The concept of culture

In his chapter we shall look at the unity and diversity of human life and culture. The concept of culture, together with that of society, is one of the most widely used notions in sociology. Culture consists of the values the members of a given group hold, the norms they follow, and the m aterial goods they create. Values are abstract ideals, while norms are definite principles or rules which people are expected to observe. Norms represent the 'dos' and 'don'ts' of social life. Thus monogamy - being faithful to a single marriage partner - is a prominent value in most western societies. In many other cultures, a person is permitted to have se veral wives or husbands simultaneously. Norms of behavior in marriage include, for example, how husbands and wives are supposed to lave towards their in-laws. In some societies, a husband or wife is expected to develop a close relationship with parents-in-law; in others they are expected to keep a clear distance from one another.

When we use the term in ordinary daily conversation, we often think of ‘culture' as equivalent to the 'higher things of the mind' - art, {literature, music and painting. As sociologists use it, the concept includes such activities, but also tar more. Culture refers to the ways of life the members of a society, or of groups within a society. It includes how they dress, their marriage customs and family life, their patterns of k, religious ceremonies and leisure pursuits. It also covers the goods create and which become meaningful for them - bows and arrows, ploughs, factories and machines, computers, books, dwellings.

'Culture' can be conceptually distinguished from 'society', but there are very close connections between these notions. A society is a system of interrelationships which connects individuals together. No cultures could exist without societies. But, equally, no societies could exist without culture. Without culture, we would not be 'human' at all, in the sense in '• which we usually understand that term. We would have no language in which to express ourselves, no sense of self-consciousness, and our ability to think or reason would be severely limited - as we shall show in this chapter and in chapter 3 ('Socialization and the Life-Cycle').

The chief theme of both the current chapter and the next, in fact, is the biological versus the cultural inheritance of humankind. The relevant questions are: What distinguishes human beings from the animals? Where do our distinctively 'human' characteristics come from? What is the nature of human nature? These questions are crucial to sociology, because they set the foundation for the whole field of study. To answer them, we shall analyze both what human beings share and how cultures differ.

Cultural variations between human beings are linked to differing types of society, and we shall compare the main forms of society that can be identified from past and present. Throughout the chapter, attention will focus on how social change has affected human cultural develop­ment - particularly since the time when Europeans began to spread their ways of life across the world.

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