Transcript Macionis_13e_C02_O

Chapter 2
CULTURE
Culture
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
•LO 2.1 Explain the development of culture as a human strategy
for survival.
•LO 2.2 Identify common elements of culture.
•LO 2.3 Analyze how a society’s level of technology shapes its
culture.
•LO 2.4 Discuss dimensions of cultural difference and cultural
change.
•LO 2.5 Apply sociology's macro-level theories to gain greater
understanding of culture.
•LO 2.6 Critique culture as limiting or expanding human freedom.
The Power of Society
• Is how we feel about abortion as “personal”
an opinion as we may think?
Culture: What Is…?
• Culture
– Ways of thinking, acting, and material objects that
form a person’s way of life
• Kinds of culture
– Material
– Nonmaterial
LO 2.1 Explain the development of culture
as a human strategy for survival.
Culture: What Is…?
Culture shock
• Involves personal disorientation when experiencing an
unfamiliar way of life
• May occur within domestic and foreign travel
Cultural relativism
• Involves a more accurate understanding of cultures
What Is Culture?
Society
•People who interact in a defined territory and share a
culture
Thoughts to ponder
•No particular way of life is “natural” to humanity.
•Only humans rely on culture rather than to create a way of
life and ensure survival.
What Is Culture?
Culture and human intelligence
• 12,000 years ago: Birth of civilization
• Today: Efficient survival scheme fashions natural
environment resulting in cultural diversity
Culture, nation, and society
• Culture: Shared way of life
• Nation: Political entity
• Society: People who interact in a defined territory and
share a culture
What Is Culture?
How many cultures?
• Language is an indicator of culture.
• Globally, experts document almost 7,000
languages.
• Some languages are becoming extinct due to
globalization.
Elements of Culture: Symbols
Humans transform elements of the world into
symbols.
• Symbols are anything that carries a particular meaning
recognized by people who share a culture.
• Societies create new symbols all the time.
• Meanings vary within and between cultures.
LO 2.2 Identify common elements of
culture.
Language: What Is…?
Language
• System of symbols that allows people to
communicate with one another
Cultural transmission
• Process by which one generation passes culture
to the next
Elements of Culture: Language
Does language shape reality?
• Sapir-Whorf thesis
– People perceive the world through the cultural lens of
language
• Current view
– Language does not determine reality.
– People can imagine new ideas or things before
devising a name for them.
Values and Beliefs: What Is…?
Values
• Culturally defined standards that people use to
decide what is desirable, good, and beautiful
and that serve as broad guidelines for social
living
Beliefs
• Specific ideas that people hold to be true
Elements of Culture: Values and Beliefs
Key values of U.S. culture (Williams)
• Equal opportunity
• Achievement and success
• Material comfort
• Activity and work
• Practicality and efficiency
• Progress
• Science
• Democracy and free enterprise
• Freedom
• Racism and group superiority
Values and Beliefs
Values
• Are sometimes in harmony and sometimes in conflict
• Change over time
• Vary from culture to culture
Norms: What Are…?
Norms
• Rule and expectations by which society guides
member behaviors
Mores and folkways
• Mores: Norms that are widely observed and
have great moral significance
• Folkways: Norms for routine or casual
interaction
Norms: Ideal Versus Real Culture
Ideal culture
• Is the way things should be
• Involves social patterns mandated by values and
norms
Real culture
• Is the way things actually occur in everyday life
• Involves social patterns that only approximate
cultural expectations
Technology and Culture
Every culture
• Possesses wide range of physical human creations
(artifacts)
• Uses artifacts that reflect underlying cultural values
• Reflects societal level of technology
• Determines cultural ideas and emerging artifacts from
level of technology (Lenski/sociocultural evolution)
LO 2.3 Analyze how a society’s level of
technology shapes its culture.
Technology and Culture: Hunting and
Gathering Societies
Sociocultural evolution involves four major
levels of development.
• Hunting and gathering societies
– Use simple tools to hunt animals and gather
vegetation for food
– Have no formal leaders
– Provide important sociocultural history
Technology and Culture: Horticulture and
Pastoralism
• Horticultural societies
– Hand tool use to raise crops
– Material surplus that allows expansion of societal
roles
– Increased belief in one God
• Pastoralism societies
– Domestication of animals
– Nomadic lifestyle
– More unequal social structure; ruling elites
Technology and Culture: Agrarian and
Industrial Societies
• Agrarian societies
– More powerful energy sources and large food
supplies; use of money as common exchange
– Social life more individual and impersonal; more
social inequality
• Industrial societies
– More advanced sources of energy to drive large
machinery
– Higher living standard and life expectancy; more
individualism but less sense of community
Technology and Culture: Postindustrial
Information Technology
• Postindustrial information technology
– More economic production use new
information technology
– Changes in skills that define way of life
– Capacity to create symbolic culture increases
Cultural Diversity: What Is…?
• High culture
– Cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s
elite
• Popular culture
– Cultural patterns that are widespread among
a society’s population
LO 2.4 Discuss dimensions of cultural
difference and cultural change.
Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of Life in One
World
• Subculture
– Culture patterns that set apart some segment of a
society’s population
• Multiculturalism
– Perspective recognizing the cultural diversity of the
United States and promoting equal standing for all
cultural traditions
• Eurocentrism
• Afrocentrism
Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of Life in One
World
• Counterculture
– Cultural patterns that strongly oppose those
widely accepted within a society
• Cultural change
– Change in one societal dimension of cultural
system usually precipitates changes in others.
• Cultural integration
• Cultural lag (Ogburn)
Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of Life in One
World
• Causes of cultural change
– Invention
– Discovery
– Diffusion
Is There a Global Culture?
• The Basic Thesis
– Flow of goods: Material product trading has
never been as important.
– Flow of information: Few places left where
worldwide communication is not possible.
– Flow of people: Knowledge means people
learn about places where life might be better.
Is There a Global Culture?
• Limitations to the global culture thesis
– All the flows have been uneven.
– Premise assumes affordability of goods.
– People do not attach the same meaning to
material goods.
Functions of Culture: Structural-Functional
Theory
• Structural-functional
– Culture is a strategy for meeting human
needs.
– Values are core of a culture.
– Every culture has cultural universals.
LO 2.5 Apply sociology's macro-level theories to gain greater
understanding of culture.
Functions of Culture: Structural-Functional
Theory
• Evaluation
– Cultural diversity is ignored.
– Importance of change is downplayed.
Inequality and Culture: Social-Conflict Theory
• Social-conflict
– Cultural traits benefit some members at the
expense of others.
– Cultural values of competitiveness and material
success are tied to our country's capitalist
economy.
Inequality and Culture: Social-Conflict Theory
• Evaluation
– Understates the ways cultural patterns
integrate members into society
Evolution and Culture
• Sociobiology
– Theoretical paradigm
– Explores ways in which human biology affects how
we create culture
– Is rooted in Charles Darwin and evolution
– Proposes living organisms change over long periods
of time based on natural selection
Evolution and Culture
• Evaluation
– Might be used to support racism or sexism
– Little evidence to support theory
– People learn behavior within a cultural
system
Culture and Human Freedom
• Culture as constraint
– We know our world in terms of our culture
• Culture as freedom
– Culture is changing and offers a variety of
opportunities
– Sociologists share the goal of learning more
about cultural diversity
LO 2.6 Critique culture as limiting or expanding human
freedom.