Culture Flashcards
Culture (333) is the knowledge, language, values, customs, and material objects that are passed from person to person and from one generation to the next in a society.
Interestingly enough, think of culture as instincts in animals because it helps us deal with everyday life. Thanks to culture, you uphold your parents’ religion or follow the unspoken rules in your own society, which in this case is Vietnam.
There are many different ways to categorize culture. One way is to divide it into two major categories: Material culture (334) and nonmaterial culture (335).
Material culture consists of physical and tangible creations that members of a society make, use and share. Think of a pagoda you have gone to with your parents. What do you see? Statues of Buddhists. Fake money. etc. These are in the material culture group. Want more? Ever gone to mountainous areas? Do you see people dress differently than you are? Yep. You get the idea. What you can see, taste, touch, hear or smell falls under the category of material culture. Even your favorite Pho. Delicious! Even our music. Again, these little things put together constituting a particular culture.
But that’s not all, there are things we can’t see or touch but they do constitute a culture, which is called non-material culture. Non-material culture is abstract or intangible human creations of society that influence people’s behavior. Language, beliefs, values, rules of behavior, family patterns, and political systems are examples of nonmaterial culture. Even the gestures that we use in daily conversations are part of the nonmaterial culture in a society. Our religion is a part of our culture. The fact that we treat out parents with utmost respect is part of our culture, too (think of how you talk to your mom or dad).
TWO major parts of culture.
Material culture - physical and tangible
Nonmaterial culture - abstract and intangible
Now let’s talk more in detail about different components of culture.
- SYMBOLS
A symbol is a very important component of culture because it meaningfully represents something else. Culture could not exist without symbols. Symbols can produce either love or hate or loyalty. Think about Nazi symbol. Think about Vietnamese flag. They are simple but convey something meaningful shared with people. For example, our flag stands for patriotism and nationalism. Want another example? A heart-shape symbol to represent love. A dove to represent peace. A siren to represent an emergency situation.
Interestingly enough, symbols can affect our thoughts about class. Those who drive a Mercedes car with its symbol are thought to be rich and successful. (Although the car is a fake one with the symbol in it). - LANGUAGE
We use language to express ideas and communicate with one another. There are two forms of language which are verbal and nonverbal language.
Verbal language (336) - spoken language
Nonverbal language (337) - written or gestured.
Language can create visual images in our mind. It can help us distinguish ourselves from people from China. Language SHAPES the reality we perceive and experience. If you cannot use a language properly, it’s hard to perceive the reality. That’s why vocabulary is important. People with no vocabulary can express and understand nothing simply because they cannot call it.
3. VALUES (338)
Values are collective ideas about what is right or wrong, good or bad, and desirable or undesirable in a particular culture. Think about traditional values. What do you parents value in your culture? We value helping other people. We value treating older people with more respect than younger ones. We value our the reverence of religion. We value the love to animals (although not always true). What is right or wrong in YOUR opinion? These are core values. Want to learn more about the American values?
Americans value individualism (339). Individualism means independence and selfreliant. Americans express themselves more openly because they value their OWN opinion. They believe they are responsible for their own success and failure by what they do (dispositional factors) rather than blaming to situational factors.
Americans value material possessions like expensive clothes or cars or houses because these are symbols of success and personal achievement (although not always true)
Hard-working trait is perceived as good and laziness is perceived as bad.
Americans have a great deal of faith in science and technology. People from some other regions of the world might think differently, they attribute the development to religions or surreal things.
Americans value practicality and efficiency. What does it mean? They are less likely to daydream. They work. They want to work better and faster. They concern about waste. They want to minimize it (efficiency).
Americans also value morality and humanitarianism (339), meaning helping other people in need even from different parts of the world.
Individual freedom is highly valued in the US. Privacy is taken seriously. Basic human rights are highly protected (by the Constitution).
Sometimes, we may have different values contradicting one another. That’s value contradictions (340). Value contradictions are values that conflict with one another or are mutually exclusive (341). Mutually exclusive means that they are separate, cannot be merged (very good phrase for IELTS).
Values - what is perceived as right or wrong in a particular culture.
- NORMS (Revisited)
We’ve talked about norms in the psychology world. Just to remind you, norms are established rules of behavior or standards of conduct. In other words, what is perceived as normal and what is not. Going to the pagodas and wearing shorts is considered not normal in Vietnam because it violates the norms. For more detail, please go back to the Psychology section.
Something that is more serious than norm is laws. If you violate a norm, people may laugh at you or think you’re stupid or crazy. If you violate a law, you might get a fine or go to jail.
However, do not mess with norms. There are some serious norms that if you violate them, serious consequences may ensue. These are called taboos (342) If you violate a taboo, it’s considered extremely offensive.
If you live in Vietnam, almost all people are born in Vietnam and speak the same language. But if you go to the US or Canada, you will experience the cultural diversity (343). Cultural diversity refers to the wide range of cultural differences found between and within nations. Countries with high cultural diversity is called heterogeneous societies (344) and homogeneous societies for less diverse (like Vietnam or China).
Cultures = beliefs, values, norms, assumptions, language, symbols, taboos.
Cultural diversity
Heterogeneous societies - very diverse
Homogeneous societies - less diverse
Within a big culture, there are **subcultures (345).** Although we are coming from the same country, the culture of your class is different from mine. The culture of your company is different from mine. Even within a company, the culture of different departments differ. Or even within a class, they are different groups of boys and girls with different subcultures. Another example of a subculture is the variety of ethnic backgrounds in Vietnam or 54 **ethnic subcultures (346).** Believe it or not, when observing people from other cultures, many of us use our own culture as a ruler by which we judge their behavior. Like when you see an American guy acts quite oddly. This is called **_ethnocentrism (347),_** the practice of judging all other cultures by one's own culture. You sometimes say to yourself "why are these people acting like this, it's stupid!" Ethnocentrism is based on the assumption that your own way of life and thinking is superior to all others. For example, most schoolchildren are told that their own school and country are the best. It's hard to avoid ethnocentrism. At least, one thing we can do is to not judge too early.
Okay, have you seen anyone loving opera, ballet, live threater or classical music? What is your impression of them? High class. Elite. Smart. Rich, etc. Right? Although people like opera does not necessarily mean they are smart or superior to others, we refer this to the concept of high culture (348). People with high culture patronize (349) things like fine arts, opera, or ballet as mentioned above. The opposite of high culture is pop culture (350) or popular culture. Popular culture consists of activities, products and services that appeals primarily to members of middle and working classes. For example, sports, movies, rock music, comedies, etc.
Culture and social class
- high culture - like opera, fine arts
- popular culture - popular music or movies
There are two forms of popular culture (Remember these)
1. Fads (350)
2. Fashion (351)
A fad is a temporary, short-lived thing or activity followed by a lot of enthusiastic people. Detox water is a fad. Or anything popular things you see on haivl.com are probably fads. Again, a fad is very short-lived.
A fashion lasts longer than a fad. It’s a valued style of behavior, thinking or appearance. Anyone likes Korean music?
