2.

Culture

- includes everything that mankind has created in a material and non-material

realm
- is the blueprint for living in a society
- thoughts, ideas, artefacts (any object) are all part of culture
- is transmitted socially
- makes a society work
- is the main vehicle for people to satisfy basic needs, tame the environment,
regulate relationships and structure groups

A society:
- lives within a geographic area
- is fairly independent from the others around
- has a common culture (is identifiable in time and space)

”cultural universals” – some may be the same, but they manifest differently
depending on the culture
Cultural universals:
- marriage – all societies need to regulate sexual behaviour
taboo – prohibition of a specific action
incest – inbreeding (consangvinitate)
- rites of passage – they help make up and complete the identity of an individual;
the age of sexual maturity (menstruation for girls), the ceremony of marriage, 18th
birthday party, retirement party

3 positions:
- ethnocentrism – one’s culture is right, the others are superstition
- xenocentrism – thinking that foreign cultures are better than one’s own
- cultural relativism – viewing a culture in its own context

Sociobioloy – branch that analyses how biology affects the behaviour of people
Darwin – ”The Origin of Species” – natural selection

1
Herbert Spencer (social Darwinism) – ”survival of the fittest”

Functionalists, interactionists, conflict theorists, they all disagree with Sociobiology, but
it played its part in the human thinking at the time

Culture and Adaptation

- We produce, transmit and depend on culture – culture is the primary means/

mechanism through which human beings adapt to their environment

(”CRISPR” – manipulating human DNA)

How do we advance?
- innovation:
– discovery
– invention
- diffusion – how a cultural idea or product (artefacts) reaches from a culture to
other cultures

Commodification – taking cultural items and turning them into commodities that people
buy and sell (e.g. cuisine)
Cultural branding

George Ritzer – the McDonaldization of society – societies around the globe are using the
principles used by American fast-food chains, centered around efficiency, calculability,
predictability and control; the melding of the imported model with the native one (e.g.
McMici)

William Ogburn – he made the difference between material culture (objects) and non-
material culture (customs, beliefs, ideologies, politics, etc.); when there is a lag in between
we call it a ”cultural lag” (decalaj cultural) – material culture develops at a much faster
pace than non-material culture

2
 Cultural variation
- dominant culture
- subcultures – ethnic subcultures, professional/ occupational subcultures (the
police, actors, artists, bankers, etc.), religious subcultures (the Amish), political
subcultures, geographical subcultures
Countercultures – they oppose the mainstream dominant culture (e.g. the hippies
– they opposed capitalism and the Vietnam War, drafting)

Culture shock – when someone faces difficulties in adapting to a different

environment

Language
Pierre Bourdieu – language is part of the ”cultural capital” (it can be embeded,
objectified or institutionalized)

George Herbert Mead – symbolic interactionism

Values in a society tell you the difference between what is good or bad, what is
desirable and what is not.
Norms specify the rules of behaviour – they put in practice what we uphold
through values.
Norms:
- formal – mores
- informal – folkways

Ana-Maria Calancea,
Anul I Sociologie Englez FSAS