Discussion Question: How has the meaning of “culture” changed over time? What does it mean to you and what does it mean to our society in modern times?
Reading Reflection: Solid one-page reflection paper about your thoughts on the reading. This could include a brief summary and your opinion. There are not many guidelines or format (e.g., APA, MLS style) for these weekly reading reflection assignments. But please use 12 point font, Times New Roman, and don’t get ridiculous with the margin settings.
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A History of Culture (or, A Story About Stories)
Lecture 1
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
• Early Uses of
Culture
• Early 19th-Century “Culture”
• Culture as civilization
• Culture as high art
•
Late 19th-Century “Culture”
• Culture as a non-material realm of thinking and acting
• Marx’s use of “culture”
• 20th-Century “Culture”
• Emile Durkheim & Max Weber
• Culture as autonomous (and cultural researchers as value-neutral)
• Culture as
Performance
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Cultura
• Latin: “Tend, care, cultivate”
particularly in regard to agri
culture
• “Cult” from Latin “cultus”: “care,
labor, cultivation, worship”
• First used around 1500 as a
metaphor for education: tending,
caring for, cultivating the mind
• Both agriculture and worship are
uniquely human actions, requiring
knowledge and complex
communication
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Early 19th-Century
“Culture”
• Culture was primarily identified with
“civilization”
– A “civilized” politics, religion,
food, social interaction,
architecture, landscape, art
– Refinement (intentionality,
reason)
– Complexity (skilled technique,
required a lot of background
knowledge)
– Human/nature divide
– Non-European societies and
lower-class Europeans were
considered to be without culture
and therefore uncivilized
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Early 19th-Century
“Culture”
• Culture was further identified with a
defining feature of civilization: art
• To be “cultured” meant to
understand and discern high art
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Late 19th-Century “Culture”
• Scholars began to use
“culture” to refer to a
realm of ideas and actions
informed by ideas
• Culture came to be
synonymous with “world
view”
• But it still allowed for
“higher” and “lower”
worldviews
Johann Gottfried Herder,
1744-1803
Wilhelm von Humboldt,
1767-1835
Herbert Spencer,
1820-1903
Edward Tyler, 1832-1917
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
• Karl Marx adopted this view of culture as a non-
material realm of ideas and idea-inspired actions
• But for Marx, culture was determined by things he
considered to be more fundamental: labor, material
production, relationships between workers and owners
Late 19th-Century “Culture”: Karl Marx
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Late 19th-Century “Culture”
Superstructure
Base
Art
politics
religion
entertainment
Economy
Finance
Agriculture
Manufacturing
Material Production
Late 19th-Century “Culture”: Marx
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Late 19th-Century “Culture”
Superstructure
Base
Art
politics
religion
entertainment
Economy
Finance
Agriculture
Manufacturing
Material Production
Reflected the interests of
the upper classes
Owned and controlled
by the upper classes
Late 19th-Century “Culture”: Marx
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Late 19th-Century “Culture”
Superstructure
Base
Art
politics
religion
entertainment
Economy
Finance
Agriculture
Manufacturing
Material Production
Makes the interests of the upper-classes
seem natural and inevitable
Late 19th-Century “Culture”: Marx
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Late 19th-Century “Culture”
Superstructure
Base
Art
politics
religion
entertainment
Economy
Finance
Agriculture
Manufacturing
Material Production
Makes the interests of the upper-classes
seem natural and inevitable
Creates “false consciousness”: An
acceptance of the dominant culture
(which makes the lower classes
happy with the system that keeps
them poor and powerless).
Late 19th-Century “Culture”: Marx
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Late 19th-Century “Culture”: Marx
Superstructure
Base
Art
politics
religion
entertainment
Economy
Finance
Agriculture
Manufacturing
Material Production
“Demystification”
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Marxian views of contemporary culture?
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Superstructure
Base
Art
politics
religion
entertainment
Economy
Finance
Agriculture
Manufacturing
Material Production
Marxian/Materialist
View of Culture
X Culture
Production Science
Finance
Education
Politics
Durkheimian/Autonomous
View of Culture
20th-Century “Culture”: Émile Durkheim
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Superstructure
Base
Art
politics
religion
entertainment
Economy
Finance
Agriculture
Manufacturing
Material Production
Marxian/Materialist
View of Culture
20th-Century “Culture”: Émile Durkheim
Culture is determined
by the economy
What do we mean when we say “culture is autonomous”?
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Culture
Production Science
Finance
Education
Politics
Durkheimian/Autonomous
View of Culture
20th-Century “Culture”: Émile Durkheim
Culture is not completely
determined by any one
aspect of social life
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
20th-Century “Culture”: Émile Durkheim
Culture
Finance
Collective
Conscience
Social
Facts
Ritual
Sacred/
Profane
Social
Solidarity
• Individuals do not exist in isolation; they
are always inherently connected to a
society
• They are connected through
cultural representations (ideas and
ideals, symbolic objects, ritual
acts, stories)
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
20th-Century “Culture”: Émile Durkheim
Culture
Finance
Collective
Conscience
Social
Facts
Ritual
Sacred/
Profane
Social
Solidarity
• “Collective Conscience”: “the body of
beliefs and sentiments common to the
average member of a society
• “Social Facts”: ways of thinking/
acting that are produced and
restrained by the collective
conscience
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
20th-Century “Culture”: Émile Durkheim
Culture
Finance
Collective
Conscience
Social
Facts
Ritual
Sacred/
Profane
Social
Solidarity
• Culture is seen as a glue that holds
society together
• Culture is made up of fundamental
binaries (sacred/profane; clean/dirty;
male/female) that allowed societies to
order themselves
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
What would Durkheim say about Undercover Boss?
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
20th-Century Culture: Max Weber
Art
politics
religion
entertainment
Material Production
Economy
Finance
Agriculture
Manufacturing
Superstructure
Base
Art
politics
religion
entertainment
Economy
Finance
Agriculture
Manufacturing
Material ProductionX
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
20th-Century Culture: Max Weber
Art
politics
religion
entertainment
Material Production
Economy
Agriculture
Manufacturing
Meaning
Access meaning through verstehen
(understanding or interpretation):
This requires the observer to try to reconstruct
the subjective meanings that influenced a
particular line of action
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
20th-Century Culture: Max Weber
• In order to understand any
human action, cultural meaning
must be understood
• Cultural meaning can only be
understood through
interpretation
– Descriptive understanding
– Explanatory understanding
Art
politics
religion
entertainment
Material Production
Economy
Agriculture
Manufacturing
Meaning
through
Verstehen
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
So, what exactly is culture?
Education/Cultivation?
Civilization?
Great art?
Worldview?
Superstructure?
Social glue?
Meaning?
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Culture is both macro- and micro
• Durkheim: Culture was about macro social cohesion
• Weber: Culture was about meaning and verstehen; it was about
subjective (micro) motivation for individuals
• Contemporary cultural research is concerned with combining
macro- and micro- perspectives into a unifying concept of
“cultural performance”
So, what exactly is culture?
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Culture is a PERFORMANCE that
allows us to understand and give
meaning to ourselves and the world
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Culture-as-performance allows us to
keep in view the fact that culture is
both micro and macro…
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Performance
Cultural Binaries Background Scripts Narrative (story)
Enacting a piece of a larger story
Fundamental ideas that
order humans’ relationship
to each other and the world
Example:
clean/dirty
masculine/feminine
sacred/profane
Larger themes that relate back
to more fundamental ideas
Example:
Civilization
Freedom
Success
Stories that
relate in simple
and complex ways
to larger themes
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Background Culture
(Stories, Themes,
Binaries)
What is performance? How does it work?
Actor’s
Performance
Audience
Reception
➫
Cultural Fusion
Interpretation
➫
Communication
➬
Psychological Identification
➬
Cathexis
Social Power
mise-en-scéne = “putting into place”
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Is performance real or fake?
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Is performance real or fake?
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Is performance real or fake?
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Background Culture
(Stories, Themes,
Binaries)
Actor’s
Performance
Audience
Reception
mise-en-scéne = “putting into place”
Performances are neither real nor fake
They are either successful (fused) or unsuccessful (de-fused)
Misinterpretation
Social Power
Miscommunication
Alienation/DistanceCynical/False/Inauthentic
relation to background
culture
Cultural De-Fusion
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
Background Culture
(Stories, Themes,
Binaries)
Actor’s
Performance
Audience
Reception
mise-en-scéne =
“putting into place”
Misinterpretation
Social Power
Miscommunication
Alienation/DistanceCynical/False/Inauthentic
relation to background
culture
Cultural De-Fusion
In modernity, cultural performances
are much more tenuous
Why?
In modern world, background cultures and audiences are
extremely diverse
Eastern Washington University
CSBS 310
