PSCC Chapter 7 Culture

8/4/2019 PSCC Chapter 7 Culture

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Monday, September 19, 2011



Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by

symbols, constituting the distinctive achievementsof human groups, including their embodiments inartifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e., historically derived and selected)

ideas [beliefs] and especially their attached values;culture systems may, on the one hand, beconsidered as products of action, on the other, asconditioning elements of further action.(from Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952)




Patterns of behavior?

Symbols?

Ideas, beliefs, values?

Yes, these are all important, but most of all

remember:

culture is not only a product of humanaction, but also conditions human action




Unfortunately, almost everything:

What we say, write, do, act, make, destroy, believe, ...

That’s why we’re like fish in water when it

comes to culture.

But sometimes we get a grasp on it when wesee how it differs across societies

For example, what happened in 1492?




At a formal dinner party, begin eating with the fork that is furthest fromthe plate.

Do not pick your nose in public.

Eat jello with a spoon, not your fingers.

Do not sneeze on someone else’s hamburger.

The highest position in the Hells Angels National Organization is

President.

π =3.1416

An opera is a drama set to music in which the words are sung

“Ring around the Rosie, pocket full of posies, Ashes, Ashes, All Fall

Down!”




The “culture” of a group or class, is the peculiar or distinctive“way of life” of the group or class, the meanings, values and

ideas embodied in institutions, in social relations, in systems of

belief, in mores and customs, in the uses of objects and material

life. Culture is the distinctive shapes in which this material and

social organization of life expresses itself. A culture includes the“maps of meaning” which make things intelligible to its

members. These “maps of meaning” are not simply carried

around in the head: they are objectivated in the patters of social

organization and relationship through which the individual

becomes a “social individual.” Culture is the way the socialrelations of a group are structured and shaped; but it is also theway those shapes are experienced, understood, and integrated.

from J. Clark, S. Hall, T. Jefferson and B. Roberts. 1976. “Subcultures, Cultures

and Class,” in S. Hall and T. Jefferson (eds.), Resistance through Rituals.




Material culture = hardware

Artifacts embedded in which are expressions

of non material culture (e.g., what we value,

our beliefs, who we are); which object areyou?

Nonmaterial culture = software

language, symbols, language, norms, values

and beliefs that shape the way we interact

with the world around us, including our

material cultureMonday, September 19, 2011

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/objectified/which-object-are-you.html








Symbol–anything that stands in for something else;

especially something that holds a shared, arbitrarily

assigned meaning

Norms–rules for behavior (folkways, mores, taboos)

Sanctions (positive/negative, informal/formal)

Beliefs–ideas or statements about what is real

Values–goals for behavior expressed by ranking

types of behavior in terms of their relative

desirability (ideas about what is good and desirable)




Language is based on the use of symbols and is an importantpart of culture for the following reasons:

it organizes the way we think and how we conceive of events

and things in our environment;

it allows human experience to be cumulative, thus freeing usfrom the present;

it allows shared perspectives and understandings;

it allows complex, shared, goal-directed behavior;

it helps to identify who people are and where they arepositioned in society.




social institution–a set of ideas, that becomes

embedded through practice, about the way a

particular social need should be met (or howsomething should be done)

Cultural diffusion–the movement of cultural

elements from one society to another

Cultural leveling–the homogenization of culture

across multiple societies




“The paradox is that man is capable of

producing a world that he then experiences as

something other than a human product.”from P. Berger and T. Luckmann. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality.

“It is not the consciousness of men that

determines their being, but, on the contrary,their social being that determines their

consciousness.” ~Karl Marx




If specific elements of culture evolved overtime to help solve problems societies face increating structure and maintaining order, then

what “problem” does Lady Gaga help solve?

What is “pop culture” and why does it exist?




High and low culture are distinguished on the

basis of preferences that are associated withdifferences in social class, education, and othervariables within the community.

Cultural capital helps recreate the social class

structure – a process called social reproduction– as seen in this clip from “The Wire.”


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhlW6SRu5rA





Pop culture alludes to a form of culture that

makes little, if any, such categorical distinctions

between high and low.

Pop culture grew out of several overlapping

trends: industrial revolution, mass produced

goods, more leisure time, more expendableincome.

Where does Capitalism fit into this?




is “by the people and for the people”

rejects the supremacy of tradition, past cultural

practices, and pretensions of intellectualist

tendencies inherent in contemporary

traditional culture

is populist, popular and public

Monday September 19 2011

PSCC Chapter 7 Culture

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Transcript of PSCC Chapter 7 Culture