Major Aspects of Culture

Culture is Problematic

We have now introduce you to a widely accepted definition of national culture and given you a template for studying the values of these cultures. The are, however, still numerous problematic aspects about culture.

-         Culture is not universally accepted notion, and the are the great many different ways to define it. However, all but the most exotic definitions include, as we do, the sense the culture pertains to the social world; it determines how groups of people structure their lives.

-          Once you begin to considering culture, there is the problem of knowing where to stop. Do you include all value-related sources such as demographics, status  levels, affiliations, and identities, or do you limit yourself to one or two cat-egories? In this book, empirical data on national cultures are a starting point. National cultures constitute the social fabric in which each individual has a place. Ethnic or regional subcultures can function in a way that is analogous to national culture, but they do not usually have school systems, legal systems, and other social institutions that nations employ to reinforce their dominant value system. Profesianal, corporate, or age-related subcultures are usually no more than variations in the fabric of national culture. These subcultural groups can have their own heroes, symbols, and rituals, but they share the values of the national culture in which their operate.

-          These is also the questions of who decides what the rules are for any given culture and who is the legitimate interpreter of those rules. Of course, these rules are emergent in social interacion, they are forever reinventing and reinterpreting themselves, and the final word on them can never be said.

-          Culture only  manifest itself through social action that always takes place in a changing context. For instance, political events or technological advances can drastically change the context in which people live. A change in context does not, however, in itself constitute a change in culture, through it puts pressure on culture. The effects of culture and context are not easily separable. It is easy to misinterpret a context effect for a culture effect, or vice versa. One can see culture’s consequences everywhere or nowhere.

-          Because culture is so complex and dynamic, problem of reliability and validity make it very difficult to measure.

-          Perhaps most profoundly, persons who are members of a culture may not be able to describe that culture accurately and articulately in a way that would be accepted by another person who is also a member of the same culture, or understood by a person who is not a member of that culture. Value system are implicit, and values defy concious reflections.

To sum of , the social nature of culture makes it a somewhat elusive phenomenon.