ISS 210 1st Edition Lecture 15Outline of Last Lecture I. SanctionsII. Social Relations as Potential III. ReciprocityIV. Levi-Strauss on Exchange V. Time of Obligation VI. Types of ReciprocityVII. Balanced Reciprocity Outline of Current Lecture I. Apollonian Pueblo IndiansII. Dionysian Plains Indians III. Mississippian AgriculturalistsIV. High Plains CultureV. Cheyenne/Comanche CourtshipVI. Cultural ConvergenceVII. Sun Dance and Buffalo Hunt (1845)VIII. Cultural InterferenceIX. Cultural PersistenceX. Rebus Principle XI. KanjiXII. Cultural CrystallizationXIII. MorimentoXIV. Belief, Ritual and ConformityXV. Signs and SymbolsCurrent LectureI. Apollonian Pueblo Indians– Marked distrust of individualism and high levels of self control– Agriculture required irrigation requires cooperation and communal organization– Took these traits as cultural “givens” and never tried to understand why they developed as they didII. Dionysian Plains Indians– Self related, emotionally expressive and individualist – Warfare led to a military complex preparing young males for battle and honor by “counting coup” III. Mississippian Agriculturalists– Crops include corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, gourds, and tobacco– Provided a dependable food supply and allowed densely populated settlements, requiring more complex forms of social organization based on classIV. High Plains Culture– Patterns didn’t develop ex nihilo but adapted pre existing organization to new environment – Leadership reflected origins– Formal: grow and Cheyenne– Informal: Comanche– Interpersonal– In-group hostility repressed; within tribe murder punished: Cheyenne – In-group hostility expressed; within tribe murder led to revenge: ComancheV. Cheyenne/Comanche Courtship– Tendency to conserve and defend establishment cultural practice. An act is not “proper” because it is adaptive but because it is customary and “natural”– Some prior cultural traits survived which while not specifically adapted to the life on the plains were not maladaptive either– The comanch viewed sex casually. A young man only had to remain in the tent with his “betrothed” to be discovered and “invited to breakfast” by her fatherVI. Cultural Convergence– Cheyenne were Algonquin Indians who had lived in agricultural settlements until they moved onto the Great Plains and adopted common “plains” culture based on the horse and buffalo VII. Sun Dance and Buffalo Hunt (1845)– Individual action was essential to group survival, Benedict saw this as extravagance and displayVIII. Cultural Interference– We internalized cultural rules viscerally– Yoruba etiquette concerning a public display of affection/violation privacy his and theirs – Public display of affection in Dubai – Cultural Interference. Habits and behaviors that are in grained and performed without thinking– Ethnocentrism is a high valuation placed on ones own culture and disparagement of other peoples cultureIX. Cultural Persistence– Cultural practices persist due to habit and the dead weight of custom rather than any inherent advantage– Language interference – habits of our first language– Systems are integrated; being the first makes change more difficult as new technologies emerge– Integration – a custom or process is firmly embedded in a cultural matrix that it cannot be removed without adversely affecting other institutions– Rested interests – who benefits from a change? X. Rebus Principle – Uses the existing symbols, such as pictograms, purely for their sounds regardless of their meaning, to represent new wordsXI. Kanji– Cultural loss since young people could not read the old script – 1006 characters by 6th grade– Aesthetics: poetry, verse & calligraphy intimately bound – Inconvenience of change over for those who’ve mastered it Nationalism: script tied to people’s identity vs. a “foreign script” XII. Cultural Crystallization– When a cultural need emerges (the fluid period) and a new behavior arises to meet it, the new behavior even if less than perfect is very hard to displace because a whole complex of behaviors may arise around it – The first Spanish colonists came from the south of Spain, most immigrants came from the north but they came later after the institutional arrangements were in place. – Once established practices are difficult to dislodge XIII. Morimento– Gan’s 1962 study of a West End Italian American neighborhood found a Mediterranean love of life on a city street and a rejection of a well intended trip for West End children tothe shore of Cape CodXIV. Belief, Ritual and Conformity– People may adhere to social customs and not having thought about them offer secondary rationalizations when asked why do you do this?– Men’s shirt buttons and women’s– People may express themselves symbolically without being aware of the meaning of the symbols– The meaning of actions and things exist socially and like words in language mean what the audience, not the speaker intends.– Symbols are ambiguous; they can mean different things to different people– Belief or conformity? XV. Signs and Symbols– Refine the definition – A symbol is something whose meaning is bestowed it upon it by those who use it– A sign is a representation of a tangible (object)– Signs name things– A word is a reference for a physical object or actions– A symbol is a physical object or an action that represents an intangible or metaphysical referent (idea) – Symbols are bipolar: one end grounded in the physical, the other in the realm of idea– We physically encounter symbols (ritually) and through them experience the idea or belief behind