Understanding Cultural Crossroads: Exploring Components and Variations in Culture

1. Chapter 4 Cultural Crossroads

2. Overview • What is Culture? • Components of Culture • Variations in Culture • High, Low and Popular Culture • Cultural Change

3. The entire way of life of a group of people or society Language, ideas, beliefs, values, norms, behaviors and objects Passed from one generation to the next Fundamental feature of who we are Why we think and act the way we do Culture is internalized Lens through which we view the world Effects tend to remain imperceptible to us What is Culture?

4. YouTube Clip “Borat” movie trailer

5. PRACTICING CULTURAL RELATIVISM • Each cultural group as relative to others • Seeing differences and distinctions rather than: • right and wrong • normal and abnormal • good and bad • better and worse

6. SuspendingETHNO*CENTRISM: “The use of one’s own culture as a standard by which to evaluate another group or individual, usually leading to a negative judgment of others”

7. “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema”by Horace Miner • Understanding the Nacirema culture • Who are they? • A study of culturally-prescribed rituals • Highly-developed techniques to care for the body • All members conform to some degree with these practices • They pass these practices along to their children

8. Who are the Nacirema? • North American people living in a specific geographic territory • Native cultural aesthetics dictate certain practices • They are obsessed with magic • Members engage in ritual and ceremonial activities • Concerned with health and appearance • In general, they suffer from a negative self-image • They dislike the appearance of unaltered body • They have an aversion to natural bodily functions

9. Every household has one or more shrines devoted to the body ritual • Each has a charm-box or chest built into the wall with a small holy-water font below • Members visit medicine men, holy-mouth men and other specialized practitioners • To procure potions and implements to use in their rituals • Very afflicted people visit certain temples where more radical procedures are performed

10. So …Who are the Nacirema? How might an understanding of the Nacirema culture help us to better understand ourselves?

11. Hint: To understand the Nacirema you must think sociologically: • practice culture shock • suspend ethnocentrism • practice cultural relativism N A C I R E M A = A M E R I C A N

13. Components of Culture:Material Culture • Physical objects belonging to a culture and to which we give meaning • Art, artifacts, architecture, clothing, utensils, tools, machines, technologies, etc.

15. Components of Culture:Non-Material or Symbolic Culture • Symbols • Signs • Gestures • Language • Symbols allow for abstract concepts • Ideas, beliefs, values, norms, rules • Social systems, patterns, ways of thinking

19. YouTube Clip “Hand Gestures Across Cultures”

20. LANGUAGE • A human universal • Do animals have language? • A system of communication • Vocal sounds and written symbols • The basis of culture • Knowledge and experience is cumulative • Shared and exchanged

21. Language and Perception • The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis— • Ways of looking at the world are embedded in language • Language allows us to “see” things • Example of the Inuit or Eskimo • Language structures thought

22. Language and Social Reality • Example of language and culture of high school girls • From the book “Queen Bees and Wannabes” • Basis for the movie “Mean Girls”

24. Can you solve this riddle? A man and his son are involved in a serious car accident. The man is pronounced dead at the scene, but his son is rushed to a nearby hospital in critical condition. A famous surgeon on staff at the hospital is summoned from a golf game to save the boy's life. Arriving at the hospital, the surgeon takes one look at the boy and says, “Oh my God, I can't operate, get someone else. That's my son!" WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

25. Symbolic Culture:VALUES AND NORMS • Values— • What a group values and honors • Standards and ideas about good or bad, right or wrong, normal or abnormal • Norms— • Rules and guidelines for acceptable and appropriate behavior • Based on a group’s values • We conform so readily that we are not usually aware

26. Types of Norms • Folkways— • Customs and practices that ensure smooth interaction • Loosely enforced • Mores— • Norms that are key to core values • Serious and formal repercussions • Taboos— • Deeply engrained mores • The thought of violating evokes horror or revulsion

27. SANCTIONS and SOCIAL CONTROL • Sanctions— • Positive or negative reactions to people • Reward conformity • Punish violation • Social Control — • Means to insure that people behave in acceptable and expected ways • Formal – through outside authorities • Informal – through internalization • Social Control— > “Self Control”

28. Positive Sanctions Social Control Negative Sanctions

29. VARIATIONS IN CULTURE:Subcultures and Countercultures • Subculture – • A group within larger dominant culture • Large or small • Each has distinctive values, norms and lifestyle

30. VARIATIONS IN CULTURE:Subcultures and Countercultures • Counterculture – • Group openly rejects or opposes society’s values and norms • Some may actively challenge dominant culture

31. Ideal culture: what a group aspires to Values, norms and behaviors that should be followed Real culture: what a group actually does Values, norms and behaviors that are practiced in reality VARIATIONS IN CULTURE:“Ideal” Versus “Real” Culture Contradictions

32. VARIATIONS IN CULTURE:Culture Wars • Controversies within mainstream society • Which values and norms to follow • Often described as clashes between: • right and left • conservatives and liberals • Resistance to those who want to change values • Struggle over values can lead to social change

35. Values, Norms and Laws in Flux:The Case of Marijuana • 1770: George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grow hemp • Used to make paper for the Declaration of Independence • 1937: “Reefer Madness” leads to the outlaw of marijuana use in U.S. • 2002: Some states decriminalize, allow for medical use

36. High, Low and Popular Culture • High culture —associated with elites • Examples: opera, museums • Popular culture —associated with the masses and consumer goods • Examples: hip hop music, TV

38. CULTURAL CHANGE • Cultural Diffusion • The dissemination of beliefs and practices from one group to another • Material • Symbolic • Exposure to new cultural elements may lead to adoption

39. CULTURAL LEVELING • The result of widespread cultural diffusion • Cultures may eventually resemble one another • Loss of distinctiveness • Cultural diffusion tends to come from the West • Process is not necessarily one-way

40. CULTURAL IMPERIALISM • The imposition of one culture’s beliefs, practices and artifacts on another culture • Through mass media and consumer goods • “Invading” and taking over another country • No longer necessary to send military • May not be welcomed • Could threaten local, traditional cultures

41. More about cultural change Later in the semester …