Chapter 5: Culture

The concept of “culture” is very familiar to many of us. As we read these lines, none of us would say “what is it?” since we not only hear but also use it very often. We must realize that the term of culture has a wide range of uses in daily life and has different meanings in different contexts. The idea of culture today is the issue of banality; for example, business culture and cultural “event”. The term culture often indicates the effects on the surface of our societies and very often we use it, whether being aware of it or not, in a vague and diminishing way.

How to Define Culture?

The concept of culture is usually considered as one of the most controversial, yet widely used, and indefinite term of social sciences.When we consider that in everyday life, the term culture is used in a very large area and has varying meanings in various situations, we have to admit that it is very difficult to describe culture briefly and simply. Although there are various approaches to the concept and a large number of different definitions of it, this definition would be a guide for us: Culture is a system of meanings and significance created historically, or, in other words, culture is a system of beliefs and customs that a group of people use in order to understand, organize, and structure their individual and collective lives. It is a way of understanding and organizing human life.

Culture includes many material and spiritual elements of human life. It includes many things from housing types to traditions, from marriage customs to art, from shopping patterns to beliefs, from eating habits to resting activities. According to Bourse, culture is what separates us from the rest of the living world... Even though there are many definitions of culture, it can be agreed that culture is something that can be learned, that it enables the adaptation of the person to the natural environment, changes a lot, and manifests itself in structures and ways of thinking.

Historical Development of the Term Culture

When we look at the historical development of the term culture, we face quite interesting situation.Up until the eighteenth century, the term culture had a meaning mostly related to agriculture like land reclamation and cropping. With the changes in social life at the end of the seventeenth century, the meaning and content of the term culture began to change. Culture, in the eighteenth century, began to turn into a term that expresses social values and behaviours, and thus is used in the social sphere. Consequently, the term gains the meaning of the effective development of the human mind. Again in this period with the development of anthropology, culture started to be widely used as whole way of life of a certain group. In other words, the anthropological and broad sociological use of the term culture expresses whole way of life of a community or a certain social group.

Classifying the Definitions of Culture

Although there are quite a number of definitions of culture, these definition can be categorised under three headings.

• Aesthetic definitions of culture or culture as high culture

• Anthropological definitions of culture or culture as a whole way of life

• Culture as shared meaning systems.

According to the first category of definitions of culture above, which come from the Enlightenment tradition and contain the emphasis of the effective development of the human mind, culture is associated with aesthetic excellence. Culture critic Matthew Arnold identified culture with aesthetic excellence when he defined culture as the best of what is said and thought in the world in all matters that most concern us, or the best that has been thought and known. This approach, which regards culture as equivalent to intellectual and artistic activities and ideas, considers culture to be a synonym for high culture in the duality of high culture and popular culture.

According to the second category of definitions of culture above, culture is seen in terms of anthropological characteristics of societies in a sense of the lifestyle of a period or a society. According to this definition framing culture as a whole way of lifestyle of a social group, culture consists of the values that the members of a group believe, the norms they follow, and the material things they create. When we consider culture as shared meaning systems, which is the third category of definitions in above classifications, we point out culture as a system of shared symbols and/or meanings. In other words, a historically transmitted pattern of meaning is embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.

When accepted as shared systems of meaning, culture involves not only art but also all symbolic phenomena. From the network of meanings that are ordinary but integrated with everyday life, such as knowing whether your shoes will be removed when you enter the house, meaning systems organized in the high level such as religion, language, art, and fashion, are included in the culture.

Culture in Classical Sociological Theory

The main interest of functional sociology has been culture as norms, values and a way of lifestyle rather than culture as high culture. Both Durkheim and Weber, the two of the three classic theorists of sociology, consider religion as a meaning system to be a fundamental component of culture as well as the society. On the other hand, in Marxist approach, not only religious ideas, but also all cultural ideas are a reflection of the material production system and thus serve the interests of the dominant class. Culture in stratified societies acts as a kind of dominant ideology. As an important part of society’s superstructure, culture is determined by the infrastructure, that is, the economic base. In other words, the dominant capitalist class, which owns the means of production, uses Economic power to shape the culture of the society. Thus, culture reflects the interests of the capitalist class, reproduces its views, and serves to legitimize their authority. Culture is simply the expression of a distorted view of the world created by the dominant class and reveals a distorted sense of reality.

In the twentieth century, many theoreticians have expanded Marx’s thoughts about culture and ideology by critically evaluating them, and have also developed new, and more comprehensive approaches by feeding on diverse thought traditions and theorists.

Culture in Contemporary Approaches

The Social Research Institute, founded at the University of Frankfurt in 1923, is known as the Frankfurt School, in short, in the social science literature. The Frankfurt School is also commonly referred to as Critical Theory. Especially, the analyses of Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Leo Lowenthal and Herbert Marcuse on culture, ideology and the media are very important. According to the theorists in this school, culture produced by cultural industries does not develop spontaneously, and it is a standardized and commodified culture aiming at reaching the widest masses. The consumers of this culture, which is far from being natural, and is quite artificial, are modern individuals who are the most loyal consumers of cultural industries. This situation, which can be defined as the simplification of the culture, is also called mass culture.

Adorno and Horkheimer have used what we call as the culture industry, instead of what has been previously named as mass culture. Theorists prefer the term culture industry to mass culture to prevent the interpretation as a culture originating from the masses themselves. As Adorno notes, industry here is not to be thought of in the straight sense of the word. The concept is mainly related to the commercialization of cultural life, the process of standardization of cultural products and the rationalization of distribution techniques. Nevertheless, this term may cause the large media and entertainment companies to come to mind.

Adopting an expanded concept of culture, the Birmingham School has rejected the distinction between high culture and low culture, and has made a significant break from an approach that would create any cultural stratification. Thus, the school has defined popular culture as a legitimate field. While having a similar perspective with people on culture as a whole way of life, the definition of culture as homogeneous integrity was rejected. British Cultural Studies conceptualized culture as a dynamic and constantly renewing process, not as a fixed, static, frozen and closed system. The concept of cultural reproduction and habitus is produced by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, one of the most important sociologists of the 20th century. Although Bourdieu’s work is really difficult to categorize and summarize, one of Bourdieu’s main concerns is the relationship between culture and power. In other words, Bourdieu is most concerned with how stratified social systems of hierarchy and domination reproduce and maintain intergenerational without powerful resistance. Bourdieu is mainly concerned with showing how habitus is central to reproduction of inequality. Once members of the lower classes enter the struggle for status, the differences in habitus make for an equal fight for an unequal fight and for the reproduction of inequality. Bourdieu, in an analogy with economic capital, uses the term cultural capital to refer to the practical competencies and tastes which support our status and position, and also help us to differentiate ourselves from those who are less culturally endowed.

Dynamics of Culture

We should also keep in mind that culture is also an inspection system, and it either approves or rejects certain behaviours or lifestyles. Culture strives to preserve the values and norms that govern human relationships and behaviour, and implements them by setting prizes and penalties. Also, we should not ignore that it has a dimension that conveys different inequalities from today to tomorrow. Meaning and norm systems of culture are often not neutral between conflicting interests and goals.

Culture is a source of strength and legitimacy. It is not surprising, therefore, that all political and economic conflicts take place also at the cultural level, or there are reflections of them in the cultural area. At this point, however, we must not ignore that all cultural conflicts inevitably have an economic and political dimension.

The culture of a society can also change due to many factors such as technological developments, wars, occupations and even natural disasters. As Marx puts it, technology is one of the major sources of great cultural change. Technology has never been culturally neutral. All major technological changes transform the cultural structure of society together with its economic and political structure.

Cultural Diversity and Cultural Interaction

We cannot see culture as a homogeneous and monolithic form of behaviours or lifestyle.Members of a culture can be influenced by different interpretations within their own culture, or by the beliefs and customs of other cultures. There is not just one single essence of culture. There are different traditions and different ways of thinking. No culture can isolate itself from conflicts and change. Conflicts between different classes, genders, cultural communities and generations are, more or less, present in all cultures. For this reason, culture should be viewed not only as a passive heritage, but as an active process of creating meaning. The assumption that the culture is not open to internal and external influences, is a consistent and unchangeable whole, and that individuals are passive and not critical, lead to the danger of cultural determinism. Every culture consists of mixture and hybridity. Thanks to new communication technologies, the meeting of cultures and differences has become a more obvious reality today. Objects and ideas are circulating just like goods. In addition, people are traveling, and cities are becoming increasingly cosmopolitan. Contemporary societies and cultures are increasingly communicating and interacting with each other, especially through the Internet and new media. Today, as globalization and the phenomenon of immigration have gained momentum, cultures have become increasingly open to others.

Ethnocentrism? – Cultural Relativism?

Accepting the existence of other cultures and the diversity of cultures, unfortunately, does not always lead to respect for other cultures. This danger emerges when people value their culture so much and start to see it as the best, the most beautiful. Judging (which is generally disdaining) other cultures by looking from the value system of one’s own culture, and by taking his/her cultural values as a foreground is called ethnocentrism. It has been considered natural for a long time that all cultures are a little ethnocentric in order to provide a common culture and identity, and to reinforce the sense of “we”. However, ethnocentrism is not often so innocent to say “we are like this and we are satisfied with it” and the dose of it is usually not a “little”. Ethnocentrism often manifests itself in the level of appreciation for one’s own culture, the belief that it is superior to others, and disdain for, alienation or humiliation of other cultures.

Cultural relativism is the idea that cultures should be judged within themselves, and cannot be judged externally. It is suggested that it is our duty to respect other cultures, and that all cultures deserve equal respect. Given that a further step of ethnocentrism is racism, cultural relativism may seem very reasonable in the first place compared to ethnocentrism. However, there is a danger in cultural relativism similar to the one in ethnocentrism. The argument that every culture is meaningful and important in itself is not disturbing without any doubt. All cultures can be valuable, but receiving equal respect can only be possible to the extent that they respect individual rights and freedom, especially the right to life. In other words, when cultural relativism refuses universality of legal standards that guarantee human rights and freedom, it cannot be said that all cultures are equally valued.

Culture and Tradition

Tradition refers to a practice that comes from the past and is repeated from generation to generation. In other words, it is a set of social practices related to rituals or other forms of symbolic behavior, which are persistent with a real or imaginary past and are widely adopted. Traditions are not habits, such as getting up in the morning and sleeping in the evening. They comprise information or actions of value and meaning for a particular group of people. As a result, a tradition should not be perceived as a legacy of the past, but as a living practice that is meant to express ourselves. According to Gerard Lenclud, a tradition is a piece of the past adapted to today’s criteria.

Cultural heritage is the remnants of the thousands of years of life experience, wisdom and creativity of mankind, which has managed to reach today. Cultural heritage is divided into two as tangible and intangible cultural heritage. The tangible cultural heritage is also divided into two subcategories: movable and immovable. While the intangible cultural heritage appears as folklore, art or collective memory, the tangible cultural heritage sometimes emerges as an archaeological site, sometimes a city from the middle ages, and sometimes a rug.

The urbanization and development process, which gained momentum day by day, caused the destruction of cultural heritage in some cases. The constant population increase, the expansion of agricultural lands and large infrastructure work damaged especially the archaeological heritage.

Culture and Globalisation

Although it is accepted that the global culture is dominated by the commodification practices of global capitalism, it is expressed that cultural globalization does not act as cultural imperialism, and does not occur only in the form of cultural homogenization or uniformity. According to the scholars such as Appadurai, Robertson and Tomlinson, who embrace this approach, globalization is a process in which variety is seen as much as homogenization, localization as much as universalization, modernization as much as traditional ones has come to the agenda, and their concurrent and contradictory coexistence have been experienced.

Similar to Appadurai’s point, in this context, globalization might be regarded as a process which contains both universalities and differences within itself, which are connected to each other and transform into each other. In other words, each of the encounter of global and local is a process in which both global and local take something from each other and turn into something new and different, and two more hybrid forms emerge. According to Robertson, if one side of the globalization process is the universalization of the local one, the other side must be seen as the localization of the global one. Therefore, according to the author, it is necessary to mention glocalization, not globalization. Glocalization is sometimes reported to be a reaction to globalization, or a reinforcement of cultural identity at the local community level’. Robertson sees ‘glocalization’ as a form of interpenetration of the global and the local. But the way the concept is generally applied relates to marketing a product produced by a multinational corporation by appealing to local cultural cues.