2 Chapter 2: Culture – The Human-Shaped World
Five Characteristics of Culture
The concept of the Anthropocene relates to the current geological epoch, where human activity has become the dominant force shaping the earth’s ecosystems and challenges traditional views of humans as separate from and superior to nature.
In the previous chapter, we learned that sociology is the scientific study of the human-shaped structure, which is under the “umbrella” of the human-shaped world, culture. Sociology is the study of a subset of culture. Sociology looks at the social structure, the time you are alive, and the sustaining institutions you interact with and are shaped by. For example, almost every human behavior, from shopping to marriage, is learned. In the U.S., marriage is generally seen as an individual choice made by two adults based on mutual feelings of love. In other nations, marriages have been arranged through interviews and negotiations between families. In Papua New Guinea, almost 30 percent of women marry before age 18, and 8 percent of men have more than one wife (National Statistical Office, 2019). To people not from such a culture, arranged marriages may seem to have risks of incompatibility or the absence of romantic love. But many people from cultures where marriages are arranged, including many highly populated and modern countries, often prefer the approach because it reduces stress and increases stability (Jankowiak 2021).
But now, we want to analyze the broader criteria of culture and thematically link culture to all the other stuff we will see in the rest of the book. Everything will flow back to these characteristics. Review the persuasion map (Figure 1.5) in chapter 1 if you need some more examples of whether something is or is not culture.
All culture is related to five major characteristics:
- Culture is a human construct (human-shaped).
- Culture is linked to time (collectively shaped product of history).
- Culture is associated with societal values (regional).
- Cultural universals exist in every society (global).
- Culture is shaped primarily by those with power.
1. We had to make everything. Culture is not a natural phenomenon; it is all human-shaped because it is created and maintained through social interaction and communication by human beings. Without us, culture does not exist. No other animals, not elephants, monkeys, and certainly not dinosaurs, have culture. For example, we are the only animal species on earth that requires money to live, money being a human construct and invention. However, we can divide this further into non-material and material culture for a better understanding.
Culture can be material or non-material. Metro passes, and bus tokens are part of material culture, as are the buses, subway cars, and the physical structures of the bus stop. Think of material culture as items you can touch – they are tangible. Non-material culture, in contrast, consists of a society’s ideas, attitudes, and beliefs. Thes