Chapter 3. Culture
3.5. Theoretical Perspectives on Culture
Music, fashion, technology, norms, and values — all are products of culture. How do sociologists interpret them within the context of the social organization of life? Chapter 3. Culture ends with a review of the analysis of culture in three theoretical paradigms in sociology: functionalism, symbolic interactionism, and critical sociology.
Structural Functionalism
Functionalists view society as a system in which all parts work — or function — together to create society as a whole. In this way, societies need culture to exist. Cultural norms function to support the fluid operation of society, and cultural values guide people in making choices. Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) referred to the function of culture as “latent pattern maintenance,” meaning that the cultural practices that reproduce and circulate symbolic meanings and codes serve the function of maintaining social patterns of behaviour and facilitating orderly change. Culture ensures that people continue to understand one another, share common values and norms, and find security in stable definitions of the “meaning of life.”
By focusing on the function that culture plays in maintaining the stable equilibrium of society as a whole, functionalists also provide interesting insights into cultural activities that might seem irrational or bizarre on the surface. Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) described the way that the Trobriand Islanders of New Guinea used magic at each stage of preparation for fishing (1925). From a rationalized, calculative point of view, magic ritual has nothing to do with the ability to catch fish. Fishing is a practical activity. However, as Malinowski pointed out, fishing for the Trobriand Islanders was also a risky and uncertain activity. It was dangerous, weather was unpredictable and the whereabouts of fish variable. Magic provided the fishermen with a sense of control over their environment and a sense of confidence that enabled them to venture out into the dangerous waters day after day. Whether the magic rituals “worked” or not, they performed an important and rational function in the economic life of the Islanders. It provided a stable pattern of meaning that empowered the fishermen to risk their lives to bring back an essential food resource.
Functionalists argue that cultural practices play a similar role in modern societies. The game of hockey, for example, in which highly-skilled men and women chase a disk of rubber around a frozen sheet of ice, risking injury and expending energy for nonproductive purposes, could be regarded an irrational and crazy activity. Yet millions of people watch hockey, millions of dollars are spent on it, millions of people’s identities are defined by their fandom, and millions of people’s collective sense of self-worth can hang on the fortunes and failures of their favourite hockey teams. Hockey is both, practically speaking, useless and yet clearly a highly valued activity