e A ao SDO CALBAYOG CITY S\ www.bit/lydepedcalbayo: UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION OF THIS MATERIAL IS STRICTLY PROHIBITEDOREM Renny HANDOUT No. 3 in Understanding Culture, Society and Politics Handouts paired eee Coos MELC: Explain th (UCSP11/12DCS-Ic-6) Semester: ist Week No. 3 Day: 1-4 LESSON: The Importance of Cultural Relativism portance of cultural relativism in attaining cultural understanding The study of society is incomplete without proper understanding of the culture of that society because culture and society go together. Culture is a unique possession of man. Man is bom and brought up in a cultural environment. Culture is a unique quality of man which separates him from the lower animals. Culture includes all that man acquires in his social life. DEFINITIONS OF CULTURE * The hard work of man and the medium through which he achieves his ends. * Its organized body of conventional understandings manifest in art which persisting through tradition, characterizes a human group. * The body of thought and knowledge, both theoretical and practical, which only man can possess * Itis that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morale, laws, custom and any other capabilities and habits as acquired by man as a member of society. Culture exists in the minds or habits of the members of society. Culture is a people's shared ways of doing and thinking. These are degrees of visibility of cultural behavior, ranging from the regularized activities of persons to their internal reasons for so doing. In other words, we cannot see culture as such, we can only see human behavior. This behavior occurs in a regular, patterned fashion, and this fashion is called culture. CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE Culture means simply the way of life of a people or their design of living. A culture is a historically derived system of explicit and implicit designs for living, which tends to be shared by all or specially designed members of a group. Explicit Culture refers to similarities in words and actions which can be directly observed. For example, the adolescent cultural behavior can be _ https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_sociology- generalized by looking at the way teens dress, their understanding-and-changing-the-social-world mannerisms and conversations. Implicit Culture on the {2h veestion08 0820s! meson a other hand exists in abstract forms which are not quite obvious.1. Culture is social because it is the product of behavior. r 6 Culture does not exist in isolation. It is a product j of society. It develops through social interaction. No man can acquire culture without association with others. Humans become humans only among themselves. Culture learning's are the products of behavior. As the people behave, there occur changes in them- They acquire the ability to swim, to feel hatred ~~ toward someone, or to sympathize with someone. They grow out of their previous behaviors. In both ways, then, human behavior is the result of behavior. The experiences of other people are impressed on a person as he or she grows up. Also many of people's traits and abilities have grown out of their own past behaviors. 2. Culture varies from society to society. Every society has a culture of its own that differs from other societies. The culture of every society is unique to itself. Culture is not uniform. Cultural elements like customs, traditions, morals, values, and beliefs are not uniform. These variations in cultural manifestations are explained by the fact that culture is a human product. Culture is not a force operating by itself and independent of human actors. Culture is a creation of society in interaction and depends for its hiiov/videotrn.oh/22estivalsthatyoa —_@xistence upon the continuance of society. 3. Culture is shared. Culture is not something that an individual alone can possess. Culture, in a sociological sense, is shared. For example, customs, traditions, beliefs, ideas, values, morals, etc. are all shared by people of a group or society. The patterns of learned behavior and the results of behavior are possessed not by one or a few persons, but usually by a large group. Thus, millions of persons share Catholic behavior patterns, use cellphones, or speak the English language. Sometimes people share different aspects of a culture. For example, among Christians, there are Catholics and Protestants, liberals and conservatives, and clergymen and laymen. The point of our discussion is not that culture or any part of it is shared identically, but that it is shared by the members of society to a sufficient extent. The sharing of culture is made possible by attitudes, values, and knowledge. https://examples.yourdictionary.com/exam 1 4, Culture is learned.Culture is not inborn. It is learned. Culture is often called "learned ways of behavior." Unlearned behavior is not culture. But shaking hands, saying thanks, etc. are cultural behavior. It must be noted however that not all behavior is learned, but most of it is leamed. Sometimes mj the terms: ‘conscious learning’ and ‘unconscious learning’ are used to distinguish the learning. For example, the ways in which a small child learns to handle a tyrannical father or a rejecting mother often affect the ways in which that child, 10 or 15 years later, handle his relationships with other people. Some behavior is obvious. People can be nttp:/flipknow.net/philippinedcons- 1 seen going to football games, eating with forks, or driving automobiles. Such behavior is called ‘overt’ behaviors. Other behaviors are less visible. Such activities as planning tomorrow's work or feeling hatred for an enemy are behaviors, too. This sort of behavior, which is not openly visible to other people, is called "covert behavior. Both may be, of course, learned. The definition of culture indicates that the learned behavior of people is patterned. Each person's behavior often depends upon some particular behavior of someone else. The point is that, as a general rule, behavior is somewhat integrated or organized with the related behavior of other persons. 5. Culture is transmitted among members of society. The cultural ways are learned by persons from persons. Many of them are "handed down" by elders, parents, teachers, and others (of a somewhat older generation), while other cultural behaviors are "handed up" to elders. Some of the transmission of culture is among contemporaries, for example, the styles of dressing- Political views, and the use of recent labor-saving devices. Culture is transmitted from one generation to another. Transmission of culture is made possible by language. Language is the main vehicle of culture. Language in different forms makes it possible for the present generation to understand the achievement of earlier generations. Transmission of culture may take place by imitation as well as by instruction. Language is the chief vehicle of Culture. People live not only in the present but also in the past and future. A specialized language pattern serves as a common bond to the members or a particular group or subculture. Although culture is transmitted in a variety of ways, language is one of the most important vehicles for perpetuating cultural patterns. Culture is everything that is socially leamed and shared by the members of a society. It is culture that, in the wide focus of the world, distinguishes an individual from another individual or a group from another group. 6. Culture is continuous and cumul:Culture Bip//srivayaguragabiliy Biogspotcom/1 exists is as a continuous process. In its historical growth, it tends to become cumulative. Sociologist Linton ‘called culture the social ‘heritage of man. It becomes difficult for us to imagine what society would like without culture. Culture varies from society to society. Furthermore, culture varies from group to group within the same society. There are subcultures within a culture. Clusters of patterns which are both related to the general culture of the society and yet are hetps://munw.marketingSt.com/subulture/ 2 distinguishable from it are called subcultures. There is one fundamental and inescapable attribute (special quality) of culture: the fact of unending change. Some societies sometimes change slowly, and hence in comparison to other societies seem not to be changing at all. But they are changing, even though not obviously so. No culture ever remains constant or changeless. It is subject to slow but constant change. Culture is responsive to the changing conditions of the physical world; hence it is dynamic. 7. Culture is gratifying and idealistic. Culture provides proper opportunities for the satisfaction of our needs and desires. Our needs both biological and social are fulfilled in cultural ways. Culture determines and guides various activities of man. Thus, Culture is defined as the process through which human beings satisfy their wants. Culture embodies the ideas and norms of a group. It is the sum total of the ideal patterns and norms of behavior of a group. Culture consists of the intellectual, artistic, and social ideals and institutions which the members of society profess and to which they strive to conform. FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE ‘Among all groups of people, we find widely shared beliefs, norms, values, and preferences. Since culture seems to be a universal human phenomenon, it occurs naturally to wonder whether culture corresponds to any universal human need. This curiosity raises the question of the functions of culture. According to social scientists, culture has certain functions for both the individual and society. 1. Culture defines situations. Each culture has many subtle cues which define each situation. It reveals whether one should prepare to fight, run, laugh, or make love. For example, suppose someone approaches you with his right hand. Outstretched at waist level. What does this mean? That he wishes to shake hands in friendly greeting is perfectly obvious-obvious, that is, to anyone familiar with our culture. But in another place or time the outstretched hand might mean hostility or warning. One does not know what to do in a situation until he has defined the situation. Each society has its insults and fighting words. The cues (hints) which define situations appear in infinite variety. A person who moves from one society to another will spend many years misreading the cues (for example, laughing at the wrong places). 2. Culture defines attitudes, values, and goals. Each person learns from his/her culture what is good, true, and beautiful. Attitudes, values, and goals are defined by the culture, and the individual normally learns them as unconsciously as he or she leams the language. Attitudes are tendencies to feel and act in certain ways. Values are measures of goodness or desirability. For example, we value private property, (representative)government, and many other things and experience. Goals are those attainments which our values define as worthy, e.g., winning the race, gaining the affections of a particular girl, or becoming president of the firm. By approving certain goals and ridiculing others, the culture channels individual ambitions. In these ways culture determines the goals of life. 3. Culture defines myths, legends, and the supernatural. Myths and legends are important parts of every culture. They may inspire or reinforce effort and sacrifice and bring comfort in bereavement. Whether they are true is sociologically unimportant. Ghosts are real to people who believe in them and who act upon this belief. We cannot understand the behavior of any group without knowing something of the myths, legends, and supernatural beliefs they hold. Myths and legends are powerful forces in a group's behavior. Culture also provides the individual with a ready-made view of the universe. The nature of divine power and the important moral issues are defined by the culture. '*»//philnews.0h/2020/33/26/eramples- 3 The individual does not have to select as he or she is trained in a Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, or some other religious tradition. This tradition gives answers to the major questions of life and prepares the individual to meet life's crises. 4. Culture provides behavior patterns. The individual need not go through painful trial and error to know what food can be eaten or how to live among people without fear. People find a ready-made set of patterns awaiting them which they need only to learn and follow. The culture maps out the path to matrimony. The individual does not have to wonder how one secures a mate; he or she knows the procedure defined by his or her culture. If people use culture to advance their purposes, it seems clear also that a culture imposes limits on humans and their activities. The need for order calls forth another function of culture-direct behavior-so that disorderly behavior is restricted and orderly behavior is promoted. A society without rules or norms that define right and wrong behavior would be very much like a busy street without traffic signs or any understood rules. Chaos would be the result in this case. Social order cannot rest on the assumption that people will spontaneously behave in ways conducive to social harmony. Cultural relativism is the idea that norms, beliefs, and values are dependent on their cultural context and should be treated as such. A key component of cultural relativism is the concept that nobody, not even researchers, comes from a neutral position. The way to deal with our own assumptions is not to pretend that they don't exist, but rather to acknowledge them and then use the awareness that we are not neutral to inform our conclusions. In a way, cultural relativity is a belief that maintains it does not matter whether cultures are either equal or different because equality and similarity do not necessarily translate to real or imagined Cultural relativism is also a research method. Social scientists strive to treat cultural differences as neither inferior nor superior. That way, they can understand their research topics within the appropriate cultural context and examine their own biases and assumptions at the same time. This is a method whereby different societies or cultures are analyzed objectively Without using the | values of one culture to judge the worth of anotherWe cannot possibly understand the actions of other groups if we analyze them in terms of our motives and values. We must interpret their behaviour in the light of their motives, habits, and values if we are to understand them. Cultural relativism means that the function and meaning of a trait are relative to its cultural setting. A trait is neither good nor bad in itself. It is good or bad only with reference to the culture in which itis to function. For instance, for clothing is good in the Arctic but not in the tropics. in some hunting societies which occasionally face long periods of hunger, to be fat is good; it has real survival value and fat people are admired. In our society, to be fat is not only unnecessary but is known to be unhealthy and fat people are not admired. Appreciation of other Cultures may come about for two complementary reasons: (1) acqui sufficient knowledge about the culture in question, and (2) direct exposure to other cultures. The first may happen in indirect ways such as reading about the practices and rituals of other cultures. While the second may take place because of travel or immigration. In both cases, individuals personally come in contact with the people representing another culture and they see the performance of a different set of practices. The concept of cultural relativism does not mean that all customs are equally valuable, nor does it imply that no customs are harmful. Some pattems of behavior may be injurious everywhere, but even such patterns serve some purpose in the culture and the society will suffer unless a substitute is provided. The central point in cultural relativism is that in a particular cultural setting certain trait are right because they work well in that setting while other traits are wrong because they would clash painfully with parts of that culture. Understanding Culture, Society and Politics (Antonio Contreras, Arleigh Ross D. De la Cruz, Dennis Erasga, Cecile Fadrigon); Understanding Culture, Society and Politics Teaching GuideCO QAH + MELC LW LEARNING WORKSHEET No. 3 in UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY AND. POLITICS Nam Grade & Section: Teacher: Date Submitted: MELC: Explain the importance of cultural relativism in attaining cultural understanding (UCSP11/12DCS-Ic-6) Objectives/Subtasks: Topic: The Importance of Cultural Relativism ‘Semester: 1st Quarter: 4 Week No. 3 Day: 4-4 Is it True or False! Activity 1 Instructions: Assess whether the statements in Column A are True or False. In column B, write True if the statement is true and False if the statement is false. A B 1. Cultural relativism promotes greater appreciation of the cultures one encountered along the way. 2. Cultural relativism is a research method as well 3. The nature of divine power and the important moral issues is not defined by the culture. 4, Culture consists of the intellectual, artistic, and social ideals and institutions which the members of society do not profess and to which they strive to conform, 5. Culture is transmitted from one generation to another generation. 6. The central point in cultural relativism is that in a particular cultural setting certain trait are wrong because they work well in that setting while other traits are right because they would clash painfully with parts of that culture. 7. Cultural relativism means that the function and meaning of a trait are relative to its cultural setting. 8. Culture determines and guides various activities of man. 9. Culture is inborn. 10. Culture is a creation of society in interaction and depends for its existence upon the continuance of society.Topic: The importance of Cultura Relativism ‘Asses me and explain it to me! Activity 2 Instructions: Evaluate our country in comparison to the culture of other countries. Rate the following characteristics on a scale of one to five, 5 being the highest and 1 being the lowest. Encircle your rating on the box under the rating scale and explain. Characteristics Rating Why? 5 4 Equality between the sexes 3 2 1 5 4 Friendliness to strangers 3 2 1 5 4 Artistic contributions 3 @ 1 5 4 Religious tolerance 3 2 1 Style of dress anoaa