Chapter 2: Culture and Society

  • cultural appropriation: when members of one cultural group borrow elements of another group’s culture

  • sociological study of culture from Durkheim in 19th century; soon became anthropology

  • culture: the values, norms, and material goods characteristic of a given group. the concept of culture is widely used in sociology and the other social sciences (esp. anthropology). it’s one of the most distinctive properties of human social connection.

    • culture includes values, language, revered symbols, norms, material goods (eg. plough or bow and arrow), apparel, marriage/family customs, work patterns, religious ceremonies, leisure pursuits, etc.

    • two culture forms: nonmaterial (cultural ideas that are not themselves physical objects) and material objects (physical objects that a society creates)

  • nonmaterial culture: the values, norms, symbols, language, speech, and writing

    • values: ideas held by individuals or groups about what is desirable, proper, good, and bad. what individuals value is strongly influenced by the specific culture in which they happen to live.

    • norms: rules of conduct that specify appropriate behaviour in a given range of social situations. a norm either prescribes a given type of behaviour or forbids it. all social groups follow definite norms, which are always backed by sanctions of one kind or another— varying from informal disapproval to physical punishment. differ among and within cultures, often by a person’s background (age, gender, race, class, etc.)

    • language: a system of symbols that represent objects and abstract thoughts; the primary vehicle of meaning and communication within a society.

      • the cultural meaning of words can affect attitude and behaviour, for example “dog” has a very different connotation in certain parts of Asia than it does here in the United States

      • linguistic relativity hypothesis/Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: perceptions are relative to language; that which we have a word for we are more likely to notice

    • writing was a major turnpoint of human history and keeps advancing, originally lists of symbols that often just noted who owned what land turning into modern-day texting slang. writing has certain traits unique from speech, such as its long-lasting/endurance and lack of alteration over time

  • material culture: the physical objects that society creates that influence the ways in which people live; includes our food, clothing, cars, houses, tools, technologies, and towns/cities

    • signifier: any vehicle of meaning and communication, including speech and writing as well as one’s clothing, pictures and visual signs, modes of eating, forms of building and architecture, etc.

      • eg. pink for girls, short hair for boys, dresses for girls

      • beyond symbolic— tools needed to get food, make weapons, build homes, sew clothing, etc., too

    • material culture has globalized— not just US phenomena/products, but things shipped everywhere made from materials made and shipped from many other places

  • society: a group of people who live in a particular territory, are subject to a common political system, and are aware of having a distinct identity from other groups. can include dozens to millions of people.

  • culture helps bind societies together and easily tells members how to think and behave, but various cultures value this conformity to various levels, Japan at one end and the US at the other

  • some degree of conformity is necessary to any society’s very existence, so conformity is instilled in two ways

    • step 1: learn the norms to the point where you don’t even question them

    • step 2: if norms aren’t obeyed/adopted, force conformity through social control (usually punishment—gossiping, ostracizing, ticketing, imprisonment, etc.). Durkheim claimed punishment was used to maintain norms and to set an example for everyone else.

  • characteristics of American culture:

    • range of values shared by most Americans (eg. individual achievement or equality of opportunity)

    • values are connected to specific norms, eg. people will work hard for occupational success

    • use of material artifacts mostly created with modern technology (cars, mass-produced food, clothing, etc.)

  • first evidence of human culture from ~2 million years ago. planning hunts indicates capability of abstract thought. early humans’ culture made up for biological shortcomings like lack of claws, sharp teeth, and fast running speeds. we could experience adaptive learning, permitting our survival of the Ice Age, etc.

  • sociobiology: an approach that attempts to explain the behaviour of both animals and humans in terms of biological principles

  • reproductive strategy: a pattern of behaviour, arrived at through evolutionary selection, that favours the chances of survival of offspring; for example human women finding a long-term partner versus human men spreading their seed, penguins taking turns caring for the egg to ensure it is never too cold to survive in the arctic, etc.

  • instinct: a fixed pattern of behaviour that has genetic origins and that appears in all normal animals within a given species

  • biological determinism: the belief that differences we observe between groups of people, such as men and women, are explained wholly by biological causes

  • subcultures: cultural groups within a wider society that hold values and norms distinct from those of the majority

  • cultural composites: when a population is made up of groups from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, the society = cultural composite

  • countercultures: cultural groups within a wider society that largely reject the values and norms of the majority; eg. 70s gays

  • assimilation: the acceptance of a minority group by a majority population, in which the new group takes on values and norms of the dominant culture

  • multiculturalism: the viewpoint according to which ethnic groups can exist separately and share equality in economic and political life

  • ethnocentrism: the tendency to look at other cultures through the eyes of one’s own culture and thereby misrepresent them

  • cultural relativism: the practice of judging a society by its own standards

  • cultural universals: values or modes of behaviour shared by all human cultures; eg. all cultures have a grammatically complex language.

  • marriage: a socially approved sexual relationship between two individuals. marriage normally forms the basis of a family of procreation; that is, it is expected that the married couple will produce and raise children.

  • two major cultural universals, as ID-ed by anthropologists: all incorporate ways to communicate and express meaning, and all depend on material objects in everyday life. other commonalities include marriage, incest prohibition, religious rituals, property rights, art, dancing, bodily adornment, games, gift-giving, joking, and rules of hygiene.

  • three categories of premodern societies: hunters and gatherers, larger agrarian or pastoral societies (agricultural), and nonindustrial civilizations/traditional states

    • hunters and gatherers: usually 30-40 people. still exist in places such as the jungles of Brazil and New Guinea; most were destroyed or absorbed by Western cultures. only about 0.004% of the modern population. egalitarian. rank and position differences were based on age and gender, older folk being higher up, men being hunters, and women being gatherers/cooks/youth-raisers. moved about but had fixed territories, which they migrated from about annually. could bring few possessions with them. membership was usually unstable. not about unnecessary material goods. concerns were religious values and ritual activities; participated in ceremonies and spent much time in preparation for them.

    • pastoral and agrarian societies: hunters and gatherers who began domesticating animals and cultivating plots of land. pastoral societies: societies whose subsistence derives from the rearing of domesticated animals. agrarian societies: societies whose means of subsistence are based on agricultural production. some societies were a combination of the two. animals included cattle, sheep, goats, camels, and horses. some still exist in the modern day, mostly concentrated in areas of Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. usually in areas with dense grasslands or desert/mountain areas to poor for profitable agricultural endeavors. hunters and gatherers eventually began practicing horticulture, or keeping small gardens of food with simple gardening tools to provide food in times where hunting and gathering wasn’t cutting it; could support larger communities; not on the move, thus had more material possessions. pastoral and hunting-and-gathering communities couldn’t accumulate as many material goods.

    • traditional societies or civilizations: c. 6000 BCE+ = larger societies than before with new distinctions. based on development of cities. pronounced inequalities of wealth and power; ruled by kings/emperors. writing, science, and the arts flourished, thus they’re often called civilizations. earliest in Middle East (eg. Mesopotamia and Egypt) because of its fertile river areas. Chinese Empire originated c. 1800 BCE, the same time powerful states existed in modern-day India and Pakistan. most traditional civilizations were empires (achieved size through conquest and incorporation of other peoples), as with traditional Rome and China: the Roman Empire at its height in the first century CE reached from Britain to beyond the Middle East, and the Chinese Empire (lasted over 2000 years, up to threshold of 20th century) covered most of eastern Asia now occupied by modern China.

  • industrialization: the emergence of machine production, based on the use of inanimate power resources (eg. steam and electricity). started with England’s Industrial Revolution of the 18th century.

  • industrialized societies: highly developed nation-states in which the majority of the population work in factories, shops, or offices rather than in agriculture and in which most people live in urban areas. development is super rapid. the political systems are more developed and intensive than in traditional states—where monarchs and emperors had little direct influence on customs and habits in mostly self-sustaining villages, now transportation and communication are rapid and everything is more integrated.

  • nation-state: a particular type of state, characteristic of the modern world, in which a government has sovereign power within a defined territorial area and the population comprises citizens who believe themselves to be part of a single nation or people. (the first were the industrialized societies.) they have clear borders, powerful governments that affect citizens’ daily lives, etc. most modern societies are nation-states.

  • Western economic strength, political cohesion, and military superiority can all account for the spread of Western ways of life across the world over the past 200 or so years.

  • colonialism: the process whereby Western nations established their rule in parts of the world away from their home territories. colonies either became dominated by the colonials (like the US and Australia) or were still largely overpopulated by natives (as in much of Asia, Africa, and South America). the former largely became industrialized, while the former didn’t, classifying them as “less-developed societies.”

  • developing world: the less-developed societies, in which industrial production is either virtually nonexistent or only developed to a limited degree. the majority of the world’s population lives in less-developed countries. these include India, most African countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Algeria, etc.), and those in South America (eg. Brazil, Peru, and Venezuela). due to their location largely below the equator, these are often collectively called the Global South, while wealthy countries like the US and lots of Western Europe are considered the Global North.

  • Global South is largely areas that underwent colonial rule, including Haiti, South American Spanish colonies, and Brazil. others were never colonized but were still highly influenced by Westerners, for example China, who entered into trade agreements with European power in the 17th century, Hong Kong being the last of them. most Global South nations only became independent post-WWII, often after bloody anticolonial struggles. eg: India (or India and Pakistan shortly thereafter), many Asian countries (eg. Myanmar, Malaysia, and Singapore), and many African countries (eg. Kenya, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, and Algeria).

  • despite potentially having peoples living in traditional fashion(s), developing countries are still very different from earlier traditional societies: they have political systems modeled on Western ones (AKA they’re nation-states), they’re largely rural but are experiencing rapid process of city development, crops being grown are often offered for sale in world markets rather than just for local consumption, etc.

  • emerging economies: developing countries that, over the past two or three decades, have begun to develop a strong industrial base, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Brazil, Mexico, Taiwan, and South Korea. characterized by a great deal of industry and/or industrial trade. many of the most successful (eg. those in East Asia) have higher rates of economic growth than those of Western industrial economies.

  • the majority of the world’s population lives in the Global South

  • forces producing a global culture include the television, the emergence of a unified global economy, global citizens (eg. managers of large corporations who spend as much time travelling the globe as they do at home), international organizations (eg. the UN), and electronic communications.

  • 26% of internet users speak English as their first language

  • only 10 languages account for 77% of all internet users

  • nationalism: a set of beliefs and symbols expressing identification with a national community