Cultural Content, Beliefs, and Values in Society

Cultural Content

No institution, social event, or human relationship can be understood properly unless we take into account the expectations, ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge involved. Everywhere people act on the basis of their knowledge and belief, and if anything is culturally defined or believed to be real, it is real in its consequences. Our actions and beliefs are not sharply separated; our social life is constituted in a consistent and orderly way and, to some extent, is understandable and predictable, both for those who live it and those who observe it. Thus, in our social actions, what is thought to be treated as real is real, and that treatment helps to confirm the reality.

When we talk about the ideas in society, we are talking about the system of beliefs and values shared by its members. This includes both the concepts of what is and the concept of what should be. Both aspects are inseparable.

The structure of ideas includes technical and instrumental knowledge, that is, a set of procedures and categories governed by the value of efficiency and used to achieve a certain goal. To implement some technical knowledge, you need tools and instruments. By contrast, other skills do not require their use. Although at first glance it is not obvious, techniques are much more important than tools, since they include the social knowledge learned to make tools. We must not forget that all techniques are directed toward a specific purpose and are considered effective within their social and cultural context. Do not forget that skills are attached to the belief system of a society and that instrumental and expressive aspects are inseparable.

Beliefs and Ideologies

Every culture provides its individuals with explicit and implicit responses to questions like: What is the world? How has it come to be this way? What is the relationship between humans and the world? With these questions and their answers, we move into the complex world of beliefs, that is, the ideas we have about the environment, the place of humans in the universe, the relationships that exist between people, etc.

Beliefs

Beliefs are developed historically and socially transmitted. Some of these beliefs are very specific and relate to one or another aspect of world events that affect us or others. These sets of beliefs are called domains (e.g., the concept of power, a belief about authority).

Other beliefs relate to differences between the different domains. Within a culture, beliefs tend to form a relatively coherent system; they are reasonable with each other and are mutually reinforcing. This does not mean that there are no contradictions between beliefs or that belief systems are totally integrated, but they show a tendency toward internal consistency.

Some beliefs are shared by almost all members of society. Other beliefs are specific to one or another sub-group or social category, and others are supported by some individuals. Each of these belief systems is at different levels:

  • When it is shared by the vast majority, it is called ideology.

  • When beliefs are shared by a group smaller than the majority, it is called a sub-culture.

  • When the belief system is primarily individual, it is often called an aspect of personality.

Ideology

In our modern intellectual history, the term “ideology” has become common, not only in everyday use but also in the social sciences.

Nowadays, this concept has a dominant negative connotation, making ideology something judgmental, abnormal, and derogatory. Today, this concept often applies to groups or individuals considered rigid in their opinions and therefore always in error.

Ideology can be understood as the part of culture actively concerned with defending and establishing patterns of belief and value.

Ideology is a cultural system, as are science and religion. These cultural systems convey information about the structures of different situations that occur, but the information that comes through is different even if the situation is the same.

Ideology is the social dimension of support, science is the diagnostic dimension, culture is the critical dimension, and religion is the transcendental and saving dimension.

In all societies, it is a fact that most people manage to live their lives with a fragile ideology usually referred to as mentality. This does not mean that people have no beliefs or social values, but that the ideology of these people is implicit in the social roles they play and the institutions they are involved in.

Systematic ideologies emerge in times of conflict and tension when the opinions and rules of common life are questioned, and there are no alternative models to address a social problem.

There is also consistency between the different structures of ideology, as well as belief.

The Values and Social Norms
Values

Along with beliefs are ideas about what should be, i.e., values. These do not refer to the objective qualities that things can have but rather to relational qualities (value for someone). It follows that values are within the world of selective behavior of each people.

Values are conceptions of the desirable, influencing the selective behavior of individuals. This definition distinguishes between desired and desirable, identifying the desirable with what ought to be desired.

A value is anything that matters to a human. Humans are not indifferent to the world; explicitly or implicitly, they consider things, acts, etc., as good or bad, true or false, virtuous or vicious.

Values serve as our selection criteria for our actions. People prefer one thing or another, select one type of action or another, and judge the behavior of others and themselves based on values.

Values are states of mind, not things or objects. They provide the basis for acceptance or rejection of social norms.

When we talk about values, we speak of those that are institutionalized, those with which the vast majority of the members of a society agree. It refers to moral, aesthetic, and ethical values that characterize our socio-cultural system. Values held by members of a society tend to form a coherent system.

We should not confuse values with norms. Social norms are rules for individuals to behave in a certain way. They arise from values, beliefs, and ideologies and tell us what we should or should not do in specific circumstances. These social norms can be divided into four main sections:

  • Popular uses: conventional practices accepted as appropriate but not required.

  • Customs: rules enacted from an ethical point of view.

  • Habits: include usages established by time, those practices that have become accepted as forms of conduct. They are sanctioned by tradition and are supported by the pressure of group opinion.

  • Laws: rules established by those who wield political power, and their obligation is secured by coercive state bodies.

The Symbols and Communication

Human beings live in a world of meaning, and all human meaning is accessible to others.

Some meanings are more accessible to us than others. In addition, there are meanings that are taken for granted in our daily lives, but there are others that characterize other human groups or societies. Access to these latter meanings is not so easy to get. To understand another culture, we need “specific processes of initiation.”

The ways and channels through which we communicate are disparate and complex, but the most complex type of human communication is that which we do with expressive actions that serve as signals, signs, and symbols.

  • In a signal, the transmitted message and the identity of its carrier are aspects of the same process.

  • In a sign, the relationship between the transmitted message and the carrier is metonymic identity. Literally, the sign is a literary trope.

  • In a symbol, the relationship is metaphorical. The significance goes far beyond a particular social context. Symbols summarize and order the beliefs and values held by the members of society. On the other hand, they shape and direct the development of new knowledge within the group. And finally, they tend to ensure the continuity of old traditions.

Symbols or their systems can be considered as external sources of information since they are extrapersonal mechanisms by which we perceive, understand, judge, and manipulate the world.

At the same time, they are also internal sources of information because symbols provide us with a structure for the organization of organic processes, cultural patterns, religious beliefs, etc.

In short, they provide us with a template for the organization of social and psychological processes.

An important feature is that using symbols and patterns of symbols facilitates the objectification, retention, and accumulation of human experience. This is a selective accumulation, under which form what is called a social gathering of knowledge that is transmitted from generation to generation.

Another feature of symbolic phenomena lies in their ability to be shared; they are tangible formulations of knowledge, abstractions from our experience. Ultimately, their public nature gives concrete form to ideas, attitudes, judgments, or beliefs. From this, we can say that symbolic forms are social events.

Another important feature is that symbols give people a way to represent abstract ideas (love, power, solidarity, authority, etc.) that are important for the people we represent but are very difficult to grasp otherwise.

Symbolism is eminently expressive, a way of saying something, and therefore must be understood in terms of the meanings it transmits. Whenever we say something symbolically, it is because it is considered worthwhile to say; this is another important characteristic of symbols. What is symbolized is always something of value. Hence, people’s attitudes towards their symbols are rarely neutral; they always contain a greater or lesser emotional charge. This is because there is a tendency for the value attached to what is symbolized to be transferred to the symbol itself, so that the symbol, not the implicit notion that it symbolizes, becomes a special object of veneration or hatred.

We must bear in mind the instrumental aspect of symbols. As well as expressing ideas, beliefs, and values, they also have social consequences for individuals and social groups.

Semiotics and Material Culture

Symbols are not only expressed through language or writing; material objects and aspects of behavior are also used to generate and/or transmit cultural meanings and can become carriers of messages.

The codes that allow us to easily recognize what a person represents vary widely from culture to culture. As symbols, material objects and aspects of behavior have meaning only within a particular culture.

These materials are symbols that semiotics, a science that studies cultural meanings nonverbally, is concerned with. It is a very broad field studied within sociology and allows us to easily compare one culture to another.

Since cultural meanings are expressed with symbols, semiotic systems allow us to compare how different cultures, distant in time and space, are constructed.

This shows how society undergoes movements that reveal the profound transformation that values and interests will undergo within a society.

Along with this, we will talk about the semiotics of material culture. Material culture is not only symbolic but allows us to capture the major differences between various human cultures.

Material culture consists of those material things that humans have created, developed, and utilized, ranging from the tools of prehistoric humans to the most advanced machines of modern humans.

To describe cultural objects as such, it is necessary to know their uses, the attitudes people have towards them, and the values assigned to them. It is also necessary to know the body of knowledge and skills required to use them.