Comparative Culture  比較文化論

Dr. Joseph DeChicchis
Professor, School of Policy Studies, Kwansei Gakuin University

KGU SPS course description (シラバス)

IMPORTANT DATES:

EXAM QUESTION EXAMPLES:

IMPORTANT INFO:


2021 December 22: Cultural transmission is a species adaptation.

13. Adaptation

Perhaps the three most important facts about culture are these:
(1) Culture is learned collective behavior.
(2) Culture is an adaptive mechanism which helps us to cope with our physical and social environments.
(3) Culture shows diffusion and change through time and across space.

  • Click here for a browser slideshow about three characteristics of culture.
       (If your internet connection is slow: Click here to see a PDF of the slides.)
  • Read about these and other characteristics of culture, especially the parts about adaptation and about diffusion.


    2021 December 15: Body grooming and alteration can have cultural significance.

    12. Hair, nails, teeth, and skin: cutting, shaving, styling, dyeing, painting, filing, filling, tattooing, piercing, and implanting

    Cultures have different norms regarding personal grooming. Most cultures have norms regarding how (or even whether) we style our hair, fashion our nails, or decorate our skin. Sometimes there are strong taboos against (i.e., "opting in" is taboo) or strong requirements for (i.e., "opting out" is taboo) certain manners, while other times there may be only unconscious norms guiding the choices made by individuals. Even when conscious choices are permitted adults, such choices may be taboo for infants (e.g., a spike hair perm, tattooed lips, breast implants). Some of these norms have a very long, even ancient, tradition. Prehistoric people in Japan practiced ritual tooth ablation.

    Required practices can affect men as well as women, and the world's cultures provide numerous examples. Maya women refrain from cutting their long hair (except for a once yearly trim); and a woman who cuts her hair short is thereby less of a Maya woman. A good Sikh man must let his hair grow long and natural (kesh), wear all-cotton underwear (kachera), and always have a wooden comb (kangha), an iron bracelet (kara), and an iron dagger (kirpan). Many girls of the Amazon must be tattooed as part of the rituals which mark their pubescence. A newborn Jewish boy must have the prepuce of his penis removed.

    Even practices which are commonly viewed as personal preferences may be unconsciously influenced by cultural norms. Women's hair fashion in Japan, body piercing in Europe, and cosmetic surgery in California (e.g., nose jobs, breast implants, face lifts) follow socially stratified fashion trends. The norms that govern traditional piercings in India, for example, are very different from the norms that govern current European fashion. Technology has also influenced trends, such as cosmetic dentistry in Latin America, where decorative inlays have become fashionable.

    In a multicultural society, divergent grooming practices can create social tension. Emblems such as tattoos may be banned in conflict areas. Even worse, in today's era of transnational activism, certain cultural practices have been vilified as barbaric, especially when they are not common practices in Europe and North America.

    Consider the following three practices: (1) female ear piercing in Shibuya; (2) the tattooing of women's lips among the Ainu of former times; (3) female genital cutting in Africa. Ear piercing is a fashion decision for many of today's young Japanese women, though this was not true for older generations. Unlike a fashion, Ainu tattooing was an ethnic mark of womanhood which all Ainu women were obliged to accept. Japan banned these lip tattoos as part of its general program of eradicating Ainu emblems. Similarly, some Africans have claimed that female genital cutting is an important emblem of ethnic identity. Nevertheless, many outsiders say that this practice is barbaric “genital mutilation” (FGM), and this practice is now being discouraged by an anti-cutting campaign supported by UN agencies, by Uganda and other African nations, by various NGOs, and by a growing number of families and communities.

    The naturalness or barbarity of various grooming practices often depend on one's cultural values. Moreover, even within one culture, the values of people can change over time. There are great-grandparents who consider ear piercing to be a barbaric act, and yet some of their own grandchildren have pierced the ears of themselves and their babies. On the other hand, although today's Ainu are reclaiming their linguistic and artistic heritage, no Ainu is urging that today's girls have their lips tattooed. Perhaps most ironic is the fact that European activism is partly responsible for the decline of female genital cutting as a cultural practice in Africa, even though female genital piercing is a rising fashion trend in Europe. Indeed, both our fashion trends and our cultural values change, sometimes without obvious reason.

    Thought exercise 12a: Does your mother's mother have pierced ears? If so, did her mother also have pierced ears? If not, does your mother have pierced ears? Is piercing a taboo in Japan? Has there been a generational change of attitudes in Japan toward ear piercing and other skin piercing?

    Thought exercise 12b: Think about the first time you saw a person with a tattoo. What did you think about it? Did you wonder about the technology of tattoo-making? Did you wonder about whether getting a tattoo is a painful experience? Did you make a value judgement about whether a tattooed person is good or bad?


    2021 December 8: Clothing can be culturally important.

    11. Dress: unconscious norm, identity emblem, idiosyncratic fashion?

    The elements of our material culture, especially when decoratively elaborated, often comprise systemic artifacts. Clothing, for example, is often the material basis for highly elaborate systems of cultural meaning. Moreover, a manner of dress can exemplify traditional proper comportment just as well as it can exemplify current fashion or idiosyncratic taste. For example, most men in Japan, although they might consider various Armani business suits for their wardrobes, would never for even a moment consider donning a Chanel suit. Selecting a pinstripe over a herring bone pattern is a matter of taste, style, and seasonal fashion; however, the choice between men's and women's clothing is not open for contemplation, because most Japanese believe that men should wear men's clothing. In addition to reinforcing sex differenciation, clothing choices can indicate ethnic identity, age, socio-economic status, education, employment, sexual orientation, marital status, religious affiliation, and other facts about oneself.

    In Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Mexico, traditional textiles, and the clothing made from them, are very important in Maya cultural life, especially in the lives of Maya women. Women weave cotton cloth on a backstrap loom (whereas men weave on a European-style broadloom). The colorful Maya designs feature traditional motifs: birds, mountains, fruits. Maya weaving knowledge is transmitted from mother to daughter, and this knowledge is a cultural legacy almost as meaningful as a Mayan mother tongue.

  • weaving hair sashes on a backstrap loom
  • [VIDEO 9 minutes] woman describes her backstrap loom weaving (in English)
  • A Maya woman's dress consists of two primary articles of clothing:
       a corte (a traditional kind of skirt)
       a huipil (a traditional kind of shirt)
    The corte is a symbol of womanhood, and a Maya girl begins wearing the corte when she is still a toddler. Girls learn to weave and embroider their huipil from their mothers and grandmothers. The patterns contain colors and motifs that are important in their village and family.
    Every Maya group has a distinctive woman's dress, and these different dresses correspond with the different towns and different Mayan languages. (Some Maya groups also have a distinctive dress for men, but most Maya groups have only a distinctive dress for women.)

  • description of variation in Maya traje with links to photos of women in typical clothing
  • description of Maya princesses with a photo of women from different towns
  • The traditional dress of a Maya woman, traje, is an important emblem of her linguistic and local subcultural affiliation. The traje or traje típico (traditional dress) always includes the corte and the huipile, and it often includes a faja (a traditional belt) and sometimes includes a cinta or tocoyal (a traditional hair sash or headdress).

  • the woman's huipil (shirt)
  • cloth samples
  • long history of motifs
  • hair sashes and headdresses
  • Guatemala has tried to provide free primary and secondary education for all of its Maya citizens. Most schools, especially secondary schools, have strict dress codes which require the students to wear school uniforms. These uniforms have been based on Western European fashions. In former times, this clashed with Maya tradition, so many girls stayed away from school. Now, most schools permit women to wear the corte as an alternative school uniform, and this policy change has resulted in greater school attendance by girls.

  • [VIDEO 36 minutes] El Arte del Tejido Maya (English subtitles)
  • Weaving is an important part of many traditional cultures. The backstrap loom of the Ainu is similar to that of the Maya. (Here's a video of a traditional Ainu weaver.) The Ainu used a different loom to weave mats. In Okinawa too, dying and weaving is an important part of traditional culture. Weaving is a tradition from the Stone Age, and silk weaving, after developing in China, has spread throughout Asia and Europe.

    Thought exercise 11a: Think about the policy of having a school uniform in a country with mixed cultural traditions. What issues arise in the discussion of school uniforms in Japan? Are these issues the same ones raised in Guatemala? How are the issues different? Why are they different?

    Thought exercise 11b: Beyond school uniforms, dress is important for identifying our social place and for expressing our social identity or aspirations. What sorts of Japanese dress have important social meanings?


    2021 December 1: Systemic artifacts organize our time and space.

    10. Counting and measuring

    A kin term system can show how a culture organizes its people socially, especially as regards marriage, filial duties, and property inheritance. Other systemic artifacts help to organize other aspects of life. For example, the world's cultures offer various solutions to the everyday problems of counting and measuring. The world's basic counting systems have been based on the human fingers (and toes): base 5, base 10, base 12, base 20.

  • Click here to see a PDF of slides about counting.
  • Systems of weights, liquid measure, dry measure, linear measure, and areal measure show more cultural diversity: ken, foot, meter; tsubo, tan, acre, manzana, hectare. During the past century, the metric system of weights and measures has spread throughout the world, and much of the metric system has been accepted as an international standard of measurement. Nevertheless, all over the world, many local units of measurement continue to be used because of their importance in local culture. Moreover, it is not uncommon for different things to be measured using different systems of measurement, as in Japan, where house lots are measure in tsubo, but flooring tile is measured in square meters.

  • Click here to see a PDF of slides about the change from shaku-kan to metric units.
  • Even the basic unit of time in all cultures, a day, can vary across cultures. What is a day? How long is a day? When does a day begin and end? Consider various times of the day. What is noon? What is midnight? What is “a.m.”? “p.m.”? Why is “12 p.m.” a nonsense phrase? Systems of accurate time measurement, being more recently developed, are relatively few: the 3600-second hour, the 12- and 24-hour clocks, the ISO 8601 Calendar, and Coordinated Universal Time. What is local time? What is mean time? What is standard mean time? What is daylight savings time?

  • Click here to see a PDF of slides about the day.
  • Not only do different people calculate the time of day differently, but different cultures throughout history have organized the days into different calendars, and some of those different calendars are used even now. What is Anno Domini? What is Anno Hegirae? The Chinese lunisolar calendar was once official in Japan, and it is still used for some purposes. When did 1 January of the Gregorian Calendar officially become Japan's First Day of the New Year?

  • Click here to see a PDF of slides about the year.
  • Thought exercise 10a: Before adopting the Gregorian Calendar, how was o-shogatsu determined in Japan? When did Japanese people begin to use a seven-day week?

    Thought exercise 10b: What were some of the traditional Japanese units for measuring weight, length, area, and volume? How are these units used today? Is there any regional variation?

    Thought exercise 10c: Click here for more information about Maya numerals and vigesimal arithmetic.


    2021 November 24: The conceptualization of kin varies.

    9. Kin terms

    Perhaps the most studied systemic artifacts have been the kinship systems of various cultures. The kind of people who comprise one's kin are not the same in all cultures; nor are the systems of kin terms (e.g., sister, uncle) the same in all cultures; nor are the associated privileges and obligations between kinfolk the same in all cultures. When we survey the world's cultures, we find different rules which govern who can marry, who should inherit a dead person's property, and who must take care of children and disabled people. Of course, we can find many similarities too.

    Marriage is one of the most important relationships which the kin systems of various cultures regulate. There seems everywhere to be a taboo against marrying a close relative, although the degree of closeness varies. In English, we sometimes say kissing cousins to refer to cousins who are distant enough to marry each other. In many parts of the U.S., for example, it is illegal for first cousins and first cousins once removed to marry each other, but it is legal for second cousins and first cousins twice removed and more distant cousins to marry.

  • Click here for a browser slideshow about kinship and kin terms.
  • To read more about kinship, click here.

    Thought exercise 9a: After viewing the slides, how would you describe the different kin terms for siblings in the languages English, Qʼeqchiꞌ, and Japanese?

    Thought exercise 9b: Which of Morgan's six kinship systems is most like the system used by Japanese speakers?

    Thought exercise 9c: Think about the Japanese translations of English kin terms, e.g., mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, daughter, son, niece, nephew, grandmother, grand-daughter. Why are some of these words easier to translate than others? What about mother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepmother, stepsister, godmother, half sister? Is there anything particular about Japanese marriage or adoption customs which is relevant to translation. Also, why is it sometimes easier to translate English kin terms into spoken Japanese than into written Japanese.

    Thought exercise 9d: Are there any laws or taboos which specify who cannot marry in Japan? Are the laws based on the biological relationship of people, or are they based on the system of family registration (戸籍法)? Are there any potential conflicts? For example, what would happen in the case of biological siblings who have different family registration certificates (戸籍謄本)? what about members of the same family registry (戸籍簿) who are not genetically related?


    2021 November 17: Our shared nonmaterial artifacts can be quite elaborate.

    8. Systemic artifacts

    Nonmaterial culture includes ideas, beliefs, values, norms, and any fact or pattern of thought or propensity for behavior. Systemic artifacts are systems of meaning that can be fairly elaborate and can even help regulate our lives.

  • Click here for a browser slideshow about nonmaterial culture and systemic artifacts.
       (If your internet connection is slow: Click here to see a PDF of the slides.)
  • Lawrence Lessig, the founder of Creative Commons (CC), considers the legal constraints on expression. Watch this video:

  • [VIDEO 19 minutes] Lessig's TED talk about read-only and read-write cultures
  • Thought exercise 8: Isaac Newton famously wrote in his 1675 letter to Robert Hooke: "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." What did he mean by that?


    2021 November 10: Where is the boundary between learned and innate behavior?

    7. Handedness

    Some human behaviors (such as swallowing) are not learned from culture, but other behaviors (such as singing "Happy Birthday To You") are clearly learned. However, some behaviors are unclear. We may be unsure whether a behavior is learned or instinctual. There is often a nurture-versus-nature debate about whether our cultural heritage or our genetic heritage is responsible for these behaviors. In humans, one of the most studied and debated nurture-versus-nature traits is a person's use of the right hand or the left hand to do certain things. Is human handedness the result of enculturation or of DNA?

  • Click here for a browser slideshow about handedness and lateralization.   
  • It seems clear that there are genetic, epigenetic, and cultural determinants of handedness. Given that DNA seems to be partly responsible for handedness, two theories have been suggested to explain the evolutionary advantages of handedness. The Throwing Madonna Hypothesis tries to explain the advantage of righthandedness. The Fighting Hypothesis tries to explain why lefthandedness has not disappeared via natural selection.

  • The Throwing Madonna hypothesis speculates that the left-side location of most humans' hearts gave right-handed women an evolutionary advantage.
  • The Fighting Hypothesis speculates that a left-handed advantage in combat has a consequence for evolutionary selection.
  • Human handedness has been associated with various other biological and behavioral traits, and it is the subject of both academic and popular research and speculation.

  • Handedness and hemispheric language dominance are correlated.
  • Brain lateralization is complex, and handedness is not a reliable predictor.
  • Luke Mastin: An Investigation of Handedness
  • The bias and stigma of left-handedness are of social concern.
  • One behavioral trait that seems to pattern like handedness is sexual orientation. Just as with handedness, there has been a debate over whether a person's "preference" is an enculturated personal choice or whether it is a behavior forced by a person's DNA. Just as with handedness, sexual behavior seems to be complexly determined by genetic, epigenetic, and cultural factors.

  • [PDF] clinical trait profile: handedness versus homosexuality
  • the Fraternal Birth Order Effect
  • Wikipedia's main and Talk pages indicate the range of controversy about the description of handedness; moreover, the history of Wikipedia's articles on sexual preference and orientation show similar controversy.

  • Wikipedia Handedness
  • WikipediaTalk Left-handed
  • More readings about left- and right-handedness in humans:

  • Llaurens, Raymond & Faurie review
  • [PDF] ice-age handedness (BBC)
  • handedness in mediaeval Britain
  • [PDF] Tristan Thompson switches from left-handed to right-handed (Sports Illustrated)
  • More readings about lateralization in nonhumans:

  • motor lateralization in blue whales
  • feeding lateralization in humpback whales
  • [PDF] a single beluga's lateralization preference
  • handedness in horses
  • [PDF] horse motor lateralization and facial whorl pattern
  • Some other bilateral asymmetries to consider:

  • molecular determinants of lateralization
  • [PDF] amphibian bilateral asymmetry
  • embryonic handedness
  • [PDF] enantiomeric biomolecules
  • Thought exercise 7a: Think about the proper way to use these terms: "handedness", "chirality", "lateralized behavior", "lateral asymmetry" (e.g., situs viscerum solitus, versus situs viscerum inversus). How much of our handedness is innate, and how much is learned?

    Thought exercise 7b: How should we distinguish these: (1) greater right hand skill, (2) stronger right hand preference, and (3) more frequent right hand usage? Do you know people who exhibit some but not all of these three characteristics?


    2021 October 27: Are the meanings of body movements culturally specific or universal?

    6. Kinesics (Birdwhistell, Knapp, and Ekman)

    Kinesics is the study of culturally meaningful body movement. The term "kinesics" was used by Ray Birdwhistell for his theory of the cultural meaning of human posture, movement, and facial expressions.
    Birdwhistell concluded that all kinesic behavior is learned, including smiling.
    Mark Knapp suggested that some kinesic behavior may be universal, i.e., that some kinesics behavior may be the same for people from all cultures.
    Paul Ekman claimed that facial expressions (especially "micro expressions" that last for less than one second) have universal emotional meanings. Specifically, Ekman claimed that facial micro expressions reliably express six "neurosomatic" emotions: wrath (anger), grossness (disgust), scaredness (fear), joy, loneliness, and shock (surprise). Ekman later increased the number to seven and changed the names of some emotions: fear, anger, sadness, disgust, contempt, surprise, enjoyment. Ekman has been very influential, and his method of emotion and deception detection is sold on line.

  • Click here for a browser slideshow about kinesics, nonverbal communication, and micro expressions.
  • Follow these links for more information:

  • [PDF] Ray Birdwhistell excerpts (especially pp. 28-29, 208-211)
  • [PDF] Mark Knapp: A Structure for the Analysis of Nonverbal Communication
  • Paul Ekman's Facial Action Coding System (FACS)
  • micro expressions
  • [VIDEO 2 minutes] Ekman analyzing witness testimony
  • [VIDEO 2 minutes] FBI expert lie detector
  • [PDF] airport security use of Ekman's method
  • [PDF] Guardian: fake smile spotting
  • Thought exercise 6a: What kind of experiment would you create to test a person's ability to spot a fake smile? What flaw do you suspect in the experiment described by the Guardian?

    Thought exercise 6b: Assuming that Ekman is correct about the universal nature of the six or seven neurosomatic emotions he identifies, how can such emotional information let us determine the truth or falsity of a person's statements about anything other than those six or seven emotions?


    2021 October 20: Though most important, language is not the only determinant of culture.

    5. Determinants of culture

    Factors which can be used to predict or determine the cultural affiliation of people are determinants of culture. Of course, by examining a person's behavioral norms, we can identify that person's cultural group. After all, a culture is defined by its norms of behavior. In addition, however, we can examine nonbehavioral factors to determine to which cultural group(s) that person belongs, or by which group(s) that person has been influenced. The various behavioral and nonbehavioral factors which can be used to determine cultural membership, i.e., the determinants of culture, can be grouped into broad categories, e.g.: linguistic factors, religious factors, dietary factors, musical factors, etc.

    Some people believe that our culture, especially our language, also determines the way that we think. This view is called determinism. Many stereotypes are based on this belief. However, beyond popular stereotypes, some serious scholars believe that our culture biases our thinking in significant ways.

  • Click here for a browser slideshow about determinants and determinism.
       (If your internet connection is slow: Click here to see a PDF of the slides.)
       Look up any words that you do not understand.
  • For more background and key references about linguistic determinism, follow the links below.

  • some of Whorf's examples:
       Whorf's gun cleaning example
       Whorf's "empty drum" fire example
       Whorf's "spun limestone" fire example
       Whorf's "glow heater wall switch" fire example
       Whorf's "pool of water" fire example
       Whorf's "scrap lead" fire example
       short commentary on Whorf's examples by Joseph, Love & Taylor

  • Koerner's commentary and bibliography

  • more notes about linguistic relativism and determinism
  • Thought exercise 5: Can you think of an example of some object or action or event that is better described using Japanese that using English?


    2021 October 13: There are subcultures and alternate cultures.

    4. Cultural values, emblems, and taboos

    Although people are similar, they are not all the same. Every culture has subcultures. Moreover, there are also multicultural people. Differences of learned behavior can distinguish different cultural groups. When we adopt Another View, we tend to recognize different conceptual patterns, often associating them with different social groups for which the patterns become emblems, and occasionally evaluating these emblems differently within a presupposed value system. There may be Jim's way and Jill's way and Junko's way and Jonathan's way. The Parisians may do it one way, while the Romans may do it another way, and the Athenians may do it a third way. Moreover, depending on one's views, some of these alternative ways may be considered better or worse than others.

    When we experience a foreign culture, we easily recognize many of the foreign cultural norms which differ from our own. Foreign people do so many things in an odd way that, at times, we may be overwhelmed by feelings of confusion or helplessness. We cannot help but wonder: why do they do it that way? On the other hand, as we begin to compare the different customs of foreign cultures, we may begin to think that some foreign habits are better than our own.

    Thus, whereas One View leads naturally to an emphasis on cultural norms, Another View leads to an emphasis on emblem identification and valuation. Occasionally, especially when a cultural option is associated with an esteemed social group, such an option may be considered "absolutely good". Alternatively, when a social group is despised, their associated behavior may be disparaged. Under One View, a cultural norm is "just the way it is", so it is difficult to question the utility, efficacy, or general goodness of cultural norms; whereas Another View, by juxtaposing options, invites comparisons and evaluations of norms.

    Wearing certain jewelry or clothing can be culturally emblematic:

  • The fez (fes) was an emblem of Ottoman affiliation that was banned by Atatürk in 1925.
  • A Muslim woman's hijab can have various styles while still signifying religious affiliation.
  • The black tomesode (黒留袖) is more reliably emblematic of a married woman than is the houmongi (訪問着) or komon (小紋).
  • The Claddaghring Ring is a good hint of someone's Irish connection.
  • The nath and chain is a reliable emblem of an Indian woman.
  • Games and other activities can be emblematic of a cultural group. Even a simple handshake can indicate cultural affinity.

  • Knowledge of the game mora is emblematic of an Italian American connection.
  • It's fun to hear handshaking in Ghana.
  • Thought exercise 4a: Describe three cultural signs which are associated with a particular social group (e.g., high school students in Himeji, Chinese in Kobe, retired men, airline stewardesses, Okinawan people). Have the members of the group adopted these signs consciously or unconsciously? Are these signs good? bad? What value would there be in adopting any of these cultural signs?

    A cultural taboo is an action which is proscribed by that culture. It is a kind of negative norm: something which people do not normally do. Under One View, it is a "bad" action, and it should not be done. (Under Another View, a taboo is merely a kind of characteristic negative norm; i.e., a negative norm characteristic of that culture.)

    Because taboo actions are usually not done, we do not learn about them in the same way that we learn about other cultural norms. Children are often punished when they do something which is taboo, so they learn to avoid such taboo behavior. Alternatively, they may be told what is taboo so that they can avoid doing it.

    People are often aware of their cultural taboos (while they are typically not aware of other negative norms), which is why we can talk about taboos and punish a person who does something taboo.

    "Taboos can include dietary restrictions (halal and kosher diets, religious vegetarianism, and the prohibition of cannibalism), restrictions on sexual activities and relationships (miscegenation, homosexuality, incest, zoophilia, pedophilia, necrophilia), restrictions of bodily functions (flatulence), restrictions on the use of psychoactive drugs, restrictions on the presence of genitalia (circumcision, sex reassignment), exposure of body parts (ankles in the Victorian British Empire, women's faces in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, nudity in the US), and restrictions on the use of offensive language." [J. Grohol, Psych Central]

  • McDonald's in India changed its menu because eating beef is taboo.
  • Jewish kashrut distinguishes kosher foods (which are good) from treif foods (which are taboo).
  • Islam says that taboo haraam foods definitely cannot be eaten, as opposed to the good halal foods and the uncertain mushbooh foods, as in this Somali food guide.
  • Common daily activities, such as using the hand to point or to eat or to wash, can involve taboos. For example, in Ghana, there is a common taboo against pointing with the left hand. Bodily contact, even if accidental, can be taboo. In Thailand, it is taboo for a woman to touch a monk or his clothing. In parts of India, it is taboo to touch a person with one's shoe. You can easily find lists of these taboos on line because travelers wonder about them.

  • Ghanaian taboos
  • Thai taboos
  • French kissing is taboo in some cultures but not others.

  • How to French Kiss
  • French Kissing Lesson
  • Current ideas about inappropriate words and political incorrectness can be similar to taboo. For a long time, the UN used the acronym FYROM to refer to the independent nation of Macedonia. Regarding American English, John H. McWhorter has argued that it is okay to say “nigga” because it is not the same word as “nigger”, which is taboo. In Indonesia and other countries, there is a debate about whether non-Muslims can use the word “Allah” to mean God.

  • FYROM-Macedonia name taboo
  • FYROM's pseudo-Makedonism
  • “nigger” versus “nigga” (cf. “gangster” versus “gangsta”)
  • getting fired for using the N-word
  • Allah taboo for non-Muslims
  • reason for Allah ban secret
  • Thought exercise 4b: Have you ever been punished for doing something which was taboo? Describe some Japanese taboos. When and how did you learn about these taboos?

    Thought exercise 4c: Have you ever noticed someone (a Japanese? a foreigner?) who was doing something which is taboo? How did you feel? Did you confront that person?


    2021 October 6: Nonhuman species also have cultural behaviors.

    3. Nonhuman culture

    Culture is learned collective behavior. Our behavioral norms are typically (though not always) acquired from our elders: children acquire the norms of the adults. However, this is social rather than genetic transmission. We learn our cultural norms; we do not inherit them via DNA.

    Cultural norms do not seem to be unique to humans. In 1952, Imanishi suggested that Japanese macaques may develop population specific differences as a result of social (rather than genetic) variation.

  • [PDF] Read about Imanishi's legacy.
  • Claims for culture have since been made for a wide range of species. For example, reports of wild chimpanzees have documented over thirty cultural behaviors that have no apparent ecological or genetic explanation. Such behaviors involve courtship, grooming, and the use of tools. Animal behaviors can be arbitrary.

  • Emory primate research: arbitrary conventions of chimpanzees.
  • [PDF] Spread of arbitrary conventions among chimpanzees.
  • More recently, researchers at Emory University demonstrated that chimpanzees can have strong cultural preferences in their choice of food-getting behavior. Also animals can transmit their preferences from one generation to the next.

  • Emory primate research: chimpanzee conformity to norms.
  • Emory primate research: multigenerational transmission of chimpanzee knowledge.
  • [PDF] Transmission of Multiple Traditions within and between Chimpanzee Groups
  • Frans de Waal suggested that Imanishi's research was ignored for a long time because of cultural bias in science.

  • [PDF] Europeans originally ignored Imanishi.
  • Frans de Waal has further suggested that animals seem to have morals. Watch this video:

  • [VIDEO 17 minutes] Frans de Waal TED talk on consolation (empathy, compassion), prosocial action, reciprocity (fairness)
  • Thought exercise 3: Do you think that a pet dog can understand you better than a pet fish can? Why? Do you have any experiences that support your beliefs about dogs and fish?


    2021 September 29: A cultural norm is the basic emic element of cultural behavior.

    2. Cultural norms

    Our learned behavioral traits form a way of life which is common to the people of our social group. Our learned similarities of behavior and our learned similarities of thinking bind us to the others in our cultural group. Culture is the glue which holds our society together, and our shared similarities are our cultural norms.

    The two views of culture are responsible for two different ways of conceptualizing cultural signs. When we, either consciously or unconsciously, adopt One View, we conceptualize cultural norms. Culture acts as a groove which keeps our behavior on the track of normalcy. Deviation from the cultural pattern is considered abnormal. There is one proper way to do something.

    We tend not to notice the norms of our own culture, and it is common to adopt them unconsciously in the process of growing up. Children learn many norms by simply imitating the behavior of their caretakers and other people in their cultural group, much as they learn their native language. Of course, we may at times become conscious of some of them. Children, for example, often question the rigid nature of behavioral norms:

    child: Why must I do it that way?
    parent: That's just how we do it.

    Children soon grow out of this developmental stage, and they become adept at unquestioningly following the behavioral patterns set by the people around them. (People who continue to question the norms of their own culture throughout their adult lives should probably consider careers as anthropologists.)

    The way people tie their shoelaces is a good example of a learned cultural behavior, and it is not uncommon to hear comparisons of the reef knot and the granny knot. How do you tie your shoelaces? Although few adults think about how they tie the knots of their shoes, Ian Fieggen has spent a lot of time thinking about tying shoes.

    Thought exercise 2: Describe three different cultural (e.g., Japanese) norms. Are people of the culture (e.g., Japanese people) generally aware or unaware of these norms? How is each norm learned? What are the consequences of violating these norms?


    2021 September 22: Culture is learned collective behavior.
    Please read the following notes and become familiar with the following links before 29 September 2021. The "thought exercise" is something for you to think about; you do not have to submit any written answer, but please do think about it.

    1. Two views of culture

    We begin by considering the nature of culture, for which we can identify two common viewpoints.

    One View of culture:
    culture teaches us proper behavior;
    culture conditions us to behave a certain way;
    culture filters our experience;
    culture is our memetic software (cf. genetic hardware);
    culture guides our ontogenesis.

    Another View of culture:
    culture is a fashion which we adopt;
    culture is like clothing which we don and change;
    culture can be a disguise;
    culture can be like a chameleon's skin.

    On his Texas A&M website, http://people.tamu.edu/~i-choudhury/culture.html, Professor Choudhary lists various definitions of "culture", some of which reflect One View and some of which reflect Another View. Whichever view is correct, we may be either conscious or unconscious of our conformity to culture. For example, we are sometimes aware and sometimes unaware of how our culture influences our perception of reality. Similarly, we sometimes consciously adopt a fashion or cultivate a cultural habit, yet we sometimes do so unconsciously.

    Culture is "learned collective human behavior, as opposed to instinctive, or inborn, behavior" (T. G. Jordan-Bychkov & M. Domosh, The Human Mosaic). However, it may be difficult to distinguish between learning (as proper) a particular behavior and adopting (as fashionable) a particular behavior, especially when these are done unconsciously. The important distinction is whether or not we consider competing choices in the process. Under One View, the question is: do we learn it or not? are we conditioned or not? Under Another View, the question becomes: of two or more comparable options, which do we adopt? which do we choose?

    Read the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture. Notice the recognition of "high" culture, "popular" culture, "folk" culture, and other distinctions.

    In this course, we adopt an understanding of culture that is typical of anthropology and informed by human geography.

    In 1871, English Anthropologist Edward B. Tylor described culture as "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society", and since then anthropologists have identified many cultural differences, as well as subcultures and cultural universals. The methods used when studying cultures include Ethnography, ethnology, and participant observation.

    Thought exercise 1: Describe a behavior which you have consciously acquired. Did you learn to do it without considering any alternatives? or did you choose to do it from among competing options? Describe a behavior which you or someone else unconsciously acquired. Was it unconsciously learned? or was it unconsciously adopted from available options? Explain your answer.


    (This page was last updated on 20 December 2021.)