Chapter 4: Sociological Analysis of Material Culture

Chapter 4: Sociological Analysis of Material Culture

1. Sociology

   • The study of human beings in groups and institutions. Focus is on the way society functions and other aspects of collective behavior.
   • Artifacts
     • They are in society and society is reflected on them, witnesses to the present
       • Suggest our wealth and socioeconomic class
   • Advertising
     • Teaches how to be "discriminating" consumers and to recognize what brands go with what kind of people.

2. August Comte

   • Goal was to: "know in order to predict in order to control." Help create a more humane and rational social order

3. Emile Durkheim

   • Relationship that exists between individuals and society is very complicated.
     • Individual Being
       • Has its foundation in the organism and the circle of whose activities, strictly limited
     • Social Being
       • Represents the highest reality in the intellectual and moral order, by observation.
     • Individuality, we are an "organism," social beings, whose ideas and values are shaped by social order.

4. Structural-functionalists

   • Institutions in society are part of an ongoing system of institutions, connected to all others.
   • Focus on whether an institution helps contribute to the stability and maintenance of society, "functional"
     • Functional Alternative: Substitutes for original function
     • Manifest Function: stated reason for using something
     • Latent Function: Unconscious factors involved in using something
   • Helps contribute to the destabilization and breakdown of society, "dysfunctional."
   • If an institution plays no role, "non-functional."

5. Typologies

   • Classification schemes, help us better understand the way societies, institutions, phenomena function.
   • Taste Cultures: entertain us, inform us, and beautify our lives.
   • Herbert J. Gans
     • Choices people make about the objects they purchase are connected to one another.
       • High Culture
       • Upper Middle Culture
       • Lower Middle Culture
       • Quasi-Folk Low Culture
       • Youth, Black, and Ethnic Cultures

6. "beautiful" or desired objects enhances a feeling of wellbeing/succesful

7. Purchasing objects, enable us to escape, enhance the quality of our lives, short time a sense of power

8. We imitate desires reflected by advertisements and commercials

9. The choice of our possessions reflects "taste," or aesthetic values

10. Race: categorizing people by their genetic heritage.

    • Negroid
    • Mongoloid
    • Caucasian
    • Dominant motivators behind the purchase, she objects are gender specific.

11. Ethnicity: refers to groups that share certain religious, racial, national, and cultural traits and cuisine.

12. Race: position an individual has in some group

    • Ascribed Status: factors based on gender, age, family status
    • Achieved status: based on merits, abilities, success in various endeavors

13. Role: behavior expected of people who have a particular status, unconscious.

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