Plur Culture Sociology

Any person that would judge somebody on their cultural standards or traditions is guilty of ethnocentrism. When people are guilty of this they believe that what they’ve learned is right is the most superior and what other people and cultures do is completely abnormal and weird. On the other hand cultural relativism is quite opposite; it is the belief that all cultures are equally valid and no culture is more superior then another when comparing them.

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.

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.

Culture is a set of ideals and values about life that are widely shared among people and that guide specific behaviors. Differences, as well as similarities, can be seen when comparing world cultures. We communicate with each other, we feed ourselves with food, and when we sleep we often dream. However, we speak different languages, eat different types of foods, and dream different ways. We call these cultural differences. What causes them is not always obvious to the ordinary person (Nancy). I feel culture is what really sets us apart from each other and what makes us unique as individuals and families.

Culture is one of the most relevant elements that can define not only a society but also a country’s cumulative beliefs and system. Often noted as the origins of a country, culture is definitive in the sense that it harbors all the elements that can provide justification on the traditions and norms set by the society for its members. More often than not, the society members follow norms in order to create a harmonious community, and the beliefs and the traditions serve as the poles or grounding rules for each member to follow. Culture is very dynamic in the way that it can change over a variety of foreign influences but what is permanent about it is that original elements about it often lingers with the influences, therefore making it multi-faceted and broad. More importantly, culture serves as an individual and unique trait each society has, and therefore sets it apart from other countries and other societies.

Family, heritage, ethnicity, beliefs, values, knowledge, experiences, attitudes, religion, education, roles, language, and cuisine are all items encompassing culture. Culture is what influences your outlook on life itself as well as behaviors and rituals. Culture is the way different groups of people do things. While some cultures have overlapping cultural behaviors or aspects, most cultures vary significantly. Culture, for the most part, is something you are born into, your innate programming, however, it some aspects can be changed or evolved. "Only part of culture is conscious" (Spector, 2013).

Cultural relativism is the idea that human behavior, ideas, and emotions must be understood in the context of the whole culture in which they occur.

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.

Culture is essentially a learned way of life. Typically, people within the same culture speak the same language, eat identical foods, share common values, and also behave and think in a similar ways.

Culture: Culture refers to values, languages, symbols, norms, beliefs, expectations that members of a group possess and the good things they produce and use in their life. Culture is the thing that all the members of a group or society follow.

Sociological perspective/pg. 3: “Examining how social contexts influence people’s lives.” Basically throughout the entire documentary, it could be seen that the sociological perspective of the workers was much different from that of the rest of the United States. The people who harvested and planted the fruits and vegetables had a social context that they were never in one spot for long. This influenced their lives in many ways, including difficulty with having long lasting friends, and having a stable future plan.

Culture is described as the symbols that individuals, groups and societies use to make decision of daily life and to assure their values. Culture is a model of basic assumptions invented, discovered or developed by a given organization as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaption and internal combination, which has worked well enough to think correctly and, so to instruct to new comers as the valid way to observe, consider and feel in relation to these problems. Culture consists of manner, mind-set, values, rituals, religious belief, law (written and unwritten), arts, ideas, custom, belief, ceremonies, social institutions, myths and legends, individual identity and behavior. Cultural pattern classifies are used to describe the dominant beliefs and values. Culture has been called the way of life for an entire society. It is a group or community living together and sharing a set of norms. Culture and society are coexistent. One does not or cannot exist without the other. Culture and society may have some common elements but the two are not the same; they are not identical.

Culture has many different definitions. Culture could mean someone likes literature, music, food, or art. Culture is a human tool, but the tool can be very fragile. Culture can change and it can be lost like it is found. Examinations of cultural objects do not tell us much about the culture of the large society, but it does show us cultural patterns within a certain culture. These objects can show us a certain piece of someone 's culture and what it means about that particular culture. A cultural object is something that is made by human beings; it just does not come out of nowhere. I

Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism are two contrasting terms that are displayed by different people all over the world. Simply put, ethnocentrism is defined as “judging other groups from the perspective of one’s own cultural point of view.” Cultural relativism, on the other hand, is defined as “the view that all beliefs are equally valid and that truth itself is relative, depending on the situation, environment, and individual.” Each of these ideas has found its way into the minds of people worldwide. The difficult part is attempting to understand why an individual portrays one or the other. It is a question that anthropologists have been asking themselves for years.

Although different scholars have given different definitions of culture, the basic argument is that culture is a collective heritage learned by individuals and usually passed on from one generation to another. Culture can be explained by various characteristics but there are five main characteristics that are common (Johnston 2013). Firstly, culture is usually a learned behavior. Although not all behaviors are learned majority are learnt either consciously or unconsciously (O’Neil 2012). For example, children learn most of their behavior from their parents which means that they adopt cultures from the older people in the society. Secondly culture can be described as abstract in that it exists in the minds or habits of people in a particular society. In other words, in most cultures there is no explanations as to why people do various activities most of the reasons are