Culture Types
What are the characteristics of a Dionysian culture?
Emotional, sensual and spontaneous.
What is cultural relativism?
The concept of not judging other based on their cultural customs. Does not allow for a universal moral code.
Which of the three societies valued inoffensiveness?
The Zuni or Pueblos.
Whos ideas did she refute in the short expert "The Races of Mankind"?
Hitler's.
What are the valued characteristics of an Apollonian Culture?
Restraint, reason and harmony.
What example does Benedict use to convey her belief that the personality of cultures is selected from an arc of characteristics?
The alphabet and phonetic sounds.
Did Ruth Benedict conclude that Japan had a shame culture or a guilt culture?
Shame culture.
What was Ruth Benedict role in World War II?
She was a special advisor for dealing with people from enemy lands.
What is shame culture?
A culture that instils shame into people
Often in fear of facing social rejection
Based on pride and honour
Where does Benedict say the diversity of cultures comes from?
How their main traits interact and mix with each other. For example art and religion.
Who was Ruth Benedicts female friend that also studied cultural anthropology and what was the main focus of her work?
Margaret Mead. Cultural relativism.
What are two criticisms of Ruth Benedicts work?
Examples: May have oversimplified the complexities of culture, cultural relativism is immoral(opinion) and she didn't always have first hand sources.
What is guilt culture?
A feeling of guilt is reinforced for condemned behaviour in this type of culture.
Emphasises individual conscience
What does Culture is "personality writ large" mean?
The concept that what can be said of an individuals personality can be exaggerated and applied to their culture.
What were the three groups Benedict studied in Patterns of Culture? Which was Apollonian and which was Dionysian?
Zuni(Pueblo), Dobu and Kwakiutl.
Zuni = Apollonian
Dobu = Dionysian
Kwakiutl = Dionysian
What did she do to disprove racial superiority?
She compared the median scores of black and white people each from different areas of America to prove that the economic situation has much more to do with intelligence than race.