What are the facets of culture?

What are the facets of culture?

Social scientists generally agree that the essence of culture lies in what we are here calling non-material culture in the system of values, norms, attitudes and beliefs; and in the inter-related habit systems of the members of the society. These are all learned behavior patterns and as such, they are widely shared among the society’s members. They also are taught to the young by the parents; they are transmitted from generation to generation.

Culture may be divided into material and non-material culture. Non-material culture consists of the words people use, the ideas, customs and beliefs they hold and the habits they follow. Material culture consistes of manufactured objects such as tools, furniture, automobiles, roads, bridges etc. In the game of baseball, for instance, the gloves, bats and uniforms etc. Are few elements of material culture. The non-material culture would include the rules of the game, the skill of the players etc. The material culture is always the out-growth of the non-material culture.

In a very strict sense, material objects should not he included within the definitions of the culture. For they are not the learned behaviour. Neither can they be shared among the members of a society in quite the same way as learned behaviour can. One loses nothing when one teaches something to another person. But although material objects can be shared to some degree, there is always the problem of ownership and control. Individual or group frequently have rights in material objects that exclude other people from their possession and use.

Similarly, a society’s store of learned behaviour may accumulate indefinitely and be transmitted to future generations without loss. Material objects on the other hand, may be passed on from an industrial or a group to persons in the next generation, but the problem of ownership remains and sooner or later, the objects loses its usefulness and must be discarded.

Societies do not differ only in language, custom and rules of behaviour. They differ, also, in the level of technological development in the kinds of material goods that they produce. Not strangely, the level of technological development in societies is related to the possession of written language. Literate societies generally have a much higher level of technological development and in some societies, particularly western ones; the level of technological development is so high as to become a major causal factor in social change.

CULTURAL TRAITS AND COMPLEXES

The smallest unit of culture is called a trait. Traits include such things as the nail, the screw driver, the pencil. Non-material culture traits would include such actions as shaking hands, saluting the flag. Each culture includes thousands of traits. This concept was given by Wissler. When culture is taken to mean the way of life, it is obvious that within this whole there are elements like, say prayer, ritual, making of stone tools by percussion and so on. Each of these elements is called a cultural traits. i.e individual components of whole culture are cultural traits.

It a number of culture traits combined together to produce a meaningful congery, a segment within the total culture, then the same is called a ‘culture complex’ A culture complex is outcome of interaction between several institutions. It is also defined as the pattern of the interrelation of culture traits. The culture complex is intermediate between the trait and the institution. An institution is a series of complexes centering upon an important activity.

SUB-CULTURAL, COUNTER CULTURE AND SPRCIFIC CULTURE

Every modern society include some group of people who share some complexes which are not shared by the rest of that society. e.g. the rich have a life style very different from that of the poor. The adolescent culture has special styles of behaviour, thought and dress which the adults can scarcely translate. Clusters of patterns such as these, which are both related to the general culture of the society and yet distinguishable from it are called sub-culture.

Sub-cultures are important because each complex society does not have a single, uniform culture; instead it has a common core of traits and complexes.

Sub-cultures which are in active opposition to the dominant culture are called countercultures. The delinquent gang e.g. is not a group with no standards  or moral values; it has very definite standards and compelling set of moral values but these are quite different from those of conventional middle class groups.

Countercultures are a response to the continued, serious frustration encountered by some groups in the attempts to share in the values of the larger society.

It should be remembered that a counter-culture rejects some but not all, of the norms of the dominant culture Counter cultures introduce many social changes. Whether they cause the changes, or simply reflect and draw attention to changes already arriving may be debated. In any event, some of the ‘outrageous’ behaviour of counter cultures today will be among the culture norms of tomorrow.

True contracultures, like true sub-cultures, probably must cover the whole life cycle and be transmitted from generation and generation. The delinquent contra-culture comes close to meeting this criterion. Many people are born into families where there is systematic rejection of the standards of the larger society.

‘Culture’ used without modifiers, refers to culture in its most abstract and general form to the learned behaviour of human beings in contrast to the detailed biological regulation of behaviour in other species. When modifiers are used as in American culture.

Arab culture, Indian culture and so on the reference is to the specific ways of life of the members of individual societies.