Week 4 Q#1

After reading this chapter it becomes evident to me that we are all a product of our cultures. Cultures are present in all groupings of people around the world, and there are a set of values, beliefs, and attitudes based on what behaviors are normal and what behaviors are not normal. Normality and abnormality are culturally relative, so this must mean that culture does produce how we interact and how we behave. Culture essentially produces us because it has been learned from birth. If born in the United States, your culture defines your individualism at high value, where if you were born in Japan, collectivism would be valued. Upon birth, culture is already operating to shape your future normal behaviors, whereas if you were born somewhere across the world, your “normal behaviors” may be rather odd. This goes to show just how much culture influences our “habits, beliefs, and impossibilities”.

I think the most important out of the several ways we can break through the limits of our culture is the “extent to which newcomers are open, resilient, and self-confident” (pg. 365). In order to understand other cultures better, the person experiencing a new culture must respect the fact that other people may not be the same as them. We can break through the limits of our cultures by not being ethnocentric, and by not always equating difference with bad. Prejudices and stereotypes must be challenged if anyone hopes to open their mind to new practices, new ways of living, or to assimilate into a new culture.