Comparative Culture

Written by: Kiara Santana

When someone says pop culture what comes to mind? Personally, I think of it as the mainstream culture. The music, art, literature are the things that make a country’s culture. According to Dictionary.com, popular culture is the culture activities and commercial products that aimed at the tastes of the general masses of people. The pop culture of Ancient Greece is completely different from our modern pop culture. 

Architecture in Ancient Greece was all based on temples and theaters made from mixtures of mud, clay, sand and water. These temples have been around for centuries and will continue to be around for many more centuries. Today, we have technology that makes our developments of buildings, homes, and makes everything easier and more effective. However, Ancient Greece has a lot of influences on today’s architecture, such as patterns, designs, arches, and viaducts. 

Ancient Greece’s art is still very famous. Paintings were usually realistic and based on true events. The first cinema was opened in Greece, and actors and directors were considered very important people. Music and dance were believed to be created by gods and were viewed as religious. Today’s modern art is very free. Artist can draw, paint, and make whatever they want. Although movies have changed a lot since then, but actors and directors are still viewed as important “famous” people. Music and dance is also freer now. Although music can be used for religious purposes, it isn’t its only purpose. Music is now a form of expression, and many people have been able to make careers out of music. 

Language and literature for Ancient Greece is Greek and the span of 3400 years. Literature of Ancient Greece are poems written by people like Homer and Hesiod, and it was where the theatre was born, drama and dialogues in plays were developed, and philosophy come into the picture. The modern day literature and language has definitely benefited from Ancient Greece’s developments. Our main language is obviously English, but people of many cultures and that speak other languages are everywhere. Literature has kept a lot of Greece’s ideas like, dialogues, dramas, and a lot of Ancient Greece’s ideas are still around. 

Ancient Greece’s idea of religions was very similar to Christianity, because they believed in a perfect God, that the good were rewarded with Heaven and the bead hell after death, and that the soul is most important. 

Lastly, I will discuss the comparison in politics of Ancient Greece and modern day. In Ancient Greece, there political system is Parliamentary, which although means that power is distributed throughout a system of ministers and their branches. The Prime Minister is the main power, but he isn’t in complete control. Our modern politics is run as a democracy. It is similar to their politics because their prime minister is like our president. However, our democracy is run by a group of people and everything is voted on. It makes everything fair and more organized. 

So even though Ancient Greece and modern day America are very different in many ways, they are also very similar. Ancient Greece has also influenced a lot of modern America’s lifestyles and pop culture.