Hello Loopers!

In this issue:

This Week's Show: The Short Month

Op/Ed: War of Words

Other news: Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age (buy extra
blankets)

Events:

*Please send event schedules for your organizations and I will publish them.

Last week's show: One Year Anniversary Show

Site of the week http://www.sciencedaily.com/search/?keyword=archeology



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This Week's Show: The Short Month


How February got robbed! The Gregorian calendar is but the latest version of
man's attempt to quantify and predict the passage of time.

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Other news:
Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age

a.. Iran's Kelar mound dated to 4000 BCE - 3 days agoOxford scientists have
determined the exact date of Iran's northern site of Kelar Mound by studying
ancient coal and bone samples. Although many archeologists believed that the
area was not...
a.. Possible turbine site includes burial grounds in Florida - 3 days
agoRecent archaeological surveys show prehistoric Indians in Florida (USA)
made their homes and buried their dead along the banks of Blind Creek, an
area that has drawn controversy as a...
a.. Orkney islanders asked to help heritage - 3 days agoOrkney islanders
(Scotland) have been invited to assist the draft of a new management plan
for the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site (WHS). The aim is to
maximise...
a.. Mysterious pyramid complex discovered in Peru - 3 days agoThe remnants
of at least ten pyramids have been discovered on the coast of Peru, marking
what could be a vast ceremonial site of an ancient, little-known culture,
archaeologists say....
a.. Ancient Scottish burials reveal links with the Netherlands - 3 days ago

Vikings did not dress the way we thought (thanks Judi, this blew my whole
image of rough n tuff)


A Lead on the Ark of the Covenant

Archaeologist 'Strikes Gold' With Finds Of Ancient Nasca Iron Ore Mine In
Peru

Rare Egyptian "Warrior" Tomb Found

Maya Mask Splendor Enhanced With Sparkling Mica (I wonder how much of that
Mayan mica was mined from Cave In Rock, Illinois)
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Events:

*Please send event schedules for your organizations and I will publish them.

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Op/Ed: War of Words

What is the "Culture of America Today?" Britney Spears, iPods, DVD's,
plastic drinking straws, Biggest Loser?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Culture (disambiguation).
Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to
cultivate,") generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic
structures that give such activities significance and importance. Different
definitions of "culture" reflect different theoretical bases for
understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity.

Culture is manifested in music, literature, lifestyle, painting and
sculpture, theater and film and similar things.[1] Although some people
identify culture in terms of consumption and consumer goods (as in high
culture, low culture, folk culture, or popular culture)[2], anthropologists
understand "culture" to refer not only to consumption goods, but to the
general processes which produce such goods and give them meaning, and to the
social relationships and practices in which such objects and processes
become embedded. For them, culture thus includes art, science, as well as
moral systems.

Cultural Anthropologists most commonly use the term "culture" to refer to
the universal human capacity and activities to classify, codify and
communicate their experiences symbolically. This capacity has long been
taken as a defining feature of humans. (although some primatologists have
identified aspects of culture among humankind's closest relatives in the
animal kingdom.[3])

Defining "culture"
Culture can be defined as all the behaviors, ways of life, arts, beliefs and
institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to
generation. Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society."
As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals,
norms of behavior such as law and morality, and systems of belief as well as
the arts and gastronomy. [4]. Although, I think "law" better fits under the
term "civilization".

Various definitions of culture reflect differing theories for understanding,
or criteria for evaluating, human activity. Edward Burnett Tylor writing
from the perspective of social anthropology in the UK in 1971 described
culture in the following way: "Culture or civilization, taken in its wide
ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief,
art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by
man as a member of society."[5]

More recently, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (Unesco) (2002) described culture as follows: "... culture
should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material,
intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and that
it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of
living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs".[6]

While these two definitions cover a range of meaning, they do not exhaust
the many uses of the term "culture." In 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde
Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A
Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions.[7]


Culture as civilization
Many people today have an idea of "culture" that developed in Europe during
the 18th and early 19th centuries. This notion of culture reflected
inequalities within European societies, and between European powers and
their colonies around the world. It identifies "culture" with "civilization"
and contrasts it with "nature." According to this way of thinking, one can
classify some countries and nations as more civilized than others, and some
people as more cultured than others. Some cultural theorists have thus tried
to eliminate popular or mass culture from the definition of culture.
Theorists such as Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) or the Leavisites regard
culture as simply the result of "the best that has been thought and said in
the world”[9] Arnold contrasted mass/popular culture with social chaos or
anarchy. On this account, culture links closely with social cultivation: the
progressive refinement of human behavior. Arnold consistently uses the word
this way: "... culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of
getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which
has been thought and said in the world".[9]



Culture as symbols
The symbolic view of culture, the legacy of Clifford Geertz (1973) and
Victor Turner (1967), holds symbols to be both the practices of social
actors and the context that gives such practices meaning. Anthony P. Cohen
(1985) writes of the "symbolic gloss" which allows social actors to use
common symbols to communicate and understand each other while still imbuing
these symbols with personal significance and meanings.[11] Symbols provide
the limits of cultured thought. Members of a culture rely on these symbols
to frame their thoughts and expressions in intelligible terms. In short,
symbols make culture possible, reproducible and readable. They are the "webs
of significance" in Weber's sense that, to quote Pierre Bourdieu (1977),
"give regularity, unity and systematics to the practices of a group."[12]

Cultures within a society
Large societies often have subcultures, or groups of people with distinct
sets of behavior and beliefs that differentiate them from a larger culture
of which they are a part. The subculture may be distinctive because of the
age of its members, or by their race, ethnicity, class or gender. The
qualities that determine a subculture as distinct may be aesthetic,
religious, occupational, political, sexual or a combination of these
factors.

In dealing with immigrant groups and their cultures, there are essentially
four approaches:

a.. Monoculturalism: In some European states, culture is very closely
linked to nationalism, thus government policy is to assimilate immigrants,
although recent increases in migration have led many European states to
experiment with forms of multiculturalism.
b.. Leitkultur (core culture): A model developed in Germany by Bassam
Tibi. The idea is that minorities can have an identity of their own, but
they should at least support the core concepts of the culture on which the
society is based.
c.. Melting Pot: In the United States, the traditional view has been one
of a melting pot where all the immigrant cultures are mixed and amalgamated
without state intervention.
d.. Multiculturalism: A policy that immigrants and others should preserve
their cultures with the different cultures interacting peacefully within one
nation.
The way nation states treat immigrant cultures rarely falls neatly into one
or another of the above approaches. The degree of difference with the host
culture (i.e., "foreignness"), the number of immigrants, attitudes of the
resident population, the type of government policies that are enacted and
the effectiveness of those policies all make it difficult to generalize
about the effects. Similarly with other subcultures within a society,
attitudes of the mainstream population and communications between various
cultural groups play a major role in determining outcomes. The study of
cultures within a society is complex and research must take into account a
myriad of variables.

Enough Info! Now the opinion!

We need to stop using the wrong words to describe things. We should not use
the word "culture" to describe a population, a time frame, a geographical
region, an economy, a technology (e.g., "Clovis"), a use of resources, a
set of beliefs, a set or behaviors or rituals, or, most importantly, a
civilization or society as used in archeological contexts. It leaves too
much room for speculation and ambiguity. Yes, all those things are
interconnected and somewhat interdependent, but they are distinct aspects of
human activity. Let's go back and examine the UNESCO definition of "culture"
above: "... culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual,
material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group,
and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways
of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs". That definition
could just as easily and accurately apply to "society" if you swap
population for "society or social group". Why keep re-inventing the wheel?
Just use the words that say what you really mean.


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Site of the week http://www.sciencedaily.com/search/?keyword=archeology

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