Unit 6 Culture and its elements

1. What is culture, and what role does it play in society and in the lives of its members?

Culture includes all the learned customs, beliefs, values, knowledge, and symbols that are communicated constantly among a set of people who share a common way of life. This definition suggests several important features of culture. First, culture is learned; people are not born with culture as they are born with green eyes or blond hair. Second, culture is learned through com­munications with others. Third, culture is the totality of learned elements that are shared by members of a society; for sociologists, the term culture does not refer to the expression of any particular belief or value (like fine art or, alternatively, graffiti art) but to the sum total of learned elements.

The relationship between culture and behaviour has two sides. On one hand, culture provides traditions and rules that guide how we think, feel, and behave, and how we evaluate the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, of others. That is, culture defines preferred or expected behaviour and attitudes: it distinguishes right from wrong, true from false, beautiful from ugly. In this sense culture is outside us and constrains or shapes our thoughts and actions. On the other hand, culture is something that people use, develop, and occasionally change. Culture does not simply dictate behaviour: we work with our cultural beliefs and values as we try to make sense of the world and as we work with others to get things accomplished. Thus culture is constantly being created and recreated, but those creations are also shaped or influenced by the history or tradition of cultural elements in a particular society.

Sociologists make the distinction between material and nonmaterial culture. Material culture refers to the physical objects produced by members of a society, such as a painting hanging in a museum. Nonmaterial culture refers to abstract ideas, values, and social organizations that do not assume a physical form, such as the aesthetic norms used to decide the beauty of a painting. Knowledge of modern science is part of nonmaterial culture; TV sets and video games (and other forms of technology) are part of material culture, even though the construction of these physical objects depends upon a stock of scientific knowledge.

Sociologists also make an analytic distinction between culture and society, although in the real world the two are inseparable. In this context, culture refers to tangible or abstract things created by a given group of people, to which they have attached shared meanings. Thus culture would include both the physical Mercedes-Benz 300SL and the idea that such a car signifies wealth and high social standing. By contrast, society refers to the network of social relationships among those who share a culture. Culture is used to give meaning to social interactions as well as to fancy cars, but culture is also the result of social interaction.

2. What are the elements of culture?

The elements of culture include values, norms, symbols, language, and knowledge. Sociologists make the distinction between values and norms. Both values and norms express preferred or expected behaviour and attitudes, but values are very general ideas about what is good, right, or acceptable, while norms are more specific and typically refer to behaviour and attitudes in a particular setting. For example, patriotism-respect for and pride in one's country-is a value. A set of norms translates the value of patriotism into more specific rules that determine how one should think and act at a particular time and place. One norm that expresses the general value of patriotism is that one should not spit upon the country's flag.

Values sometimes lead to inconsistent or contradictory norms: for example, soldiers in Vietnam and antiwar protesters both thought that they were being patriotic. Values change over time, and they are not necessarily shared by all members of a society. Moreover, dominant values within a society may be inconsistent with each other. The strong American commitment to values of free competition often collides with equally strong commitments to values of social justice. Such con­tradictions often lead to conflict and change.

Norms, then, are specific guidelines for action that specify how people should behave in particular situations. These guidelines may be either explicit (as in a " no parking" sign) or implicit (as in our automatic assumption that one should lock car doors when parking in public). Norms vary from society to society, and from group to group within any particular society. Norms are situational: their injunctions hold for a designated time and place.

Norms come in several forms. Folkways are taken-for-granted, common-sense rules that people typically follow without even thinking about them. On American college campuses these days, for example, it is commonplace to lock your bicycle when you leave it parked in public. Mores are norms that are related to values which people consider essential to their survival. It is considered wrong for parents to deny food to their hungry children; violation is likely to be met with outrage and punishment. Laws are a special kind of norm that have been formalised or institutionalised: the rule has been written up in a code of laws, and police and courts have formally been assigned the tasks of enforcement and punishment. Laws are rules that are enacted by a political body and are enforced by the power of the state.

3. Why are symbols, language, and knowledge essential features of human societies?

Symbols, language, and knowledge are three other elements of culture. Each is essential to human societies because they allow us to create meaning and abstract ideas, to communicate them to others, and to record them for succeeding generations. Symbols are objects, gestures, sounds, or images that represent something other than themselves. The " golden arches" above a fast-food outlet are not there merely to provide light or ornamentation. The golden arches are the corporate symbol of McDonald's. In a society not yet invaded by McDonald's, a pair of golden arches might not have any symbolic meaning.

Symbols can be either multivocal or univocal. Multivocal symbols carry a large number of meanings. The American flag, for example, is open to various interpretations: does it represent the land of the free or the home of the brave? Univocal symbols allow for the precise expression of a particular meaning. Legal documents are typically written in a language that reduces interpretative freedom: parties to a labour contract, for example, must know exactly what is expected of them. Symbols are assigned arbitrarily in the sense that the physical symbol does not necessary resemble in any way the meaning conveyed. The McDonalds Corporation has neither the shape nor the colour of golden arches; yet in the minds of almost all Americans the two are inseparable. Also, the meaning of a symbol can change over time, and people can disagree on how a certain symbol is to be interpreted.

Language is a system of verbal and (sometimes) written symbols with rules about how those symbols can be strung together to convey complex meanings. Language permits the creation, communication, and preservation of abstract cultural ideas. The structural view of language em­phasizes the rules of grammar and syntax that dictate how we are to talk or write if we are to be understood by others. The action-oriented view of language emphasizes how talk and writing are actually accomplished in social contexts. Sociologists have found that speech patterns vary depend­ing on the social circumstances: people often use certain words and expressions when they talk to children, but use different language when talking to adults. Language is important for the collective process of defining the situation: linguistic or verbal clues allow people to share with others the meaning of a situation. Social markers are behaviour patterns (often in the form of talk) that give clues to the meaning of a social situation.

For sociologists, knowledge may be defined as the body of facts that people accumulate over time. Some knowledge is simply procedural, such as knowing how to ride a bike; other knowledge consists of information about people, places, and events. Bell describes ours as the " information society" because of the rapid accumulation of new knowledge and the fundamental importance of the growth of knowledge for economic, political, and social life.