Introduction to SociologyChapters 3 and 4

Competencies and Methodologies Main Competencies Covered

2. Analyze the importance of cultures within societies.

Methodologies Lecture, Large Group Discussion, Interaction

Culture

The values, beliefs, behavior, and material objects that together form a people’s way of life

Terminology

Nonmaterial culture The intangible world of ideas created by

members of a society

Material culture The tangible things created by members of a

society

Terminology Culture shock

Disorientation due to the inability to make sense out of one’s surroundings Domestic and foreign travel

Ethnocentrism A biased “cultural yardstick”

Cultural relativism More accurate understanding

Have you ever experienced culture shock?

An example of ethnocentrism….“Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams.”

-Mary Ellen Kelly

Elements of Culture Symbols Language Values and Belief Norms Material Culture

Including technology

Symbols Anything that carries a particular

meaning recognized by people who share a culture

Societies create new symbols all the time.

Reality for humans is found in the meaning things carry with them. The basis of culture; makes social life

possible

Symbols People must be mindful that meanings

vary from culture to culture. Meanings can even vary greatly

within the same groups of people. Fur coats, Confederate flags, etc.

Figure 3.1Human Languages: A Variety of SymbolsHere the English word “read” is written in twelve of the hundreds of languages humans use to communicate with each other.

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 Sapir-Whorf thesis

People perceive the world through the cultural lens of language.

Global Map 3.1aLanguage in Global Perspective–ChineseChinese (including Mandarin, Cantonese, and dozens of other dialects) is the native tongue of one-fifth of the world’s people, almost all of whom live in Asia. Although all Chinese people read and write with the same characters, they use several dozen dialects. The “official” dialect, taught in schools throughout the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Taiwan, is Mandarin (the dialect of Beijing, China’s historical capital city). Cantonese, the language of Canton, is the second most common Chinese dialect.

Global Map 3.1bLanguage in Global Perspective–EnglishEnglish is the native tongue or official language in several world regions (spoken by one-tenth of humanity) and has become the preferred second language in most of the world.

Global Map 3.1cLanguage in Global Perspective–SpanishThe largest concentration of Spanish speakers is in Latin America and, or course, Spain. Spanish is also the second most widely spoken language in the United States.

Values and Beliefs

Values Culturally defined standards of desirability,

goodness, and beauty, which serve as broad guidelines for social living. Values support beliefs.

Beliefs Specific statements that people hold to be true. Particular matters that individuals consider to be

true or false.

Sociologist Robin Williams’ Ten Values That Are Central to American Life

1. Equal opportunity2. Achievement and success3. Material comfort4. Activity and work5. Practicality and efficiency6. Progress7. Science8. Democracy and free enterprise9. Freedom10. Racism and group superiority

Are some of these values inconsistent with one another?

Values Sometimes Conflict

Williams's list includes examples of value clusters.

Sometimes one key cultural value contradicts another.

Value conflict causes strain.

Values change over time.

Customs and Courtesies Greetings Visiting Eating Gestures

The People General Attitudes Personal Appearance Population Language Religion

Lifestyle Family Dating and Marriage Diet Business Recreation

Robert BellahCultures are dramatic conversations about things that matter to their participants.

A Global Perspective

• Cultures have their own values.

• Lower-income nations have cultures that value survival.

• Higher-income countries have cultures that value individualism and self-expression.

Figure 3.2Cultural Values of Selected CountriesHigher-income countries are secular-rational and favor self-expression. The cultures of lower-income countries are more traditional and concerned with economic survival.Source: Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy by Ronald Inglehart and Christian Weizel, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Norms

Rules and expectations by which society guides its members’ behavior

Types Proscriptive

Should-nots, prohibited Prescriptive

Shoulds, prescribed like medicine

Norms - Types Mores and Folkways

Mores (pronounced "more-rays") Widely observed and have great

moral significance Folkways

Norms for routine and casual interaction

Social ControlVarious means by which members of society

encourage conformity to norms Guilt

A negative judgment we make about ourselves Shame

The painful sense that others disapprove of our actions

Material Culture and Technology

Culture includes a wide range of physical human creations or artifacts.

A society's artifacts partly reflect underlying cultural values.

In addition to reflecting values, material culture also reflects a society's technology or knowledge that people use to make a way of life in their surroundings.

Ideal Versus Real Culture Ideal culture

The way things should be Social patterns mandated by values and

norms Real culture

They way things actually occur in everyday life

Social patterns that only approximate cultural expectations

Cultural Diversity

High culture–Cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite.

Popular culture–Cultural patterns that are widespread among society’s population.

Subculture–Cultural patterns that set apart some segment of society’s population.

Counterculture–Cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society.

National Map 3.1Language Diversity across the United States

Multiculturalism

An educational program recognizing the cultural diversity of the United States and promoting

the equality of all cultural traditions.

• Eurocentrism–The dominance of European (especially English) cultural patterns

• Afrocentrism–The dominance of African cultural patterns

Interdependence Culture integration

The close relationships among various elements of a cultural system Example: Computers and changes in our

language

Culture lag The fact that some cultural elements change

more quickly than others, which might disrupt a cultural system Example: Medical procedures and ethics

Life Objectives of First-Year College Students, 1969-2008

Culture Changes in Three Ways

Invention–Creating new cultural elements Telephone or airplane

Discovery–Recognizing and better understanding of something already in existence X-rays or DNA

Diffusion–The spread of cultural traits from one society to another Jazz music or much of the English language

Ethnocentrism The practice of judging another culture by the

standards of one’s own culture Cultural relativism

The practice of judging a culture by its own standards

Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

Figure 3.4The View from “Down Under”North America should be “up” and South America “down,” or so we think. But because we live on a globe, “up” and “down” have no meaning at all. The reason this map of the Western Hemisphere looks wrong to us is not that it is geographically inaccurate; it simply violates our ethnocentric assumption that the United States should be “above” the rest of the Americas.

Is There a Global Culture? The Basic Thesis

The flow of goods–Material product trading has never been as important.

The flow of information–Few, if any, places are left where worldwide communication isn’t possible.

The flow of people–Knowledge means people learn about places where they feel life might be better.

Limitations to the thesis All the flows have been uneven. Assumes affordability of goods People don’t attach the same meaning to material

goods.

Theoretical Analysis of Culture Structural-functional

Culture is a complex strategy for meeting human needs.

Cultural universals–Traits that are part of every known culture; includes family, funeral rites, and jokes

Critical evaluation Ignores cultural diversity and downplays

importance of change

Inequality and Culture Social-conflict

Cultural traits benefit some members at the expense of others.

Approach rooted in Karl Marx and materialism; society’s system of material production has a powerful effect on the rest of a culture.

Critical evaluation Understates the ways cultural patterns integrate

members into society

Evolution and Culture Sociobiology

A theoretical paradigm that explores ways in which human biology affects how we create culture.

Approach rooted in Charles Darwin and evolution; living organisms change over long periods of time based on natural selection.

Critical evaluation Might be used to support racism or sexism Little evidence to support theory; people learn

behavior within a cultural system

Culture and Human Freedom

Culture as constraint We only know our world in terms of our culture.

Culture as freedom Culture is changing and offers a variety of

opportunities. Sociologists share the goal of learning more about

cultural diversity.

Applying Theory: Culture

Finley Peter Dunne“To most people a savage nation is one that wears comfortable clothes.”

SocietyPeople who interact in a defined territory and share culture

Edmund Burke“Society is indeed a contract between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born.”

Visions of Society

Gerhard Lenski Society and technology

Karl Marx Society in conflict

Max Weber The power of ideas shapes society

Emile Durkheim How traditional and modern societies hang together

Gerhard Lenski

Sociocultural evolution–The changes that occur as a society gains new technology

Societies range from simple to the technologically complex.

Societies simple in technology tend to resemble one another.

More technologically complex societies reveal striking cultural diversity.

Sociocultural Evolution Technology shapes other cultural patterns.

Simple technology can only support small numbers of people who live simple lives.

The greater amount of technology a society has within its grasp, the faster cultural change will take place.

High-tech societies are capable of sustaining large numbers of people who are engaged in a diverse division of labor.

Lenski’s Five Types Of Societies

Hunting and gathering The use of simple tools to hunt animals and gather

vegetation Horticultural and pastoral

Horticulture–The use of hand tools to raise crops Pastoralism–The domestication of animals

Lenski’s Five Types Of Societies

Agriculture Large-scale cultivation using plows harnessed to

animals or more powerful energy sources Industrialism

The production of goods using advanced sources of energy to drive large machinery

Postindustrialism The production of information using computer

technology

Limits of TechnologyWhile expanding technology can help to solve many existing social problems, it creates new problems even as it remedies old ones.

Karl Marx Social conflict–Struggle between segments of society

over valued resources Capitalists–People who own and operate factories and

other businesses in pursuit of profits Proletariat–People who sell their productive labor for

wages Social institutions–All the major spheres of social life

or societal subsystems organized to meet human needs Infrastructure–Society’s economic system Superstructure–Other social institutions: family,

religion, political

Karl Marx’s Model of SocietyThis diagram illustrates Marx’s materialist view that the system of economic production shapes the entire society. Economic production involves both technology (industry, in the case of capitalism) and social relationships (for capitalism, the relationship between the capitalists, who own the factories and businesses, and the workers, who are the source of labor). On this infrastructure, or foundation, rests society’s superstructure, which includes its major social institutions as well as core cultural values and ideas. Marx maintained that every part of a society supports the economic system.

Karl Marx Rejected false consciousness–The explanation of

social problems as the shortcomings of individuals rather than the flaws of society

Believed that the history of all existing society is the history of class conflict–Conflict between entire classes over the distribution of a society’s wealth and power

Believed that workers must replace false consciousness with class consciousness–Workers’ recognition of themselves as a class unified in opposition to capitalists and, ultimately, to capitalism itself

An example of false consciousness…Playing the lottery….

Woodrow Wilson“The truth is that we are all caught in a great economic system which is heartless.”

Capitalism and Alienation Alienation–The experience of isolation and

misery resulting from powerlessness.

Marx: To the capitalists, workers are nothing more than a source of labor.

Another contradiction of capitalist society: As people develop technology to gain power over the world, the capitalist economy gains more control over people.

Capitalism and Alienation Capitalism alienates workers in four specific

ways: From the act of working

Workers have no say in production; work is tedious and repetitive.

From the products of work Workers have no ownership in the product that is sold for

profit.

From other workers Work is competitive rather than cooperative.

From human potential Workers deny, not fulfill themselves in their work.

Revolution The only way out of capitalism is to remake society.

Socialism is a system of production that could provide for the social needs of all.

Marx believed that the working majority would realize they held the key to a better future.

The change would be revolutionary and perhaps even violent.

Marx believed a socialist society would end class conflict.

Pope Leo XIII“It is impossible to reduce society to one level.”

Max Weber

Rationalization of society–The historical change from tradition to rationality as the main type of human thought.

The willingness to adopt the latest technology is a strong indicator of how rationalized a society is.

Why are some societies more eager than others to adopt new technology?

Max Weber

Claimed that the key to the birth of industrial capitalism lay in the Protestant Reformation.

Industrial capitalism is the major outcome of Calvinism.

The Calvinist idea of predestination Worldly prosperity is a sign of God's grace. Poverty is a sign of God's rejection.

Weber’s Rational Social Organization

Seven characteristics:1. Distinctive social institutions2. Large-scale organization3. Specialized tasks4. Personal discipline5. Awareness of time6. Technical competence7. ImpersonalityExpressed in bureaucracy and capitalism

Durkheim“The only question that a man can ask is not whether he can live outside society, but in what society he wishes to live.”

Emile Durkheim Society

More than individuals Society has a life of its own, beyond our personal

experiences Social facts

Any patterns rooted in society rather than the experience of individuals Society has an “objective reality” beyond our own

subjective perceptions of the world Examples: Norms, values, religious beliefs, and rituals

Power to guide our thoughts and actions

Durkheim Warned that modern society creates

anomie–A condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals

Mechanical solidarity–Social bonds based on common sentiment and shared moral values that are common among members of preindustrial societies

Durkheim

Organic solidarity–Social bonds based on specialization and interdependence that are strong within industrial societies

Key to the change is an expanding division of labor–Specialization of economic activity

Four Visions of Society Gerhard Lenski

A shared culture Karl Marx

Elites force an ‘uneasy peace’ Max Weber

Rational thought, large-scale organizations Emile Durkheim

Specialized division of labor

Four Visions of Society

Gerhard Lenski Changing technology

Karl Marx Social conflict

Max Weber From traditional to rational thought

Emile Durkheim From mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity

Are Societies Improving?

Gerhard Lenski: Modern technology offers expanded human choice, but leaves us with new sets of dangers.

Karl Marx: Social conflict would only end once production of goods and services were taken out of the hands of the capitalists and placed into the hands of all people.

Are Societies Improving?

Max Weber: Saw socialism as a greater evil than capitalism, as large, alienating bureaucracies would gain even more control over people.

Emile Durkheim: Optimistic about modernity and the possibility of more freedom for individuals, but concerned about the dangers of anomic feelings.