Sociology Chapter 2: Culture Objectives
Distinguish between subcultures and countercultures.
-Subculture: the values and related behaviors of a group that distinguish its members from the larger culture; a world within a world. U.S. Society contains thousands of subcultures. Some are as broad as the way of life we associate with teenagers, others as narrow as those we associate with bodybuilders or with politicians. -Counterculture: a group whose values, beliefs, norms, and related behaviors place its members in opposition to the broader culture. An assault on core values is always met with resistance. To affirm their own values, members of the mainstream culture may ridicule, isolate, or even attack members of the counterculture. Example: the Hell'sAngels, Pagans, and Bandidos not only stress freedom and speed but also value dirtiness and contempt toward women, work, and education.
Explain what cultural universals are and why they do not seem to exist.
Cultural Universals are a value, norm, or other cultural trait that is found in every group. Although there are universal human activities, there is no universal way of doing any of them. Courtship, marriage, funerals, games, laws, music, myths, incest taboos, and even toilet training are present in all cultures, but the specific customs differ from one group to another.
Explain what culture is, how culture provides orientations to life, and what practicing cultural relativism is.
Culture- the language, beliefs, values, norms, behaviors, and even material objects that characterize a group and are passed from one generation to the next. -We assume that our speech, gestures, beliefs, and customs are normal and/or natural and almost always follow them without question. We come into life without language, values, or morality. Our learned and shared ways of believing and doing are taught to us at an early age and become our assumed normal. CULTURE BECOMES THE LENS THROUGH WHICH WE PERCEIVE AND EVALUATE WHAT IS GOING ON AROUND US. - Cultural relativism: not judging a culture but trying to understand it on its own. Looking at how the elements of a culture fit together. Practicing cultural relativism is difficult to do growing up with our culture. It's an attempt to refocus our lens of perception so we can appreciate other ways of life.
Explain how technology changes culture and what cultural lag and cultural leveling are.
Technology changes culture because technology sets the framework for a group's nonmaterial culture and also influences how people think and how they relate to one another. ~ Cultural Lag: Ogburn's term for human behavior lagging behind technological innovations. ~Cultural leveling: the process by which cultures become similar to one another; refers especially o the process where Western culture is being exported and diffused into other nations.
Explain why most sociologists consider genes to be an inadequate explanation of human behavior.
The genes don't determine people's behavior. Rather, the influence of genes is modified by social experiences. We develop purposes and goals and discuss the reasons that we do things. Humans are not prisoners of our genes, we have developed fascinatingly diverse ways of life around the world.
Discuss major U.S. Values and explain value clusters, value contradictions, value clashes, how values are lenses of perception, and ideal versus real culture.
U.S. Values: 1) Achievement and success: Americans praise personal achievement, especially outdoing others. 2) Individualism. Americans cherish the ideal that an individual can rise from the bottom of society to its very top. 3) Hard work. Americans expect people to work hard to achieve financial success and material comfort. 4) Efficiency and Practicality. Americans award high marks for getting things done efficiently. 5) science and technology. Americans have a passion for applied science, for using science to control nature and to develop new technology. 6) material comfort. Americans expect a high level of material comfort (food, clothing, ample housing, good medical care, late-model cars, and recreational play things. 7) Freedom. Americans pride themselves on personal freedom. 8) Democracy. Americans refer to majority rule, to the right of everyone to express their opinion, and to representative government. 9) Equality. Equality of opportunity has significantly influenced U.S. History and continues to mark relations between the groups that make up U.S. Society. 10) Group superiority. Americans regard some groups more highly than others and have done so throughout their history. ~Value Cluster: values that together form a large whole. Example: we find education, hard work, material comfort, and individualism bound up together. ~Value Contradictions: values that contradict one another; to follow the one means to come into conflict with one another. It is exactly at the point of value contradictions that you can see a major force for social change in a society. - Value clashes: Challenges in core values are met with strong resistance by the people who hold them dear. ~Values are Lenses of Perception: The views that these lenses provide are often of what life ought to be like, not what it is. Example: Americans value individualism so highly that they to see almost everyone as free and equal in pursuing the goal of success. This value blinds them to the significance of the circumstances that keep people from achieving success. ~Ideal Culture: a people's ideal values and norms; the goals held out for them. ~Real Culture: the norms and values that people actually follow; as opposed to ideal culture.
Know the components of symbolic culture: gestures, language, values, norms, sanctions, folkways, mores, and taboos; also explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
~Gestures- movements of the body to communicate with others, shorthand ways to convey messages without using words. A gesture's meaning may change completely from culture to culture. Gestures not only facilitate communication, but because they differ around the world they also can lead to misunderstanding, embarrassment, or worse. ~Language- a system of symbols that can be combined in an infinite number of ways can can represent not only objects but also abstract thought. Language allows culture to exist. With language, we pass ideas, knowledge, and even attitudes on the next generation. Language allows culture to develop by freeing people to move beyond their immediate experiences. Without language, we would have few memories since we associate experiences with words and then use those words to recall experience. Also extends our time horizons forward. Because language enables us to agree on times, dates, and places, it allows us to plan activities with one another. Talking about events allows us to arrive at the shared understandings that form the basis if social life. Language permits you to blend individual activities into an integrated sequence. -Values: the standards people define what is desirable or undesirable, superior or inferior, good or bad, beautiful or ugly. Underlie our preferences, guide our choices, and indicate what we would hold worthwhile in life. -Norms: expectations of "right" behavior -Sanctions: the reactions people receive for following or breaking norms. -Folkways: norms that are not strictly enforced. -Mores: norms that are strictly enforced because they are thought essential to core values or the wellbeing of a group. Folkways and mores of a subculture may be the opposite of mainstream culture. -taboo: a norm so strongly ingrained that even the thought of its violation is greeted with revulsion.
