Same Needs, Different Meanings
What culture does is take ① what
is available in the physical and human environment and interpret it socially and fill it with socially shared meaning and feeling.
The world of human beings is a culturally interpreted social world. In this perspective we are somewhat ② like
and somewhat unlike the rest of humankind. We are like others, naturally, insofar as all peoples (as far as we know) mate, reproduce,
live in some variation of a cave (house), get around (transportation), and the like. We differ from others culturally insofar as different groups of people assign different meanings and values to being
a father or mother, a man or a woman, to
③ have
children, and to types of housing, modes of transportation, and so on. A child may be viewed as an economic asset or an economic liability.
All houses are not constructed ④ equally
; there are high-class and low-class houses. Transportation for an Eskimo is not the same as transportation for a typical U.S. suburbanite,
and a twenty-year-old, "pre-used" car does not mean the same thing as the latest-model luxury automobile.
Culture is all about the distinctive, shared meanings and feelings ⑤ characteristic of a given group at a certain time and place.