Culture

The characteristics of culture

1. Learned, not inherited. This is the first and most important. A child of any ancestry raised in any society acquires that society's culture.
2. Social. It exists in a group, never in one person.
3. Shared, though not equally by everyone.
4. Transmitted across generations, which is what makes it cumulative.
5. Cumulative. Each generation adds without having to rediscover, which is why change accelerates.
6. Adaptive, changing in response to environment and circumstance.
7. Integrated. The parts hang together, so a change in one produces strain elsewhere.
8. Gratifying. It supplies the means of satisfying human needs.
9. Variable. It differs from society to society and within a society over time.
10. Idealistic and real at once. What a culture says it does and what its members actually do are different, and both are data.

Culture and society

They are not the same, and the difference is examinable. Society is the group of people and the web of their relationships; culture is their way of life. Society is the organisation; culture is the content. Neither exists without the other: there is no society without a culture and no culture without a society to carry it.

The concepts a question is likely to want

Cultural relativism. The principle that a practice must be understood within its own cultural context and evaluated by that culture's standards rather than by the observer's. It is a method first: it prevents the immediate condemnation that stops enquiry. Its limit, and this must be stated, is that in its strong form it disables all criticism, including of practices that cause serious harm, and it sits badly with any universal account of human rights.

Ethnocentrism. The opposite error: judging another culture by the standards of one's own and finding it inferior. Discussed in [In-groups, Out-groups and Reference Groups]. Ethnocentrism is the natural condition; relativism is a discipline imposed against it.

Xenocentrism is the less common reverse, a preference for what is foreign over what is one's own.

Subculture. A group within a society whose culture differs in some respects while sharing the larger culture: a professional subculture, a regional one, a youth subculture. The legal profession has a pronounced one.

Counterculture. A subculture whose values actively oppose those of the dominant culture.

Cultural diffusion. The spread of cultural traits from one society to another, now vastly accelerated, and the mechanism behind much of what [Liberalization and Globalization] discusses.

Cultural universals. Features found in every known culture, though in different forms: language, family of some kind, marriage rules, religion, incest prohibition, division of labour by age and sex, property rules, and some means of settling disputes.

A worked example

Consider a wedding in a Maharashtrian household.

Its material culture: the mandap, the garlands, the clothes, the printed invitation, the videographer's equipment.

Its non-material culture: the rituals in their order and their meaning; the norms about who may attend and who must be invited; the values expressed about family, purity and continuity; the language of the ceremony; the symbolism of each object.

Its cultural universals: every known society regulates marriage, prohibits certain unions as incestuous, and marks the union publicly.

Its cultural variation: which relatives may marry, who arranges it, what is transferred between families, and what makes it valid, differ completely between communities in the same city.

Its cultural lag: the ceremony's rules developed for a society in which the couple lived with the husband's parents on land the family held. Where the couple now live in a rented flat in another city and both earn, the ritual persists while the arrangements it assumed have gone.

Its law. Whether this marriage is valid, who may claim maintenance and how property devolves is decided by a body of law built on top of these cultural facts, which is why personal law is the clearest legal instance of culture, and why [Legal Pluralism] is a Module IV topic.

What culture is NOT

Not high culture. In ordinary speech a cultured person means a refined one. Sociologically, culture includes everything a society does: its cooking, its abuse, its queueing, its bribery.

Not biology. Culture is learned, and this is the entire point. Attributing a group's practices to its nature is a mistake with a long and ugly history.

Not uniform. Every large culture contains subcultures and contradictions.

Not static. It changes continuously, which is Module III.

Not society. Society is the people and their relationships; culture is their way of life.

Quick revision

1. Tylor: culture is that complex whole including knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and other capabilities acquired as a member of society.
2. Material culture, physical objects; non-material culture, ideas, norms, values, language, law.
3. Ogburn's cultural lag: material culture changes faster, non-material culture trails, and the gap is a period of maladjustment. Law is usually in the lag.
4. Elements: language, beliefs, values, norms, symbols, sanctions, technology.
5. Characteristics: learned, social, shared, transmitted, cumulative, adaptive, integrated, gratifying, variable.
6. Culture is the way of life; society is the people and their relationships.
7. Cultural relativism against ethnocentrism; relativism's limit is that in its strong form it disables criticism.
8. Subculture, counterculture, diffusion, cultural universals.

Test yourself

1. Define culture and give five of its characteristics. In Tylor's definition, that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by a person as a member of society. It is learned rather than biologically inherited; social, existing only in a group; shared among members; transmitted across generations and therefore cumulative; and adaptive and continually changing.

2. Distinguish material from non-material culture, and explain cultural lag. Material culture is the physical objects a society makes and uses; non-material culture is its language, beliefs, values, norms and law. Ogburn observed that the material part usually changes faster and that the non-material part trails behind, leaving a period of maladjustment which he called cultural lag. Motor vehicles preceded traffic law and digital communication preceded rules on data and online harm.

3. Distinguish culture from society. Society is the group of people and the web of relationships among them; culture is their way of life, the learned and shared ideas, norms, values and objects they carry. Society is the organisation and culture is the content, and neither exists without the other.

4. What is cultural relativism, and what is its limit? The principle that a practice should be understood within its own cultural context and judged by that culture's standards rather than the observer's. Its value is methodological: it prevents the immediate condemnation that stops enquiry. Its limit is that in a strong form it removes any ground for criticising any practice, including one causing serious harm, and it is therefore difficult to reconcile with any universal account of human rights.

5. Why does cultural lag matter to a lawyer? Because it names the ordinary condition of legal practice. New technologies and new material arrangements arrive before the norms and rules that will govern them, so the law is characteristically behind, and this is a structural feature of how culture changes rather than a failure of drafting. It also cautions against assuming every innovation requires new legislation before the existing categories have been tested against it.