Concept of Culture
Essay title: Concept of Culture
Anthropology introduces culture as a means to perpetuate human existence, because without culture, we would not exist. Individuals are created biologically, while persons are created by social society. Anthropologists firmly believe that our existence is dependent on culture, because culture shapes the social roles people fill on a day to day basis. Without these social roles, people would not know how to express emotions or respond to any given circumstance because we understand everything through culture. Examining any culture requires that you have culture, and people are incapable of escaping the bounds of cultural interpretation to view foreign cultures without bias.
Roy Wagner articulates the absolute truth of culture always existing in his novel The Invention of Culture. Humans believe things can be intrinsic to us as a species, however anthropologists argue that most of what is perceived as natural is actually a result of culture. For example, the words used to communicate daily seem natural because people naturally correspond using language, although words and body language must have originated somewhere; they are not inherent to the human race.
Anthropologists study culture in different ways; some are structuralists