Soc 100 - Culture II Flashcards
In review, what is culture?
Culture is a combination of beliefs or values and practice, habits, or rituals that follow from them.We understand a society if we understand the cultural rules that shape its people’s actions.
Cultural Universal
Practices or rituals with symbolic value found in every known human culture.Cooking, funeral ceremonies, self-adornment, gift-giving, language etc are found to have symbolic importance everywhere.
What actions tend to be cultural universals in a society?
Actions essential to survival of all societies often found to have such importance.
How do Cr Th look at culture?
Critical theorists look at how culture can be used to dominate or impose social control. How do sets of values serve particular social interest groups? How are they transmitted?
Authority
The ability to have others obey you (without resorting to force)
What are the three types of Authority described by Weber?
Traditional: followers obey because of long-established cultural prestige of role.Charismatic: followers obey due to personal magnetism of inspirational leader.Rational-legal: leader chosen in legally-defined process, e.g. elections or examinations
What kind of authority to people have who hold prestigious positions in society? Give some examples.
They have traditional authority, based on cultural prestige�they are figures we turn to for guidance individually and socially:�National/international political or religious leaders; local figures, e.g. priests, professors, doctors.
Dominant Ideology
System of values, beliefs, and practices that justify and support existing social system, and defend the authority of those with power within it.
How does Antonio Gramsci define the two types of intellectuals relative to classes and class rule?
Organic Intellectuals: Those with particular technical knowledge about their class’s activity. They form naturally as specialisations of labour process, e.g. an engineer, a doctor.�Traditional Intellectuals: Semi-autonomous group of scholars, priests, administrators not attached to any particular class – but who could be adopted by whichever class rules.
Hegemony
Ideological control of a society exercised by a dominant group, whose way of looking at the world is propagated by major cultural institutions.
Who does Gramsci suggest controls the traditional intellectuals? And why?
Gramsci suggests ruling class controls traditional intellectuals:They maintain control over institutions of education and religion, allowing propagation of their worldview.
How is the lower class intellectually defenseless?
They don’t have any intellectuals to express their own worldview.
How do the lower classes then in turn help the ruling class?
Because the subaltern classes are fed beliefs and values of dominant class, their actions will inadvertently help those of rulers even when they don’t want to.Thus, dominant group has intellectual hegemony.
Encoding and Decoding
Encoding: Hiding messages about normal model of society within cultural items.Decoding: How we understand messages – depends on own situation; might not be effective.
Which Sociological movement looks at the way culture conveys hidden messages?
the Cultural Studies movement
Are cultural values always explicity expressed in the media?
Cultural values aren’t always expressed explicitly: they can be implied without saying it.
How do tv shows usually depict the nuclear family?
Television shows usually depict a typical nuclear family, often with a schlub of a husband but a slender, beautiful wife: implies that this is the standard type.
How does Stuart Hill explain gender roles are presented in society to establish normality?
Cultures often set up ideal models of role behaviour:Gender roles are presented as models for us to follow
How do cultures, according to Stuart Hill, use appearances to establish normality? How does this lead to ethnocentrism?
We’re presented with impossible models of appearance.These models often racially-specific: comparatively few models of colour, so ethnocentric ideals of beauty.�
