SOC 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Cultural Relativism, Ethnocentrism, Trans-Cultural Diffusion
Document Summary
Culture: is the complex system of meaning and behavior that defines the way of life for a given group or society. Beliefs, values, knowledge, art, morals, laws, cutosmes, habits, language, and dress, among other things. Include ways of thinking, patterns of behaviors. Material culture: objects created in a given society- its buildings, art, tools, toys, literature, and other tangible objects. * the utensils you would use to eat. Nonmaterial culture: included the norms, law as, customs, ideas, and beliefs of a group of people. *belief of not using utensils when eating. Ethnocentrism: seeing things only from the one groups point of view. Prevents you from understanding the world as others experience it, leading to narrow-minded conclusions. Cultural relativism: idea that something can be understood and judged only in relation to the cultural context in which it appears. Suggest that without knowing the cultural context, it is impossible to understand why people behave as they do.
