Chapter 3 : Culture and Society

The Concepts of Culture

  Culture consists of the values held by a given group, the norms they follow, and the material goods they create.

Culture and Change

  In recent years the sociology of culture has attracted renewed in­terest, a phenomenon known as the cultural turn. Attention is being given both to culture as a set of scripts we draw on to shape our beliefs, values, and actions and to the many different meanings of cultural symbols.

The Development of Human Culture

  Human cultures have evolved over thousands of years and reflect both human biology and the physical environment where the cultures emerged. A defining feature of humankind is its inventive­ness in creating new forms of culture.

How Nature and Nurture Interact

  Most sociologists do not deny that biology plays a role in shaping human behavior, especially through the interaction between biol­ogy and culture. Sociologists’ main concern, however, is with how behavior is learned in the individual’s interaction with society.

  Forms of behavior found in all, or virtually all, cultures are called cultural universals. Language, the prohibition against incest, insti­tutions of marriage, the family, religion, and property are the main types of cultural universals—but within these general categories there are many variations in values and modes of behavior be­tween different societies.

  We live in a world of symbols, or representations, and one of our most important forms of symbolization is language. The linguistic relativity hypothesis argues that language influences perception. Language is also an important source of cultural continuity, and the members of a culture are often passionate about their linguistic heritage.

  Cultural diversity is a chief aspect of modern culture, and in the United States it is seen in the large number of vibrant subcultures as well as in the existence of countercultures. Although some peo­ple feel that different subcultures should be assimilated into a single mainstream culture, others argue in favor of multiculturism.

  Sociologists try to avoid ethnocentrism and instead adopt a stance of cultural relativism, attempting to understand a society relative to its own cultural norms and values.

Premodern Societies

  Several types of premodern society can be distinguished. In hunt­ing and gathering societies, people do not grow crops or keep live­stock but gain their livelihood from gathering plants and hunting animals. Pastoral societies are those that raise domesticated animals as their major source of subsistence. Agrarian societies de­pend on the cultivation of fixed plots of land. Larger, more developed, urban societies form traditional states or civilizations.

Societies in the Modern World

  The development of industrialized societies and the expansion of the West led to the conquest of many parts of the world through the process of colonialism, which radically changed long-estab-lished social systems and cultures.

  In industrialized societies, industrial production (whose techniques are also used in the production of food) is the main basis of the econ­omy. Industrialized countries include the nations of the West, plus Japan, Australia,and New Zealand. They now include those indus­trialized societies ruled by communist governments. The developing world, in which most of the world’s population live,is almost all for­merly colonized areas. The majority of the population works in agri­cultural production,some of which is geared to world markets.

The Impact of Globalization

  The increase in global communications and economic interdepen­dence represents more than simply the growth of world unity. Time and distance are being reorganized in ways that bring us all closer together, but even as globalization threatens to make all cul­tures seem alike, local cultural identifications are resurging around the world. This is seen in the rise of nationalism, which can result in ethnic conflict as well as ethnic pride.

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