Chapter 3: Culture and Society: Hardware and Software of Our Social World

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Chapter 3 Culture and Society Hardware and
Software of Our Social World
Soc 100
Dr. Santos
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Culture and Society

• Society as hardware
• Culture as software

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The Importance of Software

• Culture makes societies unique. Culture is the
  way of life shared by a group of people.
• Knowledge
• Beliefs
• Values
• Rules or laws
• Language
• Customs
• Symbols
• Material products
• Culture provides a guideline for carrying out
  tasks and giving meaning to human activities

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Society The Hardware

• Societies are composed of structures
• Positions we hold
• Groups we belong to
• Institutions

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Society The Hardware

• Society develops in stages depending on many
  things
• Availability of resources
• Technological/scientific knowledge
• Contact with other societies
• Cultural beliefs
• Political events and changes

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Evolution of Societies

• Organic societies
• Large, complex societies
• Held together by the specialization of tasks
• Division of labor that carry significant status
  inequalities
• Efficiency is a key value
• Institutions and rule-driven bureaucratic
  organizations begin to exist.

• Mechanic societies
• Small, simple, pre-modern societies
• Held together by common beliefs, values, and
  emotional ties
• Labor is divided by male/female distinctions and
  age groupings, with little or no status inequality

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Types of Societies

• Hunting and Gathering (Band) Societies
• 99 of human history
• Rely on wild vegetation and animals to live (none
  domesticated) this includes fishing scavenging
• Organized around kinship --gt spousal exchanges
• Nomadic, usually in circular seasonal patterns
• Small (between 20-50 members)
• Gendered division of labor with little status
  difference
• Resources shared fairly sharing is highest value
• No rulers or chiefs - stateless
• Actions and behaviors dictated through tradition
  or survival in specific ecological niches
• Lack material possessions and the desire for them

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Types of Societies

• Herding and Horticultural Societies
• Herding (pastoral) societies
• produce small herds of domesticated animals for
  food and survival
• Horticultural societies
• maintain small garden plots of domesticated
  plants for food and survival nomadic,
  semi-nomadic, settled village modes
• Combined with gathering, hunting fishing
  activities to various degrees
• Chiefdoms emerged, from temporary to hereditary
  from one village to many

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Types of Societies

• Herding and Horticultural Societies
• Semi-Nomadic
• Relatively small (50 - 3,000 members) in Old
  World became quite large in New World
• Status differences become important and produce
  inequality
• Traditional gender roles emerge patriarchy
  matriarchy
• Some material possessions are unequally
  distributed, as casts/strata emerge

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Types of Societies

• Agricultural Societies
• Rely on raising domesticated crops for food
• Use technological advances for increased
  efficiency and higher crop yields
• Plows
• Irrigation
• Use of animals
• Fertilization
• Very labor intensive --gt peasantization is
  accompanied with the rise of the central state
  landlord classes, who exploit and oppress the
  peasants dispossess them of surplus.

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Types of Societies

• Agricultural Societies
• Permanent settlements
• Use of advanced technologies
• Populations can be large (1,000,000 or more)
• Stratification intensifies
• Peasant classes
• Ruling classes kings dynasties, landlord
  nobilities, priests
• Institutions beyond the family are established
• Religious
• Political
• Military organizations

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Types of Societies

• Industrial Societies
• Rely on mechanized production
• Pronounced division of labor
• Rise in overall standard of living
• Wide gaps between owners and laborers appear and
  are the subject of bitter class struggle
• State power and coercive apparatus become
  consolidated --gt bigger wars revolutions
• Population concentrates in cities urbanization
  and de-peasantization
• Kinship patterns change women lose status
• Social change becomes ever more rapid

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Types of Societies

• Postindustrial Societies
• Technology, or scientific knowledge used for
  utilitarian or economic purposes, is very
  important
• Majority of labor force in service positions
• The division of labor more pronounced
  globalized
• Technical and professional education increasingly
  important
• Stratification based on technological knowledge
  and education now overlaps wealth status
  stratification
• Emphasis on science to solve social problems
  including
• Creating alternate energy sources
• Finding automated ways of completing tasks
• Using computers and robots to complete tasks
  formerly done by individuals
• Information Revolution the internet, cable TV,
  etc.

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Culture The Software

• Culture is the way of shared life by a group of
  peoplethe knowledge, beliefs, values, rules or
  lays, language, customs, symbols, and material
  products within a society that help meet human
  needs give meaning to human activities

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Real Versus Ideal Culture

• We teach new members of our society the ideal
  culture, or the practices and beliefs that are
  most desirable avowed

• However, the real culture of a society refers to
  the way things in society are actually done,
  including those practices and beliefs that are
  unavowed or deemed undesirable

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Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativity

• Ethnocentrism is the tendency to view ones own
  group and its cultural values expectations as
  right, proper, and superior to others
• Were Number One!

• Cultural relativism is setting aside ones own
  personal beliefs and prejudices to understand and
  value a culture by its own standards, or as a
  member of that culture would

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Culture and Our Social World (at the National
Level)
Geoculture of the world-system
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Micro-level Analysis Microstructures

• Microcultures organizations that influence only
  a small segment of an individuals lives or only
  affects an individuals life for a small period
  of time

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Meso-level Analysis Subcultures and
Countercultures

• A subculture is a social unit smaller than
  embedded in a national state but large enough to
  sustain people throughout the life span
• Elements that make them unique
• Share conventions and expectations of national
  dominant culture
• Influence peoples lives in pervasive ways
• Not so Sub May actually exist repeatedly in
  various contiguous or dispersed national states
  oppressed nationalities (Kurds), diasporas
  (African, Chinese, Jewish) and culture regions
  (Western Hemisphere Indigenous Peoples)

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Meso-level Analysis Subcultures and
Countercultures

• A counterculture is a group or movements with
  expectations and values that challenge or
  contrast sharply with the dominant values of a
  particular society
• Values or practices that go against laws and
  regulations of the dominant culture
• May wish to replace values of the larger culture
• Most often short-lived, but may have lasting
  impact
• Some aspects accepted by the dominant culture
• Countercultures can challenge unfair treatment of
  powerless groups in society or various
  shortcomings in its dominant culture
  (consumerism, eco-toxic, violent prone or
  militaristic, shallow unenchanted, etc.)

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Macro-level Analysis National and Global Culture

• Natural Culture and Society
• Every culture intricately related to a society
• Global Society and Culture
• Globalization is the process where the entire
  globe is becoming a single socio-cultural place
  - each world era has its geoculture
• Globalization or Westernization?
• Global culture is the behavioral standards,
  symbols, values, and material objects that have
  become common across the globe

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Material Culture The Artifacts of Life

• Material culture includes all the objects we can
  see or touch, all the artifacts of a group of
  people

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Nonmaterial Culture Beliefs, Values, Rules, and
Language

• Nonmaterial culture is the invisible and
  intangible parts of culture
• Beliefs
• Values
• Norms/Rules
• Language

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Nonmaterial Culture Beliefs

• Beliefs are ideas we hold about life, about the
  way the society works, and about where we fit
  into it
• Based in tradition
• Influence choices we make

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Nonmaterial Culture Values

• Values are nonmaterial shared judgments about
  what is desirable or undesirable, right or wrong,
  good or bad
• So much a part of the way of life that they can
  be hard to identify
• Groups in society can have different values
• can lead to group conflict

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Nonmaterial Culture Rules

• Norms are rules of behavior shared by members of
  a society and rooted in the value system
• Folkways
• Mores
• Taboos
• Laws

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Non-material Culture Sanctions

• Sanctions are behaviors that reinforce norms
  through rewards and penalties
• Formal sanctions
• Positive formal sanctions
• Negative formal sanctions
• Informal sanctions
• Positive informal sanctions
• Negative informal sanctions

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Nonmaterial Culture Language

• Language is the spoken, written, or nonverbal use
  of symbols to convey meaning, objects, or ideas
• Takes three forms
• Spoken
• Written
• Nonverbal
• The foundation of every culture
• Makes culture possible

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Nonmaterial Culture Language

• Spoken language
• Uses a set of sounds to symbolize objects or
  ideas
• Sounds generally hold common meaning to all
  members of a culture
• Written language
• Uses a set of images to symbolize objects or
  ideas
• Societies tend to store information through
  written language
• Makes communication over distances possible
• Nonverbal language
• Uses gestures, facial expression, and body
  posture to symbolize an object or idea

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Nonmaterial Culture Language

• The linguistic relativity theory posits that
  people who speak a specific language make
  interpretations of their reality based on their
  knowledge of that language

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Understanding CultureSymbolic Interaction Theory

• How we learn to share meanings of symbols
• Symbols are the basic element of all cultures
• Humanness comes from the impact we have upon
  each other through shared understandings of
  symbols
• We learn meanings of symbols through interaction
  with others
• We define how we should act through our
  definition of situations and symbols

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Understanding CultureSymbolic Interaction Theory

• Three steps through symbols gain meaning and
  importance
• The symbol is created
• The symbol is objectified, assuming a reality
  independent of the creator
• The group internalizes the symbol

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Understanding CultureStructural Functionalism

• Looks for the functions or purposes behind the
  actions and practices of a culture
• Shared norms, values, and beliefs serve the
  function of holding a society or a subculture
  together
• However sometimes shared norms, values, and
  beliefs are dysfunctional for individuals or
  groups of individuals within a society

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Understanding CultureConflict Theory

• Societies are composed of groups each of which
  protects its own self-interests and struggles to
  make its own cultural ways dominant in the
  society
• Dominant groups may impose their cultural beliefs
  on minorities and other subcultural groups
• This practice can create conflict
• People with privilege and power in society
  manipulate agents of socialization so people
  learn the values, beliefs, and norms of the
  privileged group(s)
• However, conflict theory does not explain stable
  societies

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Policy and Cultural Change

• Technology is bringing change to societies around
  the world
• Cultural lag occurs when shifts in society occur
  unequally between material culture and
  nonmaterial culture
• New technologies must be used cautiously
• Some can save lives
• Others can disrupt and destroy cultures