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Identify what aspects of nonmaterial culture
Explain the difference between material and nonmaterial culture in your area
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Unit 2 written Assignment
Introduction:
In a given society, the material and nonmaterial culture is not just only, “the objects or belongings of a group of people,” (Little & McGivern, 2013, p.81). Also certainly, the nonmaterial culture is not just bunch of, “ideas, attitudes, and beliefs of a society” (Little & McGivern, 2013, p.81). They are symbols of interaction, communication, and unity within just a community. This is the perspectives of sociologist Émile Durkheim, (1858–1917), the author of Pathologies of the Social Order. He emphasized that, “The rituals, the worship of icons, and the belief in supernatural beings “excite, maintain or recreate certain mental states” (Durkheim 1912) that bring people together, provide a ritual and symbolic focus, and unify them. (Little & McGivern, 2013, p.16).
Question 1: Examine the difference between material and nonmaterial culture in your world.
The material cultures in my world are those objects or belongings of my society, examples of these are the religion buildings, cinema halls, town halls, relaxation parks, school building, our cultural dresses, our cultural jeweller, etc. On the other hand, the nonmaterial culture within my world includes bare-breast dressing for the read dance, our cultural dance, educational curriculum, our marriage custom of “no divorce,” (Dlamini, 2013, p.1).
The only difference I see between these material and non-material culture is that the material culture are object. They are physical, and tangible. You can see or touch them. They are object of our existence. On the other hands, the nonmaterial cultures are abstracts. Unseen beliefs and ideas. They cannot be touch, yet they serve as sources of our joy and happiness within my
Conley defined culture in many forms in chapter 3. Culture is utilized to rationalize many human behaviors and descriptions of all sorts of individuals and patterns. In other terms, Conley stated that culture can be considered a set of beliefs, traditions, and practices. It is also the sum total of the social categories and concepts we hold in addition to beliefs or viewpoints, practices, and behaviors. Based on my reflections on the various definitions of culture discussed by Conley, the one that makes sense the most is Material versus Nonmaterial culture. According to Conley culture is created by individuals and it is a way of life. It can be separated into Material culture and Nonmaterial culture. Material culture is basically everything
Culture is divided into two categories, material culture and nonmaterial culture. Material culture are physical things that people can touch and feel. Nonmaterial culture are ideas and beliefs people value that might help shape society. In the story, the police officer and college student both display these two examples of material and nonmaterial culture. The college student Sarah decided to take a break from her studies and drive a brand new convertible Mercedes. The Mercedes is a material culture because it is a physical object that exists within society. As the student drives her Mercedes to the coffee shop which is also a material culture, she glances over her phone to read a text and runs a red stop sign. The stop sign is also considered a material culture because it’s a physical object that has a symbolic meaning. The red in traffic signals, signs, or break lights indicate people to stop. This symbolic meaning applies worldwide regardless of the language because multiple countries use the color red as an indication to stop or halt.
In Chidester’s book Authentic Fakes, he argues that over the years, the blurred line between popular culture and religion has become stronger. The area where the two intertwine creates the middle zone. In this middle zone are several categories including: sacred icons; intense, ritualized performances; sacred games; and communities of allegiance, all characteristics that consist of elements of both popular culture and religion (CITE). Basically, sacred icons are symbols that have become prominent in society (Chidester 4). They are powerful and many of these icons take on both religious and secular qualities. Intense, ritualized performances involve some sort of interaction between the two parties involved and inspire “collective efferverscence,” a term coined by Emile Durkheim that essentially describes the energy that creates group unity and identity (CITE). Sacred games, such as baseball, involve many similar elements to religion, such as tradition, allegiance, and rituals, as well as a common worldview (CITE). Finally, communities of allegiance are devoted followers, who partake it rituals to show their commitment to the group and whoever or whatever they are admiring (CITE). Overall, Chidester’s theory emphasizes that there are ambiguous concepts, figures, and movements that cannot be neatly categorized as either solely religious or solely
22 Apr. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard Edwards, Michael. A. Review "MARY AND MAX " What is a Culture? N.p., n.d. Web.
Culture is an essential part of every human being. People can fall under the category of one culture or they can fall under many. Values derived from culture tend to reflect in an individual’s or a society’s understanding of what is wrong and right. In culture, there are many significant features. Some are material, such as food and clothing, and non-material, such as beliefs and ideas. These material and non-material objects help to push people into powerful roles and they maintain the power. With the power these people then have a strong influence on the beliefs and ideas of the lower people. They have the ability to alter and change their beliefs at any time and most times, they follow along with it. These ideas and thoughts have been in place for many decades, since cultural theorists, such as Marx and Habermas, began explaining them. They have been a thought for decades
Daniel Bell’s “The Disjunction of Realms,” writes about the dichotomy that exists currently between culture and social structure. Bell argues that in out post-industrial society, post-1940/50s, there is no unity between the realms. Previously, culture and social structure were ruled and united through Christianity, which was the belief system of most the population. However, in our modern society, we see a division between behaviors, values, and beliefs in culture and in the social structure.
As new technologies and business began to grow shortly after the European empires began, the definitions of culture at home began to become more important. It grew more important for a group of people to bond rather than with technology. Another form of culture is material culture. Material culture is everything that is part of constructed, physical environment, including technology. Nonmaterial culture values beliefs, behaviors, and social norms. Material things as well as nonmaterial things can influence
...s also portrayed as a nonmaterial culture when they state that much emphasis is put on drama when they say: “I think the whole world addicted to the drama/ Only attracted to things that'll bring you trauma (lines 3-4)” This indicates how much the world is a material and nonmaterial culture. (Newman, 93).
Nonmaterial culture is defined as: those things created by society that cannot be physically touched. The main examples of nonmaterial culture are symbols, values, language, beliefs, and norms. Symbols are anything that carries a particular meaning by those who share culture. Symbols vary within a society and change from time to time. An example of a symbol is Sarah’s story is the “Protect and Serve” badge. In this culture, police have a duty of maintain public safety and act upon violations of the law. As well as a symbol, law enforcement “protect and serve” is a value of Sarah’s culture. Values are cultural standards which people judge desirability, goodness, and beauty. Another main aspect a nonmaterial culture is language. Values are inconsistent within societies. The example of language in Sarah’s story is the police officer’s heavy southern accent. From this, we can guess that Sarah’s story was taken place somewhere in the south. A southern accent is an excellent example of nonmaterial culture in the south. Beliefs are statements that people hold to be true. For example, in Sarah’s story, she was wearing a “Survived Spring Break 2012” t-shirt. This may lead to officer believing that most college kids drink. We evaluate things based on our belief system, which are formed by our culture (Interactive Presentation). Norms are rules and expectations by which society guides the behavior of its members. We assume that our culture is the norm, but instead, it is learned and not genetic. The act of obeying the speed limit is a norm. The different types of norms are folkways and mores. A folkway is a norm for routines or casual interaction. An example of a folkway in Sarah’s story is driving ten miles under the speed limit after getting a ticket. She would normally not drive ten miles under the speed limit but she is because she got pulled over and it’s late at night. Mores are norms that are widely
Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people…Culture in its broadest sense of cultivated behavior; a totality of a person’s learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior through social learning (http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/choudhury/culture.html).
When we think about culture everyone has their own definition of what it means and what it should be like, depending on their background and where they came from. This will be a short description of what I think culture means, along with other information’s such as, which cultures I belong to and how they have influenced me. one person can belong to a lot of different cultures based on he/she’s race, ethnicity, music taste…etc., I have selected two of the major cultures that I belong to and tried to describe how they have influenced me along with other information’s about those cultures.
When it comes to anthropological theory the combination of several established ways of thought often result in a completely new and independent way of thinking. Cultural Materialism is one of these children theories that resulted from a coming together of social evolutionary theory, cultural ecology and Marxist materialism (Barfield). The goal of cultural materialism is to explain politics, economics, ideology and symbolic aspects of a culture with relation to the needs of that society. From a cultural materialist point of view society is indisputably shaped by the factors of production and reproduction. From this all other facets of society, such as government and religion, must be beneficial to that society’s ability to satisfy the minimum requirements to sustain themselves (Harris 1996). An example of this would be the invention and continued use of industry because it increased the ability to produce needed materials and food. One important aspect of the cultural materialistic approach is that it operates completely from the etic perspective. Marvin Harris, one of the founders of cultural materialism, believed that a holistic approach is vital to correctly analyzing culture and believed that the emic approach failed at providing a wide enough scope. Harris tried to employ the scientific method and incorporated it into his theory. The result of this is that cultural materialism focuses only on events that are observable and quantifiable and replicable (Harris 1979). Cultu...
Culture can be present in any group, large or small. There are no special skills required to form a culture, all that is needed are the thoughts and ideas of the social group’s members. These provide a meaning to the people inside the culture and provide something to study for those outside the culture who wish to better understand it.
Culture is a broad term. The dictionary definition of culture is "the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group." (2) Any of the social forms or beliefs of a group may influence or in turn be influenced by a new technology. One important aspect of a society's culture is the relationship between human and environment. (3) In this essay, I shall concentrate on how technology interacts with this element of culture, analyzing how particular societies' relationships with their environment gave rise to particular technologies and how those technologies in turn influenced these societies' relationships with their environments.
Kroeber, A. and C. Klockhohn, Culture: A Critical Review of Concept and Definition New York: Vintage Books, 1989.