Why Is Culture Important

Culture is the everyday life of a specific group of people. This includes their food, clothing, traditions, beliefs, language, manners, and many other things. It is very important to study culture. Studying culture is important because it reduces xenophobia, can reduce and prevent war, can save you your job, enhance your lifestyle, and can even save you some embarrassment.

Studying culture can reduce xenophobia. Xenophobia is the fear or hatred of strangers and/or foreigners. Xenophobia often happens when people hear about how a small group of people from a particular religion, race, culture, and/or ethnicity do something, and then they judge that entire population. An example of this would be 9/11. A muslim extremist group had hijaked planes and flew them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a feild in Pensylvainia. This caused Muslims to be looked at as terrorists for many, many years. If more people were to study culture, they would relise that Muslim is a very peaceful religion, and that the extremist group was only a very small protion of the muslim religion. People who study culture have at least a brief understanding of many cultures, so they are more likely to see that the group that did something, should not, and does not represent the entire population.

Studying culture can also reduce war. People who have a basic understanding of other cultures are less likely to believe that one culture is superior to another. Another way it can reduce war, is because studying culture reduces xenophobia. If One culture hates or is afraid of another, they might begin a war in an attempt to lessen the numbers of or persecute that particular culture. For example, when the English first began settling in America, they killed natives who would not convert their beliefs to Christianity.

Many jobs require you to talk to people from other cultures and/or countries. If you fear or hate the people you have to talk to and maybe even work with, you could easily lose your job. You could lose your job because if you hate or fear someone, how easy is it really to talk to that person civilly, and treat them with the same respect you would anyone else? It's really not that easy, and sometimes the one time you slip up, can be what causes you to lose your job. For example, you work as a waiter at Apple Bees, and one of the people that you have to serve is a Muslim woman. You had heard about 9/11, but did not study culture, so you think all muslims are terrorists, and now you have to serve one dinner. Since you think she is a terrorist, your language seems very rude while you take her order, and bring her food. She ends up talking to your manager about the situation and how she did not receive good service. Later your manager comes, and talks to you about the incident, and ends up firing you. If you had taken the time to learn about the Muslim culture, you would relise that they mean no harm, and are certanitly not terrorists.

Why is culture important? When you study culture, you can enhance your lifestyle. You may be exposed to new things such as food, clothing, games, tv, and many other things. You might also find a cool new place to travel to. By studying culture, you learn about what other cultures eat, wear, play, watch and do. So by learning about them, you might find a really good food that you never would have heard of if you haven't learned about a specific culture. For example, let's say you decided to study Italian culture, and found aranchi. Aranchi are rice balls that are coated with bread crumbs and deep fried that are often filled with cheese or meat You think that aranchi sounds good, and decide to try it, and it becomes your favorite food. You never would have found that food if you hadn't studied Italian culture.

And no one likes to look stupid in front of other people, but if you travel to another country and have no knowledge of that country you would probably look prety stupid to almost everyone that sees you. Now, if you took the time to study about the culture of that country, you would be able to greet the receptionist. You wouldn't have to go to google translate everytime that you need to speak to someone. You wouldn't have to worry so much about offending someone by waving to them or some other second nature greeting of yours, or being offended by someone else’s actions.. For example, in the Middle East, it is often a sign of respect if a woman does not look you in the eye, where as in the US, it's the opposite.

As you can see, it's important to study culture. I mean, it can save your job. It can save you feelings and dignity. It can save countries. You can enhance your lifestyle, and you'd be a nicer person. So why wouldn't you want to study culture?