Topic #2: Culture and Moral Behavior

Question 1

Elements of Culture

Answer 1

History
Power Dynamics
Religion

Question 2

It refers to what people do and how they do things

Answer 2

Culture

Question 3

Edward Said on Culture

Answer 3

For him, Western cultures have represented non-Western cultures in such a way that they are viewed from a western lens

Question 4

How is representation possible?

Answer 4

This is made possible through “power” – the power to cultural produce a type of knowledge.

In such a way, no knowledge formed are neutral.

Question 5

In the context of what Edward Said said, In the production of knowledge, what are types of knowledge produced?

Answer 5

Biased, prejudice, and stereotypes

Question 6

Who determines the type of knowledge produced?

Answer 6

The superior culture or the victors of history

Question 7

Why do they do this?

Answer 7

To shore up the superiority of the colonizers

Question 8

According to Pierre Bourdieu’s social theory, this is the subjective dispositions and schemes of perception which is present in all social agents

Answer 8

Habitus

Question 9

According to Pierre Bourdieu’s social theory, this is the social arena where a heterogenous population of social agents act.

Answer 9

Field

Question 10

According to Pierre Bourdieu’s social theory, this is the assets which a social agent possesses or seeks to possess; the quantity or quality of this determines one’s position in the social hierarchy

Answer 10

Capital

Question 11

Four forms of Capital, according to Pierre Bourdieu

Answer 11

Economic Capital
Cultural Capital
Social Capital
Symbolic Capital

Question 12

This is capital that pertains to wealth, money and material assets

Answer 12

Economic Capital

Question 13

This is capital that pertains to knowledge on the arts, aesthetic, language and cultural preferences

Answer 13

Cultural Capital

Question 14

This is capital that pertains to affiliations and networks

Answer 14

Social Capital

Question 15

This is capital that pertains to things which stand for all forms of capital

Answer 15

Symbolic Capital

Question 16

What is the Social Theory of Practice?

Answer 16

Practice = ([Habitus)(Capital])+Field

The habitus generates practices restricted, though not necessarily, by the capitals possessed by the social agent within the current structure of the field.

Furthermore, practices are practical, that is, a strategy to gain a better position in social field. But the structure of the field itself leads of inequality. It is merely composed of social positions in the social hierarchy which social agents occupy.

Question 17

According to Foucault, what are the two conceptions of Power

Answer 17

Juridical Power
Productive Power

Question 18

According to Michel Foucault, this is negative power, wherein a power that is possessed and consciously exercised by an individual or groups of individual or by the state.

Answer 18

Juridical Power

Question 19

According to Michel Foucault, this is power with the capacity to form and produce subjects not through repression but through a positive mechanism

Answer 19

Productive Power

Question 20

What did Edward Said believe about culture?

Answer 20

He believes that the consequences of colonialism are still persisting in the form of chaos, coups, corruption, civil wars, and bloodshed, which permeates many ex-colonies. The powerful colonizer has imposed a language and a culture, whereas those of the Oriental peoples have been ignored or distorted.

Question 21

What did Bourdieu think of Culture

Answer 21

Bourdieu’s theory of practice sets up a relationship between structure and the habitus and practice of the individual agent, dealing with the “relationship between the objective structures and the cognitive and motivating structures which they produce and which tend to reproduce them”.

What is perceived and experienced as culture is the result of dynamic interaction of internal and external structures, individual performance (practice), and strategy (strategy is based on existing structures, but it exists from the actions of individuals seeking to pursue their own interests

Question 22

What did Michel Foucault think about Culture?

Answer 22

He proposed that power is not a thing that one person or group has or lacks but rather is a pervasive force that is present in all social relationships and interactions. It cannot be owned but it is dynamic and ever-shifting set of relations and practices that shape social life.