Культура и общество_лекция для студентов

1. CULTURE

What is Culture?
Elements of Culture
Cultural Diversity
Cultural Change

2. STRUCTURES OF THE (HUMAN) SOCIALITY

Individual
(personality structures)
Now
we are here
The
Social
Culture
(cultural structures)
Society
(social structures)

3. What is common to humans and…?

Naked mole-rats
Termites
Apes
Bees

4.

5. WHAT IS CULTURE?

In 1873, British scholar
Edward (Burnett) Tylor,
sometimes called the
"father of anthropology",
introduced the concept of
culture as an explanation of
the differences among
human societies.
Tylor defined culture as
"that complex whole which
includes knowledge, belief,
art, law, morals, custom,
and any other capabilities
acquired by man as a
member of society".

6. CULTURAL STRUCTURES

Value-normative
structures
Culture
Material
structures
Symbolic
structures

7. When did culture emerge?

The earliest human culture is
Oldowan culture, also called Oldowan
Industrial Tradition or Mode 1.
(2.6 million years ago).
It is featured with scrapers and choppers
made of sharp-edged flakes (stones).
It is named after Olduvai Gorge in the
Great Rift Valley of Africa where the
artifacts were found.
The end of the Oldowan is defined as
Homo Habilis
"the appearance of Mode 2 tools" or Acheulean
reconstruction
culture (1.5 mln years ago)
As originators of Oldowan culture are supposedly
considered early hominids Homo habilis (Homo “skillful”), most
ancient representatives of the human genus, Homo.

8. Layers of culture

Material culture
Non-material culture

9. Material and non-material cultures do not exist separately, they are normally intertwined

10.

11. Symbols

Symbols are defined as anything that carries a
particular meaning recognized by people who share
culture. The meaning of the same symbols varies
from society to society, within a single society, and
over time. They include:
Nonverbal communication (gestures)
Spoken/written Language
Information/Knowledge
Art
Common meanings of distinct facts/objects (signs)

12.

13. LANGUAGE

Language is a system of symbols that allows people to
communicate with one another
Are we really
prisoners of our
native
language?
Edward Sapir
Benjamin Lee Whorf
(1884-1939)
(1897-1941)
Linguistic relativity principle (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis):
The structure of a language determines a native
speaker's perception and categorization of experience

14. Cпектр видимого света (радуга) для носителей английского языка

15. Norms

Norms are widely agreed-upon principles or rules
people are expected to observe; they represent the dos
and don’ts of social life. They include three forms:
Prescriptive norms or obligations (what one must do)
Permissive norms or rights (what one may do)
Restrictive/proscriptive norms or prohibitions (what one must
not do)
American sociologist William G. Sumner in 1906
identified three substantial types of norms:
Folkways. E.g.: etiquette.
Mores [MOR-ays]. E.g.: moral taboos.
Laws. E.g.: civil law; administrative law; criminal law;
constitutional law; international law.

16.

17. VALUES

Values are culturally defined standards by which people
judge desirability, goodness and beauty, and which serve as
broad guidelines for social living.
Values form the basis for norms, beliefs and roles in our daily
interactions providing and maintaining our behavior patterns.
American sociologist Talcott Parsons
proposed the theory of pattern variables binary structures of integrated values,
norms, beliefs and roles involved in a
situation with potentially alternative
behaviors. The theory helps understand how
values of the Western people differ from
those of Asian societies. It is useful to
consider when you communicate in a foreign
or multicultural work/study setting.
Talcott Parsons
(1902-1979)

18.

PATTERN VARIABLES
Pattern variables are dichotomized ideal types of social
action differentiated according to conventions of behavior in
the traditional/premodern/developing/Asian societies
(Gemeinschaft type) compared to those in the
developed/modern/Western societies (Gesellschaft type)

19.

Affectivity vs.
Affective-neutrality

20.

Ascription vs. Achievement

21. Particularism vs. Universalism

22. Diffuseness vs. Specificity

23. Self-orientation (individualism) vs. collectivity orientation (communitarism)

24.

25.

26.

27. Закон человеческого развития Инглхарта-Вельцеля

Все более благоприятные (экономические) условия существования
людей побуждают их делать больший акцент на свободе и
возможностях выбора, что, в свою очередь, дает импульс
утверждению и укреплению демократических свобод.

28. Cultural Diversity

Ideal culture – cultural guidelines that group
members claim to accept. E.g. honesty.
Real culture – actual persistent behavior patterns of
members of a group E.g. lying
High culture refers to cultural patterns that
distinguish a society’s elite. E.g. classic music.
Popular culture designates cultural patterns that are
widespread among a society’s population. E.g. popmusic
Macro-culture is the dominant culture of a particular
society and can be defined regionally or nationally.
Subcultures are cultural groups within a wider society
that hold values and norms distinct from those of the
majority. E.g. emo
Countercultures are cultural groups that largely reject
the prevailing values and norms of society. E.g. hippies in
1960s, radical islamism in the 21st century.
Microcultures are small groups of people with their own
values, norms and working behaviors. E.g. gangs, teams,
Theodore
Roszak
(1933-2011)

29. Interrelation of cultures

30. Cultural Universals and Cultural Particulars

American anthropologist George Murdock (1897-1985)
distinguished between cultural universals and
particulars.
Cultural Universals – general cultural traits or
elements that exist in all cultures
Cultural Particulars – the ways in which a
culture expresses universal traits

31.

Cultural particulars in childcare:
America vs. Denmark

32. Ethnocentrism vs. Cultural Relativism

Franz Boas
(1858-1942)
Cultural relativism was in part a response to Western
ethnocentrism. It was first articulated by American
anthropologist Franz Boas (1887) - no primitive culture
should be judged by the standards of Western civilization.
Aforementioned sociologist William Sumner in 1906
called attention to the fact that one's culture can limit
one's perceptions. He called this principle
ethnocentrism, the viewpoint that "one's own group is
the center of everything", against which all other groups
William G. Sumner
are judged.
(1840-1910)

33.

34. CULTURAL CHANGE

Cultures are dynamic. They are everchanging, non-static.
Cultures change by invention, discovery
and diffusion
Invention – new thing or idea. E.g.
computer.
Discovery – recognizing and
understanding something unknown or
not fully understood before. E.g.
Heliocentrism.
Diffusion – spreading of cultural
elements from one culture to another.
E.g. Westernization vs. Easternization
William Ogburn’s idea of cultural lag
refers to the fact that cultural elements
change at different rates, which may
disrupt a cultural system. E.g. challenges
of AI.
William Fielding Ogburn

35.

What kind of cultural lag do the
scientists warn about by this open
letter?