This article explains the relation between culture and society, the development of culture, elements of culture, relation between culture and ideology, and the variation of culture.
Culture and Society
Culture is the totally of learned, socially transited costume, knowledge, material objects, and behavior. Culture includes the ideas, values and artifacts of groups of people. In sociological terms, culture does not refer solely to the fine arts and refined intellectual taste. Culture consists of all objects and ideas within society, including ice cream cones, rock music and slang words.
A fairly large number of people are said to constitute a society when they live in the same territory, are relatively independent of people outside their area, and participate in a common culture. A society consists of people who a common heritage and culture. Members of the society learn this culture and transmit it from one generation to the next.
Having a common culture also simplifies many day to day interactions. For example, when you buy an airline ticket, you know you don't have to bring a long a hundreds of dollar in cash. You can pay with credit card. This assumption reflects basic values, beliefs, and customs of the culture of the United States.
Language is a critical element of culture that sets human apart from other species. Members of a society generally share a common language, which facilitates day to day exchanges with others. However, a term can have a number of different meanings, even within the same society. For example, in United States, grass signifies both a plant eaten by grazing animals and an intoxicating drug.
Development of Culture
Cultural Universals
All societies have developed certain common practices and beliefs, known as cultural universals. Many cultural universals are adaptations to meet essential human needs, such as people's need for food, shelter, and clothing.
The manner in which culture universals are expressed varies from culture to culture. For example, one society may let its members to choose their own marriage partners, while another may encourage marriages arranged by the parents. Cultural universals also may change dramatically over time within a society. Most human cultures change and expand through the process of innovation and diffusion.
Innovation
Innovation is the process of introducing a new idea or object to a culture. There are two kind of innovation; discovery and invention. Discovery involves making known or sharing the existence of an aspect of reality. An invention results when existing cultural items are combined into a form that did not exist before.
Globalization, Diffusion, and Technology
Globalization is the worldwide integration of government's policies, cultures, social movements, and financial markets through trade and the exchange of ideas. Today, developments outside a country are as likely to influence people's lives as changes at home. For example, by September 2001, the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., caused an immediate economic decline not just in the United States, but throughout the world.
Sociologists use the term diffusion to refer to the process by which a cultural item spreads from group to group or society to society. Diffusion can occur through a variety of means, among them exploration, military conquest, missionary work, the influence of the mass media, tourism, and the internet. Sociologist George Ritzer coined the term “McDonaldization of society” to describe how the principles of fast food restaurants developed in the United States have come to dominate more and more sectors of societies throughout the world. McDonaldization is associated with the melding of cultures, through which we see more and more similarities in cultural expression.
Technology is cultural information about how to use the material resources of the environment to satisfy human needs and desires. Technology not only accelerates the diffusion of scientific innovations but also transmit culture. For example English and North American culture dominate the internet and World Wide Web. Such control or at least dominance, of technology influences the direction of diffusion of culture.
Sociologist William F. Ogburn made a useful distinction between the elements of material and nonmaterial culture. Material culture refers to the physical or technological aspects of our daily lives, for example, food, houses, cloths etc. Nonmaterial culture refers to the way of using material objects and to custom, beliefs, philosophies etc. Usually nonmaterial culture is more resistant to change than the material culture. The term culture lag is use to describe the period of maladjustment when the nonmaterial culture is still struggling to adapt to new material conditions.
Sociobiology
Sociobiology is the systematic study of how biology affects human social behavior. Sociobiology is based on Darwin's evolution theory. According to Darwin, random variations in genetic makeup had helped certain members of a species to survive in a particular environment, over hundred of generations. Darwin called this process of adaptation to the environment through random genetic variation natural selection.
