Culture is the learned and shared beliefs, behaviors, and values of a group of people. All social groups have their own culture. This includes religious, ethnic, and non-ethnic groups. Some cultures are highly centralized while others have a great deal of diversity. Culture can be found in the form of ideas, customs, philosophies, rituals, and values. It can also be seen in the form of art, music, clothing, and even food. Some of these things are symbolic and some are tangible objects.
A great deal of cultural behavior is based on inherited traditions from the past. However, some cultural behaviour is the result of new innovations that occur over time. For example, a new invention such as a new weapon or a building may change the way that a particular group interacts with the environment and their worldview. Some new technologies are adopted much more quickly than others. The speed with which a new culture develops depends on many different factors including the environment and economic conditions.
Some of the most interesting cultural phenomena are those that develop as a result of new communication between human groups. For instance, music is a powerful cultural phenomenon that can be found in all societies. It can be used to communicate emotions and ideas in a way that other forms of communication cannot. Music can be a medium for storytelling, or it can serve to emphasize certain aspects of a person’s personality. Music can also be used as a source of identity for a particular cultural group.
Anthropologists have long studied cultural behavior and culture in general. In the past, they have defined culture by referring to the big C (the concept). But they have come to realize that mentioning the specifics of a particular cultural group limits the concept. They have developed a more inclusive definition of culture, one that includes the little c.
Some historians have adapted the anthropological model of culture to study historical phenomena. Their work is sometimes referred to as cultural history (Kulturgeschichte). Some of the earliest examples of this were studies of the classics and their artists, such as Jacob Burckhardt’s classic Power in the Blood and Carlo Ginzburg’s reconstruction of the cosmology of a sixteenth-century Italian miller in The Cheese and the Worms.
Other historians have criticized the new cultural history approach, arguing that it detracts from other types of study. For example, it has been argued that the study of cultural history should not eclipse more conventional investigations into mass movements and political structures. They have also pointed out that discourses about class cannot be thoroughly severed from their extralinguistic referents, and have emphasized the importance of studying the social relations of people. They have suggested that there are more powerful and meaningful ways of investigating the relationships between people.