Culture

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Culture

• Basics, Symbolic Culture, Values, Norms, Mores
  and Sanctions

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Assignment

• Definitions- culture, material culture,
  nonmaterial culture, culture shock,
  ethnocentrism, cultural relativism, symbol,
  gesture, language, values, norms, folkways,
  mores, sanctions, taboos
• Locate in the chapter the following- eight basics
  about all culture, how does language allow
  culture to exist, explain the differences between
  mores, folkways, norms, values

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What is culture?

• Material Culture- things that can be seen or
  felt. Examples buildings, art, machines,
  hairstyle, clothes
• Non-material culture- a groups way of thinking,
  beliefs, values, language, gestures
• Culture is neither right or wrong

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How culture changes

• Two ways
• Internally through invention and adaptation
• Externally through borrowing
• Does culture invent more than it borrows or does
  it borrow more than it invents?

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Basic Ideas of Culture

• Culture shock- the disorientation people
  experience when they come in contact with a
  fundamentally different culture and can no longer
  depend on their assumptions about life
• All culture is learned- culture is within us. We
  take culture for granted, we assume that our
  culture is normal behavior
• A consequence of the culture within us is
  ethnocentrism- the belief that one culture is
  superior to another

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Culture Basics

• There is nothing natural about culture
• Culture is the lens which we see the world and
  obtain our perception of reality
• Culture provides the instruction for dealing with
  various situations
• Culture provides the right/wrong way of doing
  things
• Contact with other cultures challenges our basic
  assumptions about life
• Culture is universal
• A society cannot exist without developing shared
  ways of dealing with the challenges of life
• All people are ethnocentric

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Cultural Relativism

• Culture Relativism- to understand culture on its
  own terms
• Seeing how these elements fit together without
  judging them as superior or inferior to ones own
  way of life

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Decide if the statement is an example of
ethnocentrism or cultural relativism

• 1. The British drive on the wrong side of the
  road.
• 2. The Chinese characters for China mean center
  of the universe.
• 3. Frenchmen use forks with their left hands.
• 4.Americans believe democracy is the only form of
  government.

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• 5. In some cultures it is a delicacy to eat dog.
• 6. Milk is the only drink to serve children.
• 7. It is rude to haggle over the price of an
  item.
• 8. Looking directly at a person means that you
  respect that person.
• 9. It is wrong to show up late for an appointment
• 10. Women in India wear red on their wedding day.
• Make each ethnocentric statement into a cultural
  relativism statement.

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Ancestry in the U.S.
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Culture Areas of the U.S.
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Symbolic Culture

• Symbol- something people attach meaning and that
  they use to communicate
• Gesture- using the body to communicate with
  others, a way to convey a message without words.
• Certain gestures accepted in some cultures are
  inappropriate or unintelligible in other
  cultures.
• Gestures are learned, specific to a culture.
• There are some gestures that represent
  fundamental emotions- sadness, anger, fear, joy-
  inborn, do not vary from culture to culture

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Language

• Symbols that can be put together in infinite ways
  for the purpose of communication, creates
  language

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Language allows human experience to be cumulative

• Symbols that can be put together in infinite ways
  for the purpose of communication, creates
  language
• Language allows culture to develop
• HOW?
• allows us to communicate events
• Pass ideas, knowledge, and attitudes from
  generation to generation
• allows us to modify behavior with what previous
  generations have learned.

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Language

• provides a social or shared past and future
• allows for shared perspectives
• talking allows people to reach a shared
  understanding
• When people do not share a language it invites
  miscommunication and suspicion
• allows people to set a purpose, place events in
  sequence, etc

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Values and Norms
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Values, Norms and Sanctions

• All cultures have values, ideas about what is
  important in life.
• Values tell us what is good, bad, beautiful, ugly
• Norms describe expectations, rules of behavior
  that develop out of values
• Sanctions refer to reactions people receive from
  following or breaking the norms
• Positive Sanction- approval for following norms
• Negative Sanction- disapproval for breaking the
  norm
• Moral Holidays- specified time when people can
  break the cultural norms- Mardi Gras for example

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Folkways and Mores

• Norms that are not strictly enforced are called
  folkways
• Norms that we think of as essential to our core
  values are called mores
• A norm that is so strongly ingrained in our
  culture to break it is greeted with revulsion is
  called a taboo

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American Values

• The U.S. is made up of many different groups- we
  are a pluralistic society.
• Numerous religious, ethnic and specific interest
  groups make up our society.

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American Values

• Salad Bowl Theory- immigrants keep their own
  basic beliefs and ways of life while adapting to
  the general characteristics of the culture
• Melting Pot Theory-immigrants groups blend into
  the culture adding items to the culture but not
  keeping strong ties to their cultural ties and
  background

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American Values

• Sociologist Robin Williams (1965) identified
  fifteen traits of American Culture
• Achievement and Success
• Individualism
• Activity and Work
• Efficiency and Partiality
• Science and Technology
• Progress
• Material Comfort
• Humanitarianism
• Freedom
• Democracy
• Equality
• Racism and Group Superiority
• Education
• Religiosity
• Romantic Love

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Value Clusters, Contradictions and Social Change

• Values are not independent units, some cluster
  together to form part of a larger whole.
• Some values contradict each other.
• Value contradictions can be powerful forces for
  social change.

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Emerging Values

• Leisure- reflected in a huge recreation industry
• Self-fulfillment- the self help movement
• Physical Fitness- organic foods, obsessive
  concern weight weight and diet
• Youthfulness- attributed to the baby boomers.
  Reflected in increase of plastic surgery
• Concern for the environment -despite a history of
  exploitation of the environment, today Americans
  have a concern and commitment for the environment.

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Values, Cultural Change and Globalization of
Culture
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Concepts and Definitions

• Culture war, cultural lag, cultural diffusion,
  cultural leveling, ideal vs. real culture
• Provide an example of a culture war.
• Provide an example of cultural lag.
• How does technology change culture?
• Is cultural leveling and the loss of cultural
  diversity a good or bad thing?

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Review

• Culture is learned and universal
• Two parts of culture-material and non material
• Cultural views can be ethnocentric, culture can
  also be viewed through a lens of cultural
  relativism
• Language and gestures are two symbols of
  nonmaterial culture
• Language allows us to share our perceptions,
  future and past
• Language shapes our perception of objects and
  events

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Culture Wars

• Cultural change is met with strong resistance.
  People hold their core values dear and see the
  changes as a threat to their way of life. This
  creates what is known as a culture war

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Ideal vs. Real

• What we see as ideal sometimes is in conflict
  with reality.
• Norms, values and goals that a group considers
  worth aspiring to is ideal culture.
• What we actually do is known as real culture

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Technology in the Global World

• Culture also has a material side- its things,
  houses, clothes toys and technology
• Central to a groups culture is technology or
  tools.
• includes the skills and procedures used to make
  these tools
• invisible factor in cultural change
• sets the framework for a groups nonmaterial
  culture
• if technology changes it changes the way people
  think and relate to each other

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Cultural Lag and Cultural Change

• Cultural Lag occurs when not all parts of culture
  change at the same pace.
• A groups material culture usually changes first ,
  with the non-material culture playing catch-up

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Cultural Diffusion and Cultural Leveling

• For most of human history people lived in
  relative isolation.
• Cultures developed unique characteristics that
  responded to the situations they faced.
• These characteristics changed little over time
• Cultures have usually had at least some contact
  with other groups.
• During contact people learn from each other and
  adopt parts of each others way of life.
• cultural diffusion- the spread of cultural
  characteristics from one group to another

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Cultural Diffusion and Cultural Leveling

• Changes in communication, travel have sped up the
  process of cultural diffusion.
• Much of the world, for better or worse has
  adopted Western culture in place of their own
  culture
• Travel and communication unite us in a way that
  there is almost no part of the world not effected
  by this.
• The result of these new technologies is a process
  called cultural leveling
• Cultural leveling is the process by which
  cultures become similar to one another.

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Subculture and Counterculture
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World within a world

• Subculture- the values and other related
  behaviors, for example language, that distinguish
  its members from the larger culture.
• Many subcultures exist within a culture. Their
  experiences have led them to have a distinctive
  way of looking at life or some part of it
• Ethnic, religious and occupational groups form
  many different subcultures within our own

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Counterculture

• Values and norms of most subcultures blend with
  society.
• In a subculture values and norms place these
  groups at odds with general society
• Members of a mainstream culture will often
  isolate, attack or ridicule the counterculture