SOC 10000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Cultural Survival, Natural Environment
24 Aug 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Culture-a set of beliefs, traditions, and practices; the sum of the social categories and concepts we embrace in addition to beliefs, behaviors (except instinctual ones), and practices; everything but the natural environment around us. Society-composed of people who interact in a defined territory, and share a culture. The oldest understandings of culture focus on the distinction between: Natural environment and what is modified or created by humans. Abstraction-create ideas or ways of thinking that are not linked to particular instances. Production-making and using tools and techniques that improve our ability to take what we want from future. Ethnocentrism-the belief that one"s own culture or group is superior to others, and the tendency to view all other cultures from the perspective of one"s own. Material culture-everything that is a part of our constructed, physical environment, including technology. Ideology-a system of concepts and relationships, an understanding of cause and effect.
