Dear Sir:
It is important to understand culture especially one that has intercultural implications. When one addresses the topic human, one has to speak of culture, the unique characteristic that separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom or world of living things. Whereas most animals learn and create, the human animal has taken such ability to a level achieved by none other. Culture is the basis for the vast majority of human thought and behavior, along with whatever is produced from these. Culture distinguishes and helps to define the human, just as the wings of the bird or the fins of the fish serve to separate and distinguish these animals. Whereas for other members of the animal world adaptations or adjustments to the physical environment are, for the most part, the result of biological adaptation and inherited physical characteristics, adaptation for humans goes well beyond their biological inheritance. Humans create, learn, and use culture to respond to environment, control it, and even change it. Culture represents that unique ability of the species to gain significant control over aspects of the natural environment and even their own biology, within which the cultural capacity is grounded. Culture is used by people to create the socio cultural environment, to which they must also adjust or adapt. This socio cultural environment can overlie the natural environment (Banks, 1996).
Culture exists in the natural environment, creates the socio cultural environment, and is also used to adapt to both those environments (Ali, 2003). It is used by humans as the mitigating factor between themselves and the environment, to respond to the limitations or problems imposed by the environment that directly affect their survival. No other animal has this capability, and no other animal has created culture. Regardless of where they may be located, all humans have culture. This means that at least on one level, all humans are basically the same not necessarily equal but similar in that they all create and use culture for the same basic purpose. At the same time that culture can be used to characterize humans as a group distinct from other animals, it is also used to differentiate between groups of humans. Because culture represents the primary means by which people live and adjust to the problems and conditions of their environments, it also represents the end result of choices made by them from among all the alternatives that are available to solve their problems, given the particular circumstances in which they find, or create for, themselves (Naylor, 1996). In the context of adapting to particular environments, culture is inextricably tied to change. Within all cultures there must be some provision for coping with, or adjusting or adapting to, new conditions or problems that arise in the natural and socio cultural environments, both of which are always in a state of flux. The ability to change is an essential process if a culture and the people who share it are to survive. Human groups unable to meet the challenges, problems, or pressures of new circumstances are not likely to survive, nor will their cultures (Darder, 1995).
Change has always been an aspect of human culture, but now it means very different things than it did in the past: in the kinds of changes experienced, the circumstances by which change is made necessary, and its scale. In the earlier periods of human history and prehistory, change was not always as apparent as it may be today. In some periods, it appeared to come about very slowly, even imperceptibly in some cases. But as culture developed, and as humans increasingly affected the physical and socio cultural environments through their activities and accomplishments, change became much more extensive and occurred with greater frequency (Weedon, 2004). As populations grew and as civilization made its appearance, things became even more complicated. With increased contacts among groups of people, the scale and speed of change has shifted even more dramatically. With the development of trade, improved transportation and communications, the world of humans became a dependent one. This emphasizes the relationship among change, culture, and contact as never before. To speak of change is to recognize the culture context from which humans function, for although change can come from a great many different sources and address many things, humans deal with it, respond to it, and occasion it based on their cultures. People are different from each other and people do belong to distinct cultural groups which promote distinctive capacities and characteristics. If this were not a reality then there would be no such thing as culture and there would be no need to study intercultural communication. The point is that in intercultural communication it is wise not to impose categories to which one ascribes a person as belonging when one has minimal evidence for this (Davis et al., 2004). Understanding culture will be greatly emphasized by attending the program Intercultural Communication and European Studies. By attending such program one could learn about a different culture. Through the intercultural aspect the attendant would have multiple ideas on culture and this would make him/her more knowledgeable to world affairs.
Sincerely yours,
References
Ali, S. (2003). Mixed-race, post-race: Gender, new ethnicities,
and cultural practices. New York: Berg.
Banks, M. (1996). Ethnicity: Anthropological constructions.
London: Routledge.
Darder, A. (Eds.). (1995). Culture and difference: Critical
perspectives on the bicultural experience in the United States. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
Davis, G.V., Delrez, M., Ledent, B. & Marsden, P.H. (2004).
Towards a transcultural future: Literature and society in a
post-colonial world. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Naylor, L.L. (1996). Culture and change: An introduction.
Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
Weedon, C. (2004). Identity and culture. Maidenhead, England:
Open University Press.
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