In 2013, agents served as “seeing eye persons” for people who were texting and walking in New York City, clearing a path while the person texting trailed behind, holding on to a leash. In 2014, 40 agents entered New York City’s Fifth Avenue Gap store and pretended to be mannequins until 911 was called and police escorted them out. (Videos for these and many other missions are available at ImprovEverywhere.com.) The scenes that Improv Everywhere creates help reveal our takenfor granted rules for behavior. In our daily lives we follow routines that © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc./ Jill Braaten, photographer culture Everything humans create in establishing our relationships to nature and with each other. Chapter 3 / Culture • 45 >> Culture and Society We need culture. As humans, we lack the complex instincts other species are born with that enable them to survive. Unlike birds, for example, our genes do not provide us with the knowledge to build nests (or homes) for ourselves, and we can choose whether to seek out warmer climates for the winter or cooler ones in the summer. Because our actions are not narrowly determined by such instincts, we must construct their equivalent in order to provide food, clothes, shelter, and a host of other human needs. Culture consists of everything humans create in establishing our relationships to nature and with each other. It includes language, knowledge, material creations, and rules for behavior. In other words, it encompasses all that we say, know, make, and do in our efforts to survive and thrive. Culture mediates between individuals and the external world. While we experience the natural world through our senses—hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste—we depend on culture to interpret those sensations. Our retinas may send visual images to our brains, but recognition of patterns is made possible through culture. For example, we might fail to see an image in an optical illusion until someone nudges us to “look at it this way.” Nothing about the physical image changed, but our perspective on it, with the help of others, has. We do not perceive nature directly; we perceive are largely invisible to us, and we expect others to do likewise. When people do things differently, we tend to get uncomfortable. It disrupts our sense of order. One of the best parts of their videos is watching how people respond. Initial confusion and nervousness are often followed by smiles as people realize they are seeing a performance. We want and need the actions of others to be predictable, so we create both formal and informal rules to guide our behaviors. Such rules are an important component of culture. >> • Why do humans create culture? • What does culture consist of? • How does culture both enable and constrain? As You READ SOCTHINK Sometimes we can see something over and over and still not recognize patterns until someone points them out (such as the arrow in the FedEx logo). What might this tell us about the importance of authorities for recognition? the world around us through the lens of culture. Through interactions with others, we develop and share perceptions of what the world is like and how we should act within it. The shared culture that results provides us with a tool kit of similar habits, skills, and styles (Swidler 1986). For example, when someone says hello, we know how to respond. When we show up for the first day of class, we know where to sit or stand depending on whether or not we are the student or professor. Culture facilitates social interaction. Over time, we take shared culture for granted. The ways we think, the rules we follow, the things we have created all seem natural to us. We pass along these expectations to others within the contexts of families, schools, places of worship, and workplaces. As a result, we know what to do, when to do it, and with whom.
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