Culture from Cranium :: essays research papers fc

Culture from CraniumEliot BrownThroughout the explanation of anthropology it has been a popular viewthat people are largely products of their culture, and not the other wayaround. Yet culture is an exclusively human phenomenon. objet dart it is truethat every ace lives within a cultural context, and that context accountsfor varying degrees of who that soulfulness is (indeed, there are those who saythat certain people are exclusively products of their culture), the reverse isalso true. Each person, then, has some degree of impact on the culturearound him or her. The current culture of this country, for example, washugely regulate by the intellects and ideals of those who founded it, even ofthe original European settlers. Just as a person can be almost fullycreated by their culture, so can a culture result almost fully from onepersons intellect.There have been many cases of such things happening throughouthistory. whatsoever have met with success, and some not. For the purposes of thisessay I have chosen to figure one case, which, considering its sharpdeviation from the cultural context from which it came, was surprisinglysuccessful. The Oneida Community, in Oneida, New York was a unique spectral communist society in the mid-nineteenth century. The communitywas based on the radical religious beliefs, and biblical interpretations of prank Humphrey Noyes.Noyes grew up in a well to do household in Vermont. He Graduatedfrom Dartmouth College in 1830 with high honors. Up to that point he hadbeen cynically agnostic. But in 1831 he attended a revitalisation with his motherlead by Charles Finney, the leader of a large religious movement in thenortheast. Deeply moved he decided to show the ministry. Noyes attendedthe Andover Theological Seminary and Yale Divinity School. It was at Yalethat he started developing his arguable views, which then preventedhim from being ordained. He decided that when one accepted deliveryman that theywere then totally without sin a nd had achieved a state of spiritualperfection. He also became convinced, as he wrote in a letter to a friend,that he was Gods agent on Earth. Returning to Vermont, Noyes assembled acore crowd of 32 followers, consisting of his family and some friends,calling themselves the Putney Association. In 1844 the pigeonholing adoptedcommunism. They possess three houses, a store, a small chapel for collectiveworship, and ran ii farms. Two years later they began practicing thesystems of Mutaual Criticism and Male Continence. These practices lead tothe persecution of the group by the surrounding communities, culminating inthe arrest and indictment of Noyes.