Sociology Notes (II) Culture

Define Culture

A Definition of Culture

Culture encompasses the ideas, values, practices, and material objects that allow a group of people, even an entire society, to carry out their collective lives in relative order and harmony. There are innumerable ideas, values, practices, and material objects associated with most cultures.

For example, Members of the two gangs distinguish themselves from each other in a variety of ways, but most notably by their defining colors—red for Bloods and blue for Crips. These colors and other symbols are very meaningful to gang members, helping them to mark territories, easily identify friends and foes, and signify their values.

At the same time, culture is constantly being affected by changes both internal and external to the group. Among the internal changes are the average age of the population within that group. Depending on whether the average age increases or decreases, a culture will need to reflect the needs and interests of either younger or older people. Technological innovations are among the external changes likely to alter a group’s culture significantly. For example, with the growth of smartphone use, texting has become wildly popular as a communication method (including among street gang members), and phone conversations have become proportionally less common. Thus, not only newcomers to the group but also those who have participated for years must constantly learn new aspects of culture (e.g., the need to use prepaid “burner” cell phones that are difficult or impossible to trace) and perhaps unlearn others (using traditional cell phones) that are no longer considered desirable.

The Basic Elements of Culture

As pointed out earlier, every group and society has a culture. However, the specific content of each of these domains, and many more, varies
from culture to culture. Cultures differ from one another mainly because each represents a unique mix of values, norms, objects, and language inherited from the
past, derived from other groups, and created anew by each group.

Values

The broadest element of culture is values, the general and abstract standards defining what a group or society as a whole considers good, desirable, right, or
important. Values express the ideals of society, as well as of groups of every size.

Norms

Based on values, norms are the informal rules that guide what people do and how they live. Norms tell us what we should and should not do in a given situation (Dandaneau 2007). Many norms are informal. That is, they are not formally codified, not written down in any one place. Laws are norms that have been codified. They are written down and formally enforced through institutions such as the state. Rules prohibiting speaking and texting on handheld cell phones while driving are examples of how informal norms can come to be codified into laws.

Norms are reinforced through sanctions /ˈsaNG(k)SH(ə)n/, which can take the form of punishments (negative sanctions) or rewards (positive sanctions). In general, when norms have been violated punishments are used, while rewards are employed when norms have been followed. For example, dinner companions might frown when you eat with your hands and grin approvingly when you use the right utensil.

Not all norms are the same, are equally important, or carry with them the same penalties if they are violated. On the one hand, there are folkways, or relatively
unimportant norms. Whether they are observed or violated, they carry with them few if any sanctions (Sumner [1906] 1940). For example, many college classes have norms against texting during lectures, but those norms are frequently violated. When students’ violations are detected by alert instructors, the negative sanctions, such as being asked to stop or to leave the room for the rest of class, are generally mild. In contrast, mores (pronounced MOR-ays) are more important norms whose violation is likely to be met with severe negative sanctions. Students who use their smartphones to cheat on college exams are violating mores (as well as campus rules).

Material Culture

Values and norms exist within the realm of ideas. However, culture also takes material—that is, tangible—forms. Material culture encompasses all the artifacts,
the “stuff” (Molotch 2003; Steketee and Frost 2011), in which culture is reflected or manifested (Dant 2007). A wide range of things can be included under the heading of material culture, including the clothes we wear, the homes we live in, our computers and smartphones, our children’s toys, and even the weapons used by our military.

Symbolic Culture and Language

Symbolic culture includes the nonmaterial, intangible aspects of culture. We have already discussed two key forms of symbolic culture—values and norms. However, there is no clear line between material and nonmaterial culture. Most, if not all, material phenomena have symbolic aspects, and various aspects of symbolic culture are manifest in material objects. Our symbolic culture is manifest when we buy American-made rather than Japanese automobiles in a show of patriotism, purchase the latest iPhone as soon as it is released to denote our technological sophistication, or choose cloth diapers over disposables as a symbol of our commitment to “green” parenting.

One important aspect of symbolic culture is language, a set of meaningful symbols that enables communication. Language, especially in its written form, allows for the storage and development of culture. Cultures with largely oral traditions do manage to accumulate culture and transmit it from one generation or group to another, but written language is a far more effective way of retaining and expanding upon a culture.

Cultural Differences

As you have seen so far, we can think in terms of the culture of a society as a whole (for example, American culture), and later in this chapter we will even conceive of the possibility of a global culture. But you have also seen that there is great diversity within cultures, from gang culture to Internet culture and too many other variants of culture to enumerate. Studying and understanding culture becomes easier, however, with the aid of a few key ideas: ideal and real culture, ideology, subculture and counterculture, culture war, and multiculturalism.

Ideal and Real Culture

There is often a large gap, if not a chasm, between ideal culture, or what the norms and values of society lead us to think people should believe and do, and real
culture, or what people actually think and do in their everyday lives. For example, as we have seen, a major American value is democracy. However, barely a majority of Americans bother to vote in presidential elections—only 58.2 percent of eligible voters voted in the 2012 election, the same figure recorded four years earlier (McDonald 2013; see Chapter 12). A far smaller percentage of those who are eligible to vote in state and local elections. Worse, very few Americans are active in politics in other ways, such as canvassing on behalf of a political party or working to get people out to vote.

Ideology

An ideology /ˌīdēˈäləjē,ˌidēˈäləjē/ is a set of shared beliefs that explains the social world and guides people’s actions. There are many ideologies in any society, and some of them become dominant. For example, in the United States, meritocracy is a dominant ideology involving the widely shared belief that all people have an equal chance of succeeding economically based on their hard work and skills. Many people act on the basis of that belief and, among other things, seek the education and training they think they need to succeed.

Subcultures

Within any culture there are subcultures or groups of people who accept much of the dominant culture but are set apart from it by one or more culturally significant characteristics. In the United States, major subcultures include the LGBT community (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people), Hispanics, the Tea Party, Hasidic Jews, hip-hop fans, and youth. Muslims are becoming an increasingly important subculture in the United States (especially in some cities, such as Detroit). They already constitute a major subculture in many European countries, most notably France and Great Britain.

Countercultures

Countercultures are groups that not only differ from the dominant culture but also adhere to norms and values that may be incompatible with those of the dominant culture (Binkley 2007; Roszak ([1968] 1995; Zellner 1995). They may, in fact, consciously and overtly act in opposition to the dominant culture.

Computer hackers are a contemporary example of a counterculture (Corbett 2014; Levy 2010). Many hackers simply seek to show their technical mastery of computers through relatively benign actions such as writing free computer software, but a minority are devoted to subverting authority and disrupting the Internet, and some are involved in stealing personal identification data (identity theft) and money.

Culture Wars

In the 1960s, the hippies, student radicals, and anti–Vietnam War activists vocally, visibly, and sometimes violently rejected traditional American norms and values. Among other things, they rejected unthinking patriotism and taboos against recreational drugs and sexual freedom. The term culture war was used to describe the social upheaval that ensued. More generally, a culture war is a conflict pitting a subculture or counterculture against the dominant culture (e.g., antievolutionists versus evolutionists; Silva 2014), or a conflict between dominant groups within a society. Culture wars sometimes lead to the disruption of the social, economic, and political status quo (Hunter 1992; Luker 1984).

Multiculturalism and Assimilation

A great deal of attention has been paid in recent years to another aspect of cultural diversity—multiculturalism, or an environment in which cultural differences are accepted and appreciated both by the state and by the majority group (Modood 2007; Pakulski 2014). Cultural groups may be based on race, ethnicity, nationality, language, age, and other dimensions of difference. People in the United States, for example, generally accept that young and old have their own cultural preferences. Americans for the most part tolerate—sometimes even celebrate—the coexistence of different cultural groups within the larger culture.

When it comes to ethnicity /eTHˈnisədē/ and national origin, however, multiculturalism has not always been celebrated in this country. The dominant culture has been interested primarily in assimilation, or integrating minority groups into the mainstream. Until late in the twentieth century, most immigrants to the United States were from Europe, especially Eastern and Southern Europe (see Figure 3.3). Many of these groups did assimilate to a large degree, even if their assimilation occurred over a couple of generations. Today we do not think twice about whether or not Polish Americans or Italian Americans, for instance, are “regular” Americans.

Identity Politics

While some majority groups have come to oppose multiculturalism, various minority groups have grown impatient with the dominant culture’s limited view of multiculturalism and its unwillingness to accept them for who they are. Such minorities have asserted their right to retain their distinctive cultures and even their right not to assimilate, at least not totally. These groups have engaged in identity politics in using their power to strengthen the position of the cultural groups with which they identify (Nicholson 2008; Wasson 2007). Identity politics has a long history, in recent decades including the black power, feminist, and gay pride movements in many parts of the world. The goal of such movements has been the creation of a true multicultural society, one that accepts minorities for who they are.

Cultural Relativism and Ethnocentrism

Multiculturalism and identity politics are closely related to cultural relativism, which is the idea that aspects of a culture such as norms and values need to be
understood within the context of that culture; there are no cultural universals, or universally accepted norms and values. In this view, differentcultures simply have different norms and values. There is no basis for saying that one set of norms and values is better than another (Weiler 2007). Thus, for example, those in Western countries should not judge Islamic women’s use of headscarves. Conversely, those in the Islamic world should not judge Western women’s baring of their midriffs.

Cultural relativism runs counter to the tendency in many cultures toward ethnocentrism, or the belief that the norms, values, traditions, and material and symbolic aspects of one’s own culture are better than those of other cultures (Brown 2007b; Machida 2012). The tendency toward ethnocentrism both among subcultures within the United States and in cultures throughout the world represents a huge barrier to greater cultural understanding. However, a belief in one’s own culture can be of great value to a culture, giving people a sense of pride and identity. Problems arise when ethnocentrism serves as a barrier to understanding other cultures, a source of conflict among cultures, or an excuse for one culture to deny rights or privileges to another.

Emerging Issues in Culture

Culture is always changing, just as it is continually in the process of being transmitted from one generation to the next. Some of the ways in which today’s cultures are changing are worthy of further exploration. In this section, we will focus on global culture, consumer culture, and cyberculture.

Global Culture

There are certainly major differences within American culture, such as those that exist among subcultures. Yet few would dispute the idea that it is possible to talk about American culture in general. However, discussing a global culture, a culture common to the world as a whole, is not as easy**. Some elements of material culture, including hamburgers, sushi, cars, and communication technology, have spread widely around the world, but the global diffusion of nonmaterial culture—values, norms, and symbolic culture—has proven to be more difficult.**

The Globalization of Values

We have already discussed how values differ, sometimes greatly, from one society to another. How, then, can we discuss global values—values that are shared throughout the world (Sekulic 2007c)? Some scholars argue that global values exist because all people share a biological structure that produces universal tendencies, including common values. Others contend that while particular values vary from country to country, the underlying structure of values is much the same across societies. However, the most persuasive argument for the existence of global values is traceable to the process of globalization. The global flow of all sorts of things— information, ideas, products, and people—produces realities in most parts of the world that are more similar than ever before in history (Lechner and Boli 2005). If these realities are increasingly similar, then it seems likely that what people value will come to be increasingly similar throughout the world.

Cultural Imperialism

Many observers believe that global culture is most affected by cultural imperialism, or the imposition of one dominant culture on other cultures (Tomlinson 1999, 2012). Cultural imperialism tends to have an adverse impact on, or even destroy, local cultures. For example, there is a long tradition in India of professional letter writers, men who place themselves in prominent locations (e.g., near train stations) and offer their services writing letters for poor, illiterate migrants. Many of these letter writers are able to survive on the pittance they are paid for each letter. However, the adoption of elements of Western culture—the cell phone, texting, and so on—is rendering the professional letter writers, and the cultural traditions associated with them, obsolete.

Consumer Culture

Consumption is clearly highly valued in the United States (and elsewhere; see Nwachukwu and Dant 2014). What makes American culture a consumer culture is the fact that many of its core ideas and material objects relate to consumption. Further, consumption is a primary source of meaning in American life (Belk 2007; Sassatelli 2007; Slater 1997). In a consumer culture, meaning may be found in the goods and services purchased, in the process of buying them (in shopping malls, cybermalls, and so on), in the social aspects of consumption (shopping with friends or family), and even in the settings in which consumption takes place (e.g., the Venetian or some other Las Vegas casino-hotel, eBay) (Ritzer, Goodman, and Wiedenhoft 2001). There are norms for the consumption process as well. For example, customers should wait patiently in the queue for the cashier, gamblers at a Las Vegas casino should not flaunt their winnings in front of other gamblers and should tip dealers, and so on.

Cyberculture

The Internet is, as mentioned before, one site for the proliferation of consumer culture and perhaps of postconsumer culture. It is also the site of an entirely new
culture—cyberculture (F. Turner 2008). That is, the Internet as a whole (as well as the individual websites that it comprises) has the characteristics of all culture, including distinctive values and norms.

Reference

Ritzer, G. (2016). Essentials of sociology.(2nd ed., pp. 53-73)