Lesson 2: defining culture

• Society - group of individuals sharing a common culture, geographical location, and government. It enables humans to acquire surviving skills, maximize potential, and share resources.
• Edward B. Tylor - stated that society as the complex whole which encompasses beliefs, practices, values, attiudes, laws, and everything that a person learns and shares as a member of society.
• a society is characterized by the presence of the ff elements: social solidarity, shared identity and culture, common language, large population, define geographical area, political, economic, & social organization.
• social solidarity - members of community live together for a mutual benefit.
• shared identity and culture - basis for pattern of action and behavior
• culture - defines & influences a society; beliefs, ideas, values, practices knowledge, history, etc.
• learning culture: may be enculturation (learning one’s own culture) or acculturation (learning another’s culture)
• material culture - tangible things (technology, architecture, fashion, food)
• non-material culture - intangible things (values, language, beliefs, tradition, politics)
• components of culture - technology, symbols, language, values, norms shared rules of conduct (folkways, mores)
• technology - cobination of objects and rules, adapting other’s technological advancement (ex. iphone, samsung)
• symbols - anything that represents something else; the evry basis of human culture
• language - written or spoken symbols into a standardized system
• values - shared beliefs about whats good/bad, determines their character
• folkways - norms describing socially accepted behavior but do not have great moral signifficance attached to them.
• mores - norms having great moral ignificance attached but when violated, endangers society (ex. dishonesty, fraud, killings)
• culture is varied, diverse, and hold similarities
• cultural universals - common traits/elements among culture (ex. names)
• cultural particulars - different ways developed to express universals (ex. saing po & opo)
• subculture - part of dominant groups but differs in some important aspects (ex. military, police, china town)
• counterculture - subculture opposed to certain beliefs of dominant culture (ex. goth, punk, gangs)
• enculturaiton - aquiring and internalizing culture
• socialization - learning and accepting social behavior, values, beliefs, norms, and language.
• society functions and maintains social order through social interaction.
• ethnocentrism - invalidates other ways of life and creates a distorted view of one’s own. Extreme forms have led to wars or colonizations.
• william howard taft - referred to Filipinos as Americans’ “little brown brothers”
• cultural relativism - accepts the cultural differences between societies. Every aspects of culture can be justified.