You May Ask Yourself by Dalton Conley

Culture- the sum of the social categories and concepts, including our beliefs and behaviors
everything but nature
Culture started hen e advanced from hunting and gathering to locali!ed farming and
agriculture
Culture is alays relative, meaning that hen e study one culture e are constantly analy!ing
it from the perspective of both our on culture and other global cultures
"he advent of colonialism forced the #uropeans to encounter foreign cultures
"hat head on encounter created to polar e$tremes in thought% &ousseau ho held the
savages up as an ideal and others ho said that the others have no culture at all 'this is an
outgroth and the e$tremity of ethnocentrism(
#thnocentrism- the evaluation of other peoples and cultures according to the standards of one)s
on culture
*ith the advent of industrialism, Matthe Arnold redefined culture as the pursuit of perfection
and broad knoledge of the orld
"he collo+uial e$pression that refers to somebody as cultured
an outgroth of ideas e$pressed in ,lato)s Republic
Culture can be divided into nonmaterial culture 'values, beliefs, behaviors( and material culture
'everything in the physical environment, technology, etc-(
Culture is hat feels natural, but isn)t
Culture is a ay of organi!ing e$perience 'the implied meaning of something, for e$ample a red
light(
.deology is a particular understanding of cause and effect
/ften distinguish beteen high and lo culture
"he academic study of culture began in the 0123s by 4ran! 5oas
An important consideration in the study of cultures is cultural relativism, the notion that
hen analy!ing other cultures e should compare the differences ithout passing
6udgement
Margaret Mead studied 7amoan omen and concluded that their transition from adolescent
to adulthood did not bring along ith it the same turmoil and stress it does in estern
cultures
7ymbolic culture is society assigning meaning, either actively or inactively, to a particular item
or event 'e-g- cock fighting(
8eert! states, culture is a system of inherited conceptions e$pressed in symbolic forms by
means of hich people communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knoledge about and
attitudes toard life
7ubculture9 the culture of a group ithin a larger society 'e-g- goth culture(
Culture also influences ho e vie the orld 'e-g- e+ual opportunity(
:orms are those values put into play
"he ay in hich e internali!e society)s norms and cultural values is through the process of
sociali!ation
&eflection theory states that culture is a pro6ection of the underlying social structures and
relationships into the public sphere
;arl Mar$$ provided a variation to this theme in saying that the economic system is the root
of cultural e$pression
*eakness to the theory is that it does not e$plain staying poer
&eflection
Conley provided an important background to studying sociology te$ts- <e gave me the
vocabulary to speak in an academic fashion about different cultures- .n his discussion about cultural
relativity he discussed that although certain aspects of culture are different, but not bad, there are some
that are globally negative- At first . had found this difficult to understand because the line seems to be
line beteen intuitively rong and culturally acceptable- 4or instance, many countries and prominent
scientists have declared that male circumcision is a relic of the past and must be done aay ith- 4rom
the perspective of a sociologist, circumcision ould be associated ith a societal norm in a variety of
cultures and religions- "herefore, it is hard to dra the line in the sand- <oever, for the most part,
the te$t provided a structure for studying cultures- "he te$t as ritten in a sophisticated but yet
engaging fashion, hich as +uite en6oyable-