Understanding Culture, Society and Politics

Pros. Jeffrey F. Paril

What do we mean by Culture, Society and Politics

CULTURE

UNESCO defines culture as “the set of distinctive spiritual, material,

intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, that
encompasses, not only art and literature but lifestyles, ways of living
together, value systems, traditions and beliefs” (UNESCO, 2001).

Culture is often defined by the objective aspects, those we can see, feel,
touch and taste. This includes art, food, festivals, and political and
educational structures. When we talk about intercultural awareness we
look at the subjective aspects of culture. “Subjective culture refers to the
experience of the social reality formed by a society’s institutions – in other
words, the worldview of a society’s people.” (Kleinman & Benson)
Intercultural understanding involves the ability to recognize different
worldviews and how they influence everyday communication, behavior,
and interactions.

It is considered a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the

range of phenomena that are transmitted through social learning in
human societies.

Cultural anthropologists study all aspects of culture, but what exactly is

“culture”? When ask students about introductory to cultural anthropology,
what culture means to them, students typically say that culture is food,
clothing, religion, language, traditions, art, music, and so forth. Indeed,
culture includes many of these observable characteristics, but culture is
also something deeper. Culture is a powerful defining characteristic of
human groups that shapes our perceptions, behaviors, and relationships.

The English word 'Culture' is gotten from the Latin expression 'clique or
cultus' significance plowing, or developing or refining and love. In total it
implies developing and refining. Culture is a lifestyle. The food you eat,
the garments you wear, the language you talk in what's more, the God
you love all are parts of culture. In extremely straightforward terms, we
can say that culture is the epitome of the manner by which we think and
get things done. It is likewise the things that we have acquired as
citizenry. Every one of the accomplishments of individuals as individuals
from gatherings of people can be called culture. Workmanship, music,
writing, engineering, design, reasoning, religion and science can be
viewed as parts of culture. Notwithstanding, culture likewise incorporates
the traditions, customs, celebrations, methods of living and one's attitude
toward different issues of life. Culture thus refers to a human-made
environment which includes all the material and nonmaterial products of
group life that are transmitted from one generation to the next. There is a
general agreement among social scientists that culture consists of explicit
and implicit patterns of behavior acquired by human beings. These may
be transmitted through symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements
of human groups, including their embodiment as artefacts. The essential
core of culture thus lies in those finer ideas which are transmitted within a
group-both historically derived as well as selected with their attached
value. More recently, culture denotes historically transmitted patterns of
meanings embodied in symbols, by means of which people communicate,
perpetuate and develop their knowledge about and express their attitudes
toward life. Moreover, Culture is the declaration of our temperament in
our methods of living and thinking. It could be seen in our writing, in strict
practices, in amusement and happiness. Culture has two unmistakable
segments, specifically, material and non-material.

Material culture comprises of articles that are identified with the material
part of our life like our dress, food, and family products. Non-material
culture alludes to thoughts, standards, musings and conviction.

Additionally, culture changes from one spot to another and country to

country. Its advancement depends on the authentic cycle working in a
nearby, provincial or public setting. For instance, we vary in our methods
of hello others, our apparel, food propensities, social and strict traditions
and practices from the West. All in all, individuals of any nation are
portrayed by their particular social customs.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE

1. CULTURE is learned and acquired: Culture is gained as in there are sure

practices which are obtained through heredity. People acquire certain
characteristics from their folks yet socio-social examples are not acquired.
These are gained from relatives, from the gathering and the general
public wherein they live. It is in this manner clear that the way of life of
individuals is impacted by the physical and social climate through which
they work.

2. CULTURE is shared by a group of people: An idea or activity might be

called culture in case it is shared and accepted or rehearsed by a
gathering of individuals.

3. CULTURE is cumulative: Different information exemplified in culture can

be passed starting with one age then onto the next age. Increasingly more
information is added in the specific culture as the time elapses by. Each
might work out answer for issues in life that passes starting with one age
then onto the next. This cycle stays as the specific culture goes with time.
4. CULTURE changes: There is information, musings or customs that are
lost as new social qualities are added. There are potential outcomes of
social changes inside the specific culture over the long haul.

5. CULTURE is dynamic: No culture stays on the perpetual state. Culture is

changing continually as novel thoughts and new procedures are added
over the long haul altering or changing the old ways. This is the attributes
of culture that stems from the way of life's total quality.

6. CULTURE gives us a scope of passable standards of conduct: It includes

how a movement ought to be directed, how an individual should act
properly.

7. CULTURE is diverse: It is a framework that has a few commonly reliant

parts. Albeit these parts are isolated, they are related with each other
framing culture as entirety.

8. CULTURE is ideational: Often it sets out an optimal example of conduct

that are expected to be trailed by people in order to acquire social
acknowledgment from individuals with a similar culture.

SOCIETY

Society can be defined as a group of individuals who share common

customs, norms, values, and institutions, and who interact with one
another within a specific geographical or cultural boundary. It is a social
structure that provides a framework for organizing and regulating human
behavior, shaping social roles, and establishing patterns of social order
and cooperation. Society encompasses various aspects, including social,
economic, political, and cultural dimensions, which are interwoven and
interdependent.

The concept of society has been explored and defined by numerous

scholars and thinkers throughout history. Sociologists such as Émile
Durkheim, Max Weber, and Talcott Parsons have contributed significantly
to our understanding of society as a social entity. Their theories and
research have shed light on the intricacies of social structures, the
formation of social institutions, and the dynamics of social change.

The general public in which we live decides everything from the food we
eat to the decisions we make. The word society comes from the latin root
socius, signifying "buddy" or "being with others." A general public
comprises of individuals who share a region, who communicate with one
another, and who share a culture. A few social orders are, indeed,
gatherings of individuals joined by fellowship or normal interests. Our
particular social orders show us how to act, what to accept, and how we'll
be rebuffed in the event that we don't keep the laws or customs set up.
Furthermore, a Society is a gathering of individuals whose individuals
associate, dwell in a quantifiable region, and offer a culture. What's more,
a society is a social framework that shares a topographical domain, a
typical culture, and a lifestyle (Johnson 1996).". As per Auguste Comte
(1798-1857), it came from the Latin word 'socius' which means buddy,
partner, accomplice or mate (or social being with others) and the Greek
word 'logos' or 'logus' which intends to contemplate (Kendall, 1998).
Likewise, the humanist Dorothy Smith (1926) characterizes society as the
"continuous concerting and organizing of people's exercises".

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIETY

✓ SOCIETY is ABSTRACT:
In case society is seen as web of social relationships, it is particular from
actual element which we can see and see through faculties. As composed
before, Maclver contended, "we might see individuals yet can't see society
or social design, yet just its solitary outside perspectives". Social
connections are imperceptible and theoretical. We can simply
acknowledge them yet can't see or contact them. Accordingly, society is
conceptual. Reuter stated: "Similarly as life isn't a thing yet an interaction
of living, so society isn't a thing yet a cycle of partner".

✓ LIKENESS AND DIFFERENCE IN SOCIETY:

Society involves both likeness and difference. If people are all exactly
alike, merely alike, their relationships would be limited. There would be
little give-and- take and little reciprocity. If all men thought alike, felt
alike, and acted alike, if they had the same standards and same interests,
if they all accepted the same customs and echoed the same opinions
without questioning and without variation, civilization could never have
advanced and culture would have remained rudimentary. Thus, society
needs difference also for its existence and continuance. We can illustrate
this point through the most familiar example of family. The family rests
upon the biological differences between the sexes. There are natural
differences of aptitude, of capacity, of interest. For they all involve
relationships in which differences complement one
another, in which exchange take place.

✓ COOPERATION & CONFLICT IN SOCIETY:

Collaboration and struggle are general components in human existence.
Society depends on cooperation but since of interior contrasts, there is
struggle likewise among its individuals. This is the reason, Maclver and
Page saw that "society is cooperation crossed by conflict". We know from
our own experience that an individual would be impaired, displayed down,
and feels baffled in case he is required to do everything alone, without the
guide of others. "Participation is most rudimentary interaction of public.

✓ SOCIETY IS A PROCESS NOT A PRODUCT:

"Society exists just as a period arrangement. It is becoming, not a being;
an interaction and not an item" (Maclver and Page, 1956). At the end of
the day, when the interaction stops, the item vanishes. The result of a
machine suffers after the machine has been rejected. Somewhat the
equivalent is valid not just of material relics of man's past culture however
even of his unimportant social accomplishments.

✓ SOCIETY IS A SYSTEM OF STRATIFICATION:

Society gives an arrangement of definition of situations with classes that
every individual has a moderately steady and unmistakable situation in
the social construction.

POLITICS

The term 'politics‟, is gotten from the Greek word 'Polis‟, which implies
the city state According to Greek Rationalists, Politics was a subject which
managed all the exercises and undertakings of the city state. Their City
States were known as 'Polis‟. City state was a comprehensive term, as the
old Greeks saw no difference amongst the state and the Government on
one hand, and State and Society on the other. They never separated
between close to home life and public activity. Consequently, concurring
to them Politics was an all-out investigation of man, culture, state, ethical
quality etc.

To study politics is generally to contemplate government or all the more

extensively, to consider the exercise of power. Politics is the art of
government, the activity of control inside the society through the settling
on and authorization of aggregate choices. (Heywood 1997) The domain
of legislative issues is limited to state entertainers who are deliberately
roused by philosophical convictions, and who try to propel them through
participation of a formal association like a political association. This is the
sense wherein politicians are depicted as "political" while government
employees are viewed as "non-political", the state as "public" and the
common society as "private". The organizations of the express (the
mechanical assembly of the public authority, the courts, the police, the
military, the general public security framework thus forward) can be
viewed as "public" as in they are answerable for the aggregate association
of the local area life.

CHARACTERISTIC OF POLITICS

Use or threat of use of legal force- it allows the legal authority to use
force. If David Easton speaks of “authoritative allocation of values”, Dahl
of “Power, “rule” and authority”. All these definitions imply that legal
authority can use force to compel anybody to obey its orders.
Interactions- “Political system is that system of interactions to be found in
all independent societies which perform the functions of integration and
adaptation (both internally and vis-a-vis other societies) by means of the
employment or threat of employment or more or less legitimate physical
compulsion”. Thus, the political system not only includes governmental
institutions such as legislatures, executives, courts, administrative
agencies but all structures in their political aspect.

Interdependence of Parts- when the properties of one component in a

system change, all the other components and the system as a whole are
affected. In political system the political parties having a wider base and
mass media (Television, radio and newspapers) change the performance
of all other structures of the system and affect the general working of the
system.

The nature, goals and perspectives of anthropology, sociology

and
political science

1. Anthropology
Relates to sociology, it always describes human, human behaviour and
human societies around the world. It is a comparative science that
examines all societies. The term anthropology means scientific study of
man or human beings. Cultural anthropology studies, human societies and
elements of cultural life. An example of cultural anthropology is the
Linguistic anthropology which focuses on language in a certain society.
The goal of studying anthropology is to understand the origin human
evolution and the diverse forms of its existence throughout time The
study of Man and its various aspects is known as Anthropology. It may be
a subject of science and arts. It is a branch of sociology. It describes
human, human behaviour and human societies and it examines all
societies around the world. It also describes the ancestors through time
and space in relation to its environmental, social relations, and culture

2. Sociology
Is the study of human social relationships and institutions. Sociology’s
subject matter is diverse, ranging from crime to religion, from the family
to the state, from the divisions of race and social class to the shared
beliefs of a common culture, and from social stability to radical change in
whole societies. The purpose of sociology is to understand how human
action and consciousness both shape and are shaped by surrounding
cultural and social structures. Sociology is a social science; it belongs to
the family of social sciences. As a social science, focuses its aspects on
man, his social manners, social activities and social life. The goal of
sociology is to help you understand how human action and consciousness
both shape and are shaped by the surrounding cultural and social
structures

3. Political Science
Is a social science that deals with humans and their interactions. It is a
branch of sociology; it essentially deals with the large-scale actions of
humans, and group mentality it is a discipline that deals with several
aspects such as the study of state and government. It deals with the
nature and formation of the state and attempts to understand its forms
and functions. The goal of Political Science is to constantly deepen the
knowledge, discover progress and protect the quality of life within a
group, community, country, and the world. Thus, it is the study of power
relationships and competing interests among states around the world.

4. Anthropological perspectives
Are culture, cultural relativism, fieldwork, human diversity, holism, bio-
cultural focus. The four main perspectives of Anthropology are the cross-
cultural or comparative emphasis, its evolutionary/historical emphasis, its
ecological emphasis, and its holistic emphasis . An example for this is the
analysis and solutions of the different aspects of the society such as the
environment issues of pollution, the issues on health and medicine and
other issues related to the human activities.

5. Sociological perspective
Introduces the discipline of sociology, including something about its
history, questions, theory, and scientific methods, and what distinguishes
it from other social science disciplines. Central features include social
interaction and relationships, social contexts, social structure, social
change, the significance of diversity and human variation, and the critical,
questioning character of sociology. It also explores what sociologists do.

Sociology includes three major theoretical perspectives:

1. The functionalist perspective;
2. The conflict perspective; and
3. The symbolic interaction perspective.

6. Theoretical perspective
Is used to analyse and explain objects of social study, and facilitate
organizing sociological knowledge. In functionalist perspective, societies
are thought to function like organisms, with various social institutions
working together like organs to maintain and reproduce societies. The
conflict perspective sees social life as a competition, and focuses on the
distribution of resources, power, and inequality.

7. Political science perspective

Studies the tendencies and actions of people which cannot be easily
quantified or examined. Political science is more focused than most social
sciences. It sticks to the political arena and to the realm of politics, either
dealing with situations with two competing sides or the lateral decisions
that affect the group as a whole. An example is the study of democracy as
a form of government and why is democracy considered as the best form
of
government.