Material And Non Material Culture In The United States

Two different types of cultures are material and non material. Material culture consists of physical objects like clothes or buildings. Non-material culture consists of non physical objects such as language, beliefs, and ideas.

Culture is something that we all know to be very diverse a crossed the entire world and is something that carries on through generations of families. When we think about the American culture we think about the American flag, the English language, and many other things we may take for granted. But half way a crossed the world this culture we have is known as the “American dream”. Culture one way or another is part of every person, and nobody is completely without it. Culture is broken down into two sub categories, material and non-material. Material culture is physical things such as food, clothing, and tools, while non-material culture consists of things such as ethics, beliefs and social roles within that particular society. It’s almost a

Because my neighbor is considered suburban it often gets a bad rep. A lot of people think that suburbs are boring and aren't interesting. As this suggests, the problem is also cultural. For the most part, American culture and opinion are still created, even in the Internet age, in cities at either edge of the continent. If intellectuals do deign to look at the suburbs they assume that so much banality must be hiding something deeply

Chapter 3 of The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology explains to the reader what culture is and goes into depth of the different concepts within culture. It defines culture as “the entire way of life for a group of people” (Ferris & Stein, 2010, p. 77). Culture is described as a “lens” through which one views the world and is passed from one generation to the next. This “entire way of life”, according to sociologists, consists of two major categories: material and symbolic culture. Material culture involves the entities associated with a cultural group, such as tools, machines, utensils, buildings, and artwork. When examining material culture, it can convey a great deal about a particular group or society. Symbolic culture embraces ways

American culture has been referred to as a “melting pot.” Different cultures have added their own distinct aspects to society, making America a diverse country. Despite the plethora of cultures, certain norms, mores, and folkways are evident in American society. These ideas are vital to the function and stability of America. They provide guidelines for what is acceptable and not. In virtually every society, there are people who engage in deviant behavior and do not abide by the values that the rest of society follows. Theorists have debated if people are socialized into acting this way and if it is a social or personal problem. The sociological study of culture focuses on norms, mores, and folkways.

According to the dictionary site, culture is define as” the total of inherited ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge, which constitute the shared bases of social action”. Some examples of culture ideas are norms, values and religion is largely depending on their cultural context. Non-material culture is an intangible, e.g., beliefs, customs, philosophy, language, and government. Material cultural consists of physical objects, such as houses, food, factories, raw material, and machines. No matter what culture is belong to, it is an interaction between the material and non-material culture. However, I believe that every cultural object gives a concise meaning to an object. For example, a ring is just an artifact for women and men to wear, but in a society where wedding rings are exchanged between couple, it will be values differently.

American Lore is just like any other lore it has myths, legends, and fairy tales, but American lore shows the history of America and how we live today, with a twist to the story. With Legends, myths, and fairy tales it expresses the way americans think and how creative we can be to come up with these stories from things that could actually happen. Legends are based on historical facts Myths are based on religion and gods and goddesses. Fairy Tales are made believe not real, includes special creatures. Tall tales and legends are more based in American lore and is heavily based on history and the many traditional stories that are spread from generation to generation. American lore is based on, “power social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources. Achievement which is a personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards . Hedonism pleasure or sensuous

Nonmaterial culture is defined as the aggregate of values, mores, norms, etc., of a society; the ideational structure of a culture that provides the values and meanings by which it functions. An example of this would be religion. Religion although a belief by many throughout the world is considered nonmaterial. This is someone that worships a God or Gods or even like the Indians believing in visions after smoking peyote. Is this truly something that would happen or just something that was believed to have happened because one of their elderly told them that he/she seen a vision. Does this come from the many stories that they were told as children and when they did smoke peyote they believed in it so much they thought they seen visions. This

There are many Americans that spend their money on too many things not essential to the preservation of our lives and health. Money that we spend on upgrading to a new TV or more fashionable up to date clothing could be donated to one of a number of charitable agencies and can mean the difference between life and death for children in need. Peter Singer agrees with these statements and wrote an essay about it. He describes how most of us would rather spend $200 on dining out in one month, and that same $200 could save a child’s life. I agree with this statement, there are too many of us in our own little bubbles and we don’t worry about what’s going on around us. His thesis isn’t based off of facts or true life events but is based off of

Throughout the years of American culture, there have been dominate patterns of values that have stood the test of time and are still followed today. One value that stood out to me in particular is the comfort people gravitate to in materials. In the past century the focus of happiness has switched from family oriented to possessive. While mental possession is still very prominent, American’s gears have shifted to a more competitive, greedy society. There’s a materialistic dream that drives Americans to go to college and find a career that’s going to buy them a fancy car with a nice house that is bound to impress. Modern Americans are drawn to what is going to make them look more successful, so while memories and spiritual

Brennan Manning’s says that Americans measure success by one’s pile of possessions. Manning talks about a few articles that he read and he found out that the majority of Americans are fat, exhausted, frustrated, lustful, and dissatisfied with their level of achievement because we care about being overweight, and how to maintain a nice body, and caring a lot about all of these useless things. He states that a lot of Americans’ conversations revolve around consumption, including what we buy/bought, where/what to eat, the price of things, what’s on sale, etc. Americans show a lot of interest in this materialistic items when they won’t even matter when we die. The things that matter in our life should be non-materialistic items and that we should

Picture this: A fair sized home including running water and electricity with a somewhat recent model car in the driveway. At least a high school diploma under your belt, and if you really wanted to, you could open up your own business with the right idea and a loan from the bank; even if you were born into an impoverished family. Does this scenario sound familiar? It should, because it is the summarized and generalized version of the American lifestyle. We tend to take for granted everything we have, especially if we are born into certain societies where these things mentioned above are considered a given. However, not all countries share the same luxuries as Americans, for these possessions are indeed luxuries for those who were born and

Very often people live their lives without the awareness of the basic structures that they are exposed to and adapted into. The very things that regulate our day to day lives are often overlooked or never noticed. Johnson discovered this while vacationing in Mexico. While appreciating his time away from home, he came to realize that he had lost his actual sense of time. This created a feeling of uneasiness and the general feeling of being lost. Johnson wasn’t lost in the sense of being in an unidentified place; he was lost due to his withdrawal from his cultural time structure. Nature is not defined by minutes, hours, weeks, or years. “Time” is a creation of people, yet in some cultures is regarded as being “natural”. Because systems are integral to culture, Johnson came to realize that time organization is much more than creating a distinction between specific moments within a given day. He realized that the concept of time was created to allow a cultural structure to regulate itself and to organize the people within it. It allows for efficiency and the ability of people to conduct themselves within their culture’s expectations.

In the short story, multiple elements of material/non-material culture are portrayed. Material culture is composed of tangible items that are symbolic or hold meaning to a society such as having a car. Non-material culture consists of ideas, morals and values that hold importance a society or culture. This story illustrates the effect culture can have in our behavior and how it shapes our society, it just comes to support the idea that culture and society are dependent on each other in order to thrive. In order to comprehend material and non-material culture we will first have to separate the both an apply them to context.

The United States of America being the third largest country in the world with more than 315 million inhabitants, consists of multicultural societies with ethnically diverse population. Since there are a lot of foreigners, the US culture has evolved in such a way accepting and tolerating other foreign cultures. US is very much influenced by protestant work ethics according to which people believe in themselves and their efforts to attain the goal of self-actualization and success. The rich diversity in the culture brought by foreigners, prevailing values of protestant ethics, hard work etc. have helped US to emerge as a superpower in the past years. Nearly every religion had its impact on US culture in one way or the other. The