The study of human society

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Table of Contents

Culture
Factors influencing change in cultural practices
Socialisation
Theories on socialisation
Modes of socialisation
Conclusion
Works Cited

Throughout history, scholars have tried to understand human behaviour. This thirst has led to the establishment of various fields of study including sociology. Sociology is the study of human society, which comprises a study of the society’s history, its cultural practices, and its composition and structural make up.

One of the theories that explain the formation of society is the social contract theory. Various proponents of the theory have developed different versions of this theory. However, they all agree on the main concept that the formation of society depends upon the formation of a social contract between people in a society and the few members of that society they select to lead and govern it.

The proponents also agree that the people in any society bestow power upon their leaders who on the other hand hold the power in trust for the society. Thus, they have to make decisions that reflect the best interest of the society. Scholars have tried to explain the background of human behaviour and the reasons why people do what they do.

Thomas Hobbes is one of the proponents of the social contract theory. According to Hobbes, life in the state of nature where every man acts independently is brutish and short.

Every individual aims at self-preservation. There are no rules to govern behaviour or dictate what is right or wrong. Charles Darwin describes this concept as the survival of the fittest. Hobbes suggests that human beings formed a society in order to ensure that everyone survives and that the government protects their property regardless of the strengths and weaknesses each individual possesses.

However, Hobbes states that the society has to follow all the rules the governing individuals or institutions formulate without question. Some scholars have developed criticisms for Hobbes’ theory. He insists that there is no inherent good in human beings thus necessitating the formulation of rules. Nevertheless, he overlooks that the people making the laws are also human who therefore also lack the ability of inherent goodness (Engels 23).

Another scholar in support of this theory was John Locke. His version of the theory exhibits some differences from Hobbes’ version. According to Locke, human beings are inherently good. However, some people do not always do what is right and therefore there was theft need for some form of order.

He presents this issue as the main purpose of laws. Unlike Hobbes, Locke thinks that leaders should only act in the common interest of the people and that people have the right to depose leaders who do not. The main difference between the two versions is that, in Locke’s theory, society still possesses the power it bestows upon the leaders, while in Hobbes’ theory, society gives up all its power. Thus, it has no option but to follow laws the leaders set to the letter (Engels 26).

Culture

Although ideologies behind the formation of society vary, most theorists agree on components that make up society, including culture. Culture is an element that displays the uniqueness of different societies. It connotes the distinctive ways in which people live, represents their experiences and displays the changes different environments can have to people’s behavioural patterns (Wolf 56).

Some of the elements that constitute culture include language, traditions, religion, leadership, technology and cuisine. Scholars explain that when people live together for a substantial length of time, they develop habits that help define who they are. They transmit these habits through generations as time passes using different methods of communication, the oldest ones being songs and stories.

In the past century, each society had its own distinct culture that gave it its distinctive identity. For instance, most of the cuisine in different societies was unique. The Italians have, for centuries acquired fame for their cuisine that mostly consists of refined flour-based ingredients known to the rest of the world as Pasta. On the other hand, the Chinese cuisine is famous for its rice and seafood dishes. However, with globalisation occurring faster than it did in the 19^th Century, change to some of the cultural practices has been inevitable.

Factors influencing change in cultural practices

Culture is a versatile concept that changes depending on its interaction with external elements. The changes usually take the direction of convenience for the existing population as part of the adaptation process most people experience when there are changes in the environment and other factors.

One of the main elements that have contributed to the great shift in most cultural practices is technology. This has enhanced interaction between different cultural groups, enabling the groups to learn from and even adopt aspects of other cultures. The resultant effect is the creation of new cultural practices that comprise combinations of different practices from different groups.

For instance, thanks to technology, fishing villages in Africa and Asia experience more productivity and increased profitability due to changes in methods of preservation for their produce. Initially, some of the preservation methods that people in fishing areas used included smoking and sun drying. Although the age-old methods were effective, they changed the composition of the products, which were mainly seafood (Miller 17).

With the introduction of refrigeration, anglers are able to store their products for longer without interfering with the quality of the products. Additionally, they also possess the ability to transform the products into more creative versions creating a variety for the population. For instance, mincing of fish and other meat products is now possible, thus enabling consumers who prefer their meat in small quantities access the product just the way they want it.

Another factor that has contributed to a shift in cultural practices for most societies is the international trade. This is trade between different countries all over the world. It is the obligation of most governments to ensure that the people in their countries get facilities that they need regardless of whether the state can produce them or not. As a result, most states engage in specialisation, producing goods and services that are abundant within their borders, and trading them for others that they are in need of from other countries.

In order to ensure that there is order, the international community has developed laws that govern such trade for adoption by states engaging in the trade (Miller 33). Most of the countries in the world have synchronised their internal laws to match some of the international laws, creating an international society in the process. While conforming to the laws, people in these individual countries create new norms that are more accommodative in nature.

For instance, some counties such as the United States and Canada have similar trade laws and open border policies that allow free trade and movement of people between the countries without. They also share the same official language, English, thus enabling easier interaction among members of the two states in the trade process.

It is possible that the two states share a common history although the case is not the same with African states yet some of them, such as Kenya, have adopted English as one of their official languages to enhance trade relations with the American and European states. Apart from changes in languages, trade has also created changes in other aspects that are predominantly unique to cultural groups. A good example of a predominantly cultural element that trade influences is the mode of dressing.

Over the years, the world has adopted a certain standard with regard to dressing, the most conventional being suits. Although most countries have their own unique modes of dress, it is a common practice and part of the international culture to wear suits during business meetings.

Population growth has also been an important factor in influencing cultural changes in most societies. In October 2011, the world population hit the seven billion mark. According to a report by the USA Today News, the population possesses the possibility to grow to eight billion by the year 2025. The findings indicate that there will be more people competing for the same natural resources that currently exist.

This means that, as the population grows and resources remain considerably the same, most people will have to diversify and move into new regions with lower populations. The effect that this concept has on culture is that it creates the possibility of alteration of cultural norms such as religious practices and creation of new leadership structures and the creation of new cultures from a combination of several different cultures.

When people from different cultural backgrounds live as one for a long time, the creation of new norms that favour a new environment is inevitable. For instance, more than eighty percent of Abu Dhabi’s population consists of expatriates from different countries. Although Abu Dhabi is an Islamic state in nature, over the past few years, it has had to change its social structure to accommodate other cultures and religions. The state has a cathedral that serves as the main centre for worship for its Catholic population.

Under the leadership of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the state allowed multinational corporations from all over the world to invest in the country, bringing with them sources of income for the state’s population and enough labour force to build the nation up to the state it is today. Sheikh Zayed understood that, in order to attract people from other nations to work in Abu Dhabi, the society had to ease up on some of its social and cultural constraints and accommodate other cultures.

Social amenities that came with the expatriate population also had a part to play in the alteration of the social make up of the indigenous Abu Dhabi population. In the 1960s, the area hardly had any schools. However, by 2004, there was an abundance of schools and other social amenities such as hospitals and entertainment centres (Federal Research Division 2).

Currently, although a few societies still maintain their original norms, most societies have adopted some practices from other societies as modifications for practices that prove redundant in application. This may affect the level of uniqueness, but most changes apply out of necessity. The Chinese people, for instance, maintain their unique form of greeting where they bow to show respect but have adopted different cuisines into their diets.

Socialisation

Socialisation is the process that allows the inheritance and transmission of culture from one generation to the next within any given society. The essence of the process is to provide members of the society with skills they need to participate in and belong to the society without feeling out of place.

For instance, children who grow in a particular society and learn the laws that govern that society have an easier time dealing with authority as adults compared to adults moving into the society without prior knowledge of the same laws. Similarly, knowledge of elements such as religion and tradition is advantageous in any society, as it enables individuals relate better to members of a particular society.

A Christian living in an Islamic community would need to learn and adopt Islamic traditions, a process that is easier on children than adults are, as adults tend to have their own opinions as to what they want to do regardless of factors such as tradition. Most of the independent individual views people have on different issues are dependent on society’s perception of the issues. A person’s perception of bad and good or wrong and right depends on a large extent on what society’s viewpoint on the same is.

Theories on socialisation

Various scholars have developed theories that help to explain the concept. For instance, sociologist Lawrence Kohlberg developed a theory on moral development that bases moral reasoning on the stages of an individual’s physical development. According to his theory, there are six stages of moral development, which are divided into three levels namely the pre-conventional level, the conventional level and the post-conventional level (Kohlberg 45).

The first level of moral development happens during a person’s childhood whereby the child’s perception of right and wrong is based on two aspects, reward, and pain. The child equates actions that yield rewards as good and those that cause pain as bad. Kohlberg explains that, due to this ideology, the child becomes egocentric and selfish, elements that later change as he or she grows up.

The second level of moral reasoning happens during a person’s early adulthood or teenage. In this level, an individual will judge what is right from wrong through approval or disapproval from people in society that the individual looks up to such as parents, relatives and authority figures. The need to gain approval from other people in society results in conformity to societal norms and a decline in selfishness.

The last level happens during a person’s adulthood. It is Kohlberg’s opinion that, at this level, individuals begin to questions various issues independent of societal views on them. Aspects such as religion and race are some of the common ones that most individuals question at this level of the development process. It is at this level that people gain individuality and gain the characteristic behaviour that defines them.

However, Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory is not without flaws. One of the main criticisms from scholars is that the theory suggests that everyone has to go through each of these stages and that none of the levels will overlap. In doing so, Kohlberg overlooks factors such as mental disorders that result in slower growth some individuals and genetic capabilities that give others higher cognitive abilities, causing faster growth in some individuals than others do.

Another sociologist, Carol Gilligan, shares the same conceptual idea as Kohlberg on the issue of moral development. She agrees that there are stages in moral development and that the stages are dependent on physical growth and subsequent cognitive abilities. As a former student of Kohlberg, she borrows heavily from his model, including the three levels of growth in her model. However, unlike her former teacher, she notes that Kohlberg’s model is mainly male motivated.

She argues that the model leaves out important considerations that uniquely affect the development of females, as opposed to males. She points out that while males rely on society’s formal rules in the determination of morality, female members of the society also consider emotional aspects such as care and responsibility (Gilligan 41). She explains that these aspects guide most decisions that relate to relationships for the females.

For instance, while a male member of the society may consider some actions wrong and perhaps even irrational, a female member may think that it makes total sense. For instance, a mother would go out of her way to protect her child, regardless of what it takes. To her, protection of her child’s life is justification enough to commit acts that do not conform to societal norms.

Gilligan blames society’s methods of socialisation, as it does not provide enough role models for girls to look up to in the conventional and post conventional levels of the model. According to her, as girls grow up, most of the authority figures in society end up being male that brings doubt to the abilities girls possess and the values society teaches. Gilligan’s argument bears some truth as most societies teach girls that they can be anything they want to be, only to have the girls go through disillusionment by reality when they grow up.

However, it is noteworthy that the current global trends have resulted in the creation of numerous female role models in society. Individuals such as Oprah have risen to the occasion giving girls all over the world hope for better futures. Society’s insistence on gender equality has also made it that girls and boys compete on equal footing as they receive the same educational and job opportunities in life.

George Mead, in discussing the behavioural patterns of people in society creates the concept of self. He argues that individuals develop the self through life experiences, as it is not an innate component for human beings. The key component in his theory is that individuals in society discover how to assume the positions of other individuals. He explains that children learn to take the roles of their parents by imitation and develop the same as they grow up through observation of other members of society.

Due to the cognitive abilities of people at a young age, most individuals are only able to emulate a few people in their childhood and teenage. However, as they become more social, they are able to learn from more people and experiences they go through in life. Mead’s concept explains socialisation through observation and imitation whereby younger members of the society take up the behavioural patterns of older members therefore effecting the transmission of norms from one generation to the other.

The theory also exhibits the element of continuity, as the cycle of learning through observation continues throughout life in the society. The theory would also imply that as globalisation causes many people to move from one place to another and makes interaction easy through technology, there is bound to be confusion as to what acts constitute a society’s norms and/or the ones, which do not.

Modes of socialisation

Throughout history, society has had many ways in which to disseminate culture and transmit it through the generations. The essence has been to create records through which people in various societies remember and store their cultures even as time and circumstances alter some of the norms.

One of the oldest ways was through telling stories, both oral and written. Cave drawing is one of the earliest known forms of written stories that explain the cultures of different societies at a time when formal education was unheard of. Archaeologists have over the years found numerous cave drawings that tell stories about the lives of the people that lived in various societies, their means of livelihood and even historical events such as floods and plagues.

Egyptians, for instance, used hieroglyphics to describe their experiences. The Chinese people used paintings and art on utensils to describe their experiences, telling stories about the seasons of years and cultural festivals. Written stories have however evolved in their nature of documentation thanks to formal education. There are now numerous books filled with encounters from different societies and world events that represent a collective history of various societies.

The oral form of storytelling has remained the same even as technological advancements take over the world. Most parents still prefer to tell stories to their children, some of which have been passed on through the generations. Such stories include fables and myths that tell of heroic individuals and supernatural experiences. Others consist of events that are more current.

The main theme in most stories is that they are tools that teach about the moral values of particular societies, ensuring that the younger generation understands the dynamics that govern the norms within these various societies. This is important, as even though the most of the original components or means of doing things change, the core values remain the same, an aspect that ensures that each society keeps some of the aspects that make it different from others (Engels 27).

Songs are another form through which culture has transcended through generations. Most societies have traditional songs that they sing during special occasions and festivals that remind them of their roots and the core values their ancestors held dear. Although some songs are purely entertaining in nature, others carry moral lessons. Most songs are similar to stories in nature in that their contents are similar, mainly comprising of life experiences and descriptions of events.

However, newer forms of communication brought about by technology have largely eroded the essence of most songs and stories with science fictions movies and songs with no distinct content negating the reason behind the concepts of songs and stories.

Although some of movies such as documentaries still document events and experiences, most of the stories told in movies are purely for entertainment purposes. The development of the internet as a way of relaying information has been helpful in numerous ways. However, it has also changed the culture in most societies regarding the dissemination of information.

Today, it takes personal initiative for anyone hoping to access information about the cultural background. One of the greatest advantages that the internet holds is that anyone can access any information, which makes learning about one’s culture as well as those of other people easier. However, this also presents a disadvantage in that young people can gain access to material that would not be morally correct in most cultures such as pornography.

Conclusion

Over the years, people have studied humanity in a bid to create a better understanding of it. Theorists have formulated different ideologies as to how societies develop. Sociologists in particular, have done their bit in the study of culture and elements that influence it. There are various theories that explain the concepts of culture and socialisation.

They help scholars understand human interaction and its effects. Studying the relationship between the two concepts also helps people understand their importance in the continuity and uniqueness of societies. Culture is a versatile concept that changes when it interacts with external elements such as technology, international trade and population growth.

Works Cited

Engels, Friedrich. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. New York: Penguin Classics, 1986. Print.

Federal Research Division. United Arab Emirates: A Country Study. Montana: Kessinger Publishing, 2004. Print.

Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. New York: Kindle publishing, 2003. Print.

Kohlberg, Lawrence. The meaning and measurement of moral development. London: Routledge, 1981. Print.

Miller, Daniel. Material Culture and Mass Consumption. London: Blackwell, 1987. Print.

Wolf, Eric. “Perilous Ideas: Race, Culture, People.” Current Anthropology 35.1(1994): 1-12. Print.

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