yes.

[kaigou]

Religion is a circumstance of birth for most people. We're indoctrinated into it and that's where we hang out for most of our lives, wallowing in and out of varying degrees of fanaticism for it. ... Yeah, people convert, but outside of countries where [there's] Freedom of Religion or something, [for] the most part, generically speaking, you are what your parents taught you to be.

killermuff rocks my world.

Comments

[merith.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily culture ..more environment.

Parents teach their kids more than they know. Which is why some people should never become parents.

[sintari.livejournal.com]

Well, environment is culture in the anthropological sense. (We're agreeing here, I'm just throwing out some cultural anthropologist babble bcs I kinda miss school. Beh.)

Anthropological definition of culture - Habits, beliefs, morals, ethics, arts, laws, customs, blah blah learned by man in a society. Intrinsic in society. If you have a society, you will have culture. Even if there are two of you on a desert island. ^_^

Parents, of course, are the biggest conveyers of culture to a small child, but they are also enculturated by television, school, experience in the world, random things they see, etc. A kid can be "enculturated" from something as obvious as being taught manners to something as small as a poorly concealed frown from his father when he picks up a Barbie Doll. (I.e. Parents may say they are raising the boy and the girl equal, but then small cues like that tip the children off that boys play with trucks, etc.)

So yeah, culture/environment - same thing. ^_^

Which is why some people should never become parents.

*raises hand!!*

[merith.livejournal.com]

I was thinking culture more as a societal thing than environment. Yeah, we're saying the same thing (and my one class in sociology 13 yrs ago would NEVER compare to what you've been through), but in my mind the hierarchy is a bit different.

Sociology according to merith:

Environment can be the home/parental/care-giver setting for the child and provide the core base with reemphasis on their beliefs whether they be policial, racial, religious or even what brand of laundry soap works best. (I buy Tide because my mama did...and I do like it better than most other laundry soaps!)

Culture is all things interacting within the child's environment. These things can reenforce the parental/home/care-giver beliefs or counteract. And depending on the child's own make-up, culture can work against their environment/core beliefs.

So, in a nutshell, to me culture is part of a child's environment, but does not equal the same thing.

I really do like sociology discussions. I'm just not educated in it...more thought a lot about it!

[sintari.livejournal.com]

*nodnodnod* Yes - the only difference in our opinions is that I would lump what you call "Environment" into culture. And actually, sociologists and anthroplogists have a lot of little quibbles like that.

>_> We actually had a section in Anthropological Theory where we talking about how we ARE NOT sociologists! (And apparently sociologists keep braching over into our studies! How dare them!)

No matter how you cut it, the social sciences rock!

oh! And if you ever want to read a great book about the humanities, check out "Europe and the Peoples Without History" by Eric Wolf. It actually deals with the whole boundary between the social sciences and how we divide our knowledge base when we insist of indentifying our studies as anthropology, or sociology, or economics or political science instead of looking at all of this as part of the human condition. It's not really light reading, but it's one of those books that you're reading and going "I hate you because you are smarter than I will ever dream of being, Eric Wolf. Teach me all you know!"

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

And don't forget the inculturation process that we go through even as adults. Just moving from Point A to Point B, and there's a minor inculturation process (or major, depending on the variation between A and B). Hence culture shock, as we struggle against the unspoken rules of a new culture--unspoken because it's not like you get a stinkin' handbook when you move to a new city, state, or country.

I often suspect that the kids who are raised moving frequently are either less sensitive to culture shock--having gone through the acculturation process plenty of times as a child--or they're ten times more sensitive, due to the trauma of being uprooted so much as a child. Worst thing is you never really find out where you stand until that first big move as an adult.

Fffft. Is it time to go home yet? ;D