Evolution of Culture
The evolution of traditional cultures is a subject of much discussion in legal, scholarly, and community forums. It is generally accepted that all cultures are to some degree in a continual state of Sociocultural evolution. However, major questions surround the legitimacy of newly evolved cultural expressions, especially when these are influenced by modernization or by the influence of other cultures. Also, there is significant debate surrounding the source of evolution: for example, an indigenous community may accept the use of store-bought materials in the creation of traditional arts, but may reject requirements to apply for a permit for certain gathering purposes; the central difference being that one is an internal cultural evolution, while the other is externally driven by the society or legal body that surrounds the culture.
Read more about this topic: Cultural Practice
Famous quotes containing the words evolution of culture, evolution of, evolution and/or culture:
“Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.”
—Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)
“What we think of as our sensitivity is only the higher evolution of terror in a poor dumb beast. We suffer for nothing. Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.”
—Mario Puzo (b. 1920)
“Analyze theory-building how we will, we all must start in the middle. Our conceptual firsts are middle-sized, middle-distanced objects, and our introduction to them and to everything comes midway in the cultural evolution of the race.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)