Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics

DEFINING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS
1. Culture
 Sum of individuals way of life (values, beliefs, behavior, and material object)
 Culture is both a bridge to our past and guide to the future
 Non-material Culture (Intangible)
 Norms and values (music, dance, poetry, and other forms of
expressions)
 Material Culture (tangible)
 Physical creations that members of society can make, use, and share
(fashion, manners, technology, architecture, advancement in medicine,
transportation and communication)
ANTHROPOLOGY
- (origin) 2 Greek words:

1. “Anthropos” = humans
2. “Logos” = science/study of
- Study of human kind whose concentration is on human and cultural evolution
(Jurmain, Nelson, Kilgore, & Trevathan, 2000)
- Used “Diversity” to understand life in a community
- “Culture Universal”- pattern of similarity within the array of difference (equal but
different)
- Focuses on “human diversity” and translate it into understanding between different
cultures
POLITICAL SCIENCE
- Study of the state in all its elements, aspects, and relationships (Ayson-Reyes,
2000)
- Politics is the how, whens, and wheres of getting power and influence (Laswell)
- Power- the ability to make a person do what he will not do otherwise (Dahl)
- State- territory, government, people, and sovereignty
SOCIOLOGY
- “Socius”- groups
- Scientific study of human society and social interactions (Tischler, 2007)
- Focus is the group, not the individual
- Study forces that molds individuals, shape their behavior, and determine social
events
- Underlying Ideas in Sociology (Ballantine and Roberts, 2011)
a. People are social by nature
b. People live much of their lives belonging to social groups
c. Interaction between the individual and the group is a two-way process in which
each influences the other
d. Recurrent social patterns, ordered behavior, shared expectations, and common
understandings among people
e. The processes of conflict and change are natural and inevitable features of
groups and societies
PIONEERS OF SOCIOLOGY
1. August Comte (1798-1857)

 Belief: need to understand society as it was rather what it ought to be
 Cerebral Hygiene
 Coined “sociology”
 Greek: “socius” society
2. Herbert Spencer 91820-1903)

 Human societies evolved from simplest forms to more complex forms
 Survival of the fittest -> social progress
 Society is like an organism which continually changes to adapt to its
environment
3. Karl Marx (1818-1883)

 Ciritical of capitalism
 The means of production is most important in any society
 Historical change occurs through class conflict between owners and workers
4. Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
 Bonds/functions hold society together (social integration)
 Suicide, anomie
 Society is held together by mechanical solidarity (a social moral consensus) and
by organic solidarity (a dependency of roles among people)
5. Harriet Martineau (1802-1876)

 Mother of Sociology
 Believed that scholars should not simply offer observations but should also use
their research to bring about social reform
SOCIETY
- Organized group of interdependent people who share a common territory,

language, and culture and who act together for collective survival and well-being
- Involves anthropology, sociology, and political science
- Can change the way we see things, change people’s perspectives
MAJOR THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
1. Structural Functionalism
 A macro perspective which views society as a living organism in which each
part of the organism contributes to its survival
 Society is stable and well-integrated
 Social order in maintained through cooperation & consensus
2. Conflict
 Stressed the dynamic tension between the classes
 Basic form of interaction in society is not cooperation, but competition, and this
lead to conflict
 It arises from the dissimilar goals and interests of different social groups
3. Symbolic Interactionism
 Focuses on how we make sense out of life is
 Human-beings are viewed in a world of meaningful objects
 People manipulate symbols and create their social works through interaction
 A micro perspective which views society as active in influencing and affecting
everyday social interaction
MAJOR THEORATICAL PERSPECTIVE
PERSPECTIVE ANALYSIS LEVEL VIEW OF SOCIETY
Structural Functionalist Macrolevel Society is composed of
interrelated parts that work
together to maintain
stability within society.
This stability is threatened
by dysfunctional acts and
institutions.
Conflict Theory Macrolevel Society is characterized by
social inequality; social life
is a struggle for scarce
resources. Social
arrangements benefit
some groups at the
expense of others
Symbolic Interactionist Microlevel Society is the sum of the
interactions of people and
groups. Behavior is
learned in interaction with
other people; how people
define a situation becomes
the foundation for how
they behave
Post-Modernist Macrolevel/ Society characterized by
Microlevel post industrialization
consumerism, and global
communications bring into
question existing
assumptions about social
life and the nature of
reality.

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DEFINING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

- (origin) 2 Greek words:

1. August Comte (1798-1857)

2. Herbert Spencer 91820-1903)

3. Karl Marx (1818-1883)

5. Harriet Martineau (1802-1876)

- Organized group of interdependent people who share a common territory,

MAJOR THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

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