Culture from Cranium :: essays research papers fc

Culture from CraniumEliot BrownThroughout the history of anthropology it has been a popular viewthat people atomic number 18 largely products of their culture, and not the new(prenominal) wayaround. Yet culture is an exclusively human phenomenon. While it is truethat everyone lives within a cultural context, and that context accountsfor varying degrees of who that person is (indeed, there are those who saythat certain people are wholly 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 shaped by the intellects and ideals of those who founded it, even ofthe original European settlers. Just as a person can be most fullycreated by their culture, so can a culture result almost fully from onepersons intellect.There have been many cases of such things chance throughouthistory. Some have met with success, and some not. For the purposes of thisessay I have chosen to examine one case, which, considering its sharpdeviation from the cultural context from which it came, was amazinglysuccessful. The Oneida Community, in Oneida, New York was a uniquereligious communist society in the mid-nineteenth century. The communitywas based on the radical religious beliefs, and biblical interpretations of magic trick 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 revival with his mother necessitate by Charles Finney, the leader of a large religious movement in thenortheast. Deeply moved he decided to enter the ministry. Noyes attendedthe Andover Theological Seminary and Yale Divinity School. It was at Yalethat he started developing his controversial views, which then preventedhim from being ordained. He decided that when one accepted Jesus that theywere then totally without sin and had achie ved 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 mathematical group of 32 followers, consisting of his family and some friends,calling themselves the Putney Association. In 1844 the group adoptedcommunism. They owned three houses, a store, a small chapel for collectiveworship, and ran two 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.