Patterns of Culture

“Anthropology is the study of human beings as creatures of society. It fastens its attention upon those physical characteristics and industrial techniques, those conventions and values, which distinguish one community from all others that belong to a different tradition.”

Anthropology is the study of the human condition. This quotation emphasizes a four-field approach to anthropology. Anthropologists examine physical characteristics, as seen in the subfield of biological anthropology. They study industrial techniques, which are presented in the archaeological record, and they study conventions and values, as seen in the subfields of cultural and linguistic anthropology. It also situates anthropology as a discipline that employs a comparative perspective, for anthropologists distinguish different groups of people and their traditions.

“The life-history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community. From the moment of his birth the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behaviour. By the time he can talk, he is the little creature of his culture, and by the time he is grown and able to take part in its activities, its habits are his habits, its beliefs his beliefs, its impossibilities his impossibilities. Every child that is born into his group will share them with him, and no child born into one on the opposite side of the globe can ever achieve the thousandth part.”

This quotation explains the importance of enculturation—the process by which culture is learned and transmitted across the generations. Enculturation begins at birth and continues throughout the lifetime of an individual. Enculturation is a group effort and binds individuals to one another. Enculturation is important for understanding how cultures are produced and reproduced.

“All over the world, since the beginning of human history, it can be shown that peoples have been able to adopt the culture of peoples of another blood. There is nothing in the biological structure of man that makes it even difficult. Man is not committed in detail by his biological constitution to any particular variety of behaviour. The great diversity of social solutions that man has worked out in different cultures in regard to mating, for example, or trade, are all equally possible on the basis of his original endowment. Culture is not a biologically transmitted complex.”

One of Benedict’s main arguments is that culture is a learned behavior. As Benedict explains, individuals can adopt cultural traits different from their own. This ability proves that culture is not passed down through biology. Culture distinguishes humans from other species, which rely on biological instinct for their survival.