Download Class #8 January 5, 2012

SOCI 1010
Day #8
January 5, 2012
• Hypothesis 1
Understanding of the changes in the seasons will lead
to increased yield in crops planted by citizens of
Chaco Canyon.
– IV = Understanding changes in the seasons
– DV = yield in crops
• Hypothesis 2
Several years of unpredictable weather will lead to
unrest in primitive communities.
– IV = unpredictable weather patterns
– DV = unrest in primitive communities
Agenda
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Attendance
Conclude Film
Discuss Chaco Canyon; Sun Dagger
Culture
Chaco Canyon
• Finish Film: Chaco Legacy
• View the accomplishments of their culture
• Think about the things the had to use
(material culture)
• Think about the things they did not have
• Imagine their cognitive and normative cultural
features
Sky-watchers of
Chaco
A center of Anazazi culture
Pueblo Bonito
http://www.he.net/~mine/anasazi/p_bon
ito_show_5.html
Pueblo Bonito
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800 rooms
2000 - 5000 people
one of several large townsites in the Canyon
surplus of subsistence goods
trading and ceremonial center
You look across the
Canyon to Fajada Butte
Fajada Butte
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS73UpIy7zs&feature=related
Midday
Summer
Solstice
THE SOLAR "CLOCK"
X Did the stone slabs fall there,
or were they placed?
X Why mid-day rather than
sunrise?
X Was the spiral carved first or
last?
X Can it really plot the cycle of
the moon?
Solstice Window
Pueblo Bonito
Other aspects of life in the canyon
• the arts
• agriculture
• religion
• astronomy
Potters practiced their
craft ….
Masons perfected the art of
building
Jackson Stairway
Farmers cultivated and irrigated fields
Spiritual life flourished
Astronomers identified new sites
Sighting the
Crab Nebula
Examples of Societies
• Hunting and gathering
Buffalo culture)
(!Kung, Plains Indians –
• Herding (Bedouins, Laplanders, Navajo)
• Horticultural (early Chacoans, Shelmickedmu, pioneer
Americans )
• Agricultural (later Chacoans, Americans in Nebraska
and Iowa, etc.)
• Industrial (Mexico and many European countries)
• Post-Industrial (U.S., Japan, much of Europe)
Culture
• The way of life for a given society
• Not just art, music, literature, etc.
• Ideal culture =
a group’s values
and goals
• Real culture =
actual behavior
Culture
• All the human made products
associated with a society
• Two types of culture:
– material
– non-material
• Culture provides people a shared
framework to guide them as they solve
problems
Components of Culture
Normative
Culture
Non Material
Culture
Material
Culture
Cognitive
Culture
Material Culture
• All of the things created or used by the
culture
• May be inventions
• May be borrowed
(Process of diffusion)
• Technology is part of the material
culture
Non-Material Culture
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Knowledge
Beliefs
Values
Rules
Symbolic information
Language
Symbol
Definition
Signs and symbols
have meaning that is not fixed by the
nature of the item to which it is
attached but by the agreement of the
people who use it to communicate.
Non-Material, Symbolic Culture
• Verbal symbols = Language
Language is a system of symbolic
communication that uses words in a
standardized way
• Allows us to move beyond the present
• Experiences can be shared
• Spoken, signed and written languages
Use of Symbols
• Examples of nonverbal symbols
– designs,
– gestures
– colors
– objects,
– logos, etc.
– i.e., a coke
bottle
• The coinherence symbol designed by Professor Roger
Corless (Duke) in 1983, combining the symbols of
various religious traditions. As the logo of the Duke
University Department of Religion, it combines 7
symbols (circle, taijitu (yin/yang), wheel, hexagram (Star
of David), labarum (Greek symbol for Christ), crescent,
cross).
• Symbol project assignment
Cognitive Culture
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All of the culture’s knowledge
Ideas
Beliefs
Procedures
Creativity
Information Processing Procedures
Normative Culture
Definition: Norm
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Standard of desired behavior;
Norms are rules people are expected
to follow
• Vary from society to society
• Often situational - based on
particular context
Types of Norms
• Folkways
– customs
– habits
– minor with few, if any sanctions for
violation
• Mores
– vital
– morally significant (sin)
– violations result in severe sanctions
Ethnocentrism
• The tendency to use one’s own culture as
a standard against which other groups or
cultures are measured
• Positive features: national pride,
patriotism, willingness to fight for one’s
way of life
• Negative features: prejudice,
discrimination
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Cultural Relativism
• The practice of judging a culture by its own
standards
• Alternative to ethnocentrism
• Requires openness to unfamiliar values
and norms
• Requires the ability to put aside cultural
standards known all our lives
In-groups versus Out-groups
• If we see our way as good, those who are like
us are seen as in-groups
• All others, then, are viewed as out-groups
• We feel different degrees of social distance
from out-groups
• The more distant, the more we tend to
polarize our feelings or judgments
Polarity of Judgments
• In-Group: Our way
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Good
Right
Honest
Intelligent
Clean
Etc.
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Out-Group: Their way
Bad; Evil
Wrong
Dishonest, Sneaky
Stupid
Dirty
Etc.
Subcultures
• Categories of people who are part of the
mainstream culture but who hold some unique
and differential identities that give them a “group
identity” that is set apart from or different from
the mainstream
• Subcultural patterns may include language
differences, jargon, value systems, beliefs,
patterns of behavior, style of dress
• May be based on ethnicity, race, national
heritage, religion, occupation, socioeconomic
status, political perspective, etc.
Subcultural Identities
A Few Examples
• Ethnicity
• Race
• Recent national heritage
• Religion
• Occupation
• Socioeconomic status
• Political Perspective
• Irish, Czech, German
• Asian; Black; Native
American
• Sudanese, Mexican
• Catholic, Amish, Jewish
• Medical, Over-the-road
truckers
• Jet set; working class;
subculture of poverty
• Radicals, “Hippies”, Skinheads
Assignment
• Read Chapter 3 – Socialization
• Assignment to be discussed – symbol
presentation