Understanding Cultural Diversity

Cultural Diversity

• Tile diversity of cultures can be endlessly documented in human behaviour.
• Some societies may ignore a field of human behavior to the point of near non-existence.
• Other societies may almost monopolize organized social conduct, interpreting situations through its lens.
• Traits with no intrinsic relation or historical connection can merge, leading to unique behaviors.
• Cultural standards vary from positive to negative extremes across different behaviors.
• Attitudes toward homicide differ; it may be excusable after diplomatic severance, customary for firstborn children, or a husband's right over his wife.
• Homicide may also be a child's duty towards aging parents.
• Justifications for homicide may include stealing a fowl, cutting upper teeth first, or being born on a Wednesday.
• Reactions to accidental death range from torment to indifference.
• Attitudes toward suicide vary across cultures. It may be a trivial act after a slight rejection, an honorable act for a wise person, unbelievable, a legally punishable crime, or a sin.

Integration of Culture

• Cultural behaviors should not be viewed as isolated facts.
• Cultural behaviors are local, man-made, variable, and tend to be integrated.
• A culture functions as a consistent pattern of thought and action, similar to an individual.
• Each culture develops unique purposes, consolidating experiences and shaping behaviors accordingly.
• Well-integrated cultures transform disparate acts to align with specific goals through unlikely changes.
• These transformations can only be understood by studying the society's emotional and intellectual drivers.
• A culture's organization influences the relationships between its constituent elements, creating new possibilities that were not evident in them separately.
• A culture is more than the sum of its traits; understanding requires knowing how a culture utilizes its elements to its own ends.
• This process of cultural integration need not be conscious.
• Overlooking the integration of cultures in the study of human behavior means foregoing the chance of insightful interpretation.

Studying Culture as a Whole

• The integration of cultures is similar to the development and persistence of a style in art.
• The development of Gothic architecture demonstrates the integration of cultures through a canon of taste that developed within its technique.
• Cultures are more or less successful attainments of integrated behaviour.
• Anthropological work has focused on analyzing culture traits, often lacking a holistic view due to reliance on second-hand accounts.
• Early ethnological descriptions from travelers and missionaries made it possible to trace the distribution of customs but not how traits were embedded in configurations, to give form and meaning.
• Treating cultures as having integrated configurations gives form and meaning.
• Studies of culture featuring collections of anecdotes and behaviour selected indiscriminately from the most different cultures, ignores all aspects of cultural integration.
• Understanding cultural processes of behaviour requires examination against the motives, emotions, and institutionalized values within that culture.
• Functional (how it all works together) studies of living cultures are essential.
• Prioritize knowing habits of thought and functions of institutions
• Functional studies cannot arise out of analysis after something has happened (post-mortem)
• Cultural studies are shifting from generic primitive culture to recognizing configuration types.
• Cultural studies are recognizing characteristic arrangements in the domestic, economic, and religious spheres.

Parallels in Other Sciences

• Wilhelm Stern's work in philosophy and psychology emphasizes the undivided totality of a person as the point of analysis.
• The whole Struktur school of psychology focuses on studying the configuration of personality.
• Previous psychology investigated via introspective and experimental analysis, now configuration shows relationships.
• Older criticism evaluated art in absolute terms (identifying with classical standards), new criticism shows how processes are represented (Byzantine mosaics and painting)
• Worringer contrasts Greek and Byzantine art.
• Greek art expressed pleasure in activity, while Byzantine art objectified abstraction.
• Gestalt psychology emphasizes studying "wholeness-properties" and "wholeness-tendencies."
• The "whole" determines the relation and nature of its "parts."
• Wilhelm Dilthey analyzes philosophical systems and historical periods to show the relativity of different attitudes in Die Typen der Weltanschauung.
• Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West discusses cultural configurations and their life cycles.
• The Apollonian view saw the soul as ordered and decried conflict, whereas the Faustian view saw life as inner development where conflict is essential.
• There are differences in fundamental categories due to integrated attitudes.
• Faustian man longs for the infinite, this is an interpretation of existence and trivial to others.

Applying Cultural Configuration

• Anthropological studies of primitive cultures can reveal social facts relevant to complex societies.
• Studying simpler peoples can improve understanding of habit-patterns formed under traditional custom.
• Cultural configurations are compelling and significant in the most complex societies.
• Understanding cultural processes can be achieved by analyzing simpler cultures.
• Detailed understanding of a few cultures can be more insightful than a broad survey.
• Understanding a few cultures clarifies motivations, purposes, and their relation to cultural behavior.