defining culture and society

Tuesday, September 20, 2022 11:23 AM

What is culture?
It is everything made, learnt, or shared by members of a society, including beliefs, behaviors,
and material objects.

Parts of culture:

- Material culture; visible parts of culture (ex: food, clothing, transportation, weapons,
architecture that members of society make, use, and share.

- Non-material; not visible aspects of culture (ex: behavior, languages, values, family
patterns, and political systems

.
The 5 components of culture
1. Technology - manmade products (material culture) that makes life easier.

2. Symbols - cultural representations of reality, meanings to things and events. (ex:

gestures, images, sounds, physical objects, events, etc.)

3. Language - (most powerful of all human symbols, since it connects all components)
expresses meaning of symbols, allows members of society to communicate, and conveys
the beliefs and values of culture.

4. Values - ideas, determines of character of people, standards by which people asses

desirability, goodness, and beauty.

5. Norms - rules-like that guide human behavior, and gives concrete terms on how we
should behave - what we should do or what we should not do.

- Kinds of norms:
Mores - distinguishing between right or wrong
Folkways - distinguishing between kind and rude (adaptation, pakikiisa?)

Laws - established punishments for violating norms to protect the social wellbeing.
- written rules of conduct enacted and enforced by the government.

- Mores Laws: against child abuse, rape, carnapping, etc.

- Folkway Laws: jaywalking, counterflowing, etc.

What's the difference between Culture and Society?

- Society; are the people who interact to share a common culture

- Culture; consists of beliefs, behaviors, objects, and other characteristics common to a
group or society.

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The basic features of culture:
Culture is learned, shared, based on symbols, integrated (all aspects included
to consider), and dynamic (interacts and changes).
Cultural Diversity - the presence of multiple cultures and cultural differences within a society.
[respect]

Subcultures - smaller cultural groups that exists from common interests within but differ in
some way (ex: "heavy metal" music devotees, & body-piercing and tattoo enthusiasts)

Countercultures - groups in opposition to the norms and values of the dominant culture.

Assimilation is when dominant culture absorbs subcultural or countercultural

groups while Multiculturalism respects cultural variations rather than requiring
that the dominant culture assimilate the various cultures.
Ethnocentrism involves judging negatively of other cultures against the standards of one's own
culture (comparing other cultures with your own) and Cultural Relativism is the perspective
that a culture should be sociologically evaluated according to its own standards. (judging other
cultures based on their standards as well.)

Toward a Global Culture

- Cultural Diffusion is the spreading of the standards across cultures through travel,
trade, conquests, etc.

Social Groups and Organization

Classification of people:

- Group - consists of two or more people who are distinct in the following way: interact over
time, have a sense of identity or belonging, and have norms that non-members do not
have.

- Aggregate - a collection of people who happen to be at the same place at the same time
but who have no other connection to one another; estranged.

- Category - collection of people who share a particular characteristic but do not

necessarily interact with one another.

Characteristics of a group:
- Social group - members who interact with one another (families, companies, circles of
friends, clubs, etc.

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friends, clubs, etc.

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Social group according to geographical location and degree of relationship:

- Gemeinschaft; social system, in which most relationships are personal and traditional, a
community of intimate, private and exclusive living and familism. More on personal.

- Gesselchaft; social system in which most relationships are impersonal, formal,

contractual or bargain-like, proffesional.

Social organization is a type of collectively established for the pursuit of specific aims or goals.
Or how they relate to one another.

An organization is an orderly relationship.

Importance of a Group - it is a major source of solidarity and cohesion.

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