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1 Introduction: Civilization is the diving force of the society; Culture is its steering wheel. Culture and Civilization are the unique possessions of man. Both of them reflect the material and non-material wealth of mankind. The term civilization is often used as a synonym for culture in both popular and academic circles. Every human being participates in a culture defined as the art, custom, habits, believe, value, behavior and material habits (civilization) that constitute a man a peoples way of life. Culture and civilization are often mixed up in peoples’ mind. So we may say that, Culture is the passing of traits from one generation to another and Civilization is the result of culture. Culture: Culture is commonly used Psychology, Political Science and Economics. It is the main concept in Anthropology and a fundamental one in Sociology. The study of society or any aspect of it becomes incomplete without a proper understanding of the culture of that society. Culture and society go together. They are inseparable. Culture is a broad term that includes in itself for works of life, our modes of behavior our philosophies and ethics, our morals and manners, our customs and traditions, our religious and other types of activities. According to Maclver and Page, “Culture is the realm of styles, of values, of emotional attachments, of intellectual adventures”. Culture contents: A number of sociologist have classifies the content of culture into large components. There are, 1) Material Culture 2) Non-Material Culture Ogburn has even used this distinction as the basis for a theory of culture change. As Robert Bearstedt has pointed out, the concept of ‘material culture’ is relatively more precise and less ambiguous. But the concept of non-material culture is more ambiguous and less clear. It may be used as a ‘residual category’ that is to mean ‘Everything that is not material’. 1) Material culture: Material culture is concerned with the external, mechanical and utilitarian objects. For example, technical and material equipments like a printing place, a telephone, a television, a teacher etc. It 2 is consist of man made objects such as tools, implements, furniture, buildings, roads etc. 2) Non-material culture: In ordinary sense culture means non-material culture. It is something internal and intrinsically valuable, reflects the inward nature of man. It consists of the language, the beliefs, values, habits etc. It also includes our customs and tastes, attitudes and outlook, in brief, our ways of acting, feeling and thinking. Characteristics of Culture: Culture has some exceptional characteristics that make it extra ordinary. It is necessary for us to know about it’s main characteristics. These are, i) Learnt ways of behavior: Culture is not inborn tendency, it is also not inherited. It’s learnt socially by man. There is no culture instinct as such. For this reason, it is often called “learned ways of behavior”. For example, closing the eyes while sleeping, the eyes blinking reflex, we are not learned by someone. So these are not culture, but purely physiological. On the other hand, shaking hands or saying ‘namaskar’ or ‘thanks’ wearing cloths, combing the hair, we wearing ornament cooking the food, drinking from a glass, eating from a plate are all ways of behavior learnt by man culturally. ii) Product of society: Culture is not an individual phenomenon. It is a product of society. It is shared by members of society. No man can acquire culture without association with other human being. So we may say that it is a culture which helps man to develop human qualities in a human environment. For this purpose we may say that deprivation of company or association of other individuals to an individual is nothing but deprivation of human qualities, because doesn’t exist in isolation. iii) Shared by people: In the sociological view, culture is something shared. An individual can’t posses this. According to Robert Bearstedt, “Culture is something adopted, used, believed, practiced, or possessed by more than one person. It depends upon group life for its existence”. For Example, customs, tradition, beliefs, ideas, values, morals, etc. are all shared by people of a group or society. The invention of Arya Bhatta or Albert Einstein; the literary works of Kalidasa or Keats, Dandi. Or Dante; the philosophical works of Confucius or Leo Tse, Shankaracharya or Swami 3 Vivekananda; the artistic works of Ravi Verma or Raphael etc. are all shared by a large number of people. iv) Transmissive: Culture is capable of being transmissed from one generation to the next. It is transmissed not through genes but by means of language. Language is the main vehicle of culture. Language in its different forms like reading, writing and speaking makes it possible for the present generation to understand the achievements of earlier generations. But language itself is a part of culture. Once language is acquired, it unfolds to the individual its wide field. Transmission of culture may take place by imitation as well as by instruction. v) Continuous and Cumulative: Culture exists as a continuous process. In its historical growth it tends to become cumulative. We may say that, it is the achivement of the past and the present and makes provision for the future achievements of mankind. Robert Bierstadt says, “Culture may thus be conceived of as a kind of stream flowing down through the centuries from one generation to another” He also writes Culture is, “The memory of the human race”. Sociologist Linton called Culture, “The social heritage”. vi) Integrated and Consistent: Culture, in its development has revealed a tendency to be consistent. At the same time different parts of culture are interconnected. For example, the value system of a society is closely connected with its other aspects such as morality, religion, customs, traditions, beliefs, and so on. vii) Dynamic and Adaptive: Culture is subject of to slow but constant changes. Change and growth are latent in culture. So, it is hence dynamic. Culture is responsive to the changing conditions of the physical world. It is adoptive. It also intervenes in the natural environment and helps man in his process of adjustment. viii) Differs from society to society: Every society has a culture of its own. It differs from society to society. Culture is not uniform but culture of every society is unique to itself. Culture varies from time to time also. No culture ever remains constant or changeless. If Manu were to come back to see the Indian society today he would be bewildered to witness the vast changes that have taken place in our culture. 4 ix) Superorganic and Ideational: Culture superorganic’. Herbert Spencer meant that, is something called ‘the “Culture is neither organic nor inorganic in nature but above these two”. The term implies the social meaning of physical objects and philological acts. For example, the social meaning of a national flag is not just ‘a piece of colored cloth’. The flag represents a nation. Further, every It is regarded as an end in itself. It is intrinsically valuable. The people are also aware of their culture as an ideal one. They are proud of their cultural heritage. x) Gratifying: Culture provides proper opportunities and prescribes means for the satisfaction of our needs and desires. There needs may be biological or social in nature. Our need for food, shelter, and clothing on the one hand, and our desire for status, name, fame, money, mates etc. are all for example, fulfilled according to the cultural ways. Functions of Culture: Man is not only a social animal but also a cultural being. Man’s social life has been made possible because of culture. Culture is something that has elevated him from the level of animal to the heights of man. Man can’t survive as man without culture. It represents the entire achievements of mankind. Culture has been fulfilling a number of functions among which the following may be noted. i) The treasury of knowledge: Culture is a treasury of knowledge. It provides knowledge which is essential for the physical, social and intellectual existence of man. It has made such an adaptation and modification possible and easier by providing man the necessary skills and knowledge. It helps not only the transmission of knowledge but also its preservation, accumulation and diffusion. ii) Defines Situations: Culture defines situations. Culture defines social situations for us. It not only defines but also conditions and determines – what we eat and drink, what we wear, when to laugh, weep, sleep, to make friends with and so on. iii) Attitudes, values and goals: Culture defines attitudes, values and goals. It is the culture which conditions our attitude towards various issues such as religion, morality, marriage, science and so on. Our values and our 5 goals are all set forth by our culture. We are being socialized on these models. iv) Decides our carrier: Our professions are described by the culture. What carrier we are likely to pursue is largely decided by culture. It sets limitations on our choice to select different carrier. v) Behavior pattern: Culture directs and confines the behavior of an individual. It assigns goals and provides means, it reward his noble works and punishes the ignoble ones. vi) Mould personality: American anthropologist by home Margaret Mead has stated that, “A culture shapes the character and behavior of individuals living in it”. That means, Culture exercises a great influence on the development of personality. No child can be developed human qualities in the absence of a cultural environment. Elements of Culture: According to H.M Johnson the main elements of culture area as follows, 1) Cognitive elements 2) Beliefs 3) Values and norms 4) Signs 1) Cognitive elements: Culture of all societies whether pre-literate or literate includes a vast amount of knowledge about the physical and social world. The possession of this knowledge is referred to as the cognate element. Such knowledge is carefully taught to each generation. In modern advanced societies knowledge is so vast, deep and complex than no single person can hope to master the whole of it. Further, every society has in its culture many ideas about its own social organization and how it works. 2) Believes: Beliefs constitute another element of culture. Beliefs in empirical terms are neither true nor false. Example: The Eskimo shaman used fetishes and goes into a loud trance in other to drive out the evil spirits from the body of a sick person. Such action implies some kind of belief. Tested empirical 6 knowledge and untested beliefs are “elements” of culture. Because, they are often mixed together in the same concrete acts. 3) Value and Norms: It is very difficult to enlist values and norms. For they are so numerous and divers. They are inseparable from attitudes, except perhaps, analytically. Values may be defined as measures of goodness or desire ability. They are the group conceptions of relative, desire abilities from things. One way of understanding the values and their interconnections is to approach them through the four foundational subsystems of society. These subsystems are: government, family, economy and religion. The function or the social activities that these four interconnected subsystems perform as to a great shaped by values. Norms are closely with values. They are the group shared standards of behavior. Norms impose restrictions on our behavior. They are model practices; they determine, control and guide our behavior. According to H.M Johnson “Values are general standards, and may be regarded as higher order norms”. So we may say that, norms and values together constitute an important element in culture. 4) Signs: Signs include signals and symbols. “A signal indicates the existence – Past, Present and Future – of a thing, event or conditions”. Example: A heap of half burnt particles of a house signalize that the house was caught by fire something earlier. Meaning of Culture: Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate") generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance. Different definitions of "culture" reflect different theoretical bases for understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity. Now let’s see some definitions of culture. Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people. Culture is symbolic communication. Some of its symbols include a group’s skills, knowledge, attitudes, values, and motives. The meanings of the symbols are learned and deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions. 7 Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behavior; that is the totality of a person’s learned, accumulated experience that is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior through social learning. Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the other hand, as conditioning influences upon further action. Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation to generation. Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group r category of people from another. After this discussion we may say that we can’t find our existence without culture. Definition of culture (given by sociologists): Different sociologists define culture differently. According to B. Malinowski, “Culture is the handiwork of man and the medium through which he achieves his ends.“ An English sociologist, Graham Wallashas says, “Culture is the social heritage acquired by us from preceding generations through learning, as distinguished from the biological heritage which is passed on to us automatically through the genes.” C.C North is of the opinion that culture ‘consists in the instruments constituted by man to assist him in satisfying his wants.” Robert Bierstedt is of the opinion that, “culture is the complex whole that consists of all the ways we think and do and everything we have as members of society.” E.V de Roberty regards culture as, “the body of thoughts and knowledge, both theoretical and practical, which only man can process.” 8 Civilization: Meaning of civilization: The word civilization comes from Latin word ‘Civitas’ which means ‘a city’. Hence the term refers to all the attainments characteristic of human life in an organized city. The term civilization is also used to cover all the social organizations and other attainments of man which mark him off from other animals. Civilization is a form of human culture in which many people live in urban life in urban centers, have mastered the art of smelting metals, and have developed a method of writing. It requires that a civilized people have a sense of history – meaning that the past counts in the present. In the Oxford English Dictionary defines civilization as “the action or process of civilization or of being civilized; a developed or advanced state of human society”. Civilization means a particular shared way of thinking about the world as well as a reflection on the world in art, literature, drama and a host of other cultural happening. To understand this idea better it is necessary to investigate the origins of western civilization. Definition of civilization: Definitions of different writers give civilization a new identity to us. Now we will discuss about these. According to Will Durant, “Civilization is social order promoting cultural creation. Four elements con1stitutes it: economic provision, political organization, moral traditions and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts.” Goldenweiser used the term ‘Civilization’ identically with culture to refer to all the human achievements. Kant used the term ‘Civilization’ to mean outward behavior of man. According to Gillin, “civilization is a more complex and evolved from of culture. Ogburn and Nimkoff conceived of civilization as the letter phase of the super organic culture. According to Maclver and Page civilization is the whole apparatus of life. Civilization refers to those devices and instruments by which nature is controlled. It includes technical and material equipments like a printing press, a tractor, television etc. It also includes the whole apparatus of economic and political organizations like our school, colleges, banking system etc. 9 Distinction between Culture and Civilization: The terms ‘Culture’ and ‘Civilization’ are often distinguished on various grounds. Both represent two broad fields of human activity and experience. Some significant points of difference between them may be noted here. Development of Culture and Civilization: Civilization is always advancing but not culture. For example, every technical achievement is an improvement on the past. Once our technical instrument is discovered may goes on improving it. Like change from mud road to tar road and then to concrete road. But the height reached by Gautama Buddha, Swami Vivekananda in the field of religion and spirituality had not been reached by their followers. According to Maclver and Page, “Civilization always marches on if there is no break of social continuity. It always shows a persistent already stored upward trend. Every generation adds its own achievements to the already stored up energy and intelligence.” Precise standard of measurement: The products of civilization are such that they can be measured quantitatively on grounds of efficiency. But we can’t measure the cultural products. Cultural things such as values, opinions, ideas, morals, etc are beyond measurement. For example, we can easily say that, motor car is superior to a hand plough. If somebody were to say that the literary works of Kalidash are better than those of Shakespeare, we can’t prove or disprove it, but we can only agree or disagree, with the statement. So we may say that civilization precise standard of measurement but not culture. Communication: The products of Civilization are more easily communicated than those of culture. For example, the work of an engineer or mechanic is not just for other engineer or mechanics. But the work of an artist is only for a man with artistic appreciation. Another example is, the work of an engineer or mechanic is not just for other engineers or mechanics. And, the work of an artist only for a man with artistic appreciations. Borrow the products: 10 Civilization is borrowed products without loss or change but culture is not. For example, technical devices, and plants can easily be borrowed or transferred. But we can’t borrow dress styles, speaking styles, fashions etc. Needs of man: Civilization caters top the external, mechanical, utilitarian needs of man but culture is something internal. Civilization caters to the external needs of man. It reflects the material wealth of mankind. But, Culture refers to the intrinsic values. Philosopher Kant says, “Civilization is a matter of outward behavior whereas culture requires morality as an inward state of man”. Expression: The products of culture reveal the nature of an individual or a social group or a nation but are not the products of civilization. In the realm of culture, an artist or a poet can express his love of beauty. On the other hand, an engineer can’t express his personality, his love of beauty. Interdependence and Interrelationship between Culture and Civilization: Civilization and Culture do not reveal two independent and separate systems. The distinction between them is only relative and not absolute. They are not only interdependent but also interactive. Both are man-made. One is for his comfort and luxury and the other for his satisfaction and happiness. One is as important as the other. Culture is the breeding ground of civilization. Civilization gives strength and stamina for the wheels of society to march on. According to Ogburn, Civilization represents “material culture” and Culture implies “non-material culture”. An environment of Civilization can affect our Culture. For example, a machine brought new habits and enjoyments, new philosophy and ethics. Our world outlook has been changed due to the progress of science and technology. The Culture also affects Civilization. We look at the new inventions and techniques in the light of our way of life and our values. The ‘Order’ of civilization influences the ‘order’ of culture. The articles of civilization called “artifacts” are influenced by culture called “mentifacts”. Culture is also influenced by the articles of civilization. Cultural character is generally added to the utilitarian order. We want fashions styles and show it in 11 our automobiles, buildings etc. Similarly our philosophies, literatures and learning have been much influenced by the printing press. Maclver and Page have clearly stated the interrelationship between culture and civilization. They say that civilization is a ship which can set sail to various ports. The port we sail to remain a culture choice. Without the ship we couldn’t sail at all; according to the character of the ship we sail fast or slow, take longer or shorter voyages. But the direction in which we travel is not predestination by the design of the ship. Conclusion: Mans’ social life has been made possible because of Culture and Civilization. For this reason Maclver and Page have said, “Civilization is what we have. Culture is what we are”. Both of them represent the internal and external achievement of mankind. Culture is often understood as anything that is created and cultivated my man. Mans’ Culture in a way has begun with man’s capacity to use and to create or produce tools and techniques. They have an interrelation. For this reason Ogburn says that, “Civilization is like a body, Culture is its soul”. 12 Reference: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) WikiPedia Online Encyclopedia Principles of Sociology - William J Goode The Study of Human Interaction – D Dressler and W M Willis A Guide to Problems and Literature – Tom bottomore Sociology Primary Principles - C N Sankar Rao