Cultural Universals and Diversity in Human Societies

Cultural Universals

Despite the great diversity of human cultural behavior, it is possible to identify commonalities. When traits are found in all, or almost all, societies, they are called cultural universals.

Language as a Cultural Universal

There is no known culture without language. Depending on how cultures have developed, languages have been developed. Not only does each culture have its own language, but all languages share common elements, such as phonemes (units of sound), words, and grammatical rules for combining words into sentences.

The Family System

Another universal is the family. The universal family system entails other elements: marriage, procreation, and rules regarding sex.

Other Cultural Universals

There is a great diversity of cultural universals. In addition to language and the family system, some examples include:

  • Division of labor
  • Adornment
  • Grooming
  • Games
  • Religion
  • Music
  • Dance
  • Gastronomy

Anthropologists have compiled a huge list of elements that appear in all cultures. However, within each of these cultural universals, many variations can be found. Each of these variations helps us understand the subtle and different responses by members of a society towards their culture, which, in turn, are responses to their existential problems.

Cultural Diversity

Along with cultural universals, there is the other side of the coin: the diversity of cultures. The social and cultural variability of different societies is extensive. Different cultures differ not only in language, symbols, and clothing but also in what they deem important and the ways they represent both the physical world and the social, ethical, and moral worlds.

Perception and Cultural History

One of the basic concepts of epistemology (the theory of knowledge) is that “people see what they expect to see.” The categories of how things are perceived are determined largely by the social and cultural history of a given human group.

Characteristics of Culture

Variety is characteristic of culture, and this is because culture is essentially:

  • Adaptive
  • Learned
  • Arbitrary

Adaptation refers to the ability of human groups to survive in a particular environment. Humans are highly adaptable animals. They interact with the environment and develop cultural plans; no other animal has been able to develop and transfer techniques and regulations to the same extent.

Culture enables humans to make quick adjustments, as it is somewhat flexible, allowing the adoption of new strategies.

Alongside adaptation is learning ability. Humans’ capacity to learn is so great that the cultural repertoires they develop can be maintained over long periods but can also be removed and replaced in a single generation.

The Arbitrary Nature of Culture

Cultural categories are always arbitrary; nothing is predetermined in culture. The same actions in different cultures may have different meanings. Human cultures are so varied that people from one culture often find the ideas, attitudes, and behaviors of individuals from other cultures shocking or even absurd. Humans tend to think that the rules they follow are the natural way of behaving, and those who act differently are often judged as wrong. This is because cultures tend to be ethnocentric, judging others based on their own assumptions. We must always bear in mind that a culture must be analyzed and understood in terms of its own meanings and values. No belief or rule can be understood if separated from the cultural system to which it belongs.