Culture

Chapter 3: Sociology, Schaefer, 1995-2012

Napoleon Chagnon (see also) traveled 3 days up the Orinoco River in Venezuela. The Yanomamo live on the border with Brazil. He arrives at 2 p.m. Hot, humid, face and hands swollen from insect bites. His heart pounds, he exits the boat, pushes his way through underbrush and:

"I looked up and gasped when I saw a dozen burly, naked, sweaty, hideous men staring at us down the shafts of their drawn arrows! Immense wads of green tobacco were stuck between their lower teeth and lips making them look even more hideous, and strands of dark green slime dripped or hung from their nostrils--strands so long that they clung to their (chests) or drizzled down their chins."

Yanomamo

"My next discovery was that there were a dozen or so vicious, underfed dogs snapping at my legs, circling me as if I were their next meal. I just stood there holding my notebook, helpless and pathetic. Then the stench of the decaying vegetation and filth hit me and I almost got sick. I was horrified. What kind of welcome was this for the person who had come to live with you and learn your way of life, to be friends with you?" (Chagnon: Yanomamo, 1968: p. 5)

We know the world through a shared understanding of what is real and "natural," this socially constructed reality is a taken-for-granted reality. When we are confronted with a radically different reality, it can be a shocking experience. Sociologists use the term "Culture Shock" to refer to the way socially constructed reality can impact our mental and physical states.

Related concepts:

Ethnocentrism (or a New Yorker's view of the USA)
Xenocentrism
Cultural Relativism.

CULTURE:

The totality of learned, socially transmitted behavior. All the "products" of a SOCIETY: A large number of people who live in the same territory, subject to a common political structure and participate in a common culture. Society/SOCIAL STRUCTURE is the interaction; Culture is the product of the interaction, both material and non-material (meanings, beliefs, values, ideas, norms, etc).

TIME as a cultural production: What is time?

Duration and individual experience.
Society and collective work require shared understanding.
How we measure and the meaning of time.
Pre/post industrial society. Cyclical vs. lineal.
Pope Gregory XIII and the calendar (1582)--Problems in acceptance and adoption: UK and colonies 1752, Russia 1918, Turkey 1926.
The clock ~ 500 yrs. Clock time (1656) common by 1780--short, regular intervals; needs, of the industrial structures.
Decimal time?
Time zones: 1881--transcontinental railroad: organize diverse and confusing schedules.
Meaning of local time: meeting trains and problem of collision.
Federal government accepts 1918, International: accepted by all industrial societies 1940.
TIME NOW!!! WEBER and Rationalization.
World Clock

CULTURE is:

SHARED
LEARNED
INTERGENERATIONAL
A Human Construction--thousands of years in the making: Biology (brains, hands, vocal), and Universal: practices at general level--language, food, housing, sport, families, etc. VS. variation at the specific level. Insults in various cultures.

Culture as a stable system:

It is our world, taken as natural (house smells)
Resists change
Cultural lag: material vs non-material culture
- Generations: "Millennials in Adulthood" (Pew Research Social and Demographic Trends. 3/7/2014)

Cultural change:

Innovation:

Discovery
Invention (Social Networking)

Diffusion:

material vs. non-material
Baseball in Japan

Evolution (and this [local copy])(YouTube)

Culturomics

World Clock

ELEMENTS OF CULTURE

LANGUAGE

Caution: this section contains graphic language. It is not intended to offend. Instead, it is meant to educate by demonstrating the power of language.

Basis of Culture
Learning
Symbolic/abstract
Expandable
Force of CHANGE and STABILITY: Conflict, Functionalism, and Interactionism.
See also: Social Construction and Why it Matters
Sapir-Whorf and the Linquistic Relativity Hypothesis (see also):

Language precedes thought. (original)
Language influences behavior and interpretation of social reality. (modified)
NPR: Shakespeare Had Roses All Wrong (April 6, 2009)

VOCABULARY

There is debate over the early research, no generalized consensus over some of these variations, but:

Colors:

Dugum Dani (New Guinea) white and black;

Russians: lt. vs drk. blue

Hungarians: two reds (also)

Jali: warm and cold

Toda (India) only three.

Home Depot: Thousands

Precipitation:

Aztecs: one word for snow, frost, ice, and cold

Inuit Eskimo--no general word as we know it, but over 20 specific words--snow on the ground, snow falling, snow drifting.

Koya of South India: no distinction between snow, fog and dew; but SEVEN types of bamboo.

All see same, divide up differently.

What is Graupel?

Dialects

How do you say, "soda?"

USA Language Map (local copy)

GRAMMAR

Again, challenges and different interpretations to these specific ideas, yet:

Navajo-no active verbs as such--they tend to indicate action. So, it's not as much acting in the world, as it is participating in actions taking place.

Hopi--no recognition of time and space categories, i.e. past present and future tenses at least as we distinguish them: Manifest--everything that is or has been accessible to the physical senses, and Manifesting--everything that is not physically accessible to the senses. They blend time and space.

Language predisposes us to make certain interpretations of reality. We learn the world, as pre-given, natural, as we acquire language. Language gives us the categories and concepts through which we derive significance.

Language and LEARNING: The words we learn to characterize different groups shape our understanding of the various individuals who make up the group. Certain words tend to produce "homogenized" images that deny the individual reality of group members. Words orient us to certain characteristics and images, and inhibit us from "seeing" others.

"nigger" (transcript) vs Negro vs Black vs African American.

"cracker" vs "honkie" vs Yankee vs Caucasian vs White vs Euro-American.

Dictionary: Black vs White--blacklist, white lie. (search the Cambridge Dictionary for meanings)

Affordable, previously-owned vs cheap and used.

Theories and Language:

Functionalism-unifies

(Sapir-Whorf)

Conflict-divides, controls, as well as the potential for change
Interactionism- shared meanings; subcultural reality: ASL

ISSUE: Bilingualism; Gender.

NORMS

Established standards of behavior. Shared.
Formal-Informal. Special case: Law--Written down, specified penalties for violation.
Folkways-Mores.
Variation and Relativity: Between and within cultures.
Acceptance: Known but not followed, Peer groups and Sub-culture, Normative conflict: succeed vs help others, text: mind own business vs assist victim.
Exceptions.
Taboos: little need for verbalization-widely accepted--cannibalism- Leningrad: WWII-do not show enjoyment; Plane crashes; Placentaphagia

SANCTIONS

Maintain order.
Detection.
Improper application.

VALUES

Collective conceptions of what is considered good, desirable, proper--or bad, undesirable, improper.
General and Abstract.
Norms derive from values. Voting (norm) in New Hampshire ("town meetings") and democracy (value)
Stable.

Robin Williams: List, but broad and subject to interpretation.

VALUE CONFLICT (Between and Within Cultures):

Equal opportunity
Help in time of need
First year college: Money vs Meaningful life (1967 vs 1993)
First year college: Money vs Social Awareness (1980s vs 1994)
Compartmentalization--apply one set of values in one situation, use another in different situation.
Between Cultures: Continental Divide, by Semour Martin Lipset (1990)

U.S. vs Canada: Us--more religious, moralistic re: sex etc., homosexuality, Vietnam war, individuality and liberty.
Canadians--orderly society, strong government, gays-"who cares."

CULTURAL VARIATION

Between cultures: "Queer Customs"
Within a culture: The Amish (The Amish and Change)(PBS. 2010. American Experience. "The Amish.")
Body Ritual Among the Nacirema
Institute for Nacirema Studies
Back to Cultural Universals

Subcultures:

Participate in dominant, yet distinctively different at the same time.
ARGOT: boundary, defines in and out, maintains distinctive identity.
Conflict: inequality.
Functionalism: Complexity and Variety
Interactionism: Shared meaning systems

Types and Examples

Regionalism, age, beliefs, interests, oppression. (Patchwork Nation)

The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe: Test Pilots. (text)

Professional Football Players.

Various holidays: Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah (Chanukah), Winter solstice.

Drug Users.

Where did you go to High School?

Countercultures:

Rejects societal norms and values
Seek alternative lifestyles
Typically oriented towards changing dominant culture, but may be isolationist.

Types and Examples

Revolutionary Groups

Hippies, Yippies

White supremacist groups--Posse Commitus

Skinheads

CULTURAL INTEGRATION

Elements dependent on and supportive of each other.
NECESSARY at a basic level.
Basic Functionalist perspective.
- Example: Computers and process of adaptation (Global Publics).
- Potential dysfunction

DOMINANT IDEOLOGY

Consensus vs control and domination.
Status Quo: common culture serves to maintain differences and subordination.
Lukacs: Dominant Ideology
Gramsci: Hegemony
Marx and Engels: The ideas of the ruling class are in every age the ruling ideas.
Control over material forces equates with control over intellectual forces: Law, religion, Education, advertising.

ISSUE: Multiculturalism vs Traditional canon of western culture.

Socialization

URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/010/culture.html
Owner: Robert O. Keel rok@umsl.edu
References and Credits for this Page of Notes
Last Updated: Tuesday, February 6, 2018 2:47 PM