How are values related to culture? If you stop and think about it, our values are related to the culture that we live in. You grow up only knowing the ways of life that you are living in. Regardless of who you are, or what you have done in your life, it has been influenced by the people that you are around, and the environment that you have been raised in. While we have some power to overcome this, our culture is going to determine our values.
Say that you grew up in a religious culture, and you were raised on the Bible. You might have a different view on abortion than someone who might have grown up in a pro-choice household. The way you view abortion might be influenced by what others have taught you, and that goes a long way to determining what your views on an issue are going to be when you get older. You might modify that view, but you will always base you views on what others taught you.
What if you grew up in an area that had no money? Would you be as opposed to stealing, or perhaps something like dealing drugs if you only had that chance to make money? It doesn’t make it right, but it does determine what you might think about the issues in front of you. Survival makes us want to do things that might be morally wrong, but might keep us alive.
If you grow up in an area where you have few rules, you might have a tough time seeing where the rules apply. For example, if you had rich parents who were always out of town, and you had the house to yourself, would you do well if you all of a sudden joined the Army? You would have to conform to a new set of values, and the culture that you are living in would be vastly different from the one that you are in if you were to join the Army.
Your culture is what determines your values. If you grow up in a religious society, you might have a hard time accepting the word of anything other than the Bible. If you have grown up in a society where there are no rules, you might have trouble accepting the rule of law, or that others have limits and boundaries that you have to respect. It can be hard when you move from one culture to another because there are so many things that can be different.
Culture is almost directly related to your values. You are going to learn from your environment, and you are going to adapt to what the conditions around you dictate. You will learn from others around you, and you will learn from what they do, and how they teach you to act. It will become a part of you, and it can sometimes be very hard to shake.
