite large. Even young children may have bedrooms of
their own over which they are given exclusive control.
Equality
The American Declaration of Independence asserted
(among other things) that “all men are created equal.”
Perhaps most Americans are aware that equality is an ideal
rather than a fully realized state of affairs; nevertheless,
says Althen, most Americans “have a deep faith that in
some fundamental way all people . . . are of equal value,
that no one is born superior to anyone else.”
Informality
American social behavior is marked by extraordinary
informality. Althen sees this reflected in the tendency of
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 9 1
Americans to move quickly, after introductions, to the use
of <rst names rather than titles (like Mr. or Mrs.) with
family names. Americans, says Althen, typically interact in
casual and friendly ways. Informality is also reflected in
speech; formal speech is generally reserved for public
events and only the most ceremonious of occasions.
Similarly, Americans are fond of casual dress. Even in the
business world, where formal attire is the rule, certain
meetings or days of the week may be designated as
“business casual,” when it is acceptable to shed ties, suit
coats, skirts and blazers. Foreigners encountering
American informality for the <rst time may decide that
Americans are crude, rude, and disrespectful.
The Future, Change, and Progress
The United States is a relatively young country. Although
the <rst European colonies appeared in North America
nearly 400 years ago, the United States is only 240 years
old as I write these words. Perhaps this is why the U.S.
tends to seem less tied to the past and more oriented
towards the future. Moreover, the country has changed
dramatically since the time of its founding, becoming a
major world power only in the last 75 years.
To most Americans, science, technology and innovation
are more salient than history and tradition, says Althen.
Americans tend to regard change as good, and the new as
an improvement over the old. In other words, change is an
indication of progress. Americans also tend to believe that
every problem has a solution, and they are, according to
Althen, “impatient with people they see as passively
accepting conditions that are less than desirable.”
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The Goodness of Humanity
Although some Americans belong to religious groups that
emphasize the inherent sinfulness of man, Althen claims
that the basic American attitude is more optimistic. For
one thing, the American belief in progress and a better
future, Althen argues, would not be possible if Americans
did not believe human nature was basically good, or at
least that people have it within their power to improve
themselves. The robust commercial literature of self-help
or self-improvement is another source of evidence for this
conviction.
Time
Americans regard time as a precious resource, says Althen.
They believe time should always be used wisely and never
wasted. Americans are obsessed with ef<ciency, or getting
the best possible results with the least expenditure of
resources, including time.
Achievement, Action, Work, and Materialism
American society is action oriented. Contemplation and
reflection are not valued much unless they contribute to
improved performance. Americans admire hard work, but
especially hard work that results in substantial
achievement. “Americans tend to de<ne and evaluate
people,” says Althen, “by the jobs they have.” On the other
hand, “family backgrounds, educational attainments, and
other characteristics are considered less important.”
Americans have also been thought of as particularly
materialistic people, and there is no denying that
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 9 3
American society is driven by a kind of consumer mania.
Material consumption is widely seen as the legitimate
reward for hard work.
Directness and Assertiveness
Americans have a reputation for being direct in their
communication. They feel people should express their
opinions explicitly and frankly. As Althen expresses it,
“Americans usually assume that conflicts or disagreements
are best settled by means of forthright discussions among
the people involved. If I dislike something you are doing, I
should tell you about it directly so you will know, clearly
and from me personally, how I feel about it.”
Assertiveness extends the idea of directness in the
expression of opinion to the realm of action. Many
Americans are raised to insist upon their rights, especially
if they feel they have been treated unfairly, or cheated, e.g.,
in a business transaction. There is a strong tradition, for
example, of returning merchandise to retail stores, not
only if it is defective but even if it just does not live up to
an individual’s expectation as a customer. The retailer who
refuses to satisfy a customer’s demand to refund the cost
of an unacceptable product is likely to face a stiff
argument from an assertive or even angry customer. The
customer service personnel of major retailers tend,
therefore, to be quite deferential to customer demands.
Conclusion
In his discussions of American values and assumptions,
Althen is careful to point out that generalizations can be
risky—that it would be a mistake to think that all
1 9 4 | N O L A N W E I L
Americans hold exactly the same beliefs, or even that when
Americans do agree, that they do so with the same degree
of conviction. He is also careful to note that the
generalizations represent the predominant views of white,
middle class people who have for a long time held a
majority of the country’s positions in business, education,
science and industry, politics, journalism, and literature.
He acknowledges that the attitudes of many of the nation’s
various ethnic minorities might differ from the values of
the “dominant” culture but insists that as long as we
recognize these limitations, it is reasonable to regard the
observations he offers as true on the average.
There may be a good deal of truth to Althen’s claim;
however, a closer look into American history reveals
considerable regional variation in Americans’
understanding of even the most fundamental ideals, e.g.,
ideas about the freedom of the individual. In Part 2, we
will see that a closer look at the American political scene,
may force us to conclude that even when Americans
endorse the same values, they may actually have different
things in mind.
A closer look at American cultural diversity
In this section, I want to show why the idea of a dominant
American culture is more complicated than it is often
taken to be. Listen to any serious political commentary on
American TV and sooner or later you will hear about the
radical polarization of American culture and politics.
Commentators may differ on whether we have always
been this way, or whether it is worse than ever, but
journalists and scholars alike are nearly unanimous in
insisting that the country is anything but uni<ed. Every
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 9 5
U.S. President at the annual State of the Union Address
says we are uni<ed, but that is something the President
must say. “The state of our Union is strong,” are the words
traditionally uttered. But does anyone believe it?
Figure 8.1. Woodard (2011) argues that there are 11 American nations occupying the continental U.S.
And just when many of us think we have <nally put the
American Civil War and the shameful legacy of slavery
behind us once and for all by electing the <rst black
president, the nation turns around and elects a successor
that surely has Abraham Lincoln turning over in his grave.
How is it possible? Essays like Althen’s certainly do not
give us any clue.
What could possibly explain it?
Perhaps we can <nd a clue in the work of cultural
geographers, historians, and journalists. Back to the
original question: Is there really a dominant American
culture? Depending upon whom you read, there is not one
uni<ed American culture. Rather, at least four cultures
1 9 6 | N O L A N W E I L
Table 8.1 Studies identifying U.S. regional cultures
sprang from British roots, and altogether there may be as
many as eleven national cultures in the U.S. today. (See
Figure 8.1)
Understanding U.S. Cultural Landscapes
In 1831, 26-year old French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville
toured the United States. Four years later, he published the
<rst of two volumes of Democracy in America. At that time,
Tocqueville saw the United States as composed of almost
separate nations (Jandt, 2016). Since then, cultural
geographers have produced evidence to support many of
Tocqueville’s observations, noting that as various cultural
groups arrived in North America, they tended to settle
where their own people had already settled. As a result,
different regions of the U.S. came to exhibit distinctive
regional cultures. Zelinsky (1973) identi<ed <ve distinctive
cultural regions while Bigelow (1980) identi<ed no fewer
than nine. (See Table 8.1)
Joel Garreau (1981),
while an editor for the
Washington Post, also
wrote a book proclaiming
that the North American
continent is actually home
to nine nations. Based on
the observations of hundreds of observers of the American
scene, Garreau begins The Nine Nations of North America by
urging his readers to forget everything they learned in
sixth-grade geography about the borders separating the
U.S., Canada, and Mexico, as well as all the state and
provincial boundaries within. Says Garreau:
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 9 7
Consider, instead, the way North America really works.
It is Nine Nations. Each has its capital and its distinctive
web of power and influence. A few are allies, but many
are adversaries. Some are close to being raw frontiers;
others have four centuries of history. Each has a peculiar
economy; each commands a certain emotional
allegiance from its citizens. These nations look different,
feel different, and sound different from each other, and
few of their boundaries match the political lines drawn
on current maps. Some are clearly divided
topographically by mountains, deserts, and rivers.
Others are separated by architecture, music, language,
and ways of making a living. Each nation has its own list
of desires. Each nation knows how it plans to get what
it needs from whoever’s got it. …Most important, each
nation has a distinct prism through which it views the
world. (Garreau, 1981: 1-2)
Historian David Hackett Fischer (1989) has argued that
U.S. culture is best understood as an uneasy coexistence of
just four original core cultures derived from four British
folkways, each hailing from a different region of 17th
century England. Most recently, journalist Colin Woodard
(2011) drawing on the work of Fischer and others has
identi<ed eleven North American nations. In the sections
that follow, I hope to show why essays like Althen’s may
not be helpful for understanding American culture. In the
process, I will briefly recount the story of the settling of
North America for those who may not be entirely aware of
that history.
Of<cially, of course, only three countries, Canada, the
United States, and Mexico, occupy the entirety of North
America, and each country began as a European project.
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The principal powers driving the settlement of the
continent were England, France, and Spain. All three
powers had a major presence in parts of what is now the
United States before the U.S. assumed its present shape.
Spanish influence
Spain was the <rst European power to insert itself into the
Americas, starting in the Caribbean islands after the
arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492. Spain would
eventually dominate most of South America and Mexico
and even gain a temporary foothold in present day Florida
as well as much of the American Southwest and California.
By the time the Trst Englishmen stepped off the boat at
Jamestown . . . Spanish explorers had already trekked through
the plains of Kansas, beheld the Great Smoky Mountains of
Tennessee, and stood at the rim of the Grand Canyon. They
had mapped the coast of Oregon . . . [and] established short-
lived colonies on the shores of Georgia and Virginia. In 1565,
they founded St. Augustine, Florida, now the oldest European
city in the United States. By the end of the sixteenth century,
Spaniards had been living in the deserts of Sonora and
Chihuahua for decades, and their colony of New Mexico was
marking its Tfth birthday. (Woodard, 2011: 23)
The descendants of the <rst Spanish settlers in the
Southwest (many of whom intermarried with the
indigenous peoples) thought of this region as el Norte (the
north), and while Spanish influence on the West would
eventually be eclipsed by English folkways, Spanish
influences persist to this day.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 1 9 9
French influence
While the Spanish spread out across the South and laid
claim to the West, the French dropped in from the North.
Frenchmen explored the coasts of Newfoundland and
sailed up the Saint Lawrence River in 1534. They sailed the
coasts of New Brunswick and Maine and established the
<rst successful French settlement in Nova Scotia in 1605,
followed by Quebec City in 1608 and Montreal in 1642.
From Montreal, the St. Lawrence River carried them to the
Great Lakes and from there by way of an extensive
network of rivers into the vast interior of the continent,
the so-called Louisiana territory. Following the great
Mississippi River down to the Gulf of Mexico, the French
founded New Orleans in 1718.
Moreover, the French established a more sympathetic
and human relationship with the native peoples than
either the Spanish or the English had. As Woodard (2011)
has observed, the Spanish enslaved the Indians; the
English drove them out; but the French settled near them,
learned their customs and established trading alliances
“based on honesty, fair dealing, and mutual respect” (p. 35)
The legacy of New France, as it was called, can still be
felt in isolated pockets of the U.S., like southern Louisiana
and the city of New Orleans, and also near the northern
boundaries of eastern states like Vermont and Maine.
Otherwise, it has a stronger pull on Canada where it
continues to resist domination by the English-speaking
regions of Canada. On the other hand, Spanish influences
are more widely felt in the United States, particularly in
South Florida and throughout the southwestern U.S. and
California. However, the dominant culture of the United
2 0 0 | N O L A N W E I L
States—or as Fischer (1989) has argued—the four
dominant cultures are British.
Dutch influence
Another European power to establish a presence in North
America was the Netherlands. In 1624, the Dutch
established a fur trading post on what is today the Island
of Manhattan in New York City. In fact, Woodard (2011: 65)
reminds us, the character of New York City is due very
much to the cultural imprint of the <rst Dutch settlers of
New York. Of course, it was not called New York back then
but New Amsterdam.
Unlike the Puritans who would come <ve years later, the
Dutch had no interest in creating a model society. Nor
were they interested in establishing democratic
government. During the <rst few decades of its existence,
New Amsterdam was formally governed by the Dutch
West India Company, one of the <rst global corporations.
The Dutch were interested in North America primarily for
commercial purposes.
To understand how the Dutch influenced New York, it is
important to understand the culture and social history of
the Netherlands. By the end of the 1500’s, the Dutch had
waged a successful war of independence against a huge
monarchical empire (the kingdom of Spain). They had
asserted the inborn human right to rebel against an
oppressive government, and they had established a
kingless republic nearly two centuries before the American
Revolution, which established American independence
from the British Empire.
“In the early 1600s, the Netherlands was the most
modern and sophisticated country on Earth,” says
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 2 0 1
Woodard (2011: 66-67). They were committed to free
inquiry. Their universities were among the best in the
world. Scientists and intellectuals from countries where
free inquiry was suppressed flocked to the Netherlands
and produced revolutionary scienti<c and philosophical
texts. Dutch acceptance of freedom of the press resulted in
the wide distribution of texts that were banned elsewhere
in Europe. The Dutch asserted the right of freedom from
persecution for the free exercise of religion. They
produced magni<cent works of art and established laws
and business practices that set the standard for the
Western world. They invented modern banking,
establishing the <rst clearinghouse at the Bank of
Amsterdam for the exchange of the world’s currencies.
The Dutch had also virtually invented the global
corporation with the establishment of the Dutch East
India Company in 1602. With 10,000 ships of advanced
design, shareholders from all social classes, thousands of
workers, and global operations, the Netherlands
dominated shipping in northern Europe in the early 1600s.
By the time the Dutch West India Company founded New
Amsterdam, the Netherlands had assumed a role in the world
economy equivalent to that of the United States in the late
20th century, setting the standards for international business,
Tnance, and law. (Woodard, 2011: 67)
The Dutch effectively transplanted all of these cultural
achievements to New Amsterdam. Dutch openness and
tolerance consequently attracted a remarkable diversity of
people. The ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity, says
Woodard, shocked early visitors. The streets of New
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Amsterdam teamed with people from everywhere, just as
New York does today.
By the mid 1600’s, there were “French-speaking Walloons;
Lutherans from Poland, Finland; and Sweden; Catholics from
Ireland and Portugal; and Anglicans, Puritans, and Quakers
from New England. . . [D]ozens of Ashkenazim [eastern
European Jews] and Spanish-speaking Sephardim [Jews from
Spain] settled in New Amsterdam in the 1650s, forming the
nucleus of what would eventually become the largest Jewish
community in the world. Indians roamed the streets, and
Africans—slave, free and half-free—already formed a Tfth of
the population. A Muslim from Morocco had been farming
outside the city walls for three decades. (Woodard, 2011: 66)
When the Duke of York, future King James II of
England, arrived with a naval fleet in 1664, the Dutch were
forced to cede political control of New Amsterdam to
England. New Amsterdam became New York. However,
the Dutch managed to negotiate terms, which enabled
them to maintain a presence and preserve Dutch norms
and values. Thus, diversity, tolerance, upward mobility,
and the emphasis on private enterprise, characteristics
historically associated with the United States in general
and New York in particular, began in New Amsterdam and
represent the Dutch legacy in America.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 2 0 3
Geographic origins of four English groups that colonized different regions of North America
New Amsterdam, centered in the eventual Lower Manhattan, in 1664, the year England took control and renamed it “New York”.
Albion’s Seed
Of the three major
European powers, the
English were latecomers.
But when they <nally
came, they washed over
the continent like a
tsunami. Today English
cultural influences prevail
over vast areas of both
Canada and the United
States.
In his book, Albion’s
Seed, David Fischer argues
that the foundations of U.S. culture were laid between
1629-1775 by four great waves of English-speaking
2 0 4 | N O L A N W E I L
immigrants. Each wave brought a group of people from a
different region of England, and each group settled in a
different region of British America.
• The <rst wave (1629-1640) brought Puritans from the
East of England to Massachusetts.
• The second wave (1642-1675) brought a small Royalist
elite and large numbers of indentured servants from
the South of England to Virginia.
• The third wave (1675-1725) consisted of people from
the North Midlands of England and Wales. This
group settled primarily in the Delaware Valley.
• Finally, multiple waves of people arrived between
1718-1775 from the borders of North Britain and
Ireland. Most of these people settled in the mountains
of the Appalachian backcountry.
According to Fischer, despite all being English-speaking
Protestants living under British laws and enjoying certain
British “liberties,” each group came from a different
geographical region, and each region had its own
particular social, political, and economic circumstances.
As a result, the basic attitudes, behaviors, and values of
each group were profoundly different.
Massachusetts (Yankeedom)
The Puritans who founded Massachusetts Bay Colony
were not the <rst English settlers in New England; the so-
called Pilgrims beat them by about 10 years. But the
Massachusetts Bay Puritans left a more lasting legacy. The
Puritans came in greater numbers over an eleven-year
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 2 0 5
period (1629-1640), primarily from East Anglia. In the 17th
century, East Anglia was the most economically developed
area of Britain. East Anglians were artisans, farmers, and
skilled craftsmen; they were well educated and literate.
They had little respect for royal or aristocratic privilege. In
East Anglia, they had practiced local self-government by
means of elected representatives (selectmen) whom they
trusted to carry out the affairs of the community. They
were middle class and roughly all equal in material wealth.
When they migrated to Massachusetts, they brought
with them their own particular folkways. These included
many of the customs and values they had been accustomed
to in East Anglia. They were also deeply religious and
brought a utopian vision of a society that would bring
about God’s kingdom on earth, governed by a particular
Puritan interpretation of the Bible. They only accepted
people into their communities that were willing to
conform to their Puritan brand of Calvinism; dissenters
were punished or exiled.
On the other hand, according to Boorstin (1958), the
Puritans were completely non- utopian and practical in the
way they lived their daily lives. Because they considered
their theological questions answered, says Boorstin, they
could focus less on the ends of society and more on the
practical means for making society work effectively.
Eventually, historical circumstances would even sweep the
religious authoritarianism away, leaving behind a legacy
self-government, local control, and direct democracy.
As Woodard (2011) has observed, “Yankees would come
to have faith in government to a degree incomprehensible
to people of the other American nations.” New Englanders
trusted government to defend the public good against the
sel<sh schemes of moneyed interests. They were in favor
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of promoting morality by prohibiting and regulating
undesirable activities. They believed in the value of public
spending on infrastructure and schools as a means for
creating a better society. Today, notes Woodard, “More
than any other group in America, Yankees conceive of
government as being run by and for themselves.” They
believe everyone should participate, and nothing makes
them angrier than the manipulation of the political
process for private gain (p. 60).
Virginia (Tidewater)
According to Fischer (1989) as the Puritan migrations were
coming to an end in 1641, a new migration was just about
to begin. This migration was from the south of England,
and these newcomers settled in what is today southeast
Virginia, in the area known as the Tidewater. The founders
of Virginia were about as different from the New England
Puritans as any group could be.
While the Puritans were artisans, farmers, and
craftsmen from the east of England, the Tidewater
Virginians had been English “gentlemen” in south
England. The economy of south England in 17th century
was organized mainly around the production of grain and
wool. While the Puritans enjoyed a fairly egalitarian life in
East Anglia, the south of England was marked by severe
economic inequality. Those who didn’t own land were
tenants. The region had also suffered greatly during the
English Civil War, a conflict that pitted the King of
England against the Parliament over the manner in which
England was to be governed. The landed gentry of south
England were Royalists; they supported the King.
However, they found themselves on the losing side of the
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 2 0 7
conflict. Unlike the Puritans who migrated to New
England for religious reasons, the Royalists hoped to
escape their deteriorating situation by seeking their
fortunes in the New World. To the extent that religion was
important to them, they embraced the Anglican Church of
England, the same church as the King of England.
Like the Puritans, the Royalists were not the <rst
English settlers in their respective region. The earliest
Virginians had founded the Jamestown Colony in 1607.
Also, like the Puritans, the Royalists turned out to be more
successful administrators than the settlers who had come
before. But while the Jamestown settlers had been
incompetent in many ways, they had set the stage for a
successful agricultural export industry based on tobacco
(Woodard, 2011).
Tobacco was a very lucrative crop and Virginia was
perfect for growing it, but it was very labor-intensive. The
Virginians solved their labor problem by recruiting a large
workforce of desperate people from London, Bristol, and
Liverpool. In fact, poor newcomers greatly outnumbered
the Royalist elites; more than 75 percent of immigrants to
Virginia came as indentured servants. Two thirds were
unskilled laborers and most could not read or write. The
Royalists, in fact, succeeded in reproducing the conditions
that had existed in the south of England where they had
been the lords and masters of large estates, exploiting a
vast and permanent underclass of poor, uneducated
Englishmen. Even worse, when the Virginians began
losing their workforce because the servants completed
their indentures, they turned to slave labor, which would
eventually spread across the entire southern United States.
Before the abolition of slavery in 1865, millions of Africans
would be kidnapped and shipped to the New World (and
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later bred In America) as permanent property (Woodard,
2011).
As Fischer (1989) has pointed out, people everywhere in
British America embraced the ideal of liberty (freedom) in
one form or another; however, it would be a mistake to
think that liberty had the same meaning to New
Englanders as it did to Virginians. New Englanders
believed in ordered liberty, which meant that liberty
belonged not just to an individual but to an entire
community. In other words, an individual’s liberties or
rights were not absolute but had to be balanced against the
public good. New Englanders voluntarily agreed to accept
constraints upon their liberties as long as they were
consistent with written laws and as long as it was they
themselves that collectively determined the laws. It is also
true though that because the original Puritan founders
saw themselves as God’s chosen people, they did not at
<rst feel compelled to extend freedom to anyone outside of
their Puritan communities.
The Virginians, in contrast, embraced a form of liberty
that Fischer has described as hegemonic or hierarchical
liberty. According to Fischer (1989) freedom for the
Virginian was conceived as “the power to rule, and not to
be overruled by others. . . . It never occurred to most
Virginia gentlemen that liberty belonged to everyone” (pp.
411-412). Moreover, the higher one’s status, the greater
one’s liberties. While New Englanders governed
themselves by mutual agreement arrived at in town hall
meetings, Virginian society was ruled from the top by a
small group of wealthy plantation owners who completely
dominated the economic and political affairs of the colony.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 2 0 9
Delaware Valley (The Midlands)
The third major wave of English immigration took place
between 1675-1725 and originated from many different
parts of England, but one region in particular stood
out—the North Midlands, a rocky and sparsely settled
region inhabited by farmers and shepherds. The people
had descended from Viking invaders who had colonized
the region in the Middle Ages. They favored the Norse
customs of individual ownership of houses and <elds and
resented the imposition of the Norman system of feudal
manors, which the southern Royalists had embraced
(p.446). The most peculiar thing about the people was their
religion. They were neither Puritans like the people of
eastern England, nor Anglican like the Royalists of the
south, but Quaker, or as they called themselves Friends.
The Quakers began arriving in great numbers in 1675,
settling in the Delaware Valley, spreading out into what is
today western New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania.
Sandwiched between Puritan Massachusetts and Royalist
Virginia, Woodward (2011) refers to this region as the
Midlands.
By 1750, the Quakers had become the third largest
religious group in the British colonies (Fischer, p. 422).
Like the Puritans and unlike the Royalists, the Quakers
sought to establish a model society based on deeply held
religious beliefs. But whereas the Puritans tended restrict
the liberties of outsiders, even persecuting them, the
Quakers (under the leadership of William Penn)
“envisioned a country where people of different creeds and
ethnic backgrounds could live together in harmony”
(Woodard, p. 94). The Quakers would not impose their
religion on anyone but would invite everyone into the
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community who accepted their worldview. They extended
the right to vote to almost anyone and provided land on
cheap terms. They maintained peace with the local
Indians, paid them for their land, and respected their
interests.
Quakers held government to be an absolute necessity
and were intensely committed to public debate. At the
same time, they developed a tradition of minimal
government interference in the lives of people. The Quaker
view of liberty was different from that of both the Puritans
and the Royalists. While the Puritans embraced ordered or
bounded liberty for God’s chosen few, and the Royalists
embraced a hierarchical view of liberty for the privileged
elite (and who saw no contradiction in the keeping of
slaves), the Quakers believed in reciprocal liberty, a liberty
that they believed should embrace all of humanity. The
Quakers were the most egalitarian of the three colonies
discussed so far, and they would be among the most
outspoken opponents of slavery.
Appalachia
The last great waves of folk migration came between
1718-1775 from the so-called borderlands of the British
Empire, Ireland, Scotland, and the northern counties of
England. They were a clan-based warrior people whose
ancestors had endured 800 years of almost constant
warfare with England (Woodard, p. 101). Unlike the
Puritans or the Quakers who dreamed of establishing
model societies based upon their religious beliefs, or the
Royalists who wished to regain their aristocratic wealth
and privilege, the Borderlanders sought to escape from
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 2 1 1
economic privation: high rents, low wages, heavy taxation,
famine and starvation.
These new immigrants landed on American shores
primarily by means of Philadelphia and New Castle in the
Quaker Midlands, mainly because of the Quaker policy of
welcoming immigrants. Unfortunately, the Borderlanders,
proved too belligerent and violent for the peace-loving
Quakers, who tried to get them out of their towns and into
the Appalachian backcountry as quickly as possible. The
Appalachian Mountains extend for 800 miles from
Pennsylvania to Georgia and several hundred miles east to
west from the Piedmont Plateau to the Mississippi. The
Borderlanders would end up spreading their folkways
throughout this vast region.
While the other three colonial regions established
commercial enterprises revolving around cash groups and
manufactured goods, the Borderlanders lived primarily by
hunting, <shing, and farming. In Britain, they had never
been accustomed to investing in <xed property because it
was too easily lost in war. In the American backcountry,
they carried on in the same way; whatever wealth they had
was largely mobile, consisting of herds of pigs, cattle, and
sheep. They practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, moving
to new lands every few years when they had depleted the
soil in one place. In time, some individuals managed to
acquire large tracts of land, while others remained
landless. The result was to reproduce the pervasive
inequality that had existed in the northern English
borderlands.
Early on, Appalachia acquired a reputation as a violent
and lawless place. In the earliest years of settlement, there
was little in the way of government. To the extent that
there was any order or justice, it was according to the
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principle lex talionis, which held that “a good man must
seek to do right in the world, but when wrong was done to
him, he must punish the wrongdoer himself by an act of
retribution. . .” (Fischer, p. 765).
The people that settled Appalachia held to an ideal of
liberty that Fischer has called “natural liberty,”
characterized by a <erce resistance to any form of external
restraint and “strenuously hostile to ordering institutions”
(Fischer, p. 777). This included hostility to organized
churches and established clergy. The Appalachian
backcountry was a place of mixed religious
denominations, just as the borders of North Britain had
been. However, if there was a dominant denomination, it
may have been Scottish Presbyterianism.
In essence, the Borderlanders reproduced many aspects
of the society they had left behind in the British
borderlands, a society marked by economic inequality, a
culture of violence and retributive justice, jealous
protection of individual liberty, and distrust of
government. A more different culture from that of New
England or the Midlands is hard to imagine. Except
perhaps for the Deep South.
Englanders from Barbados
The Deep South
Fischer does not deal with the founders of the Deep South
in Albion’s Seed for the simple reason that none of them
came directly from England as the Puritans, Virginians,
Quakers, and Borderlanders had. Instead, they were in
Woodard’s words “the sons and grandsons of the founders
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 2 1 3
of an older English colony: Barbados, the richest and most
horrifying society in the English-speaking world” (p. 82).
The colonizers of Barbados had established a wealthy and
powerful plantation economy based on sugar cane, grown
entirely by means of a brutal system of slave labor. Having
run out of land on Barbados, it became necessary for
Barbadians to <nd new lands, which they did by migrating
to other islands in the Caribbean and to the east coast of
North America.
The Barbadians arrived near present day Charleston,
South Carolina in 1670 and set to work replicating a slave
state almost identical to the one they had left behind in
Barbados. They bought enslaved Africans by the boatloads
and put them to work growing rice and indigo for export
to England. They often worked them to death just as they
had in Barbados. They built a tremendous amount of
wealth from this slave labor, and most of it was
concentrated in the hands of a few ruling families who
comprised only about one quarter of the white population.
They governed the territory solely to serve their own
interests, ignoring the bottom three-quarters of the white
population, and of course the black majority who actually
made up 80 percent of the population. The brutality of the
system is certainly shocking to modern sensibilities, and it
was even shocking to the Barbadian’s contemporaries.
While slavery was initially tolerated in all of the colonies, it
was an organizing economic principle only in the
Tidewater region and the Deep South. However, there
were important differences. Initially, the Tidewater
leaders had imported labor in the form of indentured
servants both white and black. Indentured servants could
earn their freedom, and many blacks did. In the Tidewater,
2 1 4 | N O L A N W E I L
Popularly regarded as the cultural boundary separating North and South (Dixie)
slaves outnumbered whites by only 1.7 to 1, and the slave
population grew naturally after 1740, eliminating the need
to import slaves. And because there were few newcomers,
the black population of the Tidewater was “relatively
homogenous and strongly influenced by the English
culture it was embedded within” (Woodard, p. 87). Having
African heritage did not necessarily make someone a slave
in the Tidewater. People in the Tidewater found it harder
to deny the humanity of black people.
In the Deep South,
however, the black
population outnumbered
the white population by
about 5 to 1, and blacks
lived largely apart from
whites. Moreover, the
separation of whites and
blacks was strictly
enforced, and the white
minority thought of blacks
as inherently inferior. Because they were so greatly
outnumbered, Southern plantation owners also feared the
possibility of a violent rebellion, and they organized
militias and conducted training exercises in case they
might need to respond to an uprising. “Deep Southern
society,” says Woodard, “was not only militarized, caste-
structured, and deferential to authority, it was also
aggressively expansionist” (p. 90). Unfortunately, the
slaveholding practices of the Deep South eventually caught
hold in the Tidewater too. By the middle of the 18th
century, permanent slavery came to be the norm
everywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 2 1 5
The Westward Expansion
After the American Revolution, four of the nations that we
have just surveyed headed west: New England, the
Midlands, Appalachia, and the Deep South all raced
towards the interior of the continent apparently with little
mixing. Figure 8.1 shows the territories that each nation
settled. Woodard’s argument and the work of cultural
geographers suggests that these four nations carried their
particular folkways and cultural attitudes with them and
that the states they settled still bear those same cultural
markings.
The Far West
The cultural migrations were halted for a time by the sheer
extremity of the West, which was not well suited to
farming. Only two groups braved the arid West. The
Mormons hailed from Yankee roots. Like the New England
Puritans, two centuries earlier, they set out on a utopian
religious mission, and began arriving in the 1840s on the
shores the Great Salt Lake in present day Utah. “With a
communal mind-set and intense group cohesion,” notes
Woodard, “the Mormons were able to build and maintain
irrigation projects that enabled small farmers in the region
to survive in far Western conditions.” Interestingly, the
Mormon values of communitarianism, morality, and good
works are all Yankee values. One wonders sometimes why
Utah politicians seem to align themselves so often with
politicians espousing values more typical of Appalachia
and the Deep South rather than with New England.
The other hardy souls to venture into the Far West were
the Forty-niners, so named after the year 1849 which
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brought a flood of frontiersmen to California seeking gold.
Otherwise, the West was successfully settled only after the
arrival of corporations and the federal government, the
only two forces capable of providing an infrastructure that
would eventually permit widespread settlement.
Westerners would come to resent both the corporations
and the federal government as unwelcome intrusions in
their lives.
The Left Coast
“Why is it,” asks Woodard, “that the coastal zone of northern California, Oregon and Washington seems to
have so much more in common with New England than
with the other parts of those states?” The explanation,
according to Woodard, is that the <rst Americans to
colonize it were New England Yankees who arrived by
ship. New Englanders were well positioned to colonize the
area having become familiar with the region as New
France’s main competitor in the fur trade.
The <rst Yankee settlers were merchants, missionaries,
and woodsmen. They arrived determined to create a “New
England on the Paci<c.” The other group to settle the
region consisted of farmers, prospectors and fur traders
from Greater Appalachia. They arrived overland by wagon,
and took control of the countryside, leaving the coastal
towns and government to the Yankees. The Yankee desire
to reproduce New England was ultimately unsuccessful
because as ever more migrants arrived from the
Appalachian Midwest and elsewhere, the Yankees were
outnumbered <fteen to one. They did manage, however, to
maintain control over most civic institutions.
Today the region shares with coastal New England the
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 2 1 7
same Yankee idealism and faith in good government and
social reform blended with Appalachian self-suf<cient
individualism.
Final reflection
While these various European founders of the United
States were working out their destinies, the U.S. was also a
destination for immigrants from all over the world.
Throughout the 19th and much of the 20th century, the
majority of immigrants were from Europe, <rst from
northern and western Europe, then from southern and
eastern Europe, and then once again from western
Europe. From the 1960s on, the majority of immigrants
have come from Asia and Latin America.
Given the passage of time and the huge influx of
immigrants, it might not seem believable that these
founding nations would have maintained their distinct
cultural identities. Haven’t they surely been diluted and
transformed, asks Woodard, by the tens of millions of
immigrants moving into the various regions? It might
seem, says Woodard, that by now these original cultures
must have “melted into one another, creating a rich,
pluralistic stew.”
However, cultural geographers such as Zelinsky (1973)
have found reasons to believe that once the settlers of a
region leave their cultural mark, newcomers are more
likely to assimilate the dominant culture of the region. The
newcomers surely bring with them their own cultural
legacies, foods, religions, fashions, and ideas, suggests
Woodard, but they do not replace the established ethos.
In American Nations, Woodard argues that the divisions
in American politics can be understood in large part by
2 1 8 | N O L A N W E I L
understanding the cultural divisions that have been part of
the United States since its founding. These divisions can
help us understand regional differences in basic
sentiments such trust vs. distrust of government. They can
also help us understand why certain regions of the country
are for or against gun control, environmental regulation,
or the regulation of <nancial institutions, and so on, or for
or against particular Congressional legislation.
Application
1. Whether you are an American citizen, U.S. resident, or
international student … which, if any, of the American
national values discussed in the chapter are important
where you come from? Which, if any, are unimportant?
2. Based on this history of the United States, what
adjustments are necessary to the idea of a dominant
American culture?
3. If you are not an American citizen or U.S. resident, how
might the lessons of this chapter apply to your own
country?
References
Althen, G. (2003). American ways: A guide for foreigners in the
United States. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press.
Bigelow, B. (1980). Roots and regions: A summary
de<nition of the cultural geography of America. Journal
of Geography, 79(6), 218-229.
Boorstin, D. J. (1958). The Americans: The colonial experience.
New York: Random House.
S P E A K I N G O F C U LT U R E | 2 1 9
Fischer, D. H. (1989). Albion’s seed: Four British Folkways in
America. New York: Oxford University Press.
Garreau, J. (1981). The nine nations of North America. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin.
Woodard, C. (2011). American nations: A history of the eleven
rival regional cultures of North America. New York: Viking.
Zelinsky, W. (1973). The cultural geography of the United
States. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Image Attribution
Image 1: “The American Nations Today” by Colin
Woodward is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Image 2: Table by Nolan Weil is licensed under CC BY
4.0
Image 3: “GezichtOpNieuwAmsterdam” by Johannes
Vingboons is licensed under Public Domain
Image 4: (not creative commons)
Image 5: Mason-Dixon Line by National Atlas of United
States is licensed under Public Domain
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