3. THE NATURE OF CULTURE
Pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving vary from society to society.
1. Culture is a human creation – It is man-made
2. Culture is transmitted socially – It is learned
3. Culture is abstract – It consists of patterns for thinking, feeling and behaving.
4. Culture is structured – It consists of organized patterns for thinking, feeling and behaving.
5. Culture may be differentially shared – it socially transmitted to members of an entire society or to members of segments of that society.
Human beings are forced into culture as against animal’s instinct. For humans lack solutions to many problems of survival.
Process by which culture is transmitted from generation to generation is called Socialization.
Man is the only animal capable of the arbitrary assignment of meanings (Symbolizations). Hence, he is the only animal capable of creating and perpetuating a cultural heritage.
Culture accumulates and cumulates – Creations at one point in time may be combined with later creations in order to form yet another creation. This is the process of invention. Base of culture is broadened and progress occurs.
Reification fallacy is the mistake committed when an abstraction is thought to have a material substance.
Eg. Society may be taken to eat drink sleep, while actually persons do these things.
Cultural patterns are guidelines for thinking, feeling and behaving.
Subculture refers to cultural patterns that are in some way different from those of larger culture.
Where there is a conflict with the larger culture, there is contra culture.
The Content of Culture
The three primary dimensions of the contents of culture are the cognitive, material and normative dimensions.
Cognition is the process that enables humans to comprehend and to relate to their surroundings.
Ideas that are accepted by person as representing reality as being true are beliefs.
The normative dimension brings long periods of order and stability in human behavior. Recurrence and predictability are possible.
Adherence to norms is fostered through both childhood and adult socialization, the process whereby culture is socially transmitted and through sanctioning, or behavior designed to ensure conformity to norms.
William Graham Summer originated the concepts of folkways and mores.
Formal Sanctions reside in the hands of appointed or elected representative of the social structure.
Informal Sanctions are expressions of reward or punishment by one or more social structure members for either an unusual fulfillment of a norm or a violation of a norm.
Sanctions may be positive or negative.
TYPES OF SOCIAL CONTROL
Strength of Society Informal Formal
Light Folleways Laws
Heavy Mores Laws
Folkways are norms that define customary ways of thinking, feeling and behaving.
Mores are norms that have been defined as central to the well-being of a social structure.
Laws are formally defined and recorded norms whose enforcement is carried out by public authorities.
THE DIVERSITY OF CULTURE
Cultural specialties are cognitive material and normative aspects of culture that are practiced only by certain socially recognized segments of a society.
Culture provides some amount of choice. The cognitive mat and normative patterns that may be adopted by only certain persons are called cultural alternatives
Inter-societal and intra societal cultural diversity are with consequences.
Ethnocentrism is the judgment on the part of members of one social structure that their particular patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving are superior to those of members of other structure.
The idea that any given aspect of a particular culture must be evaluated in terms of its place within the larger cultural context of which it is a part, rather than according to some alleged universal standard that applies across all cultures is termed cultural relativism
Cultural universals are those aspects of culture within a particular society that are shared by nearly all adults of sound mind.
6. SOCIAL STRUCTURE
The past is transmitted (or the future) through the creation of arbitrary symbols (symbols that have no intrinsic relationship with the thing for which they stand)
Culture
Via
Role prescription
Attached to
Social Positions
guides
Role behavior
Through
Social Interaction
Which may be observed as
Social relationships
Which constitute
Social Structure
Ascribed Social positions are those that are assigned to persons automatically and these are beyond their power to choose or reject (sex, age, race)
Adhered social positions are those over which people have some degree of control, and are thematically open for competition.
Rights are what the occupant can expect from another person in a position set.
Obligations are those through that a position holder is expected to do in relation to another person within the position set.
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