Culture Transition and Change

The Atlantic World was a great mixer of cultures. People from four continents met in a broad variety of settings and circumstances and exchanged a wide range of cultural ideas and practices. In addition to the changes induced by interaction, many Atlantic people also moved from familiar home environments to ones that were quite unfamiliar, and in the process were forced to make adaptations that shaped a new worldview. Others – most Europeans, some Africans, and many Native Americans – remained at home and accepted input from outsiders.

Cultural change is erratic in any case, arising from the inner workings of a society as well as from interaction, all stimulated further by movement and environmental change. We can divide cultural elements into a number of categories as a means of understanding this change. There are some elements of culture that are “hard” – that is, they are difficult to change, and typically break before they are much altered. Language is the best example of a hard cultural element that changes very slowly and is ill-suited for much cultural exchange. On the other hand, there are elements of culture that are “soft,” which can change rapidly and are very open to absorbing new ideas and elements. Aesthetics, such as art and music, are the most malleable and open cultural element. In between these two extremes lies religion, worldview, and philosophy, which people are often committed to for ideological reasons, but which are nevertheless subject to change if it can be managed within the rules of the system.