ANT100Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Potlatch, Ethnocentrism, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
21/01/2016
SCL Lecture 1
New Website: http://legacy.anthropology.utoronto.ca/ant100/
Lecture Themes:
• Culture and adaptation
• Human universals and differences
• Invented categories of difference
• Prejudice racism, ethnocentrism
• Anthropology and imperialism—history
CULTURE: universal ability and particular cultures
• Beig ale to hae ulture is prograed our gees
• You are not born with language; you learn it after you are born
• Our genetic makeup enables us to learn specific cultures (enables culture-specific ways
of acting, living, and thinking)
• Culture osists of…
forming procreative relationships
recognizing hierarchy
dealing with violence
sharing and giving
education
speaking
A Culture…
• CULTURE is what people think and act, SOCIETY is the people themselves
• Usually refers to differences
• Popularly—but not in anthropology—a ulture also refers to a group of people rather
than their ways of acting, living, and thinking)
Language:
• A distinctively human resource and central element of culture, used for
Communication and cooperation
Signification (making meanings)
Structuring how we see each other, the world, and ourselves
• Adapting to the natural and social environment
RECAP Universals and Divisions:
• Language and Culture are human universals, but specific languages and specific cultures
are human particulars
• Universals (languages, cultures) are innate (transmitted via genes)
• Particulars (languages, cultures) are learned (transmitted largely through talk)
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
Lecture themes: culture and adaptation, human universals and differences. Invented categories of difference: prejudice racism, ethnocentrism, anthropology and imperialism history. Language: a distinctively human resource and central element of culture, used for. Structuring how we see each other, the world, and ourselves: adapting to the natural and social environment. Recap universals and divisions: language and culture are human universals, but specific languages and specific cultures are human particulars, universals (languages, cultures) are innate (transmitted via genes, particulars (languages, cultures) are learned (transmitted largely through talk) Adaptive value of social transmission: social transmission is much more flexible than genetic transmission, major changes can occur within a generation or two, major changes can occur without a change of species. ***language and culture allow us to adapt to new situations. Differences, conflict, prejudice: within all species, people can come in to conflict, often over resources. ***prejudice does not come from difference but from its context.
