Cultural universals promote mutual understanding between people all over the planet

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:55

Culture, no doubt, was born with man. The need to comprehend the world and oneself, to influence reality, to develop some experience for the next generations distinguishes a person from all other representatives of wildlife. Culture in a broad sense is the way of human existence in this world, and cultural universals are its peculiar systematization.

Culture code

Each community has its own norms, values, beliefs, ideas and stereotypes - its own set of codes that determine the perception of reality and dictate human behavior in a given situation. People pass this experience on to the next generation - this is how history flows. But in each specific culture (people, nation, state) there are realities and related concepts that are common to all people on the planet.

Unifying Beginning

Cultural universals are a kind of generalization of the experience of civilization. Tono matter what nationality a person belongs to, no matter what time he was born, what views and ideas he adheres to, and no matter what social environment he belongs to, there is a certain system of signs that encodes common ideas for all people on Earth about the world and about interaction with it. This happens because all members of the human race are arranged according to the same biological laws, have the same needs, they are all equal in the tasks that nature sets before them.

The word "universal" came to us from medieval philosophy, as the sages of the past denoted general concepts. The term "cultural universals" contains the same meaning: universal cultural traits that are characteristic of all representatives of humanity.

Examples of cultural universals

All people on Earth have a need to procreate and to take care of life and safety. In this regard, in culture there are ideas about kinship, hygiene requirements, and ways to optimize labor. Without exception, all people are born and die: all peoples have traditions and rituals that accompany these two great processes. People have a natural need to survive not alone, but together. Therefore, all the inhabitants of the planet have customs associated with living together: division of labor, cooperation, greetings and farewells, etc. All people are united by the ability to laugh and cry, sleep, eat, be physically active, etc. Around these categories develops certain material and spiritual activities of people. Its fruits are cultural universals. Examples are names, family ties, communication, education, professional association, technology, cosmogony, divination, calendar, hygiene, cooking, games, dance, clothing and body jewelry, decorative arts, religion, social self-determination, politics, etc.

The matrix is the same - the content is different

However, it should be understood that within the framework of each individual culture, the content of a particular cultural universal is specific. All peoples have a custom to start a family, but some consider 18 years of age for marriage, others can marry a girl at 8 years old. Or, for example, the nature of funeral rites can vary significantly in different cultures, although the very existence of funeral customs, symbols and rules exists everywhere.

George Murdoch

The famous anthropologist, who devoted his life to the study of man - his origin and interaction with the environment, early imbued with the greatest interest in the cultures of the peoples of the planet. The scientist was about twenty-four years old when he made a trip around the world, after which he began to study at the Yale Research University in the USA the features of the traditional cultures of tribes and peoples. Together with colleagues, Murdoch created an impressive database of world culture and classified the elements inherent in representatives of all cultures, which are nothing more than cultural universals. The list, which includes more than eighty categories, is replenished with the development of civilization. Cultural universals have been studied by well-known ethnographers, anthropologists and sociologists - Bronislaw Malinowski, Adolf Bastian, Leslie White, Clark Wissler, Emile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, Georg Simmel, Talcott Parsons.

Modern

Cultural universals, of course, make all people on Earth related, because they are a single foundation for the uniqueness of each individual culture. Today, the main human needs are the preservation of the environment and scientific and technological progress, the development of human rights technologies and peacemaking ideas. Accordingly, modern cultural universals are developing in these areas.