Factors That Influence Culture Of A Community
Culture can be influenced and developed because of a region where one lives, and their beliefs in their region. Culture is a complex set of behaviours and attitudes, and some may be misunderstood if they are looked at in a limited scope. Cultural traits are known to be the basic building blocks of culture. Cultural traits include their religion, language, beliefs and much more. Cultural traits can be assembled into three components, artifacts, sociofacts and mentifacts. Artifacts being the objects, techniques and material items created by a culture. They provide us with the basic necessities in life and make it a whole lot easier for example, entertainment, music instruments, phones etc. Sociofacts are the patterns of interpersonal behaviour. Sociofacts include governments, art clubs, education systems etc. Lastly mentifacts are the values, beliefs and ideas of a culture, some examples include language, religion, viewpoints, and morals. All of these traits in combination construct the unique cultural complex and all these cultural traits make up one culture.
No matter who we are and what we do, culture is a huge portion of the society we live in. We are all born unique with both sides of our parents culture, ethnicity and DNA. I believe that mentifacts have the most influence on a person’s way of life. Mentifacts are the beliefs and ideas of a culture such as your language, religion and culture, and it shapes who we are. For ex: the laws that we follow determine how we behave and how we contribute to our community and be loyal to one another. Religion has had a big effect on culture more than any other cultural trait. The language that one speaks is also very important to a person and has an impact on their life. A few languages can be more distinct to a culture, however a lot of different cultures will all share a recurrent language. Mentifacts influence the manner we learn, live and behave, and due to this it is a significant shaper to our personality. There is a very strong relation between economic activity and culture.
Economic activity are actions that include the distribution, production and consumption of goods and services at all measures in our society. Economic activity manages how a district is making a living. All of these elements of economic activity have a huge influence on our culture. A while back in our town called Trepassey the fish plant was a huge part of our community and a lot of people had taken part. There was a numerous amount of fish to catch and an abundance of our community were getting employed and getting occupations to work on this field. There were different sorts of jobs that were needed for the fish plant such as selling the fish, managing the boat and sorting all the cod out to be purchased. This is why fishing has such an influence on our culture in our community and how economic activity has a huge connection with our culture and how it impacts us.
The geography of a region can influence the settlement patterns of a community immensely. Settlement patterns are the strategies in which human settlements are dispersed across the worlds land which include the whereabouts of towns and cities. Where people settle is established by a wide range of components associated with both nature and human society. One of the key components influencing settlement patterns is the physical geography of a region. Climate is a major factor, for example, residents do not want a city or town that is too hot or too cold. The land is also very significant because there are different types of soil that benefits agriculture. Regions with mild, wet climates are more densely populated than places that are too dry and cold. In trepassey for example there are a lot of geographical features that people admire to look at such as the beautiful landscapes, and view of the ocean water. This really attracts residents to visit and maybe even lead them to moving here. The geography of a region can also influence the settlement patterns of cultural expressions. For examples in smaller regions such as Newfoundland the practice of Jiggs dinner as a family is practised this is called local culture, and is not very frequent in other parts of the world. However in a regional culture these expressions are practised over a wide geographic area. For example, in parts of East Asia people use chopsticks to eat with. When a cultural complex is greatly endured and practised by people all over the world it is assigned as a popular culture. Frequently, mainstream culture is corresponding with commercial artifacts and carried through media such as television, computers, and the internet. For example eating food at fast food restaurants and the use of instagram are references to popular culture.
Historical information immensely contributes to our culture. History is connected to our daily lives. All the traditions and practises passed on to us from the past such as recreational activities and sports traditions. History has impacted what country we belong to and the languages we all speak. For example during the second world war 9 million jews were killed, and today we are hearing about the tragedies in the Middle East and the Syrian refugees coming to a safer place such as Canada. Back in World War II there were a lot of people that didn’t admire the jews and killed them, which was very wrong. However, we aren’t going to continue doing that in today’s society and history teaches us that. Another example is back in 1992 when they closed the fishery and for hundreds of years we were very wealthy because of the numerous amount of cod and job opportunities for the community. Knowing why that happens and how it happened changes our perspective and changes the way we are. Knowing that historical information shapes our culture, and makes sure we won’t do something like that again. Some problems with historical data is that we sometimes don’t get the information that is always right, it may not be accurate or we might not know the whole story of historical data. For example history books in Canada about the Second World War may be completely different compared to history books in Germany.
