- [Voiceover] Society is a group of people.
And culture talks about the rules
and instructions within a society
that guide people and teach them how to live.
With that out of the way,
let's learn more about culture.
Culture refers to the ideas and things
that are passed on from one generation
to the next in society.
Culture includes many different things
like knowledge, beliefs, and values.
It also includes language and customs.
One important thing to realize
is that culture varies as we travel across the globe.
In America, most of us use toothbrushes
and toothpaste when it comes to cleaning our mouths,
while in other regions people use twigs
from trees believe it or not.
This is done in some African cultures
and what they do is they'll go to a tree
and they'll break off some twigs
and on a certain half they will soften
a broken end and then they'll rub the twig
on their teeth to clean their teeth.
Many people also sleep in beds,
while others may sleep on tatami mats or even animal skins.
Here is a picture of a tatami mat
and these are often used in Japan.
I speak English along with a little
over 500 million other people around the world
but also there are many different languages,
so there are over one billion people who speak Chinese
and there are also over 480 million people who speak
Hindi and Hindi is the official language of India over here.
There's also over 400 million Spanish speakers
around the world and it is one of the official
languages of over 20 countries,
including Mexico, Argentina, and Spain.
Also many people like to eat meat and vegetables
while other eat tofu and grasshoppers.
And you can see here this is a picture
of a bowl of grasshoppers,
this is a special dish in another region.
Also, another way cultures vary around the world
is when you go to greet someone.
In the United States proper greetings
include a handshake, maybe a wave,
maybe they even say "hello."
But the greeting ceremony in Japan
includes bowing and the depth of the bow
is defined by relative status.
So each individual has to bow a certain way.
So a person who is younger, and of lower status,
must bow more deeply.
And the proper greeting of many European countries calls
for men and women to kiss acquaintances on both cheeks.
These are examples of how culture
varies greatly across the globe.
This also shows how each social unit
of people develops a unique way of life.
Culture provides the guidelines
for the actions and interactions within a society,
as we've said many times.
As we just saw, this could include guidelines
for how to greet people, for example.
There are four main points that I want
to share with you about culture.
The first one is that all people
share a culture with others in their society.
As mentioned before, culture provides the rules
and expectations for carrying out
your daily rituals and interactions.
From birth, we learn the patterns
of behavior that are acceptable in our society.
A second point that I want to make
is culture evolves over time and it is adaptive.
So what is normal in hunter-gatherer societies
would be very different from what is normal
in the information age.
Hunter-gatherers value cooperation and loyalty
to the community because they're critical for hunting.
Now in the information age,
which is just the age of technology
and the explosion of information on the internet,
individualism and competition are encouraged
and they are what is required
to enhance one's position and well being.
The creation of culture is ongoing and cumulative.
Societies build on existing culture
to adapt to new challenges and opportunities.
So your behaviors and values
that are seen as normal to you
are actually shaped by your culture.
Culture is so much a part of life
that we might not even notice behaviors
that outsiders may find weird.
For example, you may not thing anything
about putting a baby in a crib,
but in other countries they may find that strange.
For example, in Finland babies sleep
in padded baby boxes that are issued by their government.
This again shows how greatly
culture differs around the world.
Also, a final point I want to make is
that culture is transmitted from one generation to the next.
This talks about how we teach
a way of life to the next generation.
Humans are the only mammals with culture
that enable them to adapt to their environment
so they can survive on both
the Equator and even in the Arctic.
So that's just a more in-depth look at culture.