:Is cultural change beneficial to society? Is it conceivable to have no changes in our culture? write the answer related to the picture that I gave you write atleast 600 words or atleast 1.5 pages and dont plagarize from any sources write it on your own if you found any citations author name mention that as well
:Is cultural change beneficial to society? Is it conceivable to have no changes in our culture? write the answer related to the picture that I gave you write atleast 600 words or atleast 1.5 pages and dont plagarize from any sources write it on your own if you found any citations author name mention that as well
Social Psychology (10th Edition)
10th Edition
ISBN:9780134641287
Author:Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, Robin M. Akert, Samuel R. Sommers
Publisher:Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, Robin M. Akert, Samuel R. Sommers
Chapter1: Introducing Social Psychology
Section: Chapter Questions
Problem 1RQ1
Related questions
Question
Question :Is cultural change beneficial to society?
Is it conceivable to have no changes in our culture?
write the answer related to the picture that I gave you write atleast 600 words or atleast 1.5 pages and dont plagarize from any sources write it on your own if you found any citations author name mention that as well
![to be associated. In this way, our tastes are
profoundly implicated in how our lives are
structured. We've already seen how artistic
tastes can interact with our class position,
but tastes can also be a way of expressing racial,
gender, regional, and age-based identities.
This last example can be illustrated through
reference to "youth culture," which includes
the artistic, leisure, and style preferences and
habits of young people, who thereby distinguish
themselves from prior generations.
Cultural Dynamics
We have already seen that culture changes
over time, but we have yet to fully consider
any specific mechanisms of cultural change.
There are various perspectives we can take to
understand why and how culture changes over
time. First, we can view changes in culture as
CHAPTER 2: Culture and Culture Change
responses to social-structural changes; we will
focus on the cultural ramifications of economic
changes and of technological changes. Second,
we can also view changes in culture as responses
to other cultural developments, a view that
emphasizes the web-like, interconnected
nature of culture.
ECONOMIC, TECHNOLOGICAL, AND
CULTURAL CHANGE
The discussion of Marxism earlier in this chap-
ter reviewed the case for the economic founda-
tion of culture. But it is not necessary to adopt
Marxists' assumptions of culture merely as
a reflection of economics to see that import-
ant economic changes are capable of provok-
ing specific changes in culture. An example of
such a change is the liberalization of attitudes
toward women and work. In the mid to late
nineteenth century and in the first half of the
SOCIOLOGY in ACTION
Neo-Liberalism and the Realities of Reality Television
Neo-liberalism represents a strategy of economic
growth whose principles are associated with global
free trade and the deregulation of industry, the weak-
ening of union labour, a decline in welfare assistance
and social service provision, and the privatization of
publicly owned resources.
At first glance, neo-liberal dogma and reality tele-
vision seem worlds apart-that is, until one considers
exactly why the entertainment industry developed
the genre
in the first place.
... [I]t bears remembering that TV studios and net-
works introduced the first generation of reality tele-
vision shows-notably the law enforcement shows
"COPS" and "America's Most Wanted"-in response
to the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike. Their goal
was to create a form of programming that would be
largely immune from union tactics from sit-downs to
picket lines. Since reality television shows do not rely
on traditional scripts, producers avoid the risks and
expensive costs associated with hiring unionized writ-
ers. By casting amateur participants willing to work
for free, rather than professional actors, producers
also avoid paying industry-standard union wages to
members of the Screen Actors Guild.
While the production of reality television
employs neo-liberalism's economic principles, the
SOURCE: Abridged from Grazian 2010.
genre's narrative conventions reflect its morals.
Competitive programs celebrate the radical right-
wing values championed especially by free-market
Republicans. Both "Survivor" and "The Apprentice"
require 16 or more participants to fiercely compete
against one another in winner-take-all contests guar-
anteed to produce extreme levels of social inequal-
ity. Although team members are initially expected
to work cooperatively on "Survivor," they eventually
vote their collaborators out of the game in naked dis-
plays of individualism and self-interest....
Although the very design of competitive reality
programs like "The Apprentice" or "Hell's Kitchen"
guarantees that nearly all players must lose, such
shows inevitably emphasize the moral failings of each
contestant just before they are deposed ... on pro-
grams like "The Biggest Loser" in which fitness train-
ers personally criticize the show's overweight (and
typically working-class) contestants for their poor
health. In such instances, the contributions of neo-
liberal federal policy to increased health disparities
in the US-notably the continued lack of affordable
and universal health care and cutbacks in welfare pay-
ments to indigent mothers and their children are
ignored in favor of arguments that blame the victims
of poverty for their own misfortune.
45
46
PART II: Major Social Processes
twentieth century, there was a strong belief in
Western societies that it was most appropriate
for women, especially married women, not to
work outside the home but rather to find ful-
fillment in their roles as mothers and house-
wives. While the reasons for the change in
this attitude are many, it can be argued that an
important cause was economic. Maintenance
of a middle-class standard of living increas-
ingly required a second income. Changing atti-
tudes about women and work, in this view,
were an adaptive response to a changing eco-
nomic reality.
Over the same period of time, rising levels
of affluence made it possible for teenagers to
possess a certain amount of disposable income.
The development of youth culture, while deriv-
ing from various causes, was facilitated by
the economic changes that created consumers
out of young people and thereby encouraged
cultural producers to target youth. The con-
tinued growth in spending power of teenagers
has also allowed them to become the primary
demographic target of Hollywood film studios.
Because young people see films in theatres
more often than do older groups, a great deal
of film production is tailored to their tastes and
expectations. This dynamic is representative of
the more general dependence of the content of
cultural industries on economic conditions.
Technological change can also be viewed
as the source of a great deal of the change
in our culture. Perhaps the most significant
technological influence on culture has been
the development of the mass media. The print-
ing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg
in 1452, has been credited with transforming
European culture in diverse ways. For example,
because the printing press brought down the
cost of books, many people could own Bibles
and interpret them apart from what priests
instructed them to believe: a precondition for
the Protestant Reformation.
It would be impossible to enumerate all the
ways in which technology has created cultural
change. To take an example of a broad cultural
pattern, the very idea of "nightlife" and all its
attendant activities is predicated on the exist-
ence of electricity and the light bulb. Much
more narrowly, the technological innovation of
the electrification of musical instruments has
influenced tastes in musical styles. Suffice it to
say that technological change frequently has
the potential to create cultural reverberations,
sometimes of limited significance and other
times life-transforming.
CHANGE FOR THE SAKE OF CHANGE
Despite the strength of the relationship between
culture and social structure, culture also has
internal dynamics that can account for cultural
change. In this view, cultural change is inevit-
able, because culture is inherently progressive,
volatile, and unstable: it is the nature of culture
to evolve.
This view is perhaps best exemplified by the
phenomenon of fashion. Ongoing change is built
into the very idea of fashion. Moreover, fashion
is not just the styles of clothes that are popular,
although that is one of its most visible mani-
festations. Rather, elements of fashion can be
found in many areas of social life. Consider, for
instance, how vocabulary choices acknowledge
that some words are "in" while others are "out."
To express approval, in the past one might have
used adjectives such as swell, groovy, or mod,
words that sound dated now despite the fact
that the need to express approval has not gone
away. New, more fashionable words do the job
today. Consider also how changes in interior
design occur gradually but consistently enough
to evoke associations with particular decades.
Few of these changes are linked to changes in
function or technological innovations.
Although aesthetic changes do not serve
any practical purpose, they may still be related
to a social purpose: they satisfy needs for self-
expression. In this sense, the aesthetic dimen-
sion of life is symbolic-we communicate
to others and articulate for ourselves certain
thoughts, values, identities, and senses of
group affiliation.
Canadian Culture
The concepts and arguments reviewed in this
chapter can help us to understand the current
state of Canadian culture, along with some of
the more contentious issues facing Canadian
society. Because of its unique history, Canad-
ian culture is unlike any other national culture,
with a unique set of challenges and opportunities.](/v2/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcontent.bartleby.com%2Fqna-images%2Fquestion%2F83cebb0c-db38-4f0e-a0d3-5fd209e24564%2Fc7456e41-855f-4d0e-a6ad-d9400c9f4dd4%2Fah5iz5r_processed.png&w=3840&q=75)
Transcribed Image Text:to be associated. In this way, our tastes are
profoundly implicated in how our lives are
structured. We've already seen how artistic
tastes can interact with our class position,
but tastes can also be a way of expressing racial,
gender, regional, and age-based identities.
This last example can be illustrated through
reference to "youth culture," which includes
the artistic, leisure, and style preferences and
habits of young people, who thereby distinguish
themselves from prior generations.
Cultural Dynamics
We have already seen that culture changes
over time, but we have yet to fully consider
any specific mechanisms of cultural change.
There are various perspectives we can take to
understand why and how culture changes over
time. First, we can view changes in culture as
CHAPTER 2: Culture and Culture Change
responses to social-structural changes; we will
focus on the cultural ramifications of economic
changes and of technological changes. Second,
we can also view changes in culture as responses
to other cultural developments, a view that
emphasizes the web-like, interconnected
nature of culture.
ECONOMIC, TECHNOLOGICAL, AND
CULTURAL CHANGE
The discussion of Marxism earlier in this chap-
ter reviewed the case for the economic founda-
tion of culture. But it is not necessary to adopt
Marxists' assumptions of culture merely as
a reflection of economics to see that import-
ant economic changes are capable of provok-
ing specific changes in culture. An example of
such a change is the liberalization of attitudes
toward women and work. In the mid to late
nineteenth century and in the first half of the
SOCIOLOGY in ACTION
Neo-Liberalism and the Realities of Reality Television
Neo-liberalism represents a strategy of economic
growth whose principles are associated with global
free trade and the deregulation of industry, the weak-
ening of union labour, a decline in welfare assistance
and social service provision, and the privatization of
publicly owned resources.
At first glance, neo-liberal dogma and reality tele-
vision seem worlds apart-that is, until one considers
exactly why the entertainment industry developed
the genre
in the first place.
... [I]t bears remembering that TV studios and net-
works introduced the first generation of reality tele-
vision shows-notably the law enforcement shows
"COPS" and "America's Most Wanted"-in response
to the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike. Their goal
was to create a form of programming that would be
largely immune from union tactics from sit-downs to
picket lines. Since reality television shows do not rely
on traditional scripts, producers avoid the risks and
expensive costs associated with hiring unionized writ-
ers. By casting amateur participants willing to work
for free, rather than professional actors, producers
also avoid paying industry-standard union wages to
members of the Screen Actors Guild.
While the production of reality television
employs neo-liberalism's economic principles, the
SOURCE: Abridged from Grazian 2010.
genre's narrative conventions reflect its morals.
Competitive programs celebrate the radical right-
wing values championed especially by free-market
Republicans. Both "Survivor" and "The Apprentice"
require 16 or more participants to fiercely compete
against one another in winner-take-all contests guar-
anteed to produce extreme levels of social inequal-
ity. Although team members are initially expected
to work cooperatively on "Survivor," they eventually
vote their collaborators out of the game in naked dis-
plays of individualism and self-interest....
Although the very design of competitive reality
programs like "The Apprentice" or "Hell's Kitchen"
guarantees that nearly all players must lose, such
shows inevitably emphasize the moral failings of each
contestant just before they are deposed ... on pro-
grams like "The Biggest Loser" in which fitness train-
ers personally criticize the show's overweight (and
typically working-class) contestants for their poor
health. In such instances, the contributions of neo-
liberal federal policy to increased health disparities
in the US-notably the continued lack of affordable
and universal health care and cutbacks in welfare pay-
ments to indigent mothers and their children are
ignored in favor of arguments that blame the victims
of poverty for their own misfortune.
45
46
PART II: Major Social Processes
twentieth century, there was a strong belief in
Western societies that it was most appropriate
for women, especially married women, not to
work outside the home but rather to find ful-
fillment in their roles as mothers and house-
wives. While the reasons for the change in
this attitude are many, it can be argued that an
important cause was economic. Maintenance
of a middle-class standard of living increas-
ingly required a second income. Changing atti-
tudes about women and work, in this view,
were an adaptive response to a changing eco-
nomic reality.
Over the same period of time, rising levels
of affluence made it possible for teenagers to
possess a certain amount of disposable income.
The development of youth culture, while deriv-
ing from various causes, was facilitated by
the economic changes that created consumers
out of young people and thereby encouraged
cultural producers to target youth. The con-
tinued growth in spending power of teenagers
has also allowed them to become the primary
demographic target of Hollywood film studios.
Because young people see films in theatres
more often than do older groups, a great deal
of film production is tailored to their tastes and
expectations. This dynamic is representative of
the more general dependence of the content of
cultural industries on economic conditions.
Technological change can also be viewed
as the source of a great deal of the change
in our culture. Perhaps the most significant
technological influence on culture has been
the development of the mass media. The print-
ing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg
in 1452, has been credited with transforming
European culture in diverse ways. For example,
because the printing press brought down the
cost of books, many people could own Bibles
and interpret them apart from what priests
instructed them to believe: a precondition for
the Protestant Reformation.
It would be impossible to enumerate all the
ways in which technology has created cultural
change. To take an example of a broad cultural
pattern, the very idea of "nightlife" and all its
attendant activities is predicated on the exist-
ence of electricity and the light bulb. Much
more narrowly, the technological innovation of
the electrification of musical instruments has
influenced tastes in musical styles. Suffice it to
say that technological change frequently has
the potential to create cultural reverberations,
sometimes of limited significance and other
times life-transforming.
CHANGE FOR THE SAKE OF CHANGE
Despite the strength of the relationship between
culture and social structure, culture also has
internal dynamics that can account for cultural
change. In this view, cultural change is inevit-
able, because culture is inherently progressive,
volatile, and unstable: it is the nature of culture
to evolve.
This view is perhaps best exemplified by the
phenomenon of fashion. Ongoing change is built
into the very idea of fashion. Moreover, fashion
is not just the styles of clothes that are popular,
although that is one of its most visible mani-
festations. Rather, elements of fashion can be
found in many areas of social life. Consider, for
instance, how vocabulary choices acknowledge
that some words are "in" while others are "out."
To express approval, in the past one might have
used adjectives such as swell, groovy, or mod,
words that sound dated now despite the fact
that the need to express approval has not gone
away. New, more fashionable words do the job
today. Consider also how changes in interior
design occur gradually but consistently enough
to evoke associations with particular decades.
Few of these changes are linked to changes in
function or technological innovations.
Although aesthetic changes do not serve
any practical purpose, they may still be related
to a social purpose: they satisfy needs for self-
expression. In this sense, the aesthetic dimen-
sion of life is symbolic-we communicate
to others and articulate for ourselves certain
thoughts, values, identities, and senses of
group affiliation.
Canadian Culture
The concepts and arguments reviewed in this
chapter can help us to understand the current
state of Canadian culture, along with some of
the more contentious issues facing Canadian
society. Because of its unique history, Canad-
ian culture is unlike any other national culture,
with a unique set of challenges and opportunities.
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