ANT100Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Cultural Anthropology, Ethnocentrism, Margaret Mead
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Anthropology vs. ethnocentrism (belief our own ethnic group is superior to everyone else) Shared values, objects, and beliefs of a specific group of people. It is what we learn from each other vs. what was "programmed" by our genes. Though "having culture" is programmed in our genes, as homo sapiens, we would not naturally do things according to our origin culture, unless we were brought up in it. The program results in the existence of universal ways of acting, living, and thinking. Universal "programs" found in humans: forming procreative relationship, recognizing hierarchy, dealing with violence, sharing and giving, education, and speaking. There are also culture-specific ways of acting, living, and thinking. Popularly, but not in anthropology, "a culture" refers to a group of people, rather than their ways of acting, living, and thinking. Ethnic groups are not cultures; cultures are how they think, behave, and act. A distinctively human resource and central element of culture, used for communication and cooperation.
