Chapter 3 and 4

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Chapter 3: Culture Learning objectives Explain the development of culture as a human strategy for survival 1. Identity common elements of culture 2. Discuss dimensions of cultural difference and cultural change 3. Apply sociology’s macro level theories to gain greater understanding of culture 4. What is culture?? Culture • The ways of thinking , the way of acting, and the material objects that together shape a people’s way of life ⿞ People an rely on culture for survival ⿞ The ideas, values and artifacts that make up a shared way of life ⿞ Non material 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 and human intelligence Only humans rely on culture rather than on instinct to create a way of life and to ensure survival • 40,00 years ago people who looked more or less like us roamed the earth • Civilization emerged 12,000 yers ago • Changing natural environment to benefit themselves ⿞ What is culture? Globally there are almost 7000 languages and at least that many distinct cultures • Nation ⿞ Political entity and its people ‣ Refers to a political entity ‣ Ex. State or country • People ‣ Ethnic group, ancestry or history • State ⿞ Political entity in a territory with borders ‣ Ex. Argentina or Zimbabwe • Society ⿞ People who interact in a defined territory and share culture ‣ Without a nation or state ‣ Ex. Quebecs and First Nations ‣ At the federal or state level ‣ The elements of culture Symbols • Anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture ⿞ The meaning of symbols can change over time and across cultures • Reality is shaped by the meaning of things • Traveller can inflict and experience culture shock because the meaning of symbols vary from culture to culture and • even vary within the same groups of people Language • A system of symbols that allows people to communicate with another ⿞ The key that unlocks centuries of accumulated wisdom ⿞ Cultural transmission ⿞ The process by which one generations passes culture to the next ‣ Our culture contains countless symbols of those who came before ‣ Sapir-wharf thesis ⿞ People perceive the world through the cultural lens of language ‣ Language shapes reality ‣ Ex. Philippines and Guyanese may not see the word the same • Langauges: A variety of symbols • Human languages such as Greek, Hindi, Korean use symbols ⿞ Values Canadian is a cultural mosaic Values •

Culturally defined standards of desirability, goodness, and beauty ⿞ Which serve as broad guidelines for social living ⿞ Values support beliefs ⿞ Abstract standards of what is good or bd and beliefs are particular matters ⿞ Beliefs • Specific statements that people hold to be true ⿞ These form the core of our personalities • Form of cultural capital • Often in harmony, sometimes in conflict Sometimes one key cultural value contradicts another • Individualistic interest vs contribution to contribution to larger community ⿞ Belief in equality vs discrimination ⿞ Cooperativeness vs competitiveness ⿞ Value conflict causes strain • Value changes overtime • A global perspective Cultures have their own values • Lower incomes nations have cultural that value survival • Higher income countries have cultures that value individualism and self expression • Norms Norms • The rules and expectations by which society guides the behaviour of its members ⿞ Types • Proscriptive: what we should not do ⿞ Presciprtive: what we should do ⿞ Mores and folkways Mores • Norms that are widely observed and have great morals significance ⿞ These are also called taboos ⿞ Ex, sexual relationships with children ‣ Folkways • Norms for routine or causal interactions ⿞ Ex. Styles of dress, etiquette ⿞ Social control Social control • Attempts by others to regulate people’s thoughts and behaviour ⿞ Examples of social control include • Shame ⿞ The painful sense that others disapprove of our actions ‣ Guilt ⿞ A negative judgment we make about ourselves ‣ Ideal and real culture Ideal culture • The way things should be ⿞ Social patterns mandated by values and norms ⿞ Real culture • The way things actually occur in everyday life ⿞ Social patterns that only approximate cultural expectations ⿞ Material culture and technology Culture include a wide range of physical human creations of artifacts • Ex. Forks and chopsticks ⿞ Technology • Knowledge that people use to make a way of life in their surroundings ⿞ New information technology • Post industrial society uses computers and other electronics devices which generate new cultural ideas, images ⿞ and products Cultural diversity in Canada Immigration has made Canada the world most multicultural country • This place over two centuries and especially the last 30 years • Before 1961, about 90% of immigrants to Canada came from Europe •

Since 1961more and more immigrants have come from Asia’s and the Middle East • Canada is considered a cultural mosaic • High culture • Cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite ⿞ Popular culture • Cultural patterns that are widespread among society population ⿞ The set two types of culture can reflect economic inequality and social class • Subculture • Cultural patterns that set apart some segment of a society population ⿞ Ex. Jazz music ⿞ Multiculturalism • Reflected in social policy designed to encourage ethnic or cultural heterogeneity ⿞ Eurocentrism • The dominate of European cultural patterns ⿞ Proponents of mutilculturalism Argue that • (1) Gives a more accurate picture of Canadas past ⿞ (2) allows us to come to terms with our current diversity ⿞ (3) strengths academic achievements of children and immigrants ⿞ (4) is relevant to an increasingly interdependent world ⿞ Cultural appropriation • A concept that has been used to describe when a member of a dominant group adopts some elements from a ⿞ marginalized groups culture Ex.found in hair, music and tattooing ⿞ Counterculture • Refers to cultural patterns that strongly oppose the widely accepted culture within a society ⿞ Some countercultures seeks to disrupt society though violence • Cultural change Cultural integration • The close relationship amongst various elements of a cultural system ⿞ Cultural lag • Some elements change at different rates, causing various degree of disruption in cultural systems ⿞ Cause of cultural change • Invention ⿞ Creating new cultural elements ‣ Discovery ⿞ Recognizing and better understanding something already in existence ‣ Diffusion ⿞ The spread of cultural traits from one society to another ‣ Ethnocentrisms and cultural relativism Tension between two concepts • Ethnocentrism ⿞ The practice of judging another culture by the standard of one culture ‣ Cultural relativism ⿞ The practice of judging a culture by its own standards ‣ A global culture Today we observe many of the same cultural practices the world over due to • Global economy ⿞ The flow of goods ‣ Global communications ⿞ The flow of information ‣ Global migration ⿞ The flow of people ‣ Transnationalism • Refers to people moving back and forth between two countries and maintains strong ties in both countries ⿞ This phenomenon has instensied in the past three decades ⿞ Diaspora • The migration of a group of people who maintain their national and ethic identity in their new country ⿞ Limitations of a global culture thesis The global flow of goods, information and people has been uneven • This perceptive assumes people everywhere can afford these goods •

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People don’t attach the same meaning to cultural practices throughout the world • Theories of culture The functions of culture : Structural functional analysis Culture is a complex strategy for meeting human needs • Cultural values direct our lives give meaning to what we do, and bind people together • Cultural universals • Traits that are part of every known culture ⿞ Include family, funeral rites, and jokes ⿞ Evaluate • This approach potentially ignores cultural diversity and downplays importance of change ⿞ Inequality and culture : social conflict analysis 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 ⿞ Gender and culture: Feminist analysis Feminist claim that our culture is gendered • Our society defines masculinity as superior and this is reflected in our way of life ⿞ Cultural patterns reflect and support gender inequality • Evaluate Conflict theories argue that cultural systems can produce inequality and the dominant of some people over others • This pressure leads to pressure for social change • However, this approach can under-estimate how cultural patterns integrate people • An integrated perspective should consider both functional and conflict perspectives • Evolution and culture Sociobiology • Explores ways in which human biology affects how we create culture ⿞ Approach rooted in Charlie’s Darwin and evolution ⿞ Living organisms change over long periods of time based on natural selection ‣ Critical review • Might be used to support racism or sexism ⿞ Little evidence to support theory ⿞ People learn behaviour within a cultural system ‣ Culture and postmodernism Post modernism • Refers to any an array of theories, projects and ideas that emerged at the end of twineth century ⿞ Assumes that there is no single “truth” focuses on how knowledge is constructed and communicated within ‣ various discourses Focuses on how power is implicated in discourse ⿞ Characteristics include the mixing of elements from different times and places, the decline of authority ⿞ Applying theory: What is culture? Structural functional theory • Culture is a system of behaviour by which members of societies cooperate to meet their needs ⿞ Social conflict and feminists theories • Culture is system that benefits some other people and disadvantages others ⿞ Socio-biology theory • Culture is a system of behaviour that is partly shaped by human biology ⿞ Postmodernism • Culture is a fluid, negotiated and reshaped by ideology and discourse ⿞ Culture and human freedom Culture as constraint • We only our terms of our culture ⿞ Culture as freedom • Culture is changing and offers a variety of opportunities ⿞ Sociologist share the goal of learning more about cultural diversity ⿞ Summary Seeing culture in everyday life • Explain the development of culture as a human survival strategy • Identify common elements of culture •

Discuss dimensions of cultural different and cultural change • Apply macro level theories to get better understanding of culture • Critique culture as limiting or expanding human freedom • Chapter 4: Society Learning objectives Describe how technological development has shaped the history of human sciences 1. Analyze the historical emergence of social inequality and class conflict 2. Demonstrate the importance of ideas to the development of human societies 3. Contrast the social bonds typical of traditional and modern societies 4. Summarize the contributions of Lenksins, marx, Weber and Durkheim to our understanding of social change 5. Gerard and Lean : Society and technology Society • refers to people who interact in a defined territory and share a culture ⿞ Sociologist are interested in how technological change impact societies • Gerard and Jean Lenksi coined the term socio-cultural evolution • Changes that occur as a society gains new technology ⿞ Coined the term of technology ⿞ Societies range from simple to the technology complex • Technologically simply societies change very slowly, so that even today their members live more or less the life of • their ancestors More technologically complex societies support bigger populations, more affluence and change at a faster pace • Hunting/Gathering societies Defined by the use of simple tools to hunt animals and gather vegetation • These societies are also called foraging societies • Some indigenous people in Canada and Australia maintain these traditions • Caregiving and food production is shared among members of these societies • Little control over the environment • Belief in spirits ⿞ Life expectancy is short, approx 20 years • These societies are disappearing • The term foraging society • Used to describe to hunting and gathering societies ⿞ Horticultural and pastoral societies Horticulture • The use of hand tools to raise crops ⿞ This technology started in the Middle East and spread throughout the world ⿞ Pastoralism • The domestication of animals ⿞ Societies that mow horticulture and pastoralism exits today in South America, Africa and Asia • Material surplus • More than enough food is produced to feed a population ⿞ Once this is reached, not everyone has to work ⿞ Agarian societies Agriculture • Large scale cultivation using plows attached to animals or more powerful energy sources ⿞ Occurred in Middle East 5000 years ago • Social inequality • Peasents do most of the work, elites have time for art and literature ⿞ Men become socially dominant ‣ Link between high culture and social privilege is established ‣ Industrial societies Industrialism • The production of goods using advanced sources of energy to drive large machinery ⿞ People have more power over their environment than ever before • Cars, plumbing, electricity, sanitation etc, are established • People needed to find wage labour in factories and were spending less time with family • Work was characterized by an advanced division of labour • Ubran centres become more diverse • Increasing separation of the public sphere of work and the private sphere of family • This period is defined by social inequality and the creation of a working class and a clas of owners and industry •

Post industrial societies Post-industrialism • Defined as Technology that supports an information based economy ⿞ Significant changes in occupational straucrtures and roles ⿞ Disindustrialization • Expansion of the service sector and contraction of the goods-producing manufacturing sector ⿞ New technologies lead to job less as well as create new jobs and fields of work ⿞ Post industrial People no longer worked for the same company their whole lives • Short and long term economic insecurity results form a lack of secure employment with medical and pension benefits • Platform economy • Focus on how economic activity and jobs are facilitated by electronic platforms ⿞ Ex, skip the dishes ⿞ Gig economy • Is a term used tp describe precarious employment ⿞ Local gig means workers have to be geographically available • Remote works means that workers can be anywhere and do their work electronically • Ex. Travel nurse ⿞ Summing up; Socio-cultural evolution Hunting/ Gathering societies 1. Existed until about 12,000 years ago A. Nomadic camp life with economic cooperation and little to no social inequality B. Horticultural and pastoral societies 2. Existed between 12-300 years ago with few reaming A. Family centred B. Religious system develop C. Moderate specialization and increased social inequality D. Agrarian societies 3. From 5000 years ago A. Cities are common B. Political and economic systems emerge C. Increasing specialization and social inequality D. Industrial societies 4. 1750-present A. Advanced mechanization , increased inequality B. Distinct economic political and family systems C. Post industrial societies 5. Emerging in recent decades A. Information processing work replacing industrial production B. The limits of technology Technological developments have improved medicine, productivity and cultural diversity but also created problems • such as New crimes ⿞ Worker displacement and job loss ⿞ Threats to the natural and physical environment ⿞ Karl Marx: Society and Conflict Karl Marx • 1818-1883 ⿞ Emphasis on social conflict • The struggle between segments of society over valued resources ⿞ Marx identifies two classes of people • (1) Capitalists ⿞ people who own factors and productive enterprises in pursuit of profits ‣ (2) Procletarians ⿞ Sell their labour for wages ‣ Society and production To keep profits high, capitalist keep wages low • But workers want higher wages ⿞ Since profits and wages come form the same pools of funds, the result is ⿞ conflict

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Social institutions • Major spheres of social life, or societal subsystems, organized to meet basic human needs ⿞ Materailism • The means by which humans produce their material good shape their experiences ⿞ Marx viewed the economic system as society’s infrastructure • Infra is Latin, meaning “below” ⿞ Family, politics, region (superstructure) are built on this foundation and support the economy • False consciousness • Explanations of social problems as indivuals problems and shortcoming, not flaws in society ⿞ Have to have rules and be mindful of how we operate in the world • Conflict and history Over history, new productive forces undermined old orders and new social classes gained ascendancy • Communism • A system by which people commonly own and equally share the food and other things they produce ⿞ In the ‘ancient world” warfare was frequent and produced masters and slaves • The feudal world saw lords and serfs • The productive forces of industry created the bourgeoisie and the procletariat • Capitalism and class conflict Capitalists and proclertarians are engaged in class conflict today • Class conflict • Conflict between entire classes over the distribution of wealth and power in society ⿞ Class consciousness • The recognition by workers of their unity in opposition to capitalist and to capitalism itself ⿞ Capitalism and alienation Alienation • The experience of isolation and misery resulting from powerlessness ⿞ Capitalism produces alienation in four ways • Alienation from the act of working ⿞ Alienation from the product of work ⿞ Alienation from other workers ⿞ Alienation from human potential ⿞ Marx argued that alienation is a barrier to social change • Revolution Marx argued that the only way out of capitalism is to remake society • Socialism • A system of production that could provide for the social needs of all people ⿞ Marx did not live long enough to witness some of the negative of socialism • Max Weber: Rationalization of society Max weber (1864-1920) • Rationalization • The historical change from tradition to rationality as the main type of human thought ⿞ Societies differ not in terms of how people produce things but in how people think about the world • Ideal type • An abstract statement of the essential characteristics of any social phenomenon ⿞ Tradition and rationality Tradition • Values and beliefs passed from generation to generation ⿞ Rationality • A way of thinking that emphasizes deliberate matter of fact calculation of the most efficient way to accomplish a ⿞ particular task Rationalization of society • Historical change from tradition to rationality as the main mode of human though ⿞ Ex. Industrial Revolution and capitalism ⿞

Protestantism and Capitalism Weber argued that industrial capitalism resulted from the Protestant reformation • Calvinist believed in predestination (selective salvation) and inner worldly ascentism ⿞ Denial of pleasure and a focus on eocmimc pursuit ‣ Economic success showed gods favour (which was sought through hard work) ⿞ This religious ethic was transformed to a work ethic ‣ Webers work shows the power of ideas to shape society • Rational social organization Weber identified seven characteristics of rational social organization • (1) Distincitive social institutions ⿞ The family immersed in a wider collectively of the camp or tribe is the centre of all activity ‣ (2) Large-scale organizations ⿞ Modern rationality can be seen in the spread of large scale organizations ‣ As early as the horitcultural era ‣ Small groups of political officials made decsions concerning religious observances, public works and • warfare (3) Specialized tasks ⿞ Unlike members of traditional societies ‣ People in modern are likely to have very specialized jobs ‣ (4) Personal discipline ⿞ Modern societies put a premium on self discipline ‣ Most business and government organizations expect their workers to be dispclined ‣ Displace is also encouraged by our cultural values of achievement and success ‣ (5) Awareness of time ⿞ Schedule events precisely by the hour and even the minute ‣ Clocks began appearing on European cities some 500 years ago about the same time commerce began to ‣ expand (6) Technical competence ⿞ Members of traditional societies sizes up one another on the basis of who they are ‣ Their family ties • Modern rationality leads us to judge people according to what they are, with an eye toward their education, ‣ skills and abilities (7) Impersonality ⿞ In a rational society ‣ Technical competence is the basis for hiring so the world becomes more impersonal • People interact as specialist concerned with particular tasks, rather than as individuals concerned with one ‣ another as people Rationality, bueracruacy and science Each of Webers seven characteristics of rational social organization is evident in bureaucracy (modern rationality) • Bureaucracies are large, rational organizations and are one of the defining traits of modern society • Where argued with Marx that modern society generates widespread alienation • Weber saw modern society as a vast and growing system of rules that regulate everything ⿞ He feared that bureaucracy and rationality would crush the human spirit and reduce people to robots ⿞ Emile Durkheim: Society and function Emile Durkheim argued that society exist beyond ourselves • Society is more than the individuals who compose it ⿞ Patterns of human behaviour exist as established structures or social facts that have an objective reality beyond their • lives of individuals Ex. Cultural norms, values and beliefs ⿞ Functions • Help society separate ⿞ Our action, thoughts and feelings are derived from the society • Society shapes us by providing the moral discipline that guides our behaviour and controls our desire • Anomie/ normelessnes • A condition in which norms and values are so weak and inconsistent that society provides little moral guidance ⿞ to people Evolving societies: The division of labour Durkheim coined the term collective consciousness • Mechanical solidarity ⿞ Social bonds based on common sentiments and shared moral values, strong among members of ‣ preindustrial societies

Organic solidarity ⿞ Social bonds, based on specialization and interdependence that are strong among members of industrial ‣ societies Durkheim argued that social change was produced through an expanding division of labour • Division of labour ⿞ Specialized economic activity ‣ Modern society rests less on moral consensus and more on functional interdependence ⿞ However, technological power and greater personal freedom come at the cost of risking anomie ⿞ Means that people lack a clear sense of how to behave ‣ Critical review: Four visions of society What holds society together? Lenskisn ⿞ A shared culture and patterns that vary by technology ‣ Karl Marx ⿞ Elites forces on uneasy peace ‣ True unity comes from cooperative production ‣ Marx Weber ⿞ Rational, large scale organizations connect lives ‣ Emile Durkheim ⿞ Specialized division of labour causes organic solidarity ‣ How have societies changed? Lenksins ⿞ Changed technology ‣ Modern society has enomromous productive power ‣ Karl Marx ⿞ Social conflict is now in the open ‣ Max Weber ⿞ From traditional to rational thought ‣ Emile Durkheim ⿞ From mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity ‣ Why do societies change? Lenksins: ⿞ Technological inoculation transforms society ‣ Karl Marx ⿞ Struggle between social classes is the engine of change ‣ Max Weber ⿞ Ideas contribute to change ‣ Emile Durkheim ⿞ Expanding division of labour causes change ‣ Summary Seeing sociology in everyday life • Technology ⿞ Describe how technological development has shaped the history of human sciences • Analyze the historical emergence of inequality and class conflict • Demonstrate the importanc of ideas to the development of human societies • Contrast social bonds typical of traditional and modern societies • Summarize the contributions of the Lenksins, Marx , Weber and Durkheim to our understanding of social change •

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