Culture

We use culture in the broad sense to mean the knowledge, beliefs, learned behavior, technology, membership signals and bonding rituals of a particular group. Any social group will have unique or characteristic culture.

• The human capacity for culture allowed a new way of life, changing the environment, causing humans to evolve to be better suited to this environment, creating a positive feedback (self domestication.)

• Cultures work to suppress some problematic motivations, while co-opting other motivations to socially useful ends, sometimes sacrificing the interests of the individual.

Historically culture has been closely allied with the concept of language and ethnicity. In addition to providing our language, culture also provides our practical lifeways: how we get food, clothing and shelter, our social norms of the proper ways to behave towards others, and our political structure.

See Culture