Culture and Society

1. Culture and Society A Social Systems Perspective

2. Definitions • Culture: • Those qualities and attributes that seem to be characteristic of all humankind. • Humans evolve and adapt primarily through culture rather than changes in anatomy or genetics. • Culture survives if it can accommodate to changing conditions. • Culture is viewed as a macrosystem. • Binds a particular society together, and includes its manners, morals, tools, and techniques.

3. Society: • A group of people who have learned to live and work together. • Society is a holon and within the society, culture refers to the way of life is followed by the group (society).

4. Nature of Culture • Culture is a group phenomenon. • Cultures evolve from the interaction of person with others, and a person’s belief or behavior becomes part of the culture when it is externalized and objectified.

5. A culture evolves as each person encounters four “poles”. • One’s own body or somatic process. • Biological constitution • Genetic endowment • Other persons or society. • Feedback cycle • The material world of nonhuman objects. • The universe of social constructed meanings.

6. According to Erikson, cultures change through the action of persons whose ideas and behavior “fit” the culture. • Change can also occur as a result of cataclysm, either physical as in famine, war, epidemic, or disaster. • It can also change as a result of a “paradigm shift” in fundamental understandings by those in the culture.

7. Unique Aspects of the Human Species • The capacity to think. • Sets humans apart from most other forms of life. • Humans have the capacity to externalize the thought process. • Tools • Human reproduction • Cloning

8. The Family as Human Universal • The family is biologically based and is the primary social unit. • Family is constant; the form of the family is variable. • The development of culture exists because culture is transmitted from one generation to the next through education not through the genes.

9. Language and Communication • Language is defined as any transfer of meaning, but general usage refers only to spoken and written messages. • It is essential to be attuned to unspoken and unwritten language. • Language structures reality • Form and variability determine how members of the culture will view reality and structure their thoughts.

10. Territoriality • Tendency of people to seek and maintain a territory. • The definition of spatial and interactional territories is paramount feature of any culture. • Refers to the cultural ways people locate themselves in their universe and establish the boundaries of their various human systems.

11. Qualities of a Society • Culture is that complex whole that includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by a human being as a member of society. • Culture is viewed as the ways of doing, being, and explaining, as they exist in each particular system.

12. Tools • Amplifiers of human capacities: • Sensory capacity • Motor capacity • Reasoning and thinking capacity • Include devices, objects, and procedures that are extensions of human natural capacities. • Tools of a culture include not only understanding their built-in purpose but, their purpose for the user.

13. Social Organizations:Society and Roles • All cultures, being social systems, have organization. • Three aspects operating to define social class: • Economic status • Social status • Political power • Social class suggests a group consciousness on the part of members. • Emergence of a permanent “underclass” in American society.

14. Role relates to and derives from status. • Total of the cultural expectations associated with a particular status, including: • Attitudes • Values • Behavior • Role expectation are defined by the culture and its components and incorporated by the persons filling the role.

15. All persons occupy a complex set of roles: • Parent • Child • Worker • Voter • Worshipper • The total number of roles is influenced by the quantity of networks they are involved in.

16. Language • Transfer of meaning between systems and between subsystems. • Composed of symbols and the meanings are learned and transferred through social interaction. • Communication of symbols and their meanings represents the major form of transaction between systems.

17. Mead stated that we do not simply respond to the acts of others; we act on our interpretations of their intentions and judgments. • A means of setting and maintaining cultural boundaries; also to organize the energies of the system. • The importance of screening and interpreting symbols in working with people is quite clear.

18. Child Rearing • A major task of any culture. • As a culture becomes more complex and differentiated, so too does child rearing, and other social provisions appear. • These new systems arise to realize more effectively the complex values of a culture. • Certain values are in conflict with certain other values, leading to tension and strain within the culture.

19. Human Urge to Explain the World • Humans are congenitally compelled to impose a meaningful order upon reality. • Religion, philosophy, science, and superstition are some of the means. • Science continues to be the dominant means of exploring, explaining, and changing our world.

20. Social Relations:Caring • Cultures are marked by the style in which they conduct social relationships. • Caring involves both an emotional disposition and caring labor. • It is a practice in which both thought and action are integrated around central aims or goals. • Caring is a dimension of culture as much as tools and language.

21. A feminist critique states that caring is largely delegated to women by a male-dominated society. • Regardless of sex, individuals and groups who occupy subordinate status display a responsive orientation to others characterized by deference, attentiveness, awareness of needs, understanding of perspectives, moods, intentions, and responsiveness.

22. An emphasis on autonomy as a basis for caring may be more acceptable to men.