Culture
Chapter Outline
 Culture as Problem Solving
 The Origins and Components of Culture
 Culture as Freedom and Constraint
 Culture as Freedom
 Culture as Constraint
Defining Culture
 Culture is a set of widely shared, socially transmitted
ideas, practices, and material objects.
 Culture is created to deal with real-life problems and
enable people to adapt to their environments.
 Sociologically speaking, culture should not be
confused with high culture or popular culture.
Society
 Society is a number of people who interact, usually in a
defined territory, and share a culture.
 Culture requires a society to persist.
The Origins of Culture
 100,000 years ago, humans lived in harsh natural
environments, were slower runners and weaker
fighters than many other animals.
 They survived, prospered and came to dominate
nature by creating cultural survival kits.
Cultural Survival kits
 Abstraction - creating symbols or ways of thinking
that are not linked to particular instances.
 Cooperation - establishing norms, generally accepted
ways of doing things, and values, ideas about what is
right and wrong.
 Production -making and using tools and techniques
that improve our ability to take what we want from
nature.
Material and Nonmaterial Culture
 Material culture is composed of the tools and
techniques that enable people to get tasks
accomplished.
 Nonmaterial culture is composed of symbols, norms,
and other nontangible elements of culture.
Language
 A system of symbols strung together to communicate
thought.
 Allow us to share understandings, pass experience and
knowledge and make plans for the future.
In these ways, language allows culture to develop.
The Sapir-Whorf Thesis
The Sapir-Whorf Thesis
 We experience certain things in our environment and
form concepts about those things.
 We develop language to express our concepts.
 Language itself influences how we see the world.
Ethnocentrism
 Ethnocentrism is the tendency to judge other cultures
exclusively by the standards of one’ own.
 To develop a sociological understanding of culture, it
is necessary to refrain from judging other societies by
the standards of your own.
Two Faces of Culture: Freedom and
Constraint
1.
2.
Culture provides us with an opportunity to exercise
our freedom.
Existing culture puts limits on what we can think
and do. In that sense, culture constrains us.
Culture as Freedom
Freedoms that culture encourages include:
 Diversity
 Globalization
 Rights Revolution
 Postmodernism
Cultural Production
 Until the 1960s, most sociologists argued that cultural
beliefs developed out of social necessity.
 More recently, sociologists who ascribe to symbolic
interactionism are inclined to view culture as an
independent variable, something that we actively
create and interpret.
Cultural Diversity
 American society is undergoing rapid cultural
diversification.
 Greater diversity has led to an increasing ability to
choose how culture influences us.
Multiculturalism
 Highlights the achievements of nonwhites and non-
Europeans in American society.
 Supporters argue that the curricula of America’s public
schools and colleges should reflect the country’s
diversity and recognize the equality of all cultures.
 Critics fear that multiculturalism is being taken too far
and encourages conflict and cultural relativism.
Critics of Multiculturalism
Negative consequences of multiculturalism:
 Teaching of multiculturalism distracts from core
subjects.
 Fosters conflict.
 Encourages cultural relativism.
Cultural Relativism
 The belief that all cultures have equal value.
 Critics believe that by encouraging cultural relativism,
multiculturalism encourages respect for practices and
cultures that oppose traditional American values
Consider this…
Cultural Relativism or Ethnocentrism?
 Female genital mutilation (FGM) includes
“procedures that intentionally alter or injure female
genital organs for nonmedical reasons.”
 FGM has no medical benefits and often results in
pain and trauma
 Some cultures believe that FGM enhances fertility
and that women are “masculine” if they have not
experienced genital mutilation.
The Rights Revolution
 The process of socially excluded groups struggling to
win equal rights under the law.
Examples: women’s rights, minority rights, gay and
lesbian rights, the rights of people with special needs
 Because of the rights revolution, democracy has
widened and deepened.
 The rights revolution has also fragmented American
culture
Globalization
 The process by which formerly separate economies,
states, and cultures are being tied together and people
are becoming increasingly aware of their growing
interdependence.
 People are less obliged to accept the culture into which
they are born and are freer to explore and combine
other cultures into their own.
Postmodernism Culture
Postmodernism Culture
Another aspect of postmodern culture is the erosion
of authority.
 1950—Three-quarters of Americans expressed
confidence in the government
 2010—One-third of Americans expressed
confidence in the government
Postmodernism Culture
The third aspect of postmodern culture is the decline of
consensus around core values.
Culture as Constraint
Constraining forces include:
 Cultural Lag
 Rationalization
 Consumerism
Cultural Lag
 Occurs when changes in material culture outpace
changes in values
 Technological advances sometimes conflict with and
weaken religious values.
 Traditional values and cultural lag caused the United
States to become one of the last countries in the world
to allow homosexuals to openly serve in the military
Rationalization
 Rationalization is the application of the most
efficient means to achieve given goals and the
unintended, negative consequences of doing so.
 Mechanical clocks have led to the maximization of
time, but also what is often described as a too-hectic
life.
Consider this…
How does this image illustrate the concept of
rationalization?
Consumerism
 The tendency to describe ourselves in terms of the
goods one purchases.
 The desire to be “good consumers” acts as a constraint
on our lives.
 Consumerism subverts countercultural movements by
transforming them into opportunities for profit
1. Which of the following is not an important human
cultural capability?
a.
b.
c.
d.
abstraction
cooperation
production
ethnocentrism
Answer: d
 Ethnocentrism is not an important human cultural
capability.
2. Which of the following is a fear that critics of
multiculturalism have?
Multiculturalism leads to cultural relativism and
respect for abhorrent practices.
b) Teaching multiculturalism in schools is taking
time away from essential subjects such as English
and math.
c) Multiculturalism encourages conflict by causing
political disunity.
d) All of the above
a)
Answer: d

Critics believe that the three negative consequences
of multiculturalism are cultural relativism,
cultural conflict, and distraction from core
school subjects.
3. The Sapir-Whorf thesis holds that:
a.
b.
c.
d.
genes account for specific behaviors and social
practices
high culture is consumed mainly by upper classes and
popular culture by all classes
people are usually rewarded when they follow
cultural guidelines and punished when they do not
the language we speak influences how we see the
world
Answer: d

The Sapir-Whorf thesis holds that the language we
speak influences how we see the world.
4. In Weber’s sense of the term, rationalization is:
a.
b.
c.
d.
a justification for a deviant act
the loss of faith in “Big Historical Projects”
the application of the most efficient means to achieve
goals and the negative consequences of doing so
identification with core values such as individualism
and success
Answer: c

In Weber’s sense of the term, rationalization is the
application of the most efficient means to
achieve goals and the negative consequences of
doing so.
5. According to sociologists, a society is composed of
people who
a.
b.
c.
d.
interact
share the same territory
share a culture
all of these choices
Answer: d

According to sociologists, a society is composed of
people who interact, share the same territory and
share a culture.
6. Which of the following are components of culture
as sociologists define the term?
a.
b.
c.
d.
languages
symbols
values
all of the choices
Answer: d
 Languages, symbols and values are a components of
culture as sociologists define the term.