SOC 103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Planned Obsolescence, Consumerism, Conspicuous Consumption
Document Summary
Culture the complete way of life shared by a people, including both the material and the non- material elements or, Everything produced by human activity and passed on from one person to another, including material objects, ways of acting, knowledge, ideas, beliefs, meanings. A cognitive element of culture: the spontaneous interpretation we form of our experiences, which tends to be egocentric, superficial, and essentializing. Asserts that all culture is formed out of the process of people relating to each other in practical material ways. (cid:862)as (cid:449)e do, so (cid:449)e are(cid:863) it is not consciousness that determines our being, but our social being that produces our consciousness. But typically this relation is hidden or appears inverted. Human worth is determined by market value. Competition is treated as natural and cooperation as unnatural the rules of economic markets are treated as laws of nature, money as an inexorable reality.
