Sanctions and Cultural Relativism
Values
• A person’s ideas of what is desirable in life
• They are the standards by which people
define what is good and bad, beautiful and
ugly
• Values underlie our preferences, guide our
choices, and indicate what we hold
worthwhile in life
Cultural Values
• Individual cultures emphasize
values which their members
broadly share. One can often
identify the values of a society by
noting which people receive
honor or respect. In the United
States of America, for example,
professional athletes at the top
levels in some sports receive
more honor (measured in terms
of monetary payment) than
university professors. Surveys
show that voters in the United
States would not willingly elect
an atheist as president,
suggesting belief in a God as a
generally shared value there.
An Overview of U.S. Values
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Achievement and success
Individualism
Activity and work
Efficiency and practicality
Science and technology
Progress
Material comfort
Humanitarianism
Freedom
Democracy
Equality
Racism and group superiority
Education
Religiosity
Romantic love
Emerging Values in the U.S.
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Leisure
Self-fulfillment
Physical fitness
Youthfulness
Concern for the environment
Norms – societal rules
– What might be some examples of norms?
• What we don’t do: Spitting in public, stabbing people,
dueling over arguments, eating corpses.
• Urinal practices
– Norms are rules which govern our society – through
these rules we know what to do, when to do it, and
what is just plain NOT ALLOWED OR OK in our society.
– They give us structure and safety (know that we can
go around outside without a knife, as the police and
our community norms protect us from violence)
• Sanctions: reactions people get for
following or breaking norms
(expressions of approval or
disapproval)
Types of Sanctions
• Positive—smile,
high five,
money, trophy.
• Negative—
frown, fine,
smack, middle
finger.
Types of Sanctions
• Material—
money, trophy,
fine, jail
sentence.
• Non-material—
smile, frown, pat
on the back,
spanking.
Moral holidays:
• Sometimes people find norms stifling
• We provide breaks from the norms, where
activities which would normally lead to arrest
or sanction can be allowed
Moral holidays,
like Mardi Gras,
usually center
around getting
drunk and being
rowdy
Three types: Folkways, Mores
(More – ays) and Taboos
• Folkways - the patterns of conventional behavior in a society,
norms that apply to everyday matters. They are the conventions
and habits learned from childhood.
– (What’s rude = folkways)
– Wash your hands after eating
– Don’t burp
– Don’t spit
– Walk on sidewalks, ride on streets
• Picking your nose in public in western culture is seen as disgusting and
wrong.
• Staring at a person sitting across from you on the bus, standing really close to
people, facing towards everyone in the elevator instead of at the door, having
a conversation with yourself in a public area..
– ENFORCED BY: gentle social pressure and imitation.
• Breaking or questioning a folkway does not cause severe punishment,
but may cause the person to be laughed at, frowned upon, or
scolded.
• In western culture, folkways include wearing gender-appropriate
clothing, respecting the privacy of strangers, and eating food with the
proper utensil.
Norms continued…
• Mores (More ays) – more strictly enforced than folkways –
more strongly held norms or customs (not just impolite, but
actually scandalous or upsetting
– These derive from the established practices of a society (but are
also often enforced by written laws)
• Wear clothes, be honest, be sexually pure
– (What’s right and wrong = mores)
– Lying, cheating – not always against the law – but strictly
enforced.
– Drug use, sexual promiscuity, and extreme styles of dress.
– ENFORCED BY: more serious sanctions – broken relationships,
socially ostracizing people, not having business relationships,
enforcement by the law (fines and jail if serious enough)
Norms continued…
• Taboos- form the subset of mores that forbid
a society's most outrageous behaviors, such as
incest and murder in many societies.
– ENFORCED BY: death, exile, severe jail sentences
• What are some of the major taboos in
American society?
– Incest, Child Murder or Rape, Cannibalism, Eating
the dead, intercourse with animals, child
molestation, etc.
Group Activity:
– Watch “Mona Lisa Smile”/”Gran Torino”
– Create a list of norms (or add to your existing list)
so that you have at least ten.
– Then label or group your list into the three types:
folkways, norms, and taboos.
Cannibalism
• Cannibalism is one of the major taboos in Western culture, and
indeed, most cultures on the planet(Some tribes in Polynesia and
Papua New Guinea will eat their dead, but very rare.)
• Despite the revulsion accompanied with it, there are many
examples of cannibalism throughout Western cultural history.
– When?
• Donner Party ( a group of American pioneers who set out for California in
a wagon train. Delayed by a series of mishaps, they spent the winter of 1846–
47 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada. Some of the immigrants resorted
to cannibalism to survive, eating those who had succumbed to starvation and
sickness.
• Polar expeditions and castaways or shipwrecks
– Harsh conditions: societal norms can change in different (harsh)
societal circumstances.
– http://whyfiles.org/164cannibal/2.html
– Watch “Alive”
• Cultural
relativism:
–belief that
cultures should
be judged by
their own
standards (and
not be
compared to
others)
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
• Read article