SOC202H5 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Bourgeoisie, Calvinism, Ideal Type
SOC202
Reading 1
Chapter 1 – Culture and the Cultural Diamond
Examples of culture differences:
• France’s Senate votes to ban women from wearing full-face veil (like niqab or burqa) in
public due to cultural values of dignity and equality
- Muslims argue that modesty is important to their culture
• Japanese businessperson values business card as extension of self to be treated with
respect vs. American = convenience
• Fitness ideals = class and gender inequalities
- demands hours in the gym and self-doubt in pursuit of “ideal” body (like six pack or big
bum)
- fit body = sexual attractiveness, discipline, etc.
- spend time and money (gym memberships, protein and other supplements, etc.)
• Cultural ignorance or misunderstanding = undesirable situations
- for example, lost business or tension between different cultural groups
Vocabulary
What is culture?
• Sociologists usually mean 1 of 4 things:
1. Norms = the way people behave in given society
2. Values = common standards
3. Beliefs = how the universe is thought to be operated
4. Expressive symbols = representations of norms, values, and beliefs
5. Practises (added recently) = people’s behaviour patterns, not necessarily
connected to any particular values or beliefs
• Neither “culture” or “society” exists in the real world
- two different aspects of human experience
- culture designates expressive aspect of human existence
- society designates relational (or practical) aspect
- examples such as business cards = culture b/c meaning to Japanese vs. American
businessperson and social b/c communicates information
Two Ways of Looking at Culture
1. The best of what is thought and known
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• Refers to fine and performing arts or serious literature
- people who indulge in these things are viewed as facetious
• “High culture” = high social status
• Signifies superiority and universal worth
European intellectuals in 19th century
• opposed relationship between culture and society
- society = civilization (technological advances of Industrial Revolution and social
upheavals)
- protest against Enlightenment thinking (including Marxist belief “cash nexus” of
capitalism = everyone and everything’s valued by economics, people treated as
replaceable due to installment of factories)
- people saw culture as escape, healing, made life better in those times
- for example, John Stuart Mill had nervous breakdown due to logic and
economics training and poetry restored sanity
• Narrow ethnocentrism?
- Western European culture = most human achievement
Arnold
• Culture can be humanizing agent that moderates more destructive impacts of
modernization
• Universal theory of cultural value
- criticized Victorian England for materialism and worship of industrialization
and democracy (machines and freedom)
- feared dull, middle-class materialism or social anarchy by rioting workers
- aristocrats = “barbarians” and enjoy hunting
- culture will save modern society
• culture = “study of perfection”
- can make civilization more human by restoring “sweetness and “light”
(beauty and wisdom)
- parable about spider and bee where spider is seen as industrious, but is
selfish as they spin webs to feed themselves vs. bees unselfishly produce
benefits for others like honey and wax for candles
- beauty and wisdom comes from:
1. Awareness and sensitivity to best thought and known in art, literature, etc.
2.“Right reason” = open-minded, flexible, tolerant intelligence
Max Weber
• Same view as Arnold
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• Limits of what science cannot do
- self-clarification and knowledge of interrelated facts
- no answers about meaning of universe
• Humans should instead look to philosophers, religion, own ideas, etc.
(culture) for answers
Humanities Viewpoint (ideal type)
• Evaluates some cultures better than others
- believes culture = perfection
- culture = cultivation (agriculture) of human mind and sensibility
• Assumes culture opposes norms of social order or “civilization”
- harmony between society and culture possible but rarely achieved
• Fear culture is fragile
- can be lost from socioeconomic life
- needs to be preserved (e.g. museums)
• Culture is sacred and too amazing = remove from everyday existence
- for example, lions guard art museum in Chicago
- makes no sense from economic, political, and social perspectives
• Looters example = horrified b/c reduces something precious and
sacred to commodity, kills cultural heritage
2. The way of life of group of people
• 19the century = anthropology and sociology
- new way of thinking for Arnold
• Viewing culture as people’s entire way of life = avoids ethnocentrism and elitism
- vs. humanities-based definition
• All-encompassing definition lacks precision desired by social sciences
- Wuthnow and Witten = implicit and explicit culture
- culture as tangible social construction, symbols represent culture
- implicit (grounding for action) = culture is more abstract (e.g. Japanese vs.
American business cards)
- explicit (expressive, symbolic forms) = veil worn by Muslim woman
Herder
• Against “smugness” of European culture at end of 18th
• Believes in innate human creativity
- natural artists, not just from educated elite
• Cultures (plural)
- different nations and communities have own cultures
- all deserve praise
Marxism and Functionalism
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Document Summary
Chapter 1 culture and the cultural diamond. Examples of culture differences: france"s senate votes to ban women from wearing full-face veil (like niqab or burqa) in public due to cultural values of dignity and equality. Muslims argue that modesty is important to their culture: japanese businessperson values business card as extension of self to be treated with respect vs. american = convenience, fitness ideals = class and gender inequalities. Demands hours in the gym and self-doubt in pursuit of ideal body (like six pack or big bum) Fit body = sexual attractiveness, discipline, etc. Spend time and money (gym memberships, protein and other supplements, etc. : cultural ignorance or misunderstanding = undesirable situations. For example, lost business or tension between different cultural groups. Two ways of looking at culture: the best of what is thought and known, refers to fine and performing arts or serious literature.