UCSP WEEK 2

• Culture and society are complexly related. As the society changes, culture follows and vice versa.

  
• It is very important to pay attention to the interplay of society and culture.
• Students as individuals and vital members of the society are expected to value their roles in the society, apply the knowledge they learned from school, and translate the gained knowledge/ideas into actions beneficial to nation building.
• Anthropology


  The study of human culture particularly the components, characteristics, functions, modes, and adaptation of culture, as well as culture values and practices
• Sociology


  The study of society and social interactions taking place therein
• Political science


  The study and research about human activity that deals, to a certain extent, with power, conflict, and decision making
• Society


  A group of people with common territory, interaction, and culture
• Functional definition of society

  A complex of groups in reciprocal relationships, interacting upon one another, enabling human organisms to carry on their life-activities and helping each person to fulfill his wishes and accomplish his interests in association with his fellows
• Structural definition of society


  The total social heritage of folkways, mores and institutions; of habits, sentiments and ideals

  
• Reasons people live together as a society

  • For survival
  • Feeling of gregariousness
  • Specialization
• Characteristics of society

  • It is a social system
  • It is relatively large
  • It socializes its members and from those from without
  • It endures, produces and sustains its members for generations
  • It holds its members through a common culture
  • It has clearly-defined geographical territory
• Major functions of society

  • It provides a system of socialization
  • It provides the basic needs of its members
  • It regulates and controls people's behavior
  • It provides the means of social participation
  • It provides mutual support to the members
• Types of societies according to economic and material system

  • Pre-class societies
  • Asiatic societies
  • Ancient societies
  • Feudal societies
• Types of societies according to evolutionary view

  • Simple societies
  • Compound societies
  • Doubly compound societies
  • Militant societies
• Types of societies according to people's subsistence

  • Food gathering societies
  • Horticultural societies
  • Pastoral societies
• Types of Societies

  • Nomadic Societies
  • Feudal Societies
  • Militant Societies
  • Agricultural Societies
  • Capitalist Societies
  • Industrial Societies
  • Democratic Societies
  • Post-Industrial/Information Societies
• Nomadic Societies


  • People are nomadic and follow their herds in quest of animals for food and clothing
  • Relatively small, wandering communities organized along male-centered kinship groups
• Feudal Societies


  • Aristocrats (feudal lords) owned the wealth of the country due to their ownership of big tracts of lands
  • Peasants worked on the lands of the feudal lords with only few benefits received by them
  • Collapsed due to the rise of cities and metropolis as a result of the rise of trades and industries
• Militant Societies


  • Existence of military organization and military rank
  • Individual lives and private possessions are at the disposal of the State
  • Individual activities such as recreation, movements, satisfaction of biological needs, and production of goods are totally regulated by the State
• Agricultural Societies

  • Used plow instead of hoe in food production
  • Irrigation farming was introduced which resulted in larger yield of production that can even feed large number of people
• Capitalist Societies


  • Two classes of people: bourgeoise (property owners) who owned the capital and the means of production, and the proletariat (the laborers or workers) who are compelled to work for the capitalists or sell their small properties to the capitalists
• Industrial Societies


  • People elect their representatives to protect their individual initiatives
  • Freedom of belief, religion, production of industrial goods exist
  • Disputes and grievances are settled through peaceful arbitration
  • Business organizations appear where cooperative efforts between management and labor are based on contractual agreement
• Democratic Societies


  • Free enterprise where people are free to engage in any lawful business for profit or gain
  • People had to work on their own livelihood according to what the law mandates
• Post-Industrial/Information Societies


  • Spread of computer machines and existence of information and communication
  • Inventions and discoveries in medicines, agriculture, business whether in physical and natural sciences emerged
  • Pollution, diseases, calamities are prevalent as a result of the use of advanced technology
• Dissolution of a Society


  1. When the people kill each other through civil revolution

  2. When an outside force exterminates the members of the society

  3. When the members become apathetic among themselves or have no more sense of belongingness

  4. When a small society is absorbed by a stronger and larger society by means of conquest or territorial absorption

  5. When an existing society is submerged in water killing all the people and other living things in it

  6. When the people living in such a society voluntarily attach themselves to another existing society
• Culture


  A complex whole which consist of knowledge, beliefs, ideas, habits, attitudes, skills, abilities, values, norms, art, law, morals, customs, traditions, feelings and other capabilities of man which are acquired, learned and socially transmitted by man from one generation to another through language and living together as members of the society
• Definitions of Culture

  • Culture is a historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic form by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life - Clifford Geertz
  • Culture consists of learned systems of meaning, communicated by means of natural language and other symbol systems, having representational, directive, and affective functions, and capable of creating cultural entities and particular senses of reality - Roy D'Andrade
  • Culture is an extrasomatic (nongenetic,nonbodily), temporal continuum of things and events dependent upon symbols. Culture consists of tools, implements, utensils, clothing, ornaments, customs, institutions, beliefs, rituals, games, works of art, language, etc. - Leslie White
  • Culture consists in the shared patterns of behavior and associated meanings that people learn and participate in within the groups to which they belong - Whitten and Hunter
  • A society's culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members - Ward Goodenough
  • Culture is an instrumental reality, and apparatus for the satisfaction of the biological and derived need. It is the integral whole consisting of implements in consumers' goods, of constitutional characters for the various social groupings, of human ideas and crafts, beliefs and custom - Malinowski
  • Culture in general as a descriptive concept means the accumulated treasury of human creation: books, paintings, buildings, and the like; the knowledge of ways of adjusting to our surroundings, both human and physical; language, customs, and systems of etiquette, ethics, religion and morals that have been built up through the ages - Kluckhohn and Kelly
  • Culture refers to that part of the total setting [of human existence] which includes the material objects of human manufacture, techniques, social orientations, points of view, and sanctioned ends that are the immediate conditioning factors underlying behavior or in simple terms it is the "man made part of the environmen - Herskovits
  • A culture is the total socially acquired life-way or life-style of a group of people. It consists of the patterned, repetitive ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that are characteristic of the members of a particular society or segment of a society - Harris
  • The concept of culture as everything that people have, thinks, and does as members of a society. This definition can be instructive because the three verbs correspond to the three major components of culture. That is, everything that people have refers to material possessions; everything that people think refers to those things they carry around in their heads, such as ideas, values, and attitudes; and everything that people do refers to behavior patterns - Gary Ferraro
• Characteristics of Culture (Sociologists' Perspective)


  • Dynamic, flexible and adaptive
  • Shared and maybe challenged
  • Learned through socialization or enculturation
  • Patterned social interactions
  • Transmitted through socialization or enculturation
  • Requires language and other forms of communication
• Characteristics of Culture (Anthropologists' Perspective)


  • Learned
  • Symbolic
  • Systemic and integrated
  • Shared
• Culture is a way of life and morality is a part of culture
• Practically all modern definitions of culture share key features
• Culture is important and regarded as one of the most important concepts within sociology because it plays a vital role in our social lives
• Socialization/enculturation


  Process of teaching them about many things in life and equipping them with the culturally acceptable ways of surviving, competing, and making meaningful interaction with others in society
• Culture


  A complex whole which encompasses beliefs, practices, traits, values, attitudes, laws, norms, artifacts, symbols, knowledge, and everything that a person learns and shares as a member of society
• Culture


  • Required language and other forms of communication to learn and transmit it
• Importance/Functions of Culture

  • Serves as the "trademark" of the people in the society
  • Gives meaning and direction to one's existence
  • Promotes meaning to individual's existence
  • Predicts social behavior
  • Unifies diverse behavior
  • Provides social solidarity
  • Establishes social personality
  • Provides systematic behavioral pattern
  • Provides social structure category
  • Maintains the biologic functioning of the group
  • Offers ready-made solutions to man's material and immaterial problems
  • Develops man's attitude and values and gives him a conscience
• Symbols


  Anything that is used to stand for something else, giving meaning to the culture
• Language


  System of words and symbols used to communicate with other people, a storehouse of culture
• Technology


  Application of knowledge and equipment to ease the task of living and maintaining the environment, including artifacts, methods and devices
• Values


  Culturally defined standards for what is good or desirable, influencing people's behavior and serving as a benchmark for evaluating the actions of others