Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics
Lesson 1:
Culture, Society, and Politics are concepts as “general idea”
Culture – refers to values, beliefs, and socialization.
Society – refers to social experiences and relationships.
Politics – refers to organization or institutional effects.
Students as Social Beings – these are the sexual orientation and social classes.
Social Realities – these are the different ways of doing things, behaving, and making sense of
events.
Values and Beliefs as Behavioural Motivators
- (values) daily routines and (belief) anything regardless of the lack of the verifiable evidences.
Culture, Society, and Politics Definitions
- Social forces combining on social actors as their lives interest in society.
- Rehearsing the structures and components of cultural practices and traditions.
- Power distributions among members of social communities and organizations.
Developmental Results of UCSPol
- Social Change and Development such as labor, health care, environment, and business.
- Social Activism such as journalism, campaign, protest, and arts.
- Social Contract and Agreement “The personal is also political.
Lesson 2:
Anthropology
- Derived from two Greek words, anthropos and logos
- Study of Men
Franz Boas
- Father of American Anthropology
- Believed in measuring culture and human behavior through conducting research.
William Henry
- Believed in traditional cultural preservation and ancestral domain.
Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead
- Author of Patterns of Culture and Studying Sexual Practices of Native Population
Bronislaw Malinowski
- Founding Father of Ethnography
- Ethnographic approach (interviews/surveys)
Sociology
- Study of society, social institutions, and social relationships or “general patterns in particular
events”
Aguste Comte
- Developed positivism, an approach to understanding the world based on science.
Karl Marx
- Communist Manifesto or the book that focused on the rights of the lower classes caused by
existing order.
Herbert Spencer
- Survival of the Fittest
- The interference of natural selection process must be avoided.
Max Webber
- Author of the Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism
- Theory of Social and Economic Organization
- Religion is very influential in the actions and thought of people.
Politics
- associated with how power is gained and employed to develop authority and influence in social
affairs.
- played with a style, depending on the character and behavior of the leader.
Order –attained through obedience on the rules set by the leaders.
Justice – felt in a society with order. It is process exercised by the government in the
implementation of its duty.
Science – defined as the knowledge. Policy-making and government decisions are done through
research, investigation, analysis, validation, planning, execution, and evaluation.
Lesson 3:
Culture and Society as Concepts
- Represents an ideal type, which depicts the form, process, and dynamics of the social reality it
embodies.
Society as a Facility
- Refers to a large number of people, are relatively independent people, and participate in a
common culture.
Factual Entity – combination of social forces and social facts as concepts.
Tripartite Powers of Society
Omnipotence (All-powerful) – makes or unmakes lives of people and controls the society.
Omniscience (All-knowing) – collection of details about the origin of a particular being or
essence.
Omnipresence (Everywhere) – existence of it scattered in every corner of the land.
Features of Society as God
Omnipotent – its agents control all the influential positions in its domain.
Omniscient – its influence creates, collects, stores, and manipulates human memories.
Omnipresent – its influence are present in the four corners of its territory.
Three Theoretical Perspectives
Structural Functionalism and Social Order
- Cooperation and interdependence of the institutions.
- Health and condition of the entire system.
- Structural-functional perspective in decision making.
Conflict Theory and Conflict
- In the metaphor of arena and process.
- Sees conflict as something positive and adventurous.
- Invokes the social processes rather than functions and interdependence.
Symbolic Interactions and Meaning-Making
- Explains crucial understanding order or conflict as processes and our relations with
environment and community.
Rules
- Guides in the performance of roles and in everyday actions.
- Become the arbiter of disagreements such as policies, guidelines, and laws.
Written rules – school and government
Unwritten rules – family and friends
Lesson 4:
Complexity of Culture
- A people’s way of life. Prefigures both processes and for the development of a way of living
and its self-perpetuating nature.
Enculturation
- Refers to the gradual acquisition of the characteristics and norms of a culture.
- Starts with actual exposure to another culture and the duration and extent of exposure account
for the quality of enculturation.
Step 1 – The Basis of Culture
Step 2 – Enculturation (by means of another culture)
Step 3 – The Shock (Mixing two cultures as a complex whole)
Step 4 – Socialization (The birth of new identity of a culture)
Aspects of Culture and Its Definition
- Culture is the unique quality of man which separates him from the animals.
- It is an organized body of conventional understandings in art which, persisting through
tradition, characteristics a human group.
- Culture describes as the body of thought and knowledge, both theoretical and practical, which
only man can possess.
- Culture is a people’s shared ways of doing and thinking or human behaviors that occurs
patterned fashion.
Characteristics of Culture
Super-organic – culture is seen as something superior to nature because nature serves as the
ingredient of any cultural production.
Integrated – culture possesses an order and system. It various parts are integrated with each other
and any new element is introduced is also integrated.
Pervasive – it touches every aspect of life and is manifested through emotional but relational
actions as well are governed by cultural norms.
Lesson 5:
Biological and Cultural Evolution
- refers to the changes, modifications, and variations in the genetics and inherited traits of
biological populations from one generation to another.
- Studies the changes in the physical body of humans, the changes in the shape and size of
human anatomy.
Charles Darwin
- introduced the concept of evolution to explain the origins of modern humans.
According to Darwin’s Theory:
Evolution happens through natural selection.
Traits of survival and reproductive success.
The environment favors certain organisms that survived.
Every species are better adapted to their environment.
Fossils – refer to the human, plant, and animal remains that have been preserved through time
like teeth, skull, and bone fragments.
Artifacts - refer to objects that were made and used by humans such as stone tools, ceramics,
burial jars, and ornaments.
Hominids (Early Humans)
Australopithecus – is considered as pre-human stage of evolution.
Homo (Human Stage)
- had biological and cultural characteristics of a modern man.
Types of Home
Habilis (Handy Man)
Erectus (Upright Man)
Sapiens (Thinking Man)
Sapiens Sapiens (Modern Man)
Socio-political Evolution
- happens when societies develop new forms of economic subsistence, acquire knowledge, and
apply new technology.
Hunting and Gathering – oldest and most basic way of economic subsistence.
Horticultural and Pastoral Societies – subsist through small-scale faming and gathering.
Agricultural Societies (Neolithic Age) – also known as animal domestication provided important
contributions to the people.
Industrial Societies – new sources of energy were harnessed and forms of technology were
applied.
Post Industrial Societies – age of development of information technology, computers, and social
media.
