THE WORLD,

THE HUMAN PERSON & ITS CULTURE

THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN A CHANGING WORLD
English Anthropologist Edward B. Tylor in his
book, Primitive Culture, published in 1871.

Tylor said that culture is

"that complex whole
which includes
knowledge, belief, art,
law, morals, custom, and
any other capabilities and
habits acquired by the
human person as a
member of society."
 A fundamental Human trait
 Something people have
 Something Generated through encounters
The human person differ from the rest of the
existing being.

 All animals eat but only human have meals.

 All animals mate but only humans marry.
 All animals produce offspring but only human have families.

Therefore…
All humans live in worlds filled with meaning. These meanings orient
us in the world and allows us to act in it.
Characteristics of Culture
 Symbolic – Something that stands for something else to someone
in some respect.
 Communicative – our action mean something to ourselves and others.
 Arbitrary – there is nothing natural or essential about any system of meaning.
 Shared
 Learned – enculturation
 Formal learning makes up only about 2% of your cultural learning.
 Informal learning – by watching, listening, etc.
Observation → imitation → evaluating response
 Adaptive – internal and external pressure (change) adapt needs
of the present.
 The Human Person in the system of Culture
 Culture is the living process of the functioning of values in the context of the
existence of the individual and society. It is the process of their creation,
reproduction and use in historically changing ways. Culture arose and is
developing together with society, creating an enormous tradition. The
history of culture is full of stagnant phenomena, rigid dogmatic systems and
conservatism, and also of revolutionary innovations. The previous
achievements of culture are not parted from us. Their finest examples
continue to live and "work". No child can become a developed personality
without absorbing some of the treasures of culture. Culture always survives
those who have created it and that which it originally served.
 Ancient Orient

 The ancient Orient is characterized by an urge to achieve

complete union between man and nature, the extinction of
the self in nirvana, understood as the highest level of the
existence of energy. An intuitive integral knowledge of the
world and of human nature permeates the whole of human
existence and the spiritual life of human beings. This is a kind of
knowledge in which philosophy, art, religion, science and
social psychology are all intrinsically merged.
 Middle Ages

The Middle Ages had a special type of culture related

to the desire to achieve a personal absolute—God.
Medieval culture is a culture of religious spirituality and
the mortification of the flesh in the name of this
spirituality with its orientation on the heavenly kingdom
as the highest ideal of earthly existence, to which all
the spheres of the life of society are subordinate.
 Modern & Contemporary Age

When capitalism came into being, everybody began to

claim the right of free manifestation of his creative ego.
The whole mode of human existence changed. The
standards of culture also changed. Everything was
subjected to the judgement of human reason and
everything that failed this test was rejected. Society was
rife with individualism, calculation and pragmatism.
 • THE ENDS JUSTIFIES THE
MEANS

• “SINCE LOVE AND FEAR

CAN HARDLY EXIST
TOGETHER, IF WE MUST
CHOOSE BETWEEN THEM,
IT IS FAR SAFER TO BE
FEARED THAN LOVED”

NICCOLO
MACHIAVILLE
 EMERGING CULTURE

• REJECTION AND ISOLATION

• ACHIEVEMENT BASED ON ECONOMIC STATUS
• ELITISM
 John Paul II on the Human Person as a
Cultural and Economic Being (1991)
 It is not possible to understand the human person on the basis of economics
alone, nor to define him simply on the basis of class membership. The human
person is understood in a more complete way when he is situated within the
sphere of culture through his language, history, and the position it takes
towards the fundamental events of life, such as birth, love, work and death.
At the heart of every culture lies the attitude man takes to the greatest
mystery: the mystery of God. Different cultures are basically different ways of
facing the question of the meaning of personal existence. When this question
is eliminated, the culture and moral life of nations are corrupted.
Kaleidoscope World