Exploring Cultural Diversity: The Components of Culture and Traditional American Values

1. CULTURE

2. CULTURAL DIVERSITY • When studying culture the science of sociology focuses on a number of variables: Language, art, ceremonies, rituals, religion, rules of behavior, social organization, food, and work to name a few

3. The Meaning of Culture • Culture: consists of all the shared products of human groups and include both physical objects as well as beliefs, values, and behaviors. • Each human group (ex: Americans) have their own distinct culture

4. The Meaning of Culture • Before we go any farther consider the difference: 1. A society is a group of interdependent people who have organized themselves so that they all use and share a common culture and sense of unity. (PEOPLE) 2. Culture are the uniform constructs of material and nonmaterial products that they share. (THINGS)

5. Culture • All of the physical objects the are created and used by a group constitute their material culture. In the U.S. for example there are: Automobiles, computers, clothing, jewelry, TV’s, etc.

6. Culture • Abstract creations by a society form a category called nonmaterial culture(intangible concepts and ideas created by a society) • Examples in the U.S. include: family patterns, ideas, language, work practices, educational practices, etc.

7. Culture • Culture shock:Oh my goodness what is wrong with these people. No AC! NO AC!

8. There Is No Natural Way Of Life For Human Beings!

9. Components of Culture • Though differences can be found within cultures, most cultures share a common components they are: • Technology: physical objects and the rules for using them. In the U.S.: the automobile and the laws needed to drive one. A computer and skills to use it.

10. Components of Culture • Symbols: any word, gesture, image, sound, physical object, event, or element of the natural world that represents something else and has a shared meaning attached to it. In the U.S.: “hello”, the middle finger, waving, a flag, stop sign, a badge, a tie, a baseball hat, etc.

11. Components of Culture • Language: organization of written and spoken symbols into a standardized system. When organized by rules of grammar words (abstract) can symbolize anything. * Imagine your life in a society where you do not speak the language.

12. Language shapes the world we see. Therefore can we appreciate or understand objects, situations, occurrences etc., that our language does not identify as existing? Consider: The language of certain Nomadic Arab tribes has dozens of words for sand. …What do you see? Sapir-Whorf Thesis

13. Traditional Inuit languages have nearly a hundred words for ice and sea ice.

14. Components of Culture • Values: shared beliefs about what is good or bad, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable. Values effect many things: the character of a groups people, material/nonmaterial culture, how young will be raised, etc. Beliefs : commonly held ideas or premise as to what is true and valid.

16. Real Americans

17. American Value System • One must first recognize that studying American culture is inherently different from that of any other nation. • Our diverse society creates a culture that is as different as it is uniform. • What is often referred to as American culture is more or less “Traditional American Culture”

18. Traditional American Values Though not complete and easily disputable most sociologists studying American society would agree that U.S. culture contains most of the following values. • Personal Achievement: supported by long held values such as individualism and competition. Evident in regards to the amassing of wealth and power. Manifest factors> high-paying/high-power jobs leading to material gains and status.

19. Traditional American Values 2. Individualism: individual effort = personal achievement. Success and all of its attachments can only come with hard work and initiative. By and large individual effort was the cornerstone of American entrepreneurial ship or the saying “Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps”. Downside is that if one does not succeed they in some manner are to blame. *Social services v. limited gov’t intervention

20. Traditional American Values • Work: Generally speaking Americansvalue ideals such as discipline, dedication, and hard work and attach them as signs of virtue. For this reason work is highly regarded irregardless of rewards. • Attached to this mindset would be the viewing of those who choose not to work as lazy, immoral, or “lacking”. • Also consider that we as a culture work more than almost any other industrialized nation on the planet.

21. Traditional American Values 4. Morality and Humanitarianism: The U.S. was founded as a religious nation, incorporating a strong belief in justice, equality, and charity to those less fortunate. Therefore generally speaking, morality (right and wrong) factor largely in regards to personal and societal decisions and actions.

22. Traditional American Values 5. Efficiency and Practicality: Americans tend to be by nature pragmatists that is we are pragmatic. Every issue or challenge has an efficient/practical solution to solve it. Therefore Americans judge objects or actions as useful or not according to their ability to get things done. In addition would be the notion that what solves a problem easier and with less waste is superior throughout.

23. Traditional American Values 6. Progress and Material Comfort: American society has always relied on technological advances and inventions to move us forward. Coupled with this belief, would be the position that living standards and life in general will improve. • This progress has usually relied on science and technology to make changes. • All of this connects with the reliance on and high value placed on material comfort.

24. Traditional American Values 6. Equality and Democracy: Many Americans feel that to have human equality there must be equal opportunity and an equal chance of success; as outlined in the Declaration of Independence as, “that all men are created equal.” Equally as important to Americans is the importance placed on our form of gov’t, Democracy. Americans feel that they have a right to express their opinions and complaints in regards to their representation.

25. Traditional American Values • Freedom: Particularly close to the hearts of Americans are personal freedoms. Religion, Speech, Press, Right to Assembly, Right to Arms, Secure in our Private Effects and others. We place a much higher value on individual initiative than the collective best interest. • In addition Americans feel that our lifestyles as well as business dealings should be free from the most basic of government intervention.

26. Traditional American Values 8. Education: Americans place a high value on the attainment of education. From the completion of mandated K-12 schooling to the advancement to Higher Education, Americans feel that the path to success, achievement, and material comfort is through education.

27. Traditional American Values • Honesty/Punctuality: Americans place great value on the noble act of being honest in all one’s person and business affairs. Those who are not are met with disapproval and sometimes shunned or stripped of their accolades. • Another uniquely American/Anglo concept is that of being on time. American culture dictates you usually should not be early but never late, and if you are call.

28. Traditional American Values • Romantic Love: Concepts such as dating, marriage based on love, casual sex, and informal relations between the sexes in many ways originated in the U.S. before spreading to other parts of Western culture. • Religious Principles: Though observation of a specific religion is not given importance, the living of one’s life by religious ideals is important to the majority of Americans.

29. Traditional American Values 12. Patriotism: Because of our isolated and individualistic society, Americans have always gained notoriety in their sense of both nationalism and patriotism to the causes and interests of their nation.

30. Our Changing Values • Though they would not be considered widespread and have not endured for a long enough period of time, many burgeoning values in the U.S. are beginning to take hold and affect how policies and opinions are formed. • Self-fulfillment:leisure, youthfulness, physical fitness, healthy eating, tanning, plastic-surgery, etc.> many sociologists are defining this growing trend as narcissism (or extreme self-centeredness) and label it as a personality disorder or at least detrimental for our society and culture.

31. Our Changing Values • Environmental Concern:Protecting the environment even if it means slowing economic growth is gaining favor amongst Americans at large. In all Americans are realizing Industrial growth must be matched with valuing the environment.

32. Components of Culture 6. Norms: Shared rules of conduct that tell people how to act in specific situations. Keep in mind that norms are expectations for how to act and not actual behavior. It is against our society’s norms to steal but many still do it. *Norms are however a rather broad category and to distinguish between the essential and the desirable, sociologists create (2) categories

33. NORMS 6a. Folkways: norms that describe socially acceptable behavior but do not have great moral significance attached to them. They in many ways outline how we “should” act in everyday life. Ex: don’t spit your gum on a sidewalk, don’t cut someone in line, be quiet in the movies, don’t keep people waiting

34. NORMS 6b. Mores: norms that have great moral significance attached to them. Rules that when violated endanger society’s well-being and stability. Ex: embezzlement, murder, cheating on taxes, etc. *Laws: written rules of conduct enacted and enforced by a government, to stabilize society in terms of mores and to discourage against the breaking of less severe folkways

35. How Does Culture Get Itself To work? Social Control • Every society develops norms to define its culture and society. Therefore, for every society to run smoothly, these norms must be enforced. Enforcement (arrest, disgrace, embarrassment etc,) comes in (2) forms: • Internalization • Sanctions

36. Social Control Overview • The enforcing of norms internally or externally is called Social Control. • The principal means is internalization, when that fails, external agencies such as police, courts,religion, family, an public opinion step up. • Core Concept: All of these components must work interchangeably. When or if they fail social order is jeopardized. When social order is lost social stability cannot prevail, and in the end no society can survive without a system of social control.

37. What Do We REALLY Learn? “IDEAL” v. “REAL” Culture • Identify a society's cultural components and we now know what is important to its people. Yet… … it does little to predict what people will do.

38. We value free enterprise yet 700 Billion?

39. Cultural Variation • How are we as a culture similar to these three countries?

40. Subcultures • Within every culture exists subcultures. • Subcultures develop from different age groups, genders, ethnicities, geographic areas, religions, social-classes, occupations etc. • What are some subcultures you belong to?

41. Subcultures • Subcultures (e.g.: Little Moscow) do not reject all of the values and practices of a larger society. They however have traits that are not shared by the larger society. • Most do not threaten the larger society • Modern society needs subcultures to perform various roles • Allow society to be diverse and over time change

42. Countercultures • Countercultures (e.g.: Anarchists) a sub cultural group that rejects the major values, norms, and practices or a larger society and replaces them with their own. (directly challenging the dominant society)

43. Countercultures • When a subculture rejects a larger societies values, norms, practices and replaces them with their own they become a _ _ _ n _ e _ culture.

44. Social Change Key Concept: All cultures change over time. Some change faster than others depending on their complexity and structure, yet in the end either in small or large steps change comes. What the is important for sociologists is to identify and analyze the Sources of Social Change. Let’s Look At a Few!

45. Sources of Social Change • Values and Beliefs: People in any society interact and influence each other. With that said, it is then usually quite clear how the introduction of transformed values and beliefs can have far-reaching and noticeable consequences on the society as a whole. A.Ideologies: are systems of beliefs that support the social, moral, religious, political, or economic interests held by a group. B. Ideologies often spread through Social Movements which are lasting efforts to promote or prevent social change.

46. Sources of Social Change Continued……..Ideologies and Social movements B. Social Movements: Ex. Prohibition, women’s rights mov’t, peace mov’t, gay right’s mov’t, civil right’s mov’t, gay marriage mov’t • Using the example of gay marriage, one could analyze how the social mov’t surrounding gay marriage could in time change the ideology of the larger group (in this case the U.S.)

47. Sources of Social Change • Technology: the knowledge and tools people use to manipulate their environment . • Inventions such as automobiles, atomic fission, penicillin • but also as ideas (such as the assembly line) • or as patterns of behavior (religious movements, increase in healthy lifestyles)

48. Sources of Social Change • Population: the change in the size of a population may also bring about changes in a culture. • A rapid increase or an increase of people with different traits and values can sponsor and change a culture. Ex: immigrants to the U.S. and their influences • Pop. increases and decreases can change culture through a number of diff. avenues. 1. Increased demand on services and goods, increase or decrease in employment 2. Increase = less space (overcrowding), demand on schools, transportation, crime rates, sickness, traffic etc. 3. Changes in the age of a population

49. Sources of Social Change 4. Diffusion: the process of spreading traits(ideas, beliefs, material objects) from one society to another. (In today's global society w/travel and communication almost instant, diffusion happens constantly) • Material goods are usually accepted easier and quicker than values and beliefs. • When a culture accepts some traits of another (think of political systems)and adapt them to suit their needs it is called Reformulation.

50. Sources of Social Change 5.Physical Environment: the natural environment can provide conditions that encourage or discourage cultural change. • What foods can or cannot be grown effects culture and lifestyle. • Natural Disasters: (floods, hurricanes, tsunamis) cause destruction which can cause change or force people to adapt (which causes change) • Natural Resources: (lack of, or the destruction of) examples such as oil shortages, or embargos, destruction of forests, polluting of lakes, and oceans all have profound effects on culture and change