CULTURE IS BASED ON SYMBOLS

Our discussion of how culture is transmitted from generation to generation allows for an easy
transition to discussing the method of that exchange: symbols. Everything we have said up to this
point leads to the characteristic that states culture is based on symbols. The relationship between
culture and symbols is made apparent by Ferraro when he writes, “symbols tie together people
who otherwise might not be part of a unifi ed group.”157 The portability of symbols allows
people to package and store them as well as transmit them. The mind, books, pictures, fi lms,
religious writings, videos, computer accessories, and the like enable a culture to preserve what it
deems to be important and worthy of transmission. This makes each individual, regardless of his
or her generation, heir to a massive repository of information that has been gathered and
maintained in anticipation of his or her entry into the culture. Cultural symbols can take a host of
forms, encompassing gestures, dress, objects, fl ags, religious icons, and the like. Yet “the most
important symbolic aspect of culture is language—using words to represent objects and
ideas.”158 Notice the link between symbols and culture in the defi nition of the word symbol
advanced by Macionis: “A symbol is anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by
people who share culture.”159 Symbols conveyed through language are so important to a culture
that the anthropologist Kluckhohn wrote, “Human culture without language is unthinkable.”160
It is language that enables you to share the speculations, observations, facts, experiments, and
wisdom accumulated over thousands of years—what the linguist Weinberg called “the grand
insights of geniuses which, transmitted through symbols, enable us to span the learning of
centuries.”161 Through language, it is “possible to learn from cumulative, shared
experience.”162 Bates and Plog offer an excellent summary of the importance of language to
culture: Language thus enables people to communicate what they would do if such-and-such
happened, to organize their experiences into abstract categories (“a happy occasion,” for
instance, or an “evil omen”), and to express thoughts never spoken before. Morality, religion,
philosophy, literature, science, economics, technology, and numerous other areas of human
knowledge and belief—along with the ability to learn about and manipulate them— all depend
on this type of higher-level communication.

CULTURE IS DYNAMIC

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus might well have been talking about culture when, more than
two thousand years ago, he observed: “You cannot step twice into the same river, for other
waters are continually fl owing in.” What he was telling us then is true even today—cultures do
not exist in a vacuum; because of “other waters continually fl owing in,” they are subject to
change. As Ethington notes, cultures are in a neverending “process of reinvention.”164 While
cultures have been subject to change since the earliest hunter-gatherers moved from place to
place, never in recorded history, as we pointed out earlier in this chapter, have these changes
been so widespread and profound. Angrosino notes, “The intensity of change seems to have
increased; no longer restricted to isolated historical moments of confl ict and crisis, change
seems to be pushing us relentlessly.”165 As we previously demonstrated, because of the
proliferation of American capitalism, Western values being spread throughout the world,
population growth, large movements of immigrants from place to place, globalization, and the
constant improvement and proliferation of information technology systems, cultures are in
contact with each other in ways never experienced before. Whether it comes in small increments
or dramatic bursts, cultural change is now inevitable. Our premise is simple—cultures are subject
to fl uctuations and seldom remain constant. Luckmann makes this same important point in the
following manner: Although culture provides strength and stability, it is never static. Cultural
groups face continual challenges from such powerful forces as environmental upheavals,
plagues, wars, migration, the infl ux of immigrants, and the growth of new technologies. As a
result, cultures change and evolve over time.

We conclude this section on the dynamic nature of culture by mentioning a few ideas about
cultural change. First, because much of culture is habitual and deeply rooted in tradition, you can
fi nd countless examples where change is not welcomed and is even greeted with hostility. In the
United States, there are still large numbers of people who rail against women having equal rights
with men. And in much of the Arab world, the aggression aimed at the West can be traced to a
fear of having American values imposed on traditional Islamic beliefs. Second, since cultures
seek to endure, they often adopt those outside elements that are compatible with their existing
values and beliefs, or that can be modifi ed without causing much disruption. For example,
because of contact via increased commerce, American businesses embraced some Japanese
quality control practices. At the same time, the Japanese started using new American marketing
techniques. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, although many aspects of culture are subject
to change, the deep structure of a culture resists major alterations, or as Beamer and Varner note,
“Culture appears to remain unchanged at deep levels and only change on the surface. This is
front-stage behavior, where popular culture thrives.”167 Changes in dress, music, food,
transportation, mass entertainment, housing, and the like are exterior changes and do not go to
the root of the culture. However, values and behaviors associated with such things as ethics and
morals, hard work, defi nitions of freedom, the importance of family and the past, religious
practices, the pace of life, and attitudes toward gender and age are so deeply embedded in a
culture that they persist generation after generation. With regard to religion, Barnlund makes the
same point about deep structure changes when he writes, “The spread of Buddhism, Islam,
Christianity, and Confucianism did not homogenize the societies they enveloped. It was usually
the other way around: societies insisted on adapting the religions to their own cultural
traditions.”168 In the United States, studies conducted on American values show that most
contemporary core values are similar to the values of the last 250 years. In short, when assessing
the degree of change within a culture, you must always consider what is changing. Do not be
fooled because people in Beijing dress much like people in Paris or New York, and people all
over the world drink Starbucks coffee and eat fried chicken from KFC. These are “front-stage
behaviors.” Most of what we call culture is below the surface, like an iceberg. You can observe
the tip, but there are other dimensions and depths that you cannot see. That is the subterranean
level of culture.
CULTURE IS AN INTEGRATED SYSTEM

Throughout this chapter, we have isolated various pieces of culture and talked about them as if
they were discrete units. The nature of language makes it impossible to do otherwise; yet in
reality, culture functions as an integrated whole—it is, like communication, systemic. In fact, it
has been said that if you touch one part of a culture you touch all of that culture. The reason is
that culture “is composed of parts that are related to each other.”169 Ferraro points out that
“cultures should be thought of as integrated wholes, the parts of which, to some degree, are
interconnected with one another. When we view cultures as integrated systems, we can begin to
see how particular culture traits fi t into the whole system.”170 Hall says it this way: “You touch
a culture in one place and everything else is affected.”171 Values toward materialism
Characteristics of Culture 39 40 Chapter 1 Communication and Culture: The Challenge of the
Future will infl uence family size, the work ethic, spiritual pursuits, and the like. A complex
example of the interconnectedness of cultural elements is the civil rights movement in the United
States, which began in the 1960s. This movement has brought about changes in housing patterns,
discrimination practices, educational opportunities, the legal system, career opportunities, and
even communication. This one aspect of culture has altered American attitudes, values, and
behaviors. In China, you can observe the same interconnected aspects of culture by looking at
Confucianism. Considering this worldview in isolation fails to explain the Chinese mind-set
toward the elderly, social harmony, cooperation, and seniority. We conclude this section on the
characteristics of culture by reminding you that the pull of culture begins at birth and continues
throughout life—and some cultures say even after life. Using the standard language of her time
(sexist by today’s standards), famous anthropologist Ruth Benedict offered an excellent
explanation of why culture is such a powerful infl uence on all aspects of human behavior: The
life history of the individual is fi rst and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and
standards traditionally handed down in his community. From the moment of his birth the
customs into which he is born shape his experience and behavior. By the time he can talk, he is
the little creature of his culture, and by the time he is grown and able to take part in its activities,
its habits are his habits, its beliefs his beliefs, its impossibilities his impossibilities. Every child
that is born into his group will share them with him, and no child born into the opposite side of
the globe can ever achieve the thousandth part.172 The important point to take away from our
entire discussion of culture is eloquently expressed in the following sentence: “God gave to
every people a cup, a cup of clay, and from this cup they drank life . They all dipped in the
water, but their cups were different.”173 This book is about how those “different cups” infl
uence how people perceive the world and behave in that world.

STUDYING INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

If we have been successful in our endeavors, you should now be convinced of two important
points. First, learning how to become successful in your future intercultural interactions is a
necessary and worthwhile pursuit. Second, culture plays a signifi cant role in how people observe
reality and communicate that reality. In our zeal to convince you of these two premises, we
might have unintentionally been guilty of overstating the signifi cance of culture in human
behavior. Hence, we shall pause for a moment and alert you to some of the problems you will
face as you make culture the centerpiece in your study of intercultural communication. Specifi
cally, we will examine

(1) the uniqueness of each individual,

(2) the perils of stereotyping,

(3) the need for objectivity, and

(4) the myth of seeing communication as a cure-all.

Individual Uniqueness

The English statesman Lord Chesterfi eld once wrote, “There never were, since the creation of
the world, two cases exactly parallel.” He might have also said that there have never been two
people exactly alike. The reason is simple: behavior is shaped by a multitude of sources, and
culture is just one of those sources. Put in slightly different terms, we are more than our cultures.
Although all cultures offer people a common frame of reference, people are not captives of their
culture, nor are they subject to all the lessons of that culture. In fact, it is even folly to think of
people in terms of being blank slates. As Pinker points out, “The mind cannot be a blank slate,
because blank slates don’t do anything.”174 Instead, people are thinking, feeling individuals
whose biology and history interact and play crucial roles in their social collective behavior.
Consequently, the values and behaviors of a particular culture may not be the values and
behaviors of all the individuals within that culture. Refl ect for a moment on all the potential
responses that could be generated by the simple phrase “I am going to the racetrack.” It can elicit
a wide variety of responses, depending on the listener’s background. One person might believe
horse racing is an evil form of gambling, another might maintain that horse racing is animal
abuse; and yet another, reading the same words, could respond by saying, “I love horse races.”
As Sitaram and Cogdell remind us, “Reality is not the same for all people.”175 One reason it is
not the same is that your genetic makeup, your social group experiences, the language you speak,
your gender, age, individual and family history, political affi liation, educational level,
perceptions of others, and current circumstances, the region and neighborhood where you grew
up, your religious experiences, and many other factors are at play every moment of your life. All
of these factors (along with culture) form your individual personality. Hooker does an excellent
job of drawing attention to the interplay of personality and culture, and the hazards of only
relying on culture when studying intercultural communication, when he writes: Personality
consists of the traits that are unique to an individual human being. It is partly genetic and partly
learned. Because much of personality is acquired, it is strongly infl uenced by culture. Yet a very
wide range of personalities can develop within a given culture, whence the danger of placing too
much emphasis on ‘national character.’176 What we have been stressing is that although all
learned behavior takes place within a cultural setting, every person has a unique personality.
Therefore, you must be cautious and prudent when making cultural generalizations. What we
said earlier is worth repeating: as you study intercultural communication, always keep in mind
that culture is a powerful force in the shaping of human behavior, but people are more than their
cultures.