The Effects of the Natural Environment on the Culture and Beliefs of People - Term Paper Example

? The Effects of the Natural Environment to the Culture and Beliefs of People The Effects of the Natural Environment to the Culture and Beliefs of People INTRODUCTION History proves how the existence of man changed through time. It has been placed as the center of attention inside and outside of the academe. After all, humans are responsible for the great synthetic or unnatural changes in the world. The view of human as the center of the world as the societies place it there, a certain discipline challenge the very idea of putting the “human beings from the center of Creation and asking, as a scientific question, who we are and where we came from,” (Lansing and de Vet, 2006, p. 1). Anthropology came from the Greek word arthropos which means human and logos which mean study of. The discipline of anthropology is about the human behavior with the combination of humanistic, scientific, historical, psychological, social and biological views (Jurmain, Kilgore and Trevathan, 2009, p. 6). According to Angrosino (2002), two fields of anthropology currently exist: physical anthropology and cultural anthropology. Human population is studied by physical anthropology through their genes and mechanics of evolution. The fossils and the living creatures are compared to come up with conclusions. On the other hand, cultural anthropology is concerned with the human societies and its impacts in the daily lives of the people. Cultural anthropology has five subdivisions: archaeology, ethnography, ethnology, social anthropology, and linguistics. Archaeology deals with the culture through studies using the remains or materials (artifacts) while ethnography describes the society systematically and vividly usually through field work. Ethnology deals with the interpretations of the information from ethnology while social anthropology is concerned with the social structure and groups. Linguistics is also important since it deals with the vehicle or medium of communication of learning, developing and transferring of culture and tradition (Angrosino, 2002, p. 3). The concern of the paper is the effects of the environment to the culture and beliefs of people are to be discussed using the various fields of anthropology introduced in the first section. Various views may help the readers to understand the importance of knowing how the ways of life of people is affected by their surroundings. DISCUSSION Environment greatly affects the culture of people like the concept of racism. The variation within the human race is not caused by biological changes but more of cultural concepts like difference in access to social and economic resources (Goodman, 2006, p. 161). It can be said that the differences is manmade because biological variation is nonconcordance according to Goodman (2006). It is inherited separately or independently. Also in the biological perspective, genes are not the only means where the effect of nature can be seen or measured. Physical body is also checked to prove the differences among races and researchers also tried to prove that racism is a biological effect. Craniometry was done by experts to compare the intelligence of the human ancestors. It was even use in the society to rank criminals and people from different races because the traditional belief of intelligence is affected by the size of the brain (Lansing and de Vet, 2006, p. 4). Many myths have been held by people regarding the concept of racism as biology, but no matter what they do, the commonly-held beliefs are still beliefs and myths, not a reality. First of all, race is not based upon fixed, ideal and unchanging concepts contrary to the popular belief which was favored by the popular culture but not science (Goodman, 2006, p. 163). A good example is the traditional concept of beauty which turns against the black. The fad favors the European-looking people to be beautiful (Mercer, 1990, p. 247). The same can be seen in the chapter of a book written by Richard Rodriguez. According to Rodriguez (1990, p. 277-278), his black complexion was a disadvantage at first but after his experience in working, he found out that people have choice. They may either believe to be in a disadvantage or ugly in front of other people or have confidence or show the change and the best in oneself. The second reason is the condition of “human variation is continuous,” because of the “allele frequencies tend to vary gradually” that leads to no clear boundaries to distinguish exactly one race from another (Goodman, 2006, p. 163). In the family of Rodriguez (1990, p. 278), the distinction between races biologically is hard to distinguish even in a family that should closely resemble one another. The parents of the author are both white but from Mexican origin and the siblings of the author are all white except for him and one older sister. The third reason is that “human variation is nonconcordant,” (Goodman, 2006, p. 163). It can be said that biologically it is hard to specify one standard in giving what race is. Consistency is truly problematic for biological perspective of race since certain trait can have a different category than another trait. The fourth reason is the uniqueness based upon the genetic traits is greater than differences among the races (Goodman, 2006, p. 163). A good example is blood type because it is very common in a family to have different blood types based upon the pairing of the alleles. The blood types were then not relevant to the concept of races so it is not a good way to measure races (Lansing and de Vet, 2006, p. 6). The fifth reason for the concept of race not to be part of biology is there is no consistency in the way to distinguish one race from another. No standard can be established biologically because “Ideas about race is fluid and based on different phenotypic cues,” (Goodman, 2006, p. 164). The issue about Michael Jackson setting on-fire and had the plastic surgery fell under the inconsistency of distinguishing one race from another. The typical concept of beauty in the situation was white is superior than black. The complexion can be changed like that of Michael Jackson which shows how superficial a race is (Mercer, 1990, p. 247). The sixth reason for the concept of race not to be under the biological perspective of anthropology is that “There is no clarity as to what race is and what it is not,” (Goodman, 2006, p. 164). The problematic situation led to the study conducted by Boas. He and his students used statistical analysis to distinguish the race and found out that it is more of a social concept than a biological concept (Lansing and de Vet, 2006, p. 5). Since the concept is synthetic or manmade, racism has much discrimination in it. Usually political and social factors affect the differences in culture and discrimination. A good example is the explanation by Boas that the Africans got the racial discrimination from social standpoint and not from biological causality. The inferiority that most Africans experience is based on the history of slavery and deprivation. Also colonialism breeds the racial discrimination like in “Norman conquest of England, the Manchus in China, and the Jews in Europe,” (Lansing and de Vet, 2006, p. 6). The search for the origin of man led to the clash between “Enlightenment” and “Science”. Charles Darwin became the primary proponent of using logic and science in distinguishing the origin of humans by applying the Theory of Evolution that he found from observations on animal and plant complexities that can be seen in his book The Origin of Species. The Enlightenment is more philosophical and mysterious in origin usually included in the religion that may also encompass art. The clash between the two concepts is the conflict between logic and faith (Lansing and de Vet, 2006, p. 7). The importance of faith in the evolution of human consciousness is important. The good illustration for the importance of faith that honed the consciousness and civilization of people is the tribal people called Nacirema. The rituals are usually gruesome in nature in the tribe. They clean the mouth in the belief of purification. During sickness the tribal people visit the so-called medicine man that gives magical powder and add some practices that can practically hurt or even kill the patients. Because they have the belief that the ritual will work, the tribal continue to patronize the services of the medicine man (Miner, 1956). The tribe showed the importance of the ancient practices on the advancement of the civilization to the present time. It may sound strange for the modern people but the beliefs and faith play strong parts in the evolution. The practice of ethnography may prove that learning about the race is basically about experiencing first hand. It approaches real learning and gathering of data. There are three foundations of ethnography according to Malinowski: clear outline must be made based upon the culture of the tribe, the life experience and type of behavior must be recorded, and the specific parts or mechanics of the ritual must be documented (Lassiter, 2006). CONCLUSION Environment greatly affects the culture and belief of people but not too much on physical or biological way. Genes is not enough to measure the concept of race which actually was proven to be a social concept and manmade. The criteria for judging one race change as the time passes by. The concept of inferior and superior also changes. The black to be considered as inferior changes overtime. Enlightenment and Darwinian models of the origin of human beings may conflict but ethnology solves the problem by a holistic approach to consider both sides despite the existing conflicts. References Angrosino, M. (2002). The essentials of anthropology. USA: Research and Education Association. Goodman, A. H. (2006). Why genes do not count (for radical differences in health). In E. D. Whitaker (Ed.), Health and healing in comparative perspective (pp. 161-166). New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Jurmain, R., Kilgore, L. and Trevathan, W. (2009). Essentials of physical anthropology. USA: Wadsworth. Lansing, J. S. and De Vet, T. (2006). Darwin made anthropology inevitable. In (No Ed.), Textbook anthropology (pp. 1-18). Arizona: University of Arizona. Lassiter, L. (2006). Invitation to anthropology. Oxford: Alta Mira Press. Mercer, K. (1990). Black hair/style politics. In R. Ferguson, M. Gever and T. Minh-ha (Ed.), Out there: Marginalization and contemporary cultures (pp. 247-264). Massachusetts: The New Museum of Contemporary Art and MIT. Miner, H. (1956). Body ritual among the Nacirema. American Anthropologist, New Series, 58(3), pp. 503-507. Rodriguez, R. (1990). Complexion. In R. Ferguson, M. Gever and T. Minh-ha (Ed.), Out there: Marginalization and contemporary cultures (pp. 265-277). Massachusetts: The New Museum of Contemporary Art and MIT. Read More