Cultural Patterns and Belonging

Abstract

The debate on whether culture is innate or acquired is long-standing in anthropology and in other disciplines. While most would agree that the capacity to learn language is inborn, the particular language learned is dependent on one’s family, environment and heritage. This also applies to the notion of body language and gestures. In her Patterns of Culture, Ruth Benedict suggests that ‘we must accept all the implications of our human inheritance, one of the most important of which is the small scope of biologically transmitted behaviour, and the enormous role of the cultural process of tradition’ (Benedict 2005 [1934]: 15). She cites the example of an Oriental child who is adopted by an Occidental family. He or she acquires English and behaves in every other respect like his or her adopted peer group: ‘He learns the entire set of cultural traits of the adopted society.’ Benedict also points to ‘entire peoples’ who can ‘shake off their traditional culture and put on the customs of an alien group’ (Benedict 2005 [1934]: 13).