Cultural universals contribute to understanding between people around the world

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

Code of Culture

Each community has its norms, values, beliefs, ideas and stereotypes - its own set of codes that determines the perception of reality and dictates the behavior of a person in a given situation. People pass on this experience to the next generation - so the story 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. Whatever nationality a person may belong to, regardless of the time that was born, what views and ideas he adhered to and whatever social environment he belonged to, there is a certain system of signs coding common for all people on the Earth conceptions of the world and about interaction with Him. This is because all representatives of the human race are organized according to the same biological laws, have the same needs, they are all equal to the tasks that nature sets before them.

The word "universal" came to us from medieval philosophy, so the sages of the past designated common concepts. The term "cultural universals" contains the same meaning: universal cultural features, characteristic for all representatives of mankind.

Examples of cultural universals

All people on Earth have a need for procreation and in caring for life and safety. In this regard, in culture there are perceptions of kinship, hygiene requirements, and ways to optimize labor. Without exception, all people are born and die: all peoples have traditions and rituals accompanying these two great processes. People have a need to survive not alone, but together. Therefore, all the inhabitants of the planet have customs associated with a common life: the division of labor, cooperation, greetings and farewells, etc. All people are united by the ability to laugh and cry, sleep, eat, exercise physical activity, etc. These categories are formed around 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, dances, clothing and body decorations, decorative art, religion, social self-determination, politics, etc.

Matrix one - content is different

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

George Murdoch

The famous anthropologist, who dedicated his life to the study of man - his origin and interaction with the environment, was soon 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 world tour, after which he began studying the characteristics of traditional cultures of tribes and peoples at the Yale University of the United States. Together with his colleagues, Murdoch created an impressive database of world culture and classified elements inherent in representatives of all cultures, which are nothing more than cultural universals. List, which includes more than eighty categories, with the development of civilization is being replenished. Cultural universals were studied by well-known ethnographers, anthropologists and sociologists - Bronislav Malinovsky, Adolf Bastian, Leslie White, Clark Wissler, Emil Durkheim, Marcel Moss, Georg Simmel, and Tolcott Parsons.

Modern

Cultural universals, of course, relate to all people on Earth, 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 spheres.