CU - Culture on the Streets Lesson

 

Culture on the Streets Lesson

While culture is an important influence in maintaining the status quo of a society, it can also be a catalyst for social change. (Which, of course, is the hope of many social-conflict theorists.) In the last section, the terms "cultural integration" and "cultural lag" were mentioned.  Cultural Integration is the close relationships among various elements of a cultural system. To break that definition down into laymen's terms- the elements of culture are related and to change one element is to change another. In other words, if what we know changes so will our values and customs change or vice versa. The elements of culture do not exist in a vacuum; they are influenced by one another. To discuss which element sparks the change is as futile as discussing whether the egg or the chicken comes first.  In either scenario, culture changes.

 

 

Culture: American Values

So far, we've skirted around the essential components of cultural change within this module. Now is the time to learn exactly how those technical terms of social change play out in real life.  To accomplish this task, let's revisit Robin Williams' list of American values from your earlier discussion assignment.  It will help us picture how culture plays out and modifies in real life.

Robin Williams Jr. was born in 1914, his own life paralleling the development of the sociological field in America.  He became the 48^th  president of the American Sociological Association in 1958 while working as a member of the Sociology department of Cornell University. His role at Cornell spanned six decades. During that time, the subjects of most of his writings focused on the conflict and cooperation found within American society; but in 1970, Dr. Williams published a list of American values he began developing years earlier. Almost half of a century has passed since Williams drafted this list and you have now read through it at least twice. As values are one of the key elements in the creation of a society's culture, the values listed by Williams serve as a table of contents to any discussion involving cultural evolution- at least within America.

His list of values contains descriptions that are very broad in nature.  For example, he named material comfort as one of our values but did not specifically describe what material comfort entailed. This generality allowed Williams' list to remain relevant. Therefore, as the decades passed, that which described the cultural particular of an American's idea of material comfort has changed without erasing the subject from the list of values that categorize American culture.   After all, what signified material comfort decades ago might not apply today. The same statement applies without the distinction of time- what qualifies as material comfort by some Americans today is not the same for all contemporary Americans.

Our nation is very culturally diverse. As a nation that began with immigration and still draws people from around the world, the United States is the most multicultural of all of the most developed nations.  The diversity within our borders increases each year as our traditions stray away from the Eurocentric ones of our founding to more accurately reflect the people of America today.  The effort to appreciate this diversity is known as multiculturalism.

Within the American culture, there are many subcultures.  Almost anything can define a subculture since it is based on patterns that set apart a segment of a society's population from the rest.  A subculture can be based on religion, wealth, race, age, education, location, behavior- the list is endless and reflects our social categories.  Essentially, whatever causes a person to behave in a way that is different from but still within the larger society's culture. As residents of a southern state, you might belong to a Southern subculture versus one from another region of America.  You might say "y'all" instead of "you guys," your Thanksgiving menu might include sweet potatoes along with regular potatoes, your families might prefer to watch college football over professional football.   This is what is meant by a subculture being different while still being a part of the larger culture.  These examples of a Southern subculture still reflect the dominant language spoken in the United States, a national holiday, and a national pastime.  It is possible- actually probable- for a person to belong to several different subcultures. All of these subcultures (at least within America) operate within Williams' identified American values list. They just have their own particular way of adapting to that list.

A counterculture, on the other hand, is a group that displays patterns of behavior that strongly oppose the culture held acceptable by the rest of society. As such, a counterculture can be malignant or benign. For example, in the 1960s some younger Americans rejected the traditional American values that centered on material comfort, achievement, and economic success. Often referred to as "hippies," some splintered off from the rest of America to form their own utopian communities based on communal living that directly challenged the traditions of America and its economic system.  Although this group was often frowned upon by the rest of American society, especially by older Americans, we can see through the benefit of hindsight that they were a fairly benign counterculture.  Some of these communes still exist and their members continue to reject the same American values as before.

Not all countercultures are benign.  Some are formed with more activist intentions towards society at large.  White Supremacy or anti-government militia movements in the United States are examples of a counterculture with an agenda that could affect more than just its members.  The stockpiling of weapons or the threatening of judges and politicians or individual acts of terrorism on a certain population have placed some of these counterculture groups on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's radar.  The behavior of the counterculture determines whether or not it is helpful or hurtful towards the larger society.

Whether or not a counterculture group has a public agenda might not be enough to affect change though. Whereas their mere presence does signify the possibility; it is very difficult to change a culture from without. Think of how difficult it has been for Americans to encourage their form of government onto other nations. The more likely path of change will be paved and followed by a subculture, a group still within the larger culture.  According to sociologists, if any aspect of a culture is no longer needed or its interpretation has become irrelevant, society will adapt its culture to change its roles or symbolism. Consider the history and purpose of music in America where different genres of music belonged to different subcultures. Blues, jazz, gospel, country, bluegrass were identified with a particular American subculture associated with race or location for a very long time. Each had its own history and purpose that corresponded with its subculture. The divisions between the genres and their corresponding subcultures didn't begin to weaken until the 1950s when a new form of music arrived on the scene. Rock and Roll first incorporated these various American genres. Can you think why this might have happened then and not before?   Consider what else was changing in America at that time- the Civil Rights Movement along with an increase in prosperity and technology.  As the role or interpretation of race slowly started to change, so did the role or interpretation of the music. (Or vice versa.) Therefore, race relations and music are a model of cultural integration.

Cultural Lag

This change didn't happen overnight. In fact, one could make a strong argument that American music integrated at a much faster pace than American people. Cultural Lag is the idea that some cultural elements change more quickly than others, disrupting a cultural system.

Thus, the evolution of race relations and music also exemplify cultural lag.  Certainly, the audiences of the new form of music were made up of a younger generation initially as were a proportion of the members in Civil Rights organizations.  Older Americans might have experienced culture shock during this time as they saw the breakdown of their social control result in the changing of musical and racial taboos.  As the older generations in the 1950s and 1960s were the ones with the political and economic power, a cultural lag would result as some politicians and business owners, and movement leaders rejected change.  Those making and resisting changes were members of American subcultures based on race, age, location, political beliefs, and so on, not countercultures. The means for making changes- protests, lawsuits, marches, voting- were all well within the American cultural tradition, as were the means for resisting change- court orders, petitions, business operational decisions, and again, voting. The change that followed was evolutionary in nature.

The cultural change that occurred in America involving music and race relations represents both how interrelated traits of culture are and yet how separate.   Those material and nonmaterial traits that makeup culture are not mutually exclusive nor are they 100% dependent on one another.  When what you know changes, what you believe can change, which can alter how you act. Once that process is complete, culture has changed, even if in only one area.

And why does this even matter?

Culture is more than just a thing sociologists study; it is a part of society that provides social control by creating norms by which we live. If you are a structural-functionalist, you see culture as what brings stability to society. If you are a social-conflict theorist, you see culture as something that maintains the status quo in society. If you are a symbolic-interactionist, you see culture as what determines our behavior and symbolizes what it means to be us. If you are simply a member of society, you might see culture as a friend or foe. It depends on how your culture is socially controlling your world.  Whether scientist or participant, culture affects your everyday life in ways that aren't always seen.

 

 

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