This document defines culture and society and discusses several key aspects of culture from a social systems perspective. It states that culture consists of the qualities characteristic of humanity that are learned and transmitted between generations, while society is a group of people who live and work together. The document then examines the nature and evolution of culture, highlighting key influences like social interaction, the human body, other people, and the material world. It also explores several universal human aspects reinforced by culture, like language, family, tools, social roles and organizations, child rearing practices, and attempts to explain the world.

1. Culture and Society
A Social Systems Perspective
HBSE II

2. Definitions
 Culture:
 Those qualities and attributes that seem to be
characteristic of all humankind.
 Humans evolve and adapt primarily through
culture rather than changes in anatomy or
genetics.
 Culture survives if it can accommodate to
changing conditions.
 Culture is viewed as a macrosystem.
 Binds a particular society together, and includes
its manners, morals, tools, and techniques.

3.  Society:
 A group of people who have learned to live
and work together.
 Society is a holon and within the society,
culture refers to the way of life is followed
by the group (society).

4. Nature of Culture
 Culture is a group phenomenon.
 Cultures evolve from the interaction of
person with others, and a person’s belief
or behavior becomes part of the culture
when it is externalized and objectified.

5.  A culture evolves as each person encounters
four “poles”.
 One’s own body or somatic process.
 Biological constitution
 Genetic endowment
 Other persons or society.
 Feedback cycle
 The material world of nonhuman objects.
 The universe of social constructed meanings.

6.  According to Erikson, cultures change
through the action of persons whose ideas
and behavior “fit” the culture.
 Change can also occur as a result of
cataclysm, either physical as in famine,
war, epidemic, or disaster.
 It can also change as a result of a
“paradigm shift” in fundamental
understandings by those in the culture.

7. Unique Aspects of the Human
Species
 The capacity to think.
 Sets humans apart from most other forms of
life.
 Humans have the capacity to externalize
the thought process.
 Tools
 Human reproduction
 Cloning

8. The Family as Human Universal
 The family is biologically based and is the
primary social unit.
 Family is constant; the form of the family is
variable.
 The development of culture exists
because culture is transmitted from one
generation to the next through education
not through the genes.

9. Language and Communication
 Language is defined as any transfer of
meaning, but general usage refers only to
spoken and written messages.
 It is essential to be attuned to unspoken
and unwritten language.
 Language structures reality
 Form and variability determine how members
of the culture will view reality and structure
their thoughts.

10. Territoriality
 Tendency of people to seek and maintain
a territory.
 The definition of spatial and interactional
territories is paramount feature of any
culture.
 Refers to the cultural ways people locate
themselves in their universe and establish
the boundaries of their various human
systems.

11. Qualities of a Society
 Culture is that complex whole that includes
knowledge, belief, art, law, morals,
custom, and any other capabilities and
habits acquired by a human being as a
member of society.
 Culture is viewed as the ways of doing,
being, and explaining, as they exist in
each particular system.

12. Tools
 Amplifiers of human capacities:
 Sensory capacity
 Motor capacity
 Reasoning and thinking capacity
 Include devices, objects, and procedures that
are extensions of human natural capacities.
 Tools of a culture include not only understanding
their built-in purpose but, their purpose for the
user.

13. Social Organizations:
Society and Roles
 All cultures, being social systems, have
organization.
 Three aspects operating to define social class:
 Economic status
 Social status
 Political power
 Social class suggests a group consciousness on
the part of members.
 Emergence of a permanent “underclass” in
American society.

14.  Role relates to and derives from status.
 Total of the cultural expectations associated with
a particular status, including:
 Attitudes
 Values
 Behavior
 Role expectation are defined by the culture and
its components and incorporated by the persons
filling the role.

15.  All persons occupy a complex set of roles:
 Parent
 Child
 Worker
 Voter
 Worshipper
 The total number of roles is influenced by
the quantity of networks they are involved
in.

16. Language
 Transfer of meaning between systems and
between subsystems.
 Composed of symbols and the meanings
are learned and transferred through social
interaction.
 Communication of symbols and their
meanings represents the major form of
transaction between systems.

17.  Mead stated that we do not simply respond to
the acts of others; we act on our interpretations
of their intentions and judgments.
 A means of setting and maintaining cultural
boundaries; also to organize the energies of the
system.
 The importance of screening and interpreting
symbols in working with people is quite clear.

18. Child Rearing
 A major task of any culture.
 As a culture becomes more complex and
differentiated, so too does child rearing,
and other social provisions appear.
 These new systems arise to realize more
effectively the complex values of a culture.
 Certain values are in conflict with certain
other values, leading to tension and strain
within the culture.

19. Human Urge to Explain the World
 Humans are congenitally compelled to
impose a meaningful order upon reality.
 Religion, philosophy, science, and
superstition are some of the means.
 Science continues to be the dominant
means of exploring, explaining, and
changing our world.

20. Social Relations:
Caring
 Cultures are marked by the style in which
they conduct social relationships.
 Caring involves both an emotional
disposition and caring labor.
 It is a practice in which both thought and
action are integrated around central aims
or goals.
 Caring is a dimension of culture as much
as tools and language.

21.  A feminist critique states that caring is largely
delegated to women by a male-dominated
society.
 Regardless of sex, individuals and groups who
occupy subordinate status display a responsive
orientation to others characterized by deference,
attentiveness, awareness of needs,
understanding of perspectives, moods,
intentions, and responsiveness.

22.  An emphasis on autonomy as a basis for
caring may be more acceptable to men.