What is Culture

1
What is Culture?

• Values, beliefs, norms, and material objects that
  form a peoples way of life
• Blueprint for living
• A Way of life
• Shapes what we do
• Helps to form our personalities
• Is NOT the same as society

2
Material Culture

• Things created by members of a society
• Artifacts, buildings, art, clothing, etc.

3
Non-Material Culture

• Symbols
• Gestures
• Norms
• Values
• Beliefs

4
How culture affects us

• The last thing a fish would ever notice would be
  water. Linton (1936)
• Culture within us
• Culture Shock
• Ethnocentrism
• Cultural relativism

5
Symbols/Language

• System of symbols that allow communication
• Ensures continuity of culture
• New forms of language ) ) (
• Sapir Whorf Hypothesis language shapes reality
• Piraha Tribe in Brazil

6
Non-material Culture

• Values culturally defined standards by which we
  measure goodness, beauty, desirability
• Beliefs statements people hold to be true arise
  from values
• Norms Rules and expectations that guide behavior
• Folkway More Taboo

7
Cultural Change

• Technology and cultural lag
• Impetus for social change
• Causes of cultural change
• Invention
• Discovery
• Diffusion

8
Samurai Baseball

• What are the major ways in which baseball in
  Japan differs from baseball in the United States?
  How is this related to differences in culture?
  What do we learn about Japanese society by
  looking at how it has transformed the game of
  baseball?
• What is the difference between a concept of
  fairness based on "fair play" versus a concept of
  fairness based on "fair shares"? How can the
  "expanding strike zone" be justified from a
  Japanese point of view? Why are ties and close
  races popular in Japan?
• How can these different concepts of fairness be
  seen in other aspects of life in Japan and the
  United States?
• What does this comparison of baseball in these
  two countries tell us about the dangers of
  ethnocentrism?

9
Structure Functional and Culture

• Values are core of a culture
• Gives meaning to life and binds people together
• Functions to support a way of life
• Criticism ignores cultural diversity emphasizes
  cultural stability and downplays importance of
  change

10
Social Conflict and Culture

• Stresses link between culture and inequality
• Why do certain values dominate a society in the
  first place?
• Criticism stresses divisiveness of culture
  understates ways that cultural patterns integrate
  members of society

11
Culture and Human Freedom

• Culture as constraint
• Matter of habit
• Repeat troubling patterns
• Culture as freedom
• Forces us to choose with change
• Ever-changing due to human imagination

12
Culture Wars

• Traditionalists
• World is a moral system
• Authority clearly defines right and wrong
• Progressives
• People able to make their own choices
• No clear line between right and wrong