INTRODUCTION
‘Wonders’ they say, shall never end.
In affirmation to this, over the ages, man wondered, now; wonders and will
always wonder on the nature of his existence. In recent times, many attempts
have been made towards defining the nature of man. Man, however is a
paradoxical being. He is a being of different personalities. In attempts to
question the nature of his being, he tends to be both the question and the
questioner. He can never be fully defined, because he is a being in potentials.
His nature unfolds gradually as days pass into years. It is for this very
reason that man is a paradoxical ambiguity or mystery. Man, no doubt has the
power of comprehending the entire universe through his gaze, yet he is unable
to fathom himself as to who he is. Simply put, man is more than what he seems
to be.
Furthermore,
truth about human nature is not something already determined which we discover
as a solitary investigator examining an external object or a pre-determined
body of knowledge. Such truth comes into realization in some social phenomena.
One of these social phenomena is ‘culture’. Culture to an extent defines man.
The culture of a man says much about his being. It shapes man. Culture defines
everything that man does and how he does it, in the process of self-fulfilment.
Culture can be said to be the method of the self-realisation of the individual
and society, the measure of the development of both. In other words, human
potentials can only be realised within the structure of human culture and through
growing up in close contact with other humans.
However, the concept ‘culture’ can
be grouped under two divisions with various aspects with each division. The two
divisions include; Material and non-material culture. Material culture refers
to the physical objects and resources that people use to define their culture.
These include: homes, schools, churches, plants, tools/technology etc. on the
other hand, non-material culture refers to the non-physical ideas that people
have about their culture. For instance: beliefs, values, rules, norms, morals,
language, organizations and institutions. All these material and non-material
aspects of culture help to define its members’ behaviours and perceptions. However,
this academic research paper attempts to discuss in concrete terms the
normative aspect of culture, which belongs to the non-material kind of culture.
EXPLICATION OF TERMS
CULTURE
Culture is an extremely broad
concept. To sociologists, culture is made up of all of the ideas, beliefs, behaviours,
and products common to, and defining, a group’s way of life. Culture
encompasses everything humans create and have as they interact together. Etymologically
speaking, the term ‘culture’ is coined from the Latin word ‘cultura’ meaning
‘to cultivate’. In sum it means cultivating and refining a thing to such an
extent that its end product evokes our admiration and respect. From a layman’s
sense, it is the people’s way of life. Among scholars of long ages, attempts
have been made towards defining culture. According to Edward Tylor, “culture is
the complex whole which includes knowledge, belief art, morals, law, custom and
other capabilities acquired by man as a member of the society.”[1]
In other words, it is a total way of life of a group of people and their complete
design for living. Still flowing in the same ocean of thought, Alfred Kroeber
sees culture as a mass of learned and transmitted motor reactions, habits and
techniques, ideas and values and the behaviour they induce. However, from the
above definition, it is evident that culture is shared, learned, symbolic,
transmitted cross-generational, adaptive and integrated. Thus, all culture is
learned: none is inherited and it is passed on from one generation to the next.
In today’s world, understanding both
our similarities and our diversity becomes increasingly important. However,
culture is what binds us together as human beings, but also separates us into
our different communities. On this note, culture can be seen as the totality of
what a group of people think, how they behave, and what they produce that is
passed on to future generations. Similarly, it can also be seen as a collective
programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category
of people from another.
In another vein, culture is seen in
people’s writing, religion, music, clothes, cooking and in what they do. With
this perspective, culture can be said to be the beliefs and values of the
people and the ways they think about and understand the world and their own
lives. In other words, culture is expressed by different ways of talking,
different types of music and different types of dances, different kinds of
food, types of clothes, how we think, how we act, what we value, the
organizations we create, the laws we make, how and what we worship, and what we
think of as beautiful or ugly. Conversely, culture also tends to express who an
individual is and where he came from. Simply put, culture is more or less a
symbol through which an individual or group of people is identified and grouped
into a class. In other words, culture is often used to refer specifically to
the symbolic markers used by ethnic groups to distinguish themselves visibly
from each other such as body modification, clothing or jewellery.
Conclusively, culture has many
definitions and it affects every thing people do in their society because of
their ideas, values, attitudes and normative or expected pattern of behaviour.
Culture is not genetically inherited and cannot exist on its own, but is always
shared by members of a society. Culture is a complex concept and no single
definition of it has achieved consensus in literature. So out of the many
possible definition examined, the following definitions guide this study.
Culture consists of the derivatives of
experience, more or less organized, learned or created by the individuals of a
population including those images or encodements and their interpretations
(meanings) transmitted from past generations from contemporaries, or formed by
individuals themselves.[2]
On another note, it is “the
collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group
or category of people from another.”[3]
Seen from another perspective, culture is “…the set of attitudes, values,
beliefs, and behaviours shared by a group of people, but different for each
individual, communicated from one generation to the next.”[4]
In a more detailed manner;
Culture is a fuzzy set of basic assumptions
and values, orientations to life, beliefs, policies, procedures and behavioural
conventions that are shared by a group of people, and that influence (but do
not determine) each member’s behaviour and his/her interpretations of the
meaning of other people’s behaviour.[5]
NORM
According
to oxford advance learner’s dictionary, norm is the standard of behaviour that
is typical of or accepted within a particular group or society. Norms are
cultural products (including values, customs and traditions) which represent
individuals’ basic knowledge of what others do and think that they should do.
From the sociological perspective, norm can be described as informal
understandings that govern individuals’ behaviour in society. It can exist as
collective representation of acceptable group conduct as well as individual
perceptions of particular group conduct. Simply put, norm in social perspective
aims at maintaining order and organizing the groups involved. It works to
promote a great deal of social control. Furthermore, social norms also allow an
individual to assess what behaviours the group deems important to its existence
or survival, since they represent a codification of belief; groups generally do
not punish members or create norms over actions which they care little about.
On the idea of norm, Talcot Parsons
of the functionalist school opines that norm dictates the interactions of
people in all social encounters. On the other hand, Karl Marx believed that
norms are used to promote the creation of roles in society which allows for
people of different levels of social class structure to be able to function
properly. Marx claims that this power dynamic creates social order. From the
layman’s perspective, norm can be said to be an ideal standard or model or
correct way of doing something.
In its adjectival form, ‘Normative’
has specialized meanings in different academic disciplines. In philosophy,
normative statements make claims about how things should or ought to be, how to
value them, which things are good or bad, and which actions are right or wrong.
Normative claims are usually contrasted with positive claims when describing
types of theories, beliefs or propositions. Positive statements are factual
statements that attempt to describe reality. Normative statements and norms as
well as their meanings, are an integral part of human life. They are
fundamental for prioritizing goals and organizing and planning thought, belief,
emotion and political discourse; indeed normativity is arguably the key feature
distinguishing ethical and political discourse from other discourses. On
another note, normative economics deals with questions of what sort of economic
policies should be pursued, in order to achieve desired (that is valued)
economic outcomes.
Conclusively, norms are attitudes
and behaviours common to members of a particular group or what they believe is
‘normal’. For example, we have norms about how we speak. Our choice of words,
our tone, and our body language are all norm-based. Thus, nearly everything in
human society is governed by norms of some kind.
NORMATIVE ASPECT OF CULTURE
Normative aspect of culture consists
of a set of norms. These norms are ideas on all aspects of a society. Norms
suggest what is right to the people who live them. On the other hand, culture
is the totality of people's way of life. This includes how they eat, dress,
sing, worship, cook, etc. Culture however is not restricted to that which is
right. When people behave in the wrong way and make it their habit,
consequently it is their culture. The idea of norm in culture comes into play
only when that which is right is done. Norm depicts the right action, what
ought to be. Culture as a norm tends to cut across societies because it is the
right thing, though in some cases some norms differ dramatically from one
culture to the next. In other words, some cultures differ widely in their norms
or standards and expectations for behaving. An evidence
for cultural variation in norms comes from the study of how men and women are
expected to behave in various societies. For example, many preindustrial
societies are simple hunting and gathering societies. In most of these, men
tend to hunt and women tend to gather. Many observers attribute this gender
difference to at least two biological differences between the sexes. First, men
tend to be bigger and stronger than women and are thus better suited for
hunting. Second, women become pregnant and bear children and are less able to
hunt. Yet a different pattern emerges in some hunting and gathering societies.
Among a group of Australian aborigines called the Tiwi and a tribal society in
the Philippines called the Agta, both sexes hunt. After becoming pregnant, Agta
women continue to hunt for most of their pregnancy and resume hunting after
their child is born.
Furthermore,
norm is an important aspect of a culture. It is often divided into three types:
Law, mores and folkways. Laws are more or less advanced mores. Typical example
of it is the national constitution. Violation of it attracts sanction by a
constituted authority. On the other hand, mores- a term coined by the American
Sociologist William Graham Sumner, refer to the standards of behaviour
considered the important in any society. In other words, they are strongly held
norms. They represent deeply held standards of what is right and wrong.
Prohibitions on murder, robbery, and assault are all examples of mores across
many cultures. Mores are considered morally significant breaches and are often
formalized as laws. For this reason, punishment for violations of mores can be
severe, involving sanctions such as arrest or imprisonment. Some mores are so
strongly held they have been termed taboos, norms that are so objectionable
that they are strictly forbidden. Taboos are often things considered
unthinkable in a culture. Common examples include incest and cannibalism.
On another note, is the 'should
behaviours'. They are what Sumner called 'Folk-ways'- conventional ways of
doing things that are not defined as crucial to the survival of either the
individual or the society. Folkways refer to standards of behaviour that are
considered less important but still influence how we behave. Folkways are weak
norms that are often informally passed down from previous generations. They
often deal with everyday behaviours and manners. Most folkways are not written
down and enumerated. They are the type of things that most of us learn from
others to do or not to do. We learn from direct guidance and reinforcement.
Parents teach children to share their toys and reward them with hugs and
smiles. We also learn folkways through encountering others' reactions. People
react perhaps with stares or avoidance when we act inappropriately. Violations
of folkways are not considered severe breaches of great moral significance.
Generally, no serious negative social sanctions (e.g., arrest) result when a
folkway is broken. The reaction to a person who violates a folkway may be as
minor as ignoring the behaviour. Failing to say “thank you” may be considered
rude, but will not result in some harsh penalty for norm violation. We find
folkways governing our behaviour throughout our lives. They govern situations
that are familiar to large segments of the population and smaller groups. For
example, folkways govern Christmas gift-giving behaviour. These norms are not
written down anywhere, but they are “thoroughly familiar” to participants in
the gift-exchange process.
Conclusively, norms in every culture
create conformity that allows for people to become socialized to the culture in
which they live. The normative aspect of culture is all about the expectations
shared by members of a group that specify behaviour that is considered
appropriate for a given situation.
CONCLUSION
Basically, culture is the people's
way of life. Their way of life can be of appropriate conduct or inappropriate
conduct. Either of the two, it still remains their culture. However, with the
idea of social order, man tends to seek for order and serenity in the society.
This is done to curtail inappropriate conducts in the people's way of life. In
light of the above, there is need to induce the idea of norm in culture. Norms
therefore, are expectations about appropriate conduct which serve as common
guideline for social action. Conclusively, the idea of norm in culture implies
the presence
of
legitimacy, consent and prescription while deviation from norms is punished by
sanctions. Thus normative culture is a necessity in our society.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Tylor, E.B. Primitive Culture: Research into the Development of Mythology,
Philosophy, Religion, Art,
Custom. New York: Gordon Press, 1974.
Schwartz, T.
1992; cited by K. Avruch, Culture &
Conflict Resolution. Washington DC: United
States Institute of Peace press. 1998.
Hofstede,
G., Cultures & Organizations:
Software of the Mind. London: Harper Collins Business, 1994.
Matsumoto,
D., Culture & Psychology. Pacific
Grove: CA, Brooks/cole. 1996.
Oatey,
S., Culturally Speaking. Culture
Communication & Politeness theory,2nd Edition. London: Continum Publishers, 2008.
Abercrombie,
S., & Co. The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. Penguin Publishers. London, 2000.
[1]E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture: Research into the Development of Mythology,
Philosophy, Religion, Art, Custom. (New York: Gordon Press, 1974),p.1.
[2]T. Schwartz 1992; cited by K. Avruch, Culture & Conflict Resolution. (Washington DC: United States
Institute of Peace press. 1998), p.17.
[3]G. Hofstede, Cultures &
Organizations: Software of the Mind. (London: Harper Collins Business,
1994), p.5.
[4]D. Matsumoto, Culture &
Psychology. (Pacific Grove: CA, Brooks/cole. 1996), p16.
[5]S. Oatey, Culturally Speaking.
Culture Communication & Politeness theory,2nd Edition.
(London: Continum Publishers, 2008), p.3.
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