THE SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OF CULTURE

INTRODUCTION The study and usage of the concept culture are not limited to Sociology. Social Anthropologists and social Psychologists also use the concept. Furthermore, culture is part and parcel of every language. However, the sociological conception of culture differs from the popular and everyday usage of culture. As man interacts within the society, culture is created. The creation of culture is exclusively a human achievement. The way in which man create culture are made explicit in this unit. The Sociological Meaning of Culture Sociologists and other behaviour scientists, such as social anthropologists and social psychologists, use the word culture as a basic concept to classify, describe and explain a great number of objects, thoughts, feelings, and actions that are produced by human individualsespecially when they interact with man and groups. Although culture constitutes one of the main areas of sociological investigation, it is a part of everyday language. For instance, when people speak of culture they usually think of the “higher things in life” – refined, police behaviour, table manners among others. This popular usage of culture makes the concept into a value judgment. We look down on those who are illiterate, ruralites, and simple as lacking culture and emulate the educated, the urbanities, and modernized persons as cultured. Sociologists have no use for such a concept. They try to understand man’s social behaviour in its anxiety and know that value judgments reveal nothing about the reality of the world around us. Because culture is the sum of human activities and achievements, sociologists call many phenomena culture; classical music and battle cries, political constitution and peace parts, oil painting and hand grenades, religious sermons and cookbooks. The Definition of Culture The simplest definition of culture was stated by Ralph Linton (1893 to 1953). “Culture is the way of life of any society”. Also Robert Bierstedt stressed the all-inclusive nature of culture and called it. “The complex whole consisting of everything we think, do and have in social life”. Lastly, John F. Cuber stressed both the dynamic, changing character of culture and the fact that culture is learned (from parents, teachers, siblings, friends, neighbours and other members of the society). “Culture consists of the always changing patterns or meaningfully integrated ways in which behaviour is learned as well as the products of learned behaviour and past experiences such as attitudes, values, beliefs, knowledge and material objects”. The Origin of Culture Culture is created by human beings as they interact in the complex changing network of group life that we call society. Why do men create Culture? Since problems beget not only solutions but new problems as well, cultures become more and more involved and difficulty in their organization as human beings make their historic way from stone age to Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) age. To solve the problems presented by nature, human beings created such culture traits as dikes, dams and irrigation system. Man’s own mind created problems, as well, and fearing the unknown forces that caused the rivers to flood their fields, human beings created in their thoughts a god or river to whom sacrifices and prayers could be addressed as peace offerings. Eventually religion arose to answer the problems that faced us from vast, mysterious depths of the universe. In prehistoric times, some men invented the wheel, a circular disk constructed to revolve on a central axis. Their invention was prerequisite to the development of the wheel cart: the problem of transport in a material objects and people rapidly and in large amounts and number from one place to another had been solved. Later, they discover a new hand and the growth of economic and socialites between people separated by land and water masses forced man to add sail boats, steamers, locomotives and automobiles to their ever expanding transportation culture. Other problems arose from the very fact of social living and solution came in the form of custom, laws, peace treaties, political constitutions, and international organizations. The Foundations of Culture The following fundamental processes are basic to all of men’s cultural efforts. They answer another pertinent question; “How do men create culture?” i. Language and Communication Certain animal species-notably the social insects also form societies; but the associative life of animals has never led to the formation of culture. The creation of culture is exclusively a human achievement, which originates with man’s capacity to exchange and pass complicated types of knowledge through the media of symbolic language and communication. ii. Tool Using Again, only men were able to make tool using continuous and accumulative, to device machines and technical systems, which enable them to bring forth-material culture. These material cultures include. (a) All artifacts - (material objects that have been “worked” or used as tools-cutlass, hoe, digger, etc). (b) Other material objects such as food (bread), shelter (house), vehicle (car), dress (coat), utensils (fork), tools (hammer), machine (turbine), media (T.V., book), weapons (missiles) and art works (sculpture). iii. Invention and Discovery The origin of new culture traits (smallest element of a culture), and the survival of old ones results from association with and learning from other people. All culture traits owe their origin and survival to social life and are further developed in response to human problems and needs. While we learn or ‘borrow’ many culture traits from other groups there are others that we create ourselves. Invention, therefore, is the ultimate source of all culture traits. They are either invented by individuals belonging to our own groups, or by members of outside groups. The invention of new ideas, forms of behaviour, farm methods, scientific – technological processes, and so forth is sometimes the outcome of accidents, when chance combinations of already existing items lead to a new product. At other times, inventions owe their origin to mistakes or appear as the unexpected result of other activity. But more often inventions are produced by creative thinkers who experiment with new relations of known elements until they have achieved new combinations and new facts. The complex products of modern inventions are mostly a combination of many different, independently invented items of lesser magnitude and owe their existence mainly to the successful integration of many scientists and technologists into research teams. The process whereby men acquire new factual knowledge about empirical reality is called “discovery”. Discovery furnishes the information which inventors need to achieve novel (new) combinations of known elements. Not all discoveries have led to inventions, but all inventions have their beginning in discoveries. iv. Diffusion Sociologists use this concept to express; (a) the realization that it is easier for us to copy, borrow, and use other people’s inventions than to invent new objects, practices, and ideas ourselves. (b) the fact that any individual culture is a serious mixture of many culture traits that have come from the four corners of the earth. (c) the notion that many other societies have accepted practices, ideas, and objects that members of our own society invented. In more technical language, diffusion is the spread of culture traits from one society to another, or from one region or group to another within the same society. The rate of diffusion (its spread and range) depends mainly on these factors: · Geographical distance · Ease of communication and contact · Usefulness or attractiveness of invention · Willingness to receive new ideas, practices, and things on the part of the societies that are to play host to them. CONCLUSION It is true that social insects and animals form societies, their associative lives have not resulted into the formation of culture. Man’s interaction with man, nature and harsh social realities to formation of culture, human adornment, speech, dance, smiles, tears etc. are all culturebound. This unit therefore presents man as a culture creating animal. SUMMARY In this unit, the popular meaning and Sociological definitions of culture were considered. The basis for creation of culture and the modalities for the evolution of culture by man were also presented. Culture is central to the society and it is shared and possessed by all human wherever they are found.