3 Culture
Learning Objectives
- Differentiate between culture and society.
- Distinguish between biological and cultural explanations of human behaviour.
- Compare and contrast cultural universalism, cultural relativism, ethnocentrism, and androcentrism.
- Examine the policy of multiculturalism as a solution to the problem of diversity.
- Understand the basic elements of culture: values, beliefs, and norms.
- Explain the significance of symbols and language to a culture.
- Describe the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
- Distinguish material and nonmaterial culture.
3.3. Culture as Innovation: Pop Culture, Subculture, and Global Culture
- Distinguish two modes of culture: innovation and restriction.
- Discuss the distinction between high culture, pop culture, and postmodern culture.
- Differentiate between subculture and counterculture.
- Understand the role of globalization in cultural change and local lived experience.
3.4. Culture as Restriction: Rationalization and Commodification
- Describe culture as a form of restriction on social life.
- Explain the implications of rationalization and consumerism.
3.5. Theoretical Perspectives on Culture
- Discuss the major theoretical approaches to cultural interpretation.
Introduction to Culture
Are there rules for eating at McDonald’s? Usually we don’t think about rules in a fast food restaurant. But if you look around, you will see people acting as if they were trained for the role of fast food customer. They stand in line, pick their items from overhead menus before they order, swipe debit cards to pay, and stand to one side to collect trays of food. After a quick meal, customers dispose of their trash. This food system is highly organized. Customers’ movement through this fast food routine is orderly and predictable, even if no rules are posted and no officials direct the process.
Think about what would happen if you behaved according to some other standards. (You would be doing what sociologists call a “breaching experiment”: deliberately disrupting social norms to learn about them.) For example: call ahead for reservations; ask the cashier detailed questions about the food’s ingredients; barter over the price of the burgers; or throw your trash on the ground as you leave. You would get hostile responses from the restaurant employees and your fellow customers. Although the rules are not written down, you would have violated deep seated norms that govern behaviour in fast food restaurants.
What are the rules that govern what, when, and how we eat? Michael Pollan, for example, contrasts the North American culture of fast food with the traditions of eating sit-down, family meals that still dominate in France and other European nations (2006). Despite eating foods that many North Americans think of as unhealthy—butter, wheat, triple- cream cheese, wine, etc.—the French overall remain healthier and thinner than North Americans.
(Pollan, 2006)
Cultural rules govern what people consider as food and how people cons