Understanding Culture and Society
Culture and society are closely related but distinct concepts. Culture refers to the shared beliefs, values, behaviors, and artifacts that characterize a group of people, while society is the actual group of people who live together and share those cultural elements. Grasping the difference between the two is a foundation for everything else in sociology.
Culture vs. society differences
Culture is the "what" of social life: the ideas, habits, languages, customs, and objects a group shares. It gets passed down through generations via socialization, meaning people aren't born with culture but learn it from those around them.
Society is the "who": a group of people who share a common territory, interact with one another, and participate in shared institutions like family, education, and government. Society provides the structure in which culture develops and gets practiced.
The core distinction is that culture is abstract (shared ideas and patterns of behavior), while society is concrete (actual people and their relationships). A society can contain multiple cultures within it, but culture can't exist without a society of people to create and maintain it.
Material and nonmaterial culture
Material culture consists of the tangible, physical objects a society creates. Think tools, clothing, buildings, artwork, and technology. These objects reflect what a group values and how they live.
Nonmaterial culture includes the intangible elements: ideas, beliefs, values, norms, language, customs, and social roles. These shape how people think, act, and relate to each other.
The two are deeply connected. Material culture often serves as a physical expression of nonmaterial values. A wedding ring, for example, is a material object that represents nonmaterial beliefs about love and commitment. Changes in one type frequently trigger changes in the other. The invention of smartphones (material) reshaped communication norms and social expectations (nonmaterial).
Cultural Universals and Perspectives
Significance of cultural universals
Cultural universals are practices, beliefs, or institutions found across all known human societies. They arise from shared human needs and experiences. Examples include family structures, language, religious or spiritual practices, art, and systems of social norms.
Why do they matter for sociology?
- They highlight common ground among all humans, even across vastly different societies.
- They give researchers a basis for cross-cultural comparison, making it possible to study what varies between cultures and what stays constant.
- They help anthropologists and sociologists identify broad patterns and trends in how societies organize themselves.
George Murdock, an anthropologist, compiled a classic list of dozens of cultural universals, including things like cooking, gift-giving, and funeral rites. The specific form these take varies widely, but their presence across cultures is remarkably consistent.
Ethnocentrism and xenocentrism impacts
Ethnocentrism is the tendency to judge other cultures by the standards of your own, often assuming your culture is superior. This can lead to misunderstandings, prejudice, and discrimination against people whose practices seem "wrong" simply because they're different.
Xenocentrism is the opposite: a belief that foreign cultures are superior to your own. This can lead people to devalue their own cultural heritage or uncritically adopt practices from other cultures without understanding their original context.
Both biases distort how we understand other cultures. The sociological alternative is cultural relativism, which means evaluating a culture on its own terms rather than imposing outside standards. Cultural relativism doesn't require you to approve of every practice you encounter. It simply means trying to understand why a practice exists within its own cultural context before making judgments.
Cultural dynamics and diversity
Cultures are not static. They change constantly through several key processes:
- Cultural diffusion is the spread of cultural elements from one society to another. This can happen through trade, migration, media, or technology. The global popularity of foods like sushi or tacos is a straightforward example.
- Cultural assimilation occurs when individuals or groups adopt the cultural traits of a dominant society. This is common in immigrant communities adapting to a new country, and it can be voluntary or pressured.
- Cultural change is the broader, ongoing transformation of cultural practices and beliefs. It can be driven by internal factors like innovation or by external influences like contact with other cultures.
Within any large society, you'll also find cultural diversity, meaning multiple distinct cultural traditions coexisting in the same region. Related to this are subcultures, which are groups that share many values with the dominant culture but also maintain their own distinct practices, norms, or identities. Examples include skateboarding communities, religious minority groups, or regional cultural traditions within a larger nation.