Society and Culture: India's Cultural Plurality

Content

Introduction
Concept of Society
Concept of Culture
Relationship of Culture and Society
Relationship of Culture, Society and Individual
Plurality of Culture
Summary

Introduction

Cultural man is thought to have been on the planet for 1.5 million years. From this time period, there is evidence of humans living a social and cultural life. As a result, human beings became the first species in the animal kingdom to develop civilization. Once this potential for creating culture was developed, it was put to use, resulting in a secure adaption to their surroundings. This practise created a desire for man to live in community with others. Not only did man begin experimenting with his surroundings, but he also began sharing his findings with his fellow humans, sometimes in their original form and sometimes in a modified and enhanced version. The concept of society arose from the beginning of human beings living in groups. Then man began to organise his experiences and behaviours into an ordered fonn, resulting in the emergence of a systematised fonn of life. This was his way of life. The rise and formation of society and culture were inextricably linked. Man's biological evolution is a struggle for survival (accompanied cultural evolution).

In the beginning, humans grouped and organised themselves into tiny, nomadic bands. This was the beginning of organised society, though it was nothing like the evolved and complicated society we have today. The activities of human beings, their behaviour and communal living, and their movement in groups from one location to another in search of food and shelter all contributed to the development of a common way of life.

Some sociologists attempt to separate'social' and 'cultural' components of human life. They use the term'social' to refer to the ties that exist among the many groups within society. 'Culture,' according to them, is the way of life of society's members.' Culture is defined by the way one group interacts with another. The family, for example, is a social group, and its culture is defined by how they act, interact, and behave. A society is defined as a group of people who live in the same environment and are reliant on one another for their survival and well-being. Today's large societies are divided into classes, castes, ethnic groupings, and so on.

Concept of Society

According to Socrates, man is a social animal, and being sociable is both natural and necessary for him. Other animals have organised lives as well, but man's social life is distinct from that of other animals. Animal behaviour is instinctual and dies with the animal, whereas human behaviour is acquired and carried on from generation to generation. This is a characteristic of man that sets him apart from other animals. This trait unites all males in their desire to act in the same way. They are a group of people who share a common way of life, as well as similarities in their behaviour and other activities. "Society is an organised, interacting collection of individuals who pursue a specific way of life," Herskovits defines society from this perspective. In simple terms, society is made up of individuals. As a part of the collective of individuals known as society, man examines himself.

Comte divides society into two categories: "social statics" and "social dynamics," which refer to both social stability and change. 'Social statics' is concerned with parts of social life that are largely stable and ordered, such as family life, marriage and kinship, and social institutions. 'Social dynamics,' on the other hand, is concerned with the changing features of social life, such as social changes, social processes, and so on. In terms of social dynamics and changes, Comte highlighted that society evolved through three phases, namely savagery, barbarism, and civilization, and that marriage and family evolution went through proniiscuity, group marriage, polygamy, and eventually monogamy. Similarly, religion has progressed through periods of animism, polytheism, and monotheism.

The question may emerge as to why a man has to live in society or why society needs to exist. The following is a quick solution to these questions:

Man has needs, which he chooses to meet or fulfil on his own; he can do so while still being a member of society or while still living in society. The way those demands are met is influenced by the patterns of expectations and behaviour that we refer to as culture. From one community to the next, there is a vast range of approaches to addressing human needs. This diversity distinguishes and distinguishes one society from others.
Man requires the help of others from the very beginning, i.e., from birth. Initially, he is reliant on others to assist him with his social and physical development. His general development and growth are facilitated by organised social life. This is where the society's primary significance lies. Though society expands and fulfils this role throughout man's life, he requires it the most in his early years.
Society supplies a man with understanding information and exposure to his surroundings and environment. Man learns to behave, act, respond, and play his required role for his environment and the society of which he is a member in society.

All of these elements interact with one another. They have an effect on each other. Each aspect, though, has its own significance. There are also some fundamental aspects of social organisation and ideology. These factors contribute to the society's continuity and change, as well as its proper functioning.

Concept of Culture

To begin, we might state that man is the only organism capable of creating culture and passing it down from generation to generation. Other animals and insects have cultures as well, but they die with them, but man's culture sets him apart from the rest of the animals.

There are a number of definitions of culture:

One of the best, and most acceptable, early definitions of culture was given by E.B. Tylor (1871) in his book “Primitive culture”, wherein he described culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”.

The definition implies that culture is not simple and it is not constituted by one or two parts. Rather it is a complicated one and is constituted by a great number of components of life which span, as stated in the definition, from knowledge to legislation to traditions. This also covers habits formed by man while living and interacting in society with other members. Though comprised by a huge number of elements, called features, culture has to be comprehended in entirety, the whole. All the qualities are so beautifully blended that each one gets almost merged into the other. Culture, when examined holistically, is unqerstood as a complicated whole. The following are some of the features of culture:

Culture is a complicated entity in which all of its aspects and characteristics must be understood in connection to one another. In this way, they collectively make up a whole called culture, which is complicated in nature.
Culture is learned: Human culture is neither instinctive, innate, or physiologically transmitted. It is made up of habits, or learned dispositions to react, that each individual has acquired via his or her unique life experiences after birth.
Culture is instilled: All animals can learn, but only man appears to be capable of passing on his acquired habits and behaviour to his offspring to a substantial extent. A dog can be taught a variety of tricks, but they cannot be passed down to its puppies. Man, on the other hand, is capable of passing on all of his knowledge and behaviours to his descendants.
Culture is social: Cultural habits are not simply instilled and transferred over time; they are all social, in the sense that they are shared by all human beings living in the society. The culture of a civilization is defined by the habits that its members share.
Culture is commercial: The behaviours that make up a group's culture define desirable norms or patterns of behaviour.
Culture serves biological and secondary demands: Culture always and necessarily satisfies biological and secondary needs. It also aids in the enjoyment of human interaction with the natural environment and fellow humans.
Culture is adaptable: It evolves. The changing process appears to be adaptive, similar to evolution in the organic domain but on a different scale. Culture adapts over time to the physical environment as well as the biological and socio-psychological demands of the human organism. Borrowing and organisation help it adjust.
Culture is integrative: During the adaptation process, all parts of culture tend to come together to form a coherent and integrated whole. Some anthropologists believe that culture is an integrated system in which the majority of its components are in perfect harmony with one another.
Language as a cultural vehicle: All aspects of culture are passed down from generation to generation through language, whether verbal or written. Man cannot transmit civilization from one epoch to the next or from one location to another without the use of language. 1
Culture is cumulative: One generation gains knowledge, skills, and other forms of culture from the previous one. The acquired culture is added to or modified, and then passed down to the following generation in a cumulative manner. This enables man to acquire information, talents, and other cultural features from the distant past and pass them on to future generations.

The following are a few definitions from a large number of concepts that clearly and closely represent human behaviour and environment:

“Culture is the man made part of the environment” (Herskovits, MJ. 1955).

“The sum total of the knowledge, attitudes and habitual behaviour patterns shared and transmitted by the members of a particular society” (Linton, 1940).

“(All the) historically created designs for living, explicit and implicit, rational, irrational, and non-rational, which exist at any given time as potential guides for the behaviour of man” (Kluckhohn and Kelly, 1945).

Culture encompasses all aspects of existence, including tools, skills, ideas, values, and all aspects of life (Kroeber, 1948). All of these components, including arts and artefacts, as well as patterns of human behaviour acquired and transmitted, make up human groups' distinguishing achievement, including its manifestations in objects (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952).

Culture is revealed to be more than a biological phenomenon. In a nutshell, culture refers to a man's mature behaviour gained from his peers through conscious learning or conditioning, as well as diverse skills, social and other organisations, beliefs, and predictable styles of conduct. As a result, man is the only "culture-building" animal.

As stated culture has two aspects :

Material Culture: It covers any artefacts or objects built by man for his own use, such as houses, furniture, clothing, tools, and so on. It's the visible, touchable, and observable aspect. Material culture aspects can be purposefully developed, built, destroyed, recreated, and improved upon to meet man's needs and desires. Some products are designed to protect man from the environment, aid in his survival, and combat severe weather and unfriendly climate. Medicines, for example, are invented, discovered, and used to combat diseases, improve health, and increase quality of life. Some components of material culture, namely, ideational aspects of culture, are formed and built to meet the demands and needs originating from changes in non-material culture. When compared to non-material culture, material culture has a greater range of variations.
Non-material Culture: It encompasses all parts of culture that aren't material or spiritual. Ellenwood defined culture as "all of man's material civilization, including tools, weapons, clothing, shelter, machines, and even industrial systems" on the one hand, and "all of man's non-material or spiritual civilization, including language, literature, art, religion, ritual, morality, law, and government on the other." The distinction between material and nonmaterial culture is made explicit in the term.

Relationship of Culture and Society

In simple terms, we can understand this relationship by saying that culture refers to people's ideas, values, and standards, whereas society relates to the people themselves. As a result, culture is made up of ideas, while society is made up of individuals.

Herskovits its has made this clear when he observed that “a culture is the way of life of the people; while a society is an organised and interacting aggregate of individuals who follow a given way of life”. Further “a society is composed of people the way they behave is their culture”

We can start by looking at man's ideas, institutions, and physical artefacts. In reality, we're looking at man himself. As a result, it's impossible to distinguish between man as a social being and man as a cultural creation. The two characteristics are so intertwined that neither can be comprehended or explained without the other. Both society and culture, it might be stated, are not mutually exclusive. With society and culture, one must understand social reality.

Individual members of a society made up of individuals may die and be replaced by others. As a result, society has a structural component. Its structure and survival are determined by the birth, death, and replacement of members. Individual members, on the other hand, have little influence over culture. Individual members' births, deaths, and replacements have little impact on the culture. Culture belongs to the area of normative urder, whereas society belongs to the realm of social structure and organisation.

On the social level, there is a continuous process of interactive behaviour, whose persistent form of social relationship is referred to as social structure; on the cultural level, there are beliefs, values, norms, and other factors through which people define their world, express their feelings, and make judgments. As a result, cultUre is the fabric through which humans interpret their experiences, whereas social structure is the shape in which action takes. As a result, culture and social structure are two sides of the same coin.

S.F. Nadel (1951) has made a distinction between society and culture in this way:

“Society means the totality of social facts projected on to the dimensions of relationships and groupings; cultures, the same totality in the dimensions of action”. In this respect, some scholars have even raised the question “are not people -’ society - the reality rather than their way of life”. Some consider ways of life as the intangibles and as the inferences drawn from the behavior of people. Therefore, to study society is important for us because it essentially allows us to.understand’ how the . life lived by man in aggregates affects his behaviour.

Individual relationships evolve with age, strength, assumed responsibilities, and acquired status in all civilizations. In all societies, an individual's social existence begins with affiliation with a group. It is the group's cultural training that prepares an individual to live up to the group's or society's expectations. A man gains proficiency in his culture through his learning experience.

Many scholars have discussed why society is necessary for human beings. This necessity can be explained in terms of man's physical and mental makeup, as well as his cultural indoctrination.

Why should man live in society? Some of the reasons are explain :

A man's primary need in society is to fulfil and satisfy his biological and other requirements. However, in order to satisfy them, he uses cultural means, and culture therefore becomes a means to an end. Man can express his choices to satisfy his wants as a member of society, and the process of this satisfaction takes the form of cultural expressions. Man uses his cultural qualities to meet his needs for shelter and nourishment.

It is a reality that the infant is physically and intellectually helpless at the time of birth to face the environment and meet his needs. It takes a long time for him to mature and become self-sufficient. In the process of his upbringing, he requires the ongoing assistance of others. His entire growth and development is under the supervision of other members of society or members of his group. This is continued in the group's organised life. A youngster develops his personality through instilling values and standards during this process. He improves his abilities and prepares himself to confront the challenges of life.

He must live in society and live as a part of it in constant interaction with other members for the reasons stated above, in order to be self-reliant and competent to respond to the expectations others have of him.

Relationship of Culture, Society and Individual

Life's social and cultural aspects are intertwined. Members of a society's behaviour is entirely determined by their social bonds. Individuals who are units of a society make up the membership of this relationship. A social relationship is made up of at least two people. The promotion of one's culture determines an individual's importance in society. The social fabric is a network that connects all three dimensions of culture, society, and individuals. Individuals also interact with their surroundings, generate ideas, and create material and non-material culture. Individuals must adjust to others in order to form appropriate and positive interactions.

The positive interaction of social, cultural, and individual variables makes society a civilised place to live. All of these elements interact and reinforce one another. The absence of one person could imply the disappearance of others. Individuals' behaviour is also influenced by others in face-to-face interactions.

A single person's behaviour is referred to as his personality, whereas a collection of people's behaviour is referred to as culture. Individuals' overall behaviour is frequently referred to as culture.

Individuals learn the kind of conduct or behaviour that are acceptable to a group in society. Acculturation is the term for the process of learning acceptable behaviour. As a result, this process serves as a link between existing culture and the culture that individuals exhibit through their actions. Individuals are sculpted into persons as desired by society during the acculturation process.

Individuals have a short lifespan, but culture lives on from generation to generation. It is bigger than any single person who lives there. Similarly, no community is made up of people who smile for an extended period of time. Its members are continually changing due to births and deaths. When a whole generation of people in a community dies, it is the members' pattern of behaviour (culture) that binds them to the past. This pattern of behaviour is carried down to the current members of society. This also aids us in comprehending how culture aids individuals in being more integrated into society.

Plurality of Culture

People of various religions, castes, creeds, races, and, most importantly, different ways of life, with their own cultures and ethnic identities, can be found in any country. A country like this is culturally diverse. Cultural pluralism is a pattern or system in which people of various faiths, religions, castes, and creeds can work and live together while proudly retaining their own faith and identity and sharing a common bond of being, whether by birth or choice. Plural culture refers to the peaceful coexistence of several subcultures within a single society. The validity of various sub-cultures is recognised in such a pluralistic culture.

People in different sub-cultures have different ways of life, live differently, and think differently based on the cultural patterns they have adopted. As a result of cultural pluralism, the concept of cultural diversity emerges. Cultural differences distinguish one group of people from another with the same culture. Language, history or ancestry, religion, style of dress or adornment can all be used to define a group. Plural group cultural characteristics are socially inherited (socially transmitted) from one generation to the next rather than learned in a single generation.

Plural groups exhibiting one culture may be tiny or huge in size structurally, but they all exhibit a sense of unity among themselves. In most cases, membership in such numerous groups is closed, i.e., it can only be acquired by birth, and only its members have access to its resources. However, all of the groups live on equal footing, and none is deemed to be morally superior. Furthermore, no group has the authority to force someone to follow or accept its way of life.

Each group in a multiple subculture has a shared perspective and duty that is different and distinct from the wants and intents of other groups. Members of each group share common views, rights, and responsibilities, and they work hard to sustain and integrate the group.

India's rural and urban areas are home to a diverse range of cultures. It has people from the tribal, rural, and urban areas.' In terms of language, religion, caste, food, attire, and manner of life, it depicts a diverse culture and people. All of these subcultures are part of a bigger society, which is Indian society. This diversity is also found in metropolitan settings, however it is not as well defined, demarcated, or visible as it is in tribal and rural communities. Subcultures abound in urban settings, and they are diverse.

Summary

We have attempted to learn what culture and society are in this article. Culture is our way of life, and society is the group of people that interact with each other. Culture can be described in a variety of ways. E.B. Tylor's definition is the most acceptable. Other definitions, on the other hand, focus on distinct aspects of culture and society. All of them lead us to consider ourselves as social and cultural beings, i.e., what kind of social life we had and how we might characterise it, as well as the many types of cultures and how they interact with one another.

We've also attempted to build a link between society, culture, and the individual in this piece. We discover how they are connected and intertwined. In the absence of the other, neither has any meaning. Material and non-material culture are two types of culture. Both social and cultural elements influence and affect an individual's social growth and development, as well as his ability to integrate into his group in accordance with the wants and expectations of that group. By broadening inter-personal interactions, the individual enhances civilization.

Different sub-cultures have been shown to coexist on equal footing while keeping their identities under the concept of cultural pluralism.

References

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