Culture and Society: An Anthropological and Sociological Perspective
Defining Culture
- Culture: The complex whole encompassing beliefs, practices, values, attitudes, laws, norms, artifacts, symbols, knowledge, and everything a person learns and shares as a member of society.
Classification of Culture
- Material Culture: Cultural components that are visible and tangible.
- Nonmaterial Culture: Components of culture that are intangible or without representation.
- Cognitive: Ideas, concepts, philosophies, designs, etc., that are products of the mental or intellectual functioning of the human mind.
- Normative: Expectations, standards, and rules for human behavior.
Elements of Culture
- Beliefs
- Values
- Symbols
- Language
- Technology
- Norms
Types of Norms
- Proscriptive: Defines and tells what not to do.
- Prescriptive: Defines and tells what to do.
- Folkways
- Mores
- Taboos
- Laws
Characteristics of Culture
- Dynamic, flexible, and adaptive
- Shared and may be challenged
- Learned through socialization or enculturation
- Patterned social interactions
- Integrated
- Transmitted through socialization/enculturation
- Requires language and other forms of communication.
Society
- Society: A group of people who share a common territory and a culture.
Types of Society
- Hunting and gathering societies
- Pastoral societies
- Horticultural societies
- Agricultural societies
- Industrial societies
- Post-industrial societies
Ethnocentrism, Xenocentrism, and Cultural Relativism
- Ethnocentrism: The tendency to see and evaluate other cultures in terms of one's own race, nation, or culture.
- Xenocentrism: Preference for the ideas, lifestyle, and products of other cultures after exposure to them.
- Cultural Relativism: The principle that an individual's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture.
Ideas of Cultural Relativism
- Moral Relativism
- Situational Relativism
- Cognitive Relativism