Culture: Values, Beliefs, Practices and Domination (lecture 5&6) Flashcards
Nacirema (Miner)
*note: American spelt backwards
• name= a ‘joke’ to highlight the objectifying alienating way we often treat other cultures and to relate to other cultures
• the idea that other culture may seem mystical and ‘different’ to us, but the same can be said about our culture
NOTE: always take an outsider’s perspective on our own culture, and an insider’s perspective on other cultures
4 ways to analyze culture (folkway, mores, taboos, rituals and practices)
1) Folkways: informal norms; guide everyday behaviour (eg: politeness, cleanliness)
2) Mores: more strictly-enforced moral norms (eg: prohibitions against murder)
3) Taboos: things that it’s forbidden to do or touch (esp. in public) (eg: urinating in public)
4) Rituals and Practices: behaviour that follows on from folkways and morals (eg: washing)
Material Culture
particular ways a society interacts with the material world (everyday objects it uses to do so)
ex: laptop
Non-Material Culture
ideals, beliefs, arts etc of a socity; its representations of descriptions of the world
Cultural Universe (George Murdock)
*main interest of symbolic interactionists
practices or rituals with symbolic value found in every known human culture (eg: cooking, language, weddings)
• have symbolic value
Social Integration
process of fully incorporating individuals (or groups) into society by the adoption of cultural norms or the major cultural group
• structural functionlists encourages us to behave in similar ways in order to protect the social order
Semiotics (and subcategories: sign and symbol)
Semiotics: study of meanings within cultures (examining signs and symbols)
Sign: object that represents something other than itself (ie: tiger=animal)
Symbol: An additional meaning or value associated with object (ie: gorilla= great strength)
Values
things culture or people hold to be the most important (useful to help explain how people act- sociologically)
•may motivate people to take certain types of actions which have broader social consequences
Protestant Ethic (Weber)
symbolic interactonalism
- Weber’s term for a set of values and ways of acting (+ consequences) that he thought typical of protestant christians in the 16th century
- value hard work, frugality for own sake
- effective affinity w capitalism: suited rise of market society–> gives protestants advantage
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf)
our thoughts are limited by the words our language provides for them
• essentially, we are only able to use ideas that our society (and language) has words for; therefore, people sharing language think similarly (eg: shared concepts even when we express individuality, shaped by society)
Linguistic Determinism
• unable to come up with a concept, idea or belief if you don’t have the word(s) for it
- everyone is ‘defined’ by language (to a degree)
Ideal Culture (conflicts?)
values and ideals a group fo people claims to adhere to (their mental image of their society)
• idealized, no longer real representation of how society is
• societies often cling on to image of former society; this can lead to conflicts between generations bc younger generations no longer adhere to standards of older folks
Multiculturalism
recognition of (and govern. support for) multiple different cultures in one society • cultural pluralism= good for society - Pierre Trudeau- official policy of multiculturalism in Canada (institutional recognition to cultural diversity)
Canada vs. Amerian Multiculturalism description?
Canada: cultural mosaic (immigrants retain original cultural identity)
American: melting pot (immigrants all become ‘American’)
Ethnocentrism
judging other cultures by the standards of your own culture; assuming your own culture is the ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ one while others have ‘strange’ customs
What happens when cultural homogeneity is enforced?
- feelings of alienation
- members of minority groups feel excluded from society and undervalued
- social problems
Androcentric Language
use of MALE words to refer to ANY person/ describe humanity as a whole (eg: rights of man)
• implicitly excludes women from the way we think about certain social roles (ie: fireman, businessman)
• ind. may exclude or diminish the value of people in their own culture (eg: gender)
Deviance
any behaviour that goes AGAINST the commonly-held values of a society, esp if held to be a threat (to society’s values)
• these are punished, or forced to conform to mainstream
Conformity
adherence to the main rules and norms of a society; conventional behaviour (accepted by society)
What are the 2 deviations from society?
1) Counterculture: against mainstream but seek to REPLACE it with something different; usually formed by people excluded from society with little to lose (reject mainstream and adopt new values) (eg: neo-nazi)
2) Subculture: distinct part within mainstream but want to stand out; usually formed by people in high status dominant groups that share many norms with main group but with points of differentiation (don’t seek to overthrow society, usually from middle-class) (eg: hipsters)
Talcott Parsons on culture
- argues that cultural systems lie at the root of other social forms; patterns that shape conditions of individual action
- analysis of culture, language, values etc. reveal the basic ‘rules of the social game’ doesn’t determine the outcome but limit how it might turn out
Authority (and it’s three subcategories- traditional, charismatic, rational-legal)
Authority: ability to have others obey you (without resorting to force)
1) Traditional: followers obey bc of the long established cultural prestige of role (eg: monarchy, parent)
2) Charismatic: followers obey due to personal magnetism of inspirational leader and their ability to motivate their followers to carry out their wishes (eg: nelson mandela)
3) Rational-legal: people in authority chosen in legally-defined process (eg: elections, teachers) based on merit and good performance
Dominant Ideology
system of values, beliefs and practices that justify and support existing social system, and defend the authority of those with power within it
Ideological Hegemony (Antonio Gramsci)
intellectual and ideological control of society by the dominant class, such that everyone adopts their worldview • ruling class maintains control over institutions of education, law and religion and intellectuals express the dominant class's ideals • subaltern (lower) classes WON'T have any intellectuals to express own worldview bc fed beliefs etc from dominant class and their actions inadvertently help those of rulers when they don't want to
