Culture

        Culture is the most difficult concept to define in sociology. Antropologists made several definitions of it. In our daily life, we are using it constantly. It comes from "to cultivate". Culture means a way of life. We people in different areas of the world, all have different cultures. Ethnicity is related to culture. People who have different ethnicities, they have different culture. Within Turkish nation state, there are some subcultures. Academisians, students, taxi drivers...etc. have their own subculture but counter culture is different than subculture because, its values are against the mainstream culture. Terrorists have their own counterculture. In every society, there are different cultures which are called subcultures. Sometimes they refuse the commonly accepted values. Culture is very important because it shows us many things by which we can learn in social reality. It is shared by people. It is a knowledge that group people share. We have common history, customs.... all these distinctive features make people's own culture.

         When we look at culture, we are seeing very important sociological concepts because by culture we learn how to eat, behave, think, how to see and look at the world, everything which is necessary to survive in society. These two processes are very important. Culture makes us and we make it. There is an another definition of culture: everything which is created by human beings are called culture. "material culture" we create objects to survive in the nature, we have to create tools, control our environment when we use them. On the other hand, values, ideas , beliefs, ideologies, language.... all these things are called "non-material culture". When we live in culture, we both use "material culture" and "non-material culture". It means, we create objects that we use, on the other hand we come up with principles, values, ideas, beliefs...to regulate our own existence. In every culture there are material base of society but also there are ideas. These rules limits our behavior. In every society there are such dimensions of culture. Culture constantly changes, it is not something static. 20 years ago, they used to have different culture. We people usually never question our own culture. We accept our culture as normal, other people's culture as strange. (Ex: Arabic people's clothes are strange to us but if we were born in Iran, we would have a different custom.)

           Learning culture is very important. We learn it through socialization. It is learned behavior, we do not learn it as soon as we birth we do not have a choice of choosing our own culture, it is given to us. Our actions are defined programmed on the basis of our own culture. (Ex: Bribery is very common for Mediterranean countries but for the Western countries it is not an acceptable behavior. Culture is a channel for human behavior. What defines being modern? What makes Western cultures superior? We usually judge other people living in an other parts of the world. If we do that just because that they have a different culture, we are being ethnocentrist. Ethnocentrism means that a kind of ideology which puts down other people just because they have a different culture. Whereas, another approach the opposite of ethnocentrism, "cultural relativism" proposes that every culture has a right to exist and we have to understand different cultures.

Four principal components of culture:

Component:                                   Content:

 Beliefs  -------------------------- What is

Values  --------------------------  What should be

Norms  --------------------------   What to do

Technologies    -------------------------- How to do it

 

Types of Shared Culture:

      When we say that culture is shared, we are referring to any cultural item which is shared. Culture is created and recreated by human being everyday. (Ex: If we would not share a language, we could not communicate). We all share different things when we make culture. Types of shared culture are several one of which is language. By using language, we are sharing a speaking culture. By using a spoken language, we are transmitting some informations. We not only use spoken language, we also use written language. Language is the major type of shared culture. By learning a language, we are learning a different culture. (Ex: when we learn English, we learn American culture). When we live in abroad, we learn English much better. Language and culture cannot be separated easily because when we use language, we at the same time referring to a specific culture. Language is constituted by symbols. When we say symbol, we are referring to something to which we attach meaning. Every cultural artifact and every symbol has a meaning.

      There are so many cultural forms. They all symbolize something. The meaning of symbol may change from person to person and culture to culture but there are some universal meanings of symbol. (Ex: all colors symbolize something universal) In our daily life, language provides a social and shared history. It means, by using language, we make our experiences to be recorded and history is written by language. There is also nonverbal language, the way you use your body. Technology is another type of shared knowledge. It means a knowledge of how to make things. If you do not have enough knowledge how to make something, you cannot do it. Ideologies are shared knowledge. They usually are thought as liberalism, communism... These are only political ideologies. Ideologies are shared beliefs about the world. They help us to interpret events. Ideologies justify the statusquo. (ex: In the western countries, beauty becomes an ideology itself).

      Norms and values are all part of the culture. There are three important concepts. Beliefs are general statements which are every abstract rules. Values are less abstract. When we talk about beliefs, we can talk about religious beliefs which are true in general. (Ex: The world is not flat -scientific believe- ) E.g. of beliefs: "Racial inequality is caused by exploitation"        Values always tell us what should and should not be done (Ex: All forms of discrimination are intolerable and employment opportunities should be open to everybody)      But when it comes to norms, they are much more specific rules that regulate our behavior. Norms tell us what to do and what not to do. (Ex: Do not smoke in the class)    Norms may be formal or informal and they specify what we should do.

Social Construction of Reality:

      When we look at the reality, we construct it by using a language. If there are some concepts, such as depression, we would know much about the reality of being depressed but if you do not know in your own language of the concept of depression, in reality there would not be a problem of depression. The reality is socially constructed.