Culture and how the world is viewed

According to Sociology the Fifteenth edition by John J. Macionis, “Culture is the way of thinking, the ways of acting, and material objects that together form a people’s way of life.” Culture can define everything about someone, but the real question is, “How did culture begin?” Culture describes everything about a person, to the way that person walk, eat, speak and live their life. Culture also can determine the past and the future.

Culture is broken up into two main categories, which are nonmaterial culture and material culture. An example of nonmaterial culture is how someone worships, and an example of material culture is a flag or someone clothes. Everything someone does represents a symbol, anything that creates a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture according to Sociology the Fifteenth. Symbols can represent almost everything a person can wear and say, as in language, clothes, values and beliefs. Values are culturally defined standards that people use to decide what is desirable, good, and beautiful, and that serve as broad guidelines for social living. Beliefs are specific ideas that people hold to be true. These two definitions can be classified as symbols and can define Culture very well. All of these definitions and language defines culture.

Culture can also determine norms. Norms are my favorite part of this chapter because norms are the things we do on a normal basis and don’t realize that we do them. A norm is the rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members. A norm can be broken up into two parts, depending on the punishment. A mores norm are widely observed and have a great moral significance, in other words, a mores norm is when someone breaks the law or do something foolish to earn jail time or something severe. Another type of norm is folkways norm, which is for routine or casual interaction. In other words, an example of a folkway norm can be not using the proper utensils to eat a salad or soup, or facing the opposite direction in the elevator.

Lastly, Culture can be a part of Sociobiology. Sociobiology is a theoretical approach that explores ways in which human biology affects how we create culture. I chose this topic last to represent Culture because this definition talks about how culture is a system of behavior that is shaped by human biology. This definition also resembles how someone was raised into culture and how culture patterns are rooted in humanity’s biological evolution. By applying the evolutionary perspective, sociobiology explains double standards and how men treats women as a sexual object instead of how men treat other men. This perspective comes from the male domination. In conclusion, everything we do and say comes from culture, if you know or not. Everything we were taught to do, say, and wear came from culture. Culture defines someone in their behavior and in their language. Culture is important because without it, you wouldn’t know who the real you would be.

http://technorati.com/lifestyle/article/culture-effects-the-way-we-think/ 

http://www.parachutedigitalmarketing.com.au/blog/the-online-user-experience/im-inspired-by-how-different-cultures-engage-online/

                             How Stratification has Changed Over the Course of History

                                                            By Sumer Gill

      Social Stratification is defined as the system by which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy. It is the introduction to talking about inequality in the sociological perspective. It is based on four basic principles. 1) It is a trait of society not a reflection of individual differences. 2) Carries over from generation to generation. 3) It is universal but variable. 4) It involves not just inequality but beliefs as well. There are two major categories class system and caste system. A caste system is based on ascription or birth and tends to be more close so little social change and mobility which is is a change in position within the social hierarchy but high status consistency which is the degree of uniformity in a persons social standing across various dimensions of social inequality. In this system birth can determine your marriage, social life, belief system, and occupation.An example of this that is still being implemented is India. The class system is based on both birth and individual achievement and tends to be open so more social mobility and low status consistency. In this system there is a strong view of meritocracy which is based on personal merit and works in a three step system. 1) social mobility is possible. 2) All people gain equal standing before the law. 3) Work involves some personal choice. Throughout history there has been a shift and has thus created a shift in systems from a caste to mix or class system which usually follows some type of revolution or time in general. Some examples are England, Japan, Russia, and China. England has changed from Aristocratic to today even with the royal family still in charge. This is the same in Japan. In Russia they had many transitions from soviet union with a feudal state system to the Russian revolution  to modern Russia. China has gone through many transitions as well. It started with  Mao Zedong where all types of work is equal. Next is Deng Xiaoping where new classes of business owners emerged. Then to Jinping where small groups of wealthy elites became more pronounced. Finally, we end up in modern china that is class oriented and very industrial.  David- Moore thesis states that social stratification has beneficial sequences for the operation of society when it has three things. 1) the greater the importance of  position more rewards a society attaches to it. 2) Egalitarian societies after little incentive for people to try their best. 3) it does not state what rewards a society should give to any occupational position or how unequal the rewards should be. Ideology cultural beliefs that justify particular social arrangements including patterns of inequality. Some of the most famous ideologies came from Plato (every culture considers some type of inequality just), Marx ( capitalist society keeps wealth and power for few), and Spencer (survival of the fittest). In terms of social-conflict theory, Marx thought the problem was in class conflict and Weber thought it was class, status, and power. For symbolic interaction theory differences in social class position can affect interaction in people. Which ties in with conspicuous consumption which is the buying and selling products because of the statement they make. Stratification can be thought of in terms of technology especially that among different societies like hunting/gathering and postindustrial. This can be displayed in the Kuznets curve

Stratification can also be thought of in terms of facts and values. The two main sociologists for this are Vonnegut (an egalitarian society can exist only if everyone is reduced to the lowest common denominators) and Marx (inequality causes human suffering and conflict aka injustice and greed).  

References

http://home.earthlink.net/~clevy/Social_Stratification__Chapter_8_.pdf

http://www.sociologyguide.com/questions/social-stratification.php

The U.S economy’s decline from perfection

The economy is a social institution that organizes a society’s production, distribution, and consumption of services and goods. First, there were hunters and gatherers. Then, people started to work in factories. As of today society is based on technology. Using computers, tablets, telephones, etc has become such a big part of the way business is handled and executed.

Capitalism is the economic system that is considered to be used in the U.S. Due to the our use of one of the three distinctive features. The three features are: Private ownership of property. pursuit of personal profit, and competition and consumer choice. The U.S uses the features of private ownership of property and pursuit of personal profit, because most businesses today are privately owned and people in society strive to make just their own life great. Yet, our system is not purely capitalism, because the government plays a big part in our society, ignoring the third feature.

Socialism is not used in the U.S because of it’s rejection of capitalism’s three features. Socialism’s three distinctive features are collective ownership of property, pursuit of collective goals, and government control of the economy. We do use socialism’s third feature, but we are still considered a capitalists.

From doing hands-on work in factories, to sitting behind a computer all day is what our society has come to. All throughout the chapter the word “decline” has been used fairly often. From “decline in labor unions” to “the decline of agricultural work”, the book seems to hint at the U.S’ economic system of capitalism to consider the outcomes of their actions. With people only trying to pursue only themselves, our society has suffered in terms of our professions.

According to the index of economic freedom, the U.S is placed in 12th place. After a twenty year study was conducted, the researchers concluded that the first ten years had our score rise gradually, and helped us become known as economically free. The next ten years were nothing but a decline from being named free, to having it taken away. America is now the fourth worst drop in economy among developed countries.

http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/united-states-pure-capitalism

http://www.heritage.org/index/country/unitedstates

The Functions and Progressions of what we call Society

The Functions and Progressions of what we call Society 

Trenton Hiley

We live in a world that is the nesting ground of multiple societies; we have slowly progressed from a hunting and gathering society to an industrial society. Even though this is true there are still places around the world where these societies still exist.

There are 7 types of societies, hunting and gathering societies, Pastoral societies, Horticultural societies, Agrarian societies, Industrial societies, Postindustrial societies. In hunting and gathering societies people make use of simple tools to hunt animals and gather vegetation for food. Horticultural and pastoral societies are the use of hand tools to raise crops and the domestication of animals, you will see some societies use both throughout South America, Africa, and Asia. This revolution of technology changed life on earth when people started using large-scale cultivation using plows harnessed to animals or more powerful energy sources, which we call agriculture. This came about in agrarian societies about 5,000 years ago. Industrialism is the production of goods using advanced sources of energy to drive large machinery which is used in industrial societies such as Japan and the United States. With the industrial technology people were able to do things faster than ever before. You can say because of the Industrial age we have sociology till this day. Lastly we have postindustrial societies are basically societies that rely on the production of information using computer technology which also includes both the United States and Japan.

When we speak on a hunting and gathering society we can look at Australia’s Aboriginal culture which is the oldest surviving culture in the world. They never developed and type of new age because their stone technology; which dates back over 60,000 years did not progress in the same way as the rest of the world. This culture lacked a formal language but recorder their culture as rock art, which displayed the animals and plants of their time. The Aboriginals used the percussion method of chipping away at the edge of a rock to make a sharp edge for cutting the tools made today is similar to the earliest tools. People in our society with IPhone's and what not take this technology for granted when there are societies that know absolutely nothing about modern day technology.

The United States is really big when it comes to machines and technology. We lead the world in the production of medical technologies and are the industry’s largest consumer, which makes us an industrial society. The U.S market value exceeded $110 billion in 2012, representing about 38% of the total medical technologies. We value technology and machinery a lot in the United States and are willing to spend billions on it.

With all these different societies there are many sociologists that have their own opinion on it. Karl Marx says the economic production shapes the entire society, Max Weber’s philosophy see that people’s ideas and values shape society, and Emile Durkheim sees society as being bigger than us and that it’s bigger than the individuals who compose it, it was here before us and will be here long after we’re gone.

To conclude, the world holds multiple societies and cultures with people who follow different types of social norms. With these societies being so different there are sociologists ho have different aspect on society as well. This concludes my blog on society.

·         http://www.aboriginalculture.com.au/introduction.shtml  - Hunting and Gathering Society

·   http://selectusa.commerce.gov/industry-snapshots/health-and-medical-technology-industry-united-states - Industrial society