Sociology and Current Affairs
Chapter 3 Culture
Multicultural of the United States
• The most multicultural of the world
• Drawn from the Nation’s history of
immigration
• Preferences and tastes differ by culture
– More/fewer children
– Honor of elderly/young
– Peaceful/warlike
– What is polite, rude, beautiful, ugly, etc
What is Culture
• Values, beliefs, behavior and material objects
that together form a people’s way of life
• Our link to the past and our guide to the future
• Nonmaterial Culture—the ideas created by
members of a society
• Material culture—the physical things created by
members of a society
Culture Shock
• Personal disorientation when experiencing
an unfamiliar way of life
Culture Shock—Even in the
US
• A trip to the Amish countryside in Ohio
• A New Yorker visits a small southern town
• Other examples?
Question
• What specific practices or social patterns
familiar to us in the United States that
would shock people from another society?
Humanity—No natural Way
• Since humans have the capacity to think,
there is no one way for them to build a
culture or act
• Only humans rely on culture rather than
instinct to create a way of life and ensure
our survival
Culture and Human Intelligence
• From primates of 12 million years ago
– Animals with largest brains/body size
– Closest relative
• Homo Sapiens of 40,000 years ago
– People looked more or less like ourselves
River Valley Civilizations
• Permanent settlements
• Fashioning the natural environment for
ourselves
– Iraq
– Egypt
Culture, Nation, and Society
• Culture—a shared way of life
• Nation—political entity, with borders—but
not necessarily
• Society—the organized interaction of
people who typically live in a nation or
some specific territory
• The US is both a nation and a society
How Many cultures in the US
• Census Bureau list 200 languages
– 100 languages spoken in the LA school
system
• 7000 languages spoken globally
– But half are spoken by 10,000 people
– Number spoken commonly is declining
• High technology, communication,
international migration, expanding global
economy accounts for decline
The elements of Culture
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Symbols
Languages
Values
Norms
etc
Symbols
• Anything that carries a particular meaning
recognized by people who share a culture
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Word
Whistle (verb)
Graffiti
Raised fist
Flag
Winking the eye
• Interest, understanding, or insult
New Symbols are Created All the
Time
• :-() I am shocked
• :- I am smiling
• :-II I am angry with you
• Etc
Symbols and Culture Shock
• The inability to “read” meaning in new
surroundings
• Not sure how to act
• Fear
• What about seeing people burning the flag
Differences
• People in parts of Asia roast dogs for dinner
• We may offend people in India by asking for a
hamburger because cows are sacred
• A fur coat may represent success or inhumanity
to animals
• Confederate Flag—regional pride/history or a
symbol of racial oppression
Language
• Helen Keller (1880-1968)
– Blind and deaf
– Brought to understanding through sign language
– Became famous educator
• Language
– A system of symbols that allows people to
communicate with one another
• Cultural Transmission
The process by which one generation passes
culture to the next
Literacy
• The US—about 10% are illiterate
• Low income countries—about 50% are illiterate
• Language sets humans apart as the only
creatures who are self-conscious, aware of our
limitations, and ultimate mortality—able to dream
and hope for the future and better
Does Language Shape Reality?
• Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf—yes!
– Symbols are distinctive and build reality
– Language has words or expressions not
found in any other symbolic system
– A single idea may “feel differently” in another
language
Values and Beliefs
• Values: Culturally defined standards that people
use to decide what is desirable, good, beautiful,
and that serves as broad guidelines for social
living. Values support beliefs
• Beliefs: Specific statements that people hold to
be true
• Different—values are more abstract and beliefs
more specific
Values and Beliefs (cont)
• Culturally mosaic nation
• The US differs from Asian countries like
Japan and China—more culturally
homogeneous
Key Values of U.S. Culture
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Equal opportunity
Achievement and success
Material comfort
Activity and work
Practicality and efficiency
Progress
Science
Democracy and free enterprise
Freedom
Racism and group superiority
Values Sometimes in Conflict
• Do our values of equal opportunity conflict
with our ways we view race and sex?
• Do we view values in a hierarchy?
• Are we becoming a “Culture of
Victimization?”
– Where has rugged individualism gone?
– Where is accepting our responsibilities gone?
Values: A Global Perspective
• Higher income countries have different
values than lower—Lower:
– Lower income countries value survival
– Physical safety
– Economic security
– Traditional values
– Celebrate the past
– Family, religion, obedience to authority,
conformity
Higher Income Countries
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Individualism
Self expression
High quality of life
Lifestyle
Happiness
Tolerant
Divorce
Abortion
Norms
• Rules and expectations by which a society
guides the behavior of its members
• Proscriptive—what we should not do
• Prescriptive—what we should do
• Example: we are expected to applaud at
the end of a musical entertainment event
but not after a sermon
Mores (more-rays) and Folkways
• Mores: norms that are widely observed
and have great moral significance
• Folkways: norms for routine or casual
interaction
– Appropriate greetings
– Proper dress
– Draw a line between the right and rude
Social Control
• Mores and folkways make dealings with others
more orderly and predictable
• Social control—attempts by society to regulate
people’s thoughts and behavior
– Help to give people a conscious
– “Downloading a term paper on the internet” can cuase
some guilt
– Mark Twain—people “are the only animals that that
blush—or need to.”
Ideal and Real Culture
• We may not make achieve the ideal
actions or behavior, but we should strive
for it
Material Culture and
Technology
• Physical human creations called “artifacts”
• We own 230 vehicles and half bought in
recent years were SUVs
– Rugged individualism
– Consistent with the U.S.
Material Culture and
Technology
• Technology—Knowledge that people use
to make a way of life in their surroundings
– The better the technology, the more people
can make a life
– The better to shape society around them
Technology Downside
• Has contributed to unhealthy levels of
stress
• Created weapons capable of destroying
mankind
• Amish of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana
live simple live amid “commercialism and
technology run wild”
New Information Technology and
Culture
• Not so much working with your hands as
working with symbols
– Ability to speak
– Ability to write
– Ability to compute
– Ability to design
– Ability to create
Computer-Based Economy
• Generating new cultural ideas, images and
products
Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of
Life in One World
• The U.S. is the most multicultural of all
high-income
• Japan, due to historic isolation, is the most
monocultural of all high income nations
• Between 1820 and 2003, 69 million people
came to our shores
• One million newcomers now arrive each
year.
High Cultural and Popular Culture
• High culture—cultural patterns that distinguish a
society’s elite
• Popular culture—cultural patters that are
widespread among a society’s population
• The text author suggests we may praise high
culture more simply because people have more
money in that culture—oh, really? What about:
– Dangers that may exist in more popular culture
– Untried new habits that sprang up as just popular, in
the culture’s face, hooky actions
– Just because it’s different
Subculture
• Subculture—cultural patterns that set
apart some segment of a society’s
population
– “chopper” riders (author forgets…now
yuppies)
– Polish Americans
– New England “Yankees”
– Etc.
What Kind of Commitment ot
Subculture
• Can set people apart from one another—
sometimes referred to as “tribal mentalities” or
“Balkanism”
• Yugoslavia
– 1990s civil war fueled by extreme diversity
– Two alphabets, three religions, four languages, five
major nationalities, six political republics, absorbing
cultures of seven surrounding countries
– The above was a source of pleasing variety but also
outright violence
The “Melting Pot” is Questioned
• Out of many, one
• The author suggests that one subculture is
as good as another—the rich skier in
Aspen is equal to the skateboarder in L.A.
(can’t a rich skier also be a skateboarder
in L.A.?)
• Therefore, some sociologists prefer to
level the playing field by emphasizing
multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
• An educational program recognizing the
cultural diversity of the United States and
promoting the equality of all cultural
traditions (how do you do that?)
• Formally, we defined ourselves through
Western (primarily English) culture
• Historical traditions or contemporary
diversity—is that the real question?
Eurocentrism
• The dominance of European (especially English)
cultural patterns
• But the country is moving to where people of
African, Asian, and Hispanic ancestry will be the
majority (really?? Then what about the
tendencies to cross-marry, etc)
• Some educators call for Afrocentrism—
emphasizing and promoting African cultural
patterns (OK, but what about the Asians,
Hispanics and Indians)—or is it really just the
loudest voices speaking?
Multicultural Criticism
• Divides people by looking at their skin pigment
rather than looking at people as individuals
– Is it better to live, breathe, and “ooze” in the color of
one’s skin or is it better to simply accept all people as
equals and children of God as made in the image of
God.
– Do we obsess over our differences through the
philosophy of multiculturalism rather than embracing
each other through the simple faith that we are all
seekers of God and the promise of everlasting life?
Multiculturalism Criticism (cont)
• Does multiculturalism unify? Or does it d
separate us by pointing out divisions and
differences among us?
• Instead of recognizing “truth”, does not
multiculturalism interpret truth through the
“prism” of race? Or gender?
• Do we not dissolve into an “African experience”
or “Asian experience” instead of a human
experience
Multiculturalism Criticized (cont)
• What ever happened to Dr. Martin Luther
King’s statement that implores people to
evaluate people based not upon the color
of one’s skin but on the content of one’s
character?
• Are we to study only certain topics and
issues from one point of view? How
intellectual is that?
Cultural Change
• Change remains a constant
• Today’s students more interested in
making money rather than developing a
philosophy of life—true?
• Cultural integration—when one thing
changes, the change(s) effects other
things.
Cultural Lag
• When some things change faster than
others
• Does the laboratory fertilization of an egg
with sperm from a stranger change the
traditional ideas of motherhood and
fatherhood? If yes, then what about
adoption?
Causes of Cultural Change
• Invention: like the telephone, airplane,
and computer
• Discovery: a better understanding of
something already in existence—such as
new elements
• Diffusion: the spread of cultural traits from
one cultural to another
Ethnocentrism and Cultural
Relativism
• Confucius: “All people are the same; it’s
only their habits that are different”
• Ethnocentrism: the practice of judging
another culture by the standards of one’s
own culture
– Common to “come from some place” when
evaluating others
– But, there can be conflict
Cultural Relativism
• Judging a culture by its own standards
• Requires openness
• Requires putting aside cultural standards
known
Problems—Are Some Cultural
Norms Just Plain Wrong?
• What about the children of Indian and
Moroccan families who worked long hours
• Before judging, first ask what do they think
about the norm
A Global Culture
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The world is flat
Everyone is wearing jeans
More people are speaking English
Migration
Communications
Economy
The World is Flat Limitations?
• The author say the advantages go to
North America and Europe—really? What
about the internet?
• Poverty sets people apart from others
• People see cultural differences
differently—Harry Potter has more
influence in one nation than another
The Functions of Culture:
Structural-Functional Analysis
• Complex—strategies for trying to meet
human needs
• Cultural values bind us together
• Think functionally—why do these people
live this way? The Amish?
• Cultural universals: family, funerals, care
of children, etc
Critical Review—StructuralFunctional
• Emphasizes dominant cultural patterns
• Downplays change
Inequality and Culture: SocialConflict Analysis
• Link between culture and inequality
– Any trait benefits some members more than
others
– Marx said that man’s social being determines
his consciousness
– Materialism verses structural functionalism
Capitalism
• Serves the interests of the countries
wealthy elite. (your author) Really? What
about all those who have moved from poor
to middle class and middle class to
wealthy in this system?
• Teaches us that the rich work harder and
are more deserving—Oh?
• Disparages economic equality—Oh, how?
Evolution and Culture
• Sociobiology—a theoretical approach that
explores ways in which human biology
affects how we create culture
• Rests on Charles Darwin—natural
selection—organisms change over time
• Adaptation and survival of the fittest
• But—is one race superior to another?
Culture as a Constraint
• Habit
– Racial prejudices
– Gender discrimination
Culture As Freedom
We are forced to chose and we make
choices—having that freedom
We continue to make and re-make
Good?