What Is Culture?

The United States is a country of diversity because it became home for numerous cultures which fused into one huge intercultural knot of energy which pushes our country forward. Each cultural group is unique and has its own idiosyncrasies, traditions, and peculiarities.

Culture includes language, traditions, beliefs, art, fashion, food, behaviors, religion, economic systems, and politics.

It’s a dynamic structure that shapes our patterns of thinking, behavior, and worldview.

The role of the culture is so important that it relates to almost all aspects of what we are used to identify ourselves with. Take a moment to evaluate your culture’s influence on your personality. The language you speak, religious believes that you stick to, your mentality, maybe your musical preferences.

It should become evident that culture is a sort of software that was installed in our minds when we were born and grew in the certain geographical region.

It becomes the lens which we use to perceive, evaluate, and give meaning to what’s going on around us.

Let’s try to explain the notion of culture. For example, if an Iranian woman appears in your office you can say right away that her culture is not like your culture. Her culture is diverse in so many ways – her clothing covers her entire body, her language, and her gestures are different, even her non-visible facial expressions differ.

When an Iranian woman needs to show her face to another male in public, she should first get a permission from her husband to do so.

All these attributes and nuances make up her worldview and are inherent to her culture.

As we can see, there are various characteristics that showcase the exclusive symbols of one’s culture. They take the form of expressions, art, peculiar properties of communication that allow a certain cultural group to create comprehensive thoughts and to exchange and share these thoughts with each other. All these symbols and thoughts are passed from generation to generation which ensures the survival of the culture.

Though people are born into a certain culture, you can’t say that they are born with it. In fact, they have to learn it. Culture is easily grasped while person grows and lives in a particular society. It is interesting that in the cross-cultural reality of the United States, different cultural groups have to interact with one another and get outside the frames of their own cultural worldview. It is a necessary condition for the healthy development of cross-cultural societies.

It becomes evident that culture defines how we behave, think, and act. All cultures are different, and some cultures have better means of making life more secure than others. Cultural qualities that offer utility, advantages, and pleasures are wanted and accepted by societies.

Globalization shows us that in order to evolve as species, we have to reject traditions that slow down our development and become more accepting and understanding regarding a stupendous amount of various cultures on our planet. We should reject the limitations of our minds and become one cosmopolitan society.