Understanding Culture, Society and Politics

Characteristics of Society and Culture

CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIETY 2. Culture is shared and transmitted

1. Society is a complex whole  To continuously preserve culture, it is
 As a complex whole, it is a social best to share to other people or to
system consisting of individuals transmit it to the next generation, or
socially interacting with each other. A else it will die a natural death. Culture
change in one group of individual will is transmitted through language (oral,
affect the stability of the other parts of written or symbolic).
the whole system
3. Culture is adaptive or dynamic
.2. Society is relativeky large  Culture is always changing, new ideas,
 As a complex whole, the people must procedures and techniques are added,
be socially integrated to be considered modified or discarded. People must be
relatively large than if the people are prepared and ready to conform to
individually scattered. Thus, the these changes. The changes going on
people in a family, clan, tribe, today is very rapid than in the
neighborhood, community are socially primitive times due to fast
integrated to be relatively large in advancement of science and
scope. development.

3. Society socializes its members and from 4. Culture is cumulative

those from without  Certain features of culture have been
 Since most of society’s members are retained today and they are modified
born to it, they are taught the basic and innovated to make them new and
norms and expectations. Those who updated. Thus, man’s modification
come from other societies, before and innovation are learned from
being accepted as functioning already existing culture in the past.
members, are socialized and taught the
basic norms and expectations of such 5. Culture is ideational
society  Culture is an ideal pattern of behavior
which the members are expected to
4. Society endures, produces and restrains its follow. Thus, the members of society
members for generations are society from the standpoint of
 For society to survive, it must have the culture
ability to produce, endure and sustain
its new members for at least several 6. Culture gratifies human needs
generations  Culture continues to exist if it satisfies
human needs biologically and
5. Society holds its members through a psychologically. An individual is
common culture likely to follow and observe cultural
 The individuals in the society are held techniques that satisfy his needs
together because that society has
symbols, norms, values and patterns 7. Culture is social
of interactions, vision and missions  Culture is a group product developed
that are commonly shared by the by many individuals interacting in a
members of such society group. The habits and knowledge of
the members in a group are shared by
6, Society has clearly-defined geographical other members out of the sharing of
territory ideas, culture sprouts.
 The members in the society must live
in a certain specific habitat or place 8. Culture is integration
and have a common belongingness  By integration, it means that there is a
and sense of purpose. tendency for individuals to fully
appreciate those elements in culture
CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE that are best for them, and these are
1. Culture is learned and acquired very often integrated in their
 Culture is not instinctive nor part of personality and become part of their
biological equipment of man. It is behavior.
acquired through the senses and
experiences – from neighbors, family, 9. Culture is not usually known by people
playmates, schools, churches and  The way people interact and do things
other agents of socialization. The in their everyday lives seems “natural”
means of acquisition are imitation, to people. People are unaware of their
conditioning, suggestion, formal or culture because they are so close to it
informal instruction and mass media. and know it well. For most people, it
is as if their learned behavior was
biologically inherited.
 Understanding Culture, Society and Politics
Characteristics of Society and Culture

10. No one knows everything about his/her

culture
 In all societies, there are bodies of
specialized cultural knowledge that
are gender specific – they are known
to men but not to women or vice versa.

11. Culture gives people a range of

permissible behavior patterns
 Culture commonly allows a range of
ways in which men can be men and
women can be women.
 Culture also tells people how different
activities should be conducted as such
how one should act as husband, wife,
parent, child, etc.
 Then rules of permissible behavior are
usually flexible to a degree- there are
some alternatives rather than hard
rules.

12. Culture is learned through enculturation

 Understanding Culture, Society and Politics
Anthropological and Sociological Perspective on Culture and Society
ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Culture Anthropological Perspectives on

Culture is a dynamic medium through Culture and Society
which societies create a collective way of life
reflected in such thing as beliefs, values, music, I. The Evolutionist-Intellectual-Perspective
literature, art, dance, science, religion, ritual,  Argues that death and the belief in the
technology and other. soul and the spirit plays an important
role in understanding culture and
Elements of Culture society.
 Belief  Leading Proponents:
 a state or habit of mind in which trust, 1. Edward Burnett Tylor
or confidence is placed in some person 2. Johann Jakob Bachofen
or thing. 3. James G. Frazer

 Practices Tylor argues that there may be such

 actual performance or application, a extraordinary and incomprehensible
repeated or customary action and the experience as dreas and visions encounters in
usual way of doing something. various states of altered sonsciousness, and the
salient differences between the feature of
 Values living and dead bodies.
 relative worth, utility, or importance
and something (such as a principle or
Bachofen prepared a valuable analysis of the
quality) intrinsically valuable or
few motives of wall paintings of a Roman
desirable. columbarium in 1859 such as black-and-white
painted mystery eggs. He pointed out that the
 Attitudes symbolism of fertility and rebirth is closely
 a bodily state of readiness to respond connected with death rites.
in a characteristic way to a stimulus
(such as an object, concept, or
situation)
Frazer intended ot prove that the fear of the
 Laws corpse and the belief in the soul and life after
 a binding custom or practice of a death is a universal phenomenon.
community, a rule of conduct or
action prescribed or formally
recognized as binding or enforced by a II. The French Sociology School
controlling authority, the whole body  studied human behavior in a
of such customs, practices or rules, “sociological framework,” and
focused their attention primarily on
 Artifacts the question of societal solidarity, on
 a usually simple object (such as a tool the study of the social impact of rites,
or ornament) showing human and on the various ties connecting
workmanship or modification as individuals to society. It investigated
distinguished from a natural object, the mechanisms by which societies
especially an object remaining from a sustain and reproduce themselves.
particular period.  Leading Proponents:
1. Emile Durkheim
Definition of Culture According To: 2. Robert Hertz
 Edward B. Tylor
 Culture is that complex whole which
encompasses beliefs, practices, values, Durkheim argues that the most important
attitudes, laws, norms, artifacts, function of death rites and religion in general
symbols, knowledge, and everything is to reaffirm societal bonds and the social
structure itself. He viewed that society needs
that a person learns and shares as a
religion (totem as a sacral object) to represent
member of society.
itself in it, and serves to help society to
reproduce itself.
 Allan G. Johnson
 Culture is the sum of symbols, ideas,
forms of expressions and material
products associated with a collective
Hertz has had the most significant impact on
way of life reflected in such things as
contemporary anthropological research
beliefs, values, music, literature, art,
concerning death. He primarily built his theory
dance, science, religious ritual, and
on Indonesian data, and focused his attention
technology. on the custom of the secondary burial.
 Robert Redfield
 Culture is an organized body of
conventional understanding
manifested in arts and artifacts, which
persisting through tradition.
 Understanding Culture, Society and Politics
Anthropological and Sociological Perspective on Culture and Society

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Hertz argues that the most important function Society

of these death rites is to promote the Society is a group of people living
reorganization of the social order and the together in a definite territory, having a sense of
restoration of faith in the permanent existence belongingness, mutually interdependent of each
of the society, which had been challenged by other, and follows a certain way of life. It is a
the death of the individual. They serve the group of people sharing a common culture.
confirmation of solidrity among survivors.
.I, Sociological Perspective on Culture and
Society
1. George H. Mead
Hertz emphasized that social and emotional 2. Emile Durkheim
reactions following death are also culturally 3. Karl Marx
determined and called attention to numerous
social variables that might considerably
Sociological Level of Focus
influence the intensity of these reactions in
Perspective Analysis
different cultures (I.e., the deceased person’s
gender, age, social status, and relation to 1. Symbolic Micro Use of
power). Interactionism symbols:
face-to-face
interactions
2. Functionalism Macro Relationship
III. The British Functionalist School between the
 were concerned with the relation of parts of
death rites and the accompanying society; How
emotional reactions. They focused on aspects of
the question of the social loss caused society are
by death such as redistribution of functional
status and rights. (adaptive)
 Leading Proponents:
1. Bronislaw Malinowski 3. Conflict Macro Competition
2. Arnold Radcliffe-Brown Theory for the scarce
3. George Homans resources;
How the elite
control the
Malinowski poor and the
 considered the anxiety caused by the weak
rationally uncontrollable happenings as
the basic motivation for the emergence of 1. Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
religious faith.  it argues that people attach meanings
 He suggested that religion was not born to symbols, and then they act
of speculation and illusion, but out of the according to their subjective
real tragedies of human life, out of the interpretation of these symbols.
conflict between human plans and
realities.
 The existence of strong personal
attachments and the fact of death, which
of all human events is the most upsetting
and disorganizing to man’s calculations,
are perhaps the main source of religious
belief.

Radcliffe-Brown - commented in the case of

certain rights, it would be easy to maintain, 2. Functionalism
that they give men fears and anxieties from  contends that each aspect of the
which they would otherwise be free --- “the society is interdependent and
fear of black magic or of spirits, fear of God, contributes to society’s functioning as
of the devil, and of Hell.” a whole.

Homans succeeded in bringing these two

competing theories into a synthesis, claiming
that they are not exclusive but complementary
 Understanding Culture, Society and Politics
Anthropological and Sociological Perspective on Culture and Society

3. Conflict Theory
 The parts of society do not work
together harmoniously
 Society’s parts are competing with
one another for limited resources
 From the conflict perspective, social
problems are the natural and
inevitable outcome of social struggle
 The basis of all social problems is the
conflict over limited resources
between the more and less powerful
 The more powerful exploit society’s
resource and oppress the less powerful
 Those who are exploited react to their
oppression and create more social
problem.

Society and culture as complex whole

Society is a complex whole because it is a social
system. As a complex whole, it is made up of
individuals and groups that interact in a
relatively stable and patterned manner. As a
system, it consists of sub-parts. A change in one
segment will affect all the other parts of the
system. Society is regarded as the largest and
most inclusive social unit that exists. As a
complex whole, it integrates all the smaller
social groups and units of which it is composed
– family, neighborhood, communities, nations
and the world