AGUSAN NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT

T. SANCHEZ ST. BUTUAN CITY

Understanding Culture, Society and Politics

Chapter II: Culture and Society: The Perspectives of Anthropology and Sociology

Society
- a ‘sociological term’ that refers to a constitution of social actors in constant interaction.
- a tool to grasp the complexity of the phenomenon and a means to explore its many other
dimensions.

Culture
- an ‘anthropological term’ that refers to a set of practices and traditions that define a specific
society.

SOCIETY AS A FACTICITY
Facticity - the quality or condition of being a fact; based on facts.
Interactions – the most important component of the phenomenon in the society.
‘Society’ - a constituting a fairly large number of people who are living in the same territory, are
independent of people outside their area, and participate in a common culture.
- It is seen as an outcome of multiple interactions of people upon which succeeding interactions are
made meaningful and possible.
- It exists if there are people interacting and their interactions constitute the process that defines the
society.

Social Forces

(e.g. sex, gender, religion, race, ethnicity,

sexual orientation, social status)
The mechanics of operation of society as a factual entity
Social Facts

(i.e. phenomenon; existing in the society)

SOCIETY AND ITS TRIPARTITE POWERS

1. Omnipotence (all-powerful) – it controls and runs the lives of the people (i.e. laws made by the gov’t)
2. Omniscience (all-knowing) – its ‘library’ keeps all the knowledge and collects the memories of the
people who form it.
3. Omnipresent (everywhere) – it’s spies are scattered in the four corners of land.

 The tripartite powers of society are even more evident in its effects on our daily and routine actions and
behavior.
 By knowing how society behaves, we can find ways to pursue our individual agenda and purpose in life.
Since there are limitation, we can find alternative routes to pursue our dreams and aspirations.

Limitations imposed on us by society are also forms of opportunity.

Three Classical Theories of the Origin of Society

(1) Structural – Functional The Conflict Theory

(2) Symbolic Interactionism

 Structural Functionalism and Social Order

- It looks at ‘social order’
- It argues that society is made possible by cooperation and interdependence
(i.e. the dependence of two or more people on each other)
- it views society as a system with different parts with respective functions to perform.

 Conflict Theory and Conflict

- It sees society as an arena
- Social actors are fighting for their lives
- It views conflict as positive and advantageous
- Conflicts brings new set of relations and interactions, which produces new dynamism in society.
- Conflict theory invokes the social processes

 Social process - the pattern of growth and change in a society over the years.

 Symbolic Interactionism and Meaning Making

- It explores the issue of meaning-making and why this is crucial in understanding order or conflict as
processes that brought about society
- Meaning is important because it is the basis of actions towards or against specific elements of the
environment.
- Symbols are interpreted intersubjectively by social actors.

RULES: INVISIBLE HAND OF SOCIETY

 Rules
- are guides in the performance of roles and in everyday actions and interactions
- it provides order in a system characterized by the presence of many actors with different agenda.
- Essential in the everyday conduct of the members of society
- There are written and unwritten rules.
 A society cannot exist apart from culture. Like mind and body, society and culture are
interdependent and interactive yet they express different aspects of the human situation.

THE COMPLEXITY OF CULTURE

Culture is a people’s way of life.
E.B. Taylor describes culture as “that complex whole, which encompasses beliefs, practices, values attitudes,
laws, norms, artifacts, symbols, knowledge, and everything that a person learns and shares as a member of
society.
The “complex whole” suggests that culture cannot be broken down into a set of attributes. It means that an
understanding of a part can only be achieved in relation to the other parts of the system.

Enculturation (Learning your own group’s culture)

- the process by which a person adapts the behavior pattern of a culture he lives in.
- It refers to the gradual acquisition of the characteristics and norms of a culture by a person or group
by a person, another culture, etc.
Example: A flipino girl eats ballot because she believes it’s part of her culture.
Acculturation (Learning another group’s culture)
- A process in which an individual adapts, acquires, and adjusts to a new cultural environment.
- the transfer of values and customs from one group to another.
Example: Japanese people dressing in Western clothing

Third culture shock

- an example of enculturation.
- Individuals who have stayed for quite a good portion of their lives in a foreign culture may be
shocked by their birth culture once exposed to it again.
- The shock created by their birth culture is a product of their enculturation in the second culture.

ASPECTS OF CULTURE
 E.B. Taylor, an English anthropologist, was the first to create the term ‘culture’ in the 18th century.
 The study of society is incomplete without proper understanding of the culture of that society because
culture and society go together.
Culture
- a unique possession of man
- the unique quality of man which separates him from the lower animals
- man is born and brought up in a cultural environment

 A culture is a historically derived system of explicit and implicit designs for living, which tends to be
shared by all or specially designed members of a group.
- Kluckhohn and Kelly

Explicit culture – refers to similarities in words and actions which can be directly observed.
Example: Adolescent cultural behavior can be generalized by looking at the way the teens
dress, their mannerisms, and conversations.

Implicit culture – exists in abstract forms which are not quite obvious
- It consists of underlying values, unwritten norms
Example: Boys give their seats to the girls who are on the bus.

Characteristics of Culture
1. Culture is social because it is the product of behavior
- Culture is a product of society
- It develops through social interactions

2. Culture varies from society to society

- the culture of every society is unique to itself
- Culture varies from time to time

3. Culture is shared
- Customs, traditions, beliefs, ideas, values are all shared by people of a society
- e.g. Christianity, language

4. Culture is learned
- Culture is not inborn
- “learned ways of behavior”
- e.g. shaking hands, saying thanks
overt behavior – visible, obvious behavior (e.g. eating with forks)
covert behavior- not openly visible (e.g. feeling hatred)

5. Culture is transmitted among members of society

- Cultural ways are learned from persons to persons
- Culture is transmitted from one generation to another
- “handed down by elders, parents, teachers” (e.g. values)
- “handed up to elders” (e.g. use of technology)
 Transmission of culture is made possible by Language
 Language is the vehicle of culture

6. Culture is continuous and cumulative

- Culture exists as a continuous process
- No culture ever remains constant or changeless
- It is subject to slow but constant change

7. Culture is gratifying and idealistic

- Culture provides proper opportunities for the satisfaction of our needs and desires.
- Our needs both biological and social are fulfilled n the cultural ways
- Culture embodies the ideas and norms of a group.
 

ethnocentrism
noun [ U ] US/ˌeθ·noʊˈsen·trɪz·əm/

belief that a particular race or culture is better than others

Xenocentrism is the preference for the products, styles, or ideas of someone else's culture rather than of
one's own.
Acculturation is a process in which an individual adopts, acquires and adjust to a new cultural environment.
acculturation is. is an example of acculturation.

Xenophobia is the fear or hatred of that which is perceived to be foreign or strange

Cultural relativism is the idea that a person's beliefs, values, and practices should be understood based on
that person's own culture, rather than be judged against the criteria of another.
we should try to understand culturalpractices of other groups in its own cultural context. For example,
instead of thinking, “Fried crickets are disgusting!

1. Characteristics of Culture

2. Culture is shared People living together in a society share culture. For example, almost all people living in the
Philippines share the Filipino language, dress in similar styles, eat many of the same foods, and celebrate many of the
same holidays. Characteristics of Culture

3. Culture is learned People are not born with culture; they have to learn it. In all human societies, children learn culture
from adults. Anthropologists call this process enculturation, or cultural transmission. Characteristics of Culture
4. Culture is symbolic People have culture primarily because they can communicate with and understand symbols.
Symbols allow people to develop complex thoughts and to exchange those thoughts with others. Language and other
forms of symbolic communication enable people to create, explain, and record new ideas and information.
Characteristics of Culture

5. Culture is integrated In order to keep the culture functioning, all aspects of the culture must be integrated. For
example the language must be able to describe all the functions within the culture in order for ideas and ideals to be
transmitted from one person to another. Characteristics of Culture

1. Characteristics of Culture

2. culturediverse pattern ideational changes learned shared cumulative dynamic

3. Culture is learned A child born in the Philippines but was brought to the United States after birth may not develop
traits characteristic of Filipinos.

4. Culture is shared The idea that marriage involves only one man and one woman is cultural in our society.

5. Culture is cumulative Each culture has worked out solutions to the basic problems of life, which it then passes on to
its children.

6. Cultures change All cultural knowledge does not perpetually accumulate. At the same time that new cultural traits
are added, some old ones are lost because they are no longer useful.

7. Culture is dynamic No culture is ever in a permanent state. It is constantly changing because new ideas and new
techniques are added and old ways are constantly modified and discarded.

8. Culture is ideational Culture is an ideal pattern of behavior which the members are expected to follow.

9. Culture is diverse The sum total of human culture consists of a great many separate cultures, each if them different.
Culture as a whole, is a system with many mutually interdependent parts.

10. Culture gives us a range of permissible bahavior patterns Every culture allows a range of ways in which men can
be men and women can be women. Culture also tells us how different activities should be conducted, such as how
one should act as a husband, wife, parent, child, etc.

Characteristics of culture

1. CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE

2. 1. CULTURE IS LEARNED The first essential characteristic of culture is that it is learned. A child born in the
Philippines but was brought to the United States after birth may not develop traits characteristics of Filipinos. He may
learn behavior pattern characteristics of American children, including language.

3. 2. CULTURE IS SHARED BY A GROUP OF PEOPLE For a thought or action to be considered cultural, it must be
commonly shared by some population or group of individuals. Even if some behavior is not commonly appropriate, it
is cultural if most people think it is appropriate. For example, the idea that marriage involves only one man and one
woman is cultural in our society.

4. 3. CULTURE IS CUMULATIVE Knowledge is stored and passed on from one generation to the next, and new
knowledge is being added to what is existing. Each culture has worked out solutions to the basic problems of life,
which it then passes on to its children. The jeepneys and tricycles in the Philippines are good examples of the
cumulative quality of culture. Their invention involved the use of materials which were invented in different places of
the world (Hunt et al, 1995).

5. 4. CULTURES CHANGE All cultural knowledge does not perpetually accumulate. At the same time that new
cultural traits are added, some old ones are lost because they are no longer useful. For example, most city dwellers
today do not have or need the skills required for survival in a wilderness. Most would likely starve to death because
they do not know how to acquire wild foods and survive the extremes of weather outdoors. What is more important
in modern urban life are such things as the ability to drive a car, use a computer, and understand how to obtain food
in a supermarket or restaurant (O’Neill,2005).

6. 5. CULTURE IS DYNAMIC This is a characteristic of culture that stems from its cumulative quality. No culture is
ever in a permanent state. It is constantly changing because new ideas and new techniques are added and old ways
are constantly modified and discarded. This is because of the rapid changes that occur which may be introduced from
within or without. It also grows by the spread of traits from individual and from one group to another which is termed
as diffusion. One form of diffusion is the growth of language. Filipino vocabulary has grown because of borrowed
words from other languages like Spanish, Chinese and English.
7. CULTURE IS IDEATIONAL Culture is an ideal pattern of behavior which the members are expected to follow. Man
assigns meanings to his environment and experiences by symbolizing them. These are internalized by the individual
and sees or approaches his world from the standpoint of this culture (Panopio, 1994).

8. 7. CULTURE IS DIVERSE The sum total of human culture consists of a great many separate cultures, each of them
different. Culture as a whole, is a system with many mutually independent parts. For example, the choice of a
marriage partner involves many different parts of culture as religion, economic class, education, etc.

9. 8. CULTURE GIVES US A RANGE OF PERMISSIBLE BEHAVIOR PATTERNS Every culture allows a range of ways in
which men can be men and women can be women. Culture also tells us how different activities should be conducted,
such as how one should act as a husband, wife, parent, child, etc. these rules of permissible behavior are usually
flexible to a degree- the are some alternatives rather than the hard rules. For instance, culture tells us how we should
dress based on our gender, but it allows us to dress in different ways in different situations in order to communicate
varied messages and statuses. The clothing patterns of women in this society can be particularly rich and complex.
Their clothing can be intentionally businesslike, recreational, as well as sexually attractive, ambiguous, neutral, or
even repulsive(http://anthro.Palomar.edu/culture/_htm).

10. PRESENTED BY: MARY GRACE DACAYANAN OMSC Sablayan