Cultures and Societies in a Changing World
Griswold, Wendy. 2004. Cultures and Societies in a Changing World. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Rating:
6
Summary:
Informative exploration of cultural sociology
The book is designed as a textbook to introduce students to the sociological study of culture. As such, it spends a great deal of time dealing with definitions of culture (which are, not surprisingly, numerous), presenting theories about cultural production ,and discussing the influence of culture on society and individuals. In addition to these goals, the book also uses a couple of chapters to talk about specific research topics where culture has been utilized.
So, what does the author have to say about culture? First, while the author offers a number of definitions, I found her varied descriptions of the phenomenon more useful. First, there is a distinction made between culture and society, “One way to think of the distinction is that culture designates the expressive aspect of human existence, whereas society designates the relational (and often practical) aspect” (p. 4). But the author is quick to point out that this distinction is, like all classifications, artificial, “Before we begin, however, one thing needs to be clear: There is no such thing as “culture” or “society” out there in the real world… To speak of culture as one thing and society as another is to make an analytical distinction between two different aspects of human experience” (p. 4) In short, both culture and society are abstract concepts, but the distinction between them is useful for sociological analysis. The author goes on to explain that culture generally refers to, “…one of four things: norms, values, beliefs, or expressive symbols” (p. 3). What’s more, culture is varied, “Herder argued that we must speak of cultures, not simply culture, for the obvious reason that nations, and communities within or across nations, have their own, equally meritorious cultures” (pp. 8-9).
To help explain the idea of culture, how it is produced, received, and understood, the author also employs a heuristic device, “I use… the “cultural diamond” to investigate the connections among four elements: cultural objects-symbols, beliefs, values, and practices; cultural creators, including the organizations and systems that produce and distribute cultural objects; cultural receivers, the people who experience culture and specific cultural objects; and the social world, the context in which culture is created and experienced” (p. xvi). The cultural diamond does, in fact, turn out to be useful for exploring the various components of culture.
Before turning to the theoretical components of culture, let me point out two additional elements of culture addressed by the author. First, the author points out that cultural objects can have multiple meanings depending on the cultural perspective. To illustrate this point, the author gives the example of the meaning of a business card to a business person from the U.S. and a business person from Japan. To United Statesians, business cards serve a utilitarian function – they provide information. As such, they can be treated like any other utility. For Japanese business people, business cards are more of an extension of the self and should be treated with respect. Conflicts can result when various cultural perspectives are employed in the treatment of identical cultural objects (e.g. the United Statesian flippantly tossing the business card in a pocket would be bothersome to the Japanese business person as it would show disrespect).
Finally, the author discusses the origins of culture (this is better stated as ‘the origins of cultural change’). She points out that it may seem as though culture comes from individuals – which, for certain elements of cultural change, is true – but there is also the larger, collective, and long-lasting culture that cannot have been the creation of single individuals as it predates and post-dates humans. The author presents an alternative, sociological perspective to address this conflict, “Sociology suggests an alternative to both the unsatisfying “it has always been that way” view at one extreme and the unsociological “individual genius” view at the other. This alternative posits that culture and cultural works are collective, not individual, creations. We can best understand specific cultural objects… by seeing them not as unique to their creators but as the fruits of collective production, fundamentally social in their genesis” (p. 53).
At this point I believe a clarification is in order. The author is talking about cultural change and not the actual origins of culture (as in, there was no culture and then, suddenly, there was). If taken out of context, it may appear as though the author is arguing here for the origins of culture and situating these origins in society (unfortunately, the author is not very clear on this point). This is neither accurate nor a clear representation of sociological thought on this issue. What I believe the author intends to argue is that culture, just like society, has existed since the beginning of humanity (humans being social and cultural beings). Society and culture are basically two-sides of a coin – they co-exist because humans have social relations and meanings tied to those relations (e.g. brother, lover, friend). Culture as an super-phenomenon has no real beginning except in the sense that humans (homo sapiens) have a beginning. This, then, makes the question of the origins of culture moot – it has existed as long as we have, and will likely exist as long as we do.
Turning, then, to the authors real intent here, she is actually trying to explain how culture changes. This is addressed by theories of culture. The author presents several theoretical understandings of culture, most of which are rooted in classical sociological traditions (i.e. Marx, Weber, Durkheim). The first view, that of the functionalists and Marxists, argues that culture is a reflection of society and emphasizes a causal arrow that goes only one direction. The second view, that of Weber, sees culture as influencing society at the same time that society influences culture (see p. 39). While this is certainly a simplification of these theoretical approaches (especially since it overlooks Marx’s understanding of dialectical change), the explanations are generally informative, if a little vague. The author also explores the symbolic interactionist perspective on culture, which is clearly the best explanation of micro-level cultural production and transmission. This perspective, “…suggests that human interactions create culture…. Once created, cultural objects are perpetuated and transmitted through their repeated expression and through the socialization of new group members, for example, the young” (p. 62). Several additional and more modern theories of cultural change are also addressed.
The final three chapters explore examples of culture: the construction of social problems, business cultures, and internet culture. I will comment on some of the points made in these chapters below.
Review:
While I’d like to say that this book did a marvelous job of clarifying the sociological study of culture, I think that would be disingenuous and undermine the intentions of the author. Culture is a complicated topic and any book that attempts to address the topic is, of necessity, going to be complicated. Thus, while the book is generally clearly written, it does not attempt to simplify the concept of culture into a pat definition that is either too broad or too narrow. The book lays out the difficulties in pinning down a definition of culture while simultaneously exploring and explaining how the concept is variously employed. This is a useful and informative approach.
That said, there are a few problems with the book. The first was mentioned above when discussion sociological theories. The book presents simplified versions of classic sociological theories and even slightly misrepresents some of them (Marx’s dialect). Additionally, I don’t believe the author clearly explains that culture has no real origin, just like human society does not. Yes, culture can change, and elements of culture can be situated in specific times and places, but the general concept of culture is as old as humanity and that should have been elucidated.
Another point that was overlooked entirely in the text is the lack of predictive ability when it comes to cultural change from the dialectical perspective (that culture influences society and vice versa). From the reflectionist approaches (Marx and functionalism), it is theoretically possible to predict culture based on social structure. But if social structure and culture influence each other simultaneously, it is virtually impossible to predict future cultural changes with any real precision as the relationship is not causal. I would have found a discussion of this problem useful in furthering my understanding of culture.
I actually found the author’s discussion of modern culture in light of increasing technological advances and the internet insightful. One statement, in particular, stood out, “So far the picture is this: The Internet enables people to do what they did before, from reading to discrimination, only more efficiently” (p. 165). According to the author, the Internet, while bringing people from around the world together, has also functioned to strengthen or facilitate communal relationships that had only existed in physically situated communities prior to mass media and the internet. Thus, physical communities are no longer necessary to develop the same interpersonal structures; the internet has drawn the world closer together in that sense, but has not overcome the divides of prejudice and hate.
The author also made a particularly interesting comment on ethics in the workplace in her discussion of business culture, “… managers attempt to negotiate their way through “moral mazes” where success is more a function of propitious alliances and avoiding blame than hard work or productivity, and where managers take their ethical bearings not from an internal moral code, but from what their boss wants and what influences seem to be currently ascendant” (p. 140). Basically, the author is arguing that business ethics are no longer a matter of what is right or wrong but what will get promotions or appease the boss. This is a clear instance of social structure (capitalism) influencing culture, which, in turn, influences individual behavior – in this case, negatively (at least, as I see it).
Overall, I found this book to be an informative exploration of cultural sociology. The author does a good job of illustrating the complexity of culture while simultaneously clarifying the many components that are involved. The book could be improved through the clarification of some of the theoretical approaches as well as by the addition of a concluding chapter (it presently ends with the discussion of internet culture). Even so, it is a useful text for introducing the study of culture in sociology.