Movies Art and Music Are Examples of This Material Culture Culture Nonmaterial Culture Subculture

Learning Objectives

Past the stop of this section, yous will be able to:

• Discuss the roles of both high culture and pop culture within society
• Differentiate between subculture and counterculture
• Explain the role of innovation, invention, and discovery in culture
• Sympathize the function of cultural lag and globalization in cultural change

It may seem obvious that there are a multitude of cultural differences between societies in the world. After all, nosotros can easily see that people vary from one society to the next. It'south natural that a young woman from rural Kenya would have a very unlike view of the earth from an elderly man in Mumbai—1 of the most populated cities in the world. Additionally, each culture has its ain internal variations. Sometimes the differences between cultures are non nearly as large as the differences inside cultures.

High Culture and Pop Culture

Do y'all prefer listening to opera or hip hop music? Do y'all like watching horse racing or NASCAR? Do you read books of poetry or celebrity magazines? In each pair, one type of entertainment is considered high-brow and the other low-brow. Sociologists apply the term high civilisation to describe the blueprint of cultural experiences and attitudes that exist in the highest grade segments of a society. People frequently associate loftier culture with intellectualism, political power, and prestige. In America, high culture also tends to be associated with wealth. Events considered high civilization can exist expensive and formal—attention a ballet, seeing a play, or listening to a alive symphony performance.

The term popular culture refers to the design of cultural experiences and attitudes that exist in mainstream club. Popular culture events might include a parade, a baseball game, or the season finale of a television show. Rock and pop music—"pop" is short for "popular"—are office of pop culture. Pop civilisation is often expressed and spread via commercial media such every bit radio, television, movies, the music manufacture, publishers, and corporate-run websites. Different high culture, popular culture is known and accessible to most people. Y'all can share a give-and-take of favorite football game teams with a new coworker or comment on American Idol when making small-scale talk in line at the grocery store. But if you tried to launch into a deep discussion on the classical Greek play Antigone, few members of U.S. society today would be familiar with it.

Although high culture may be viewed every bit superior to popular culture, the labels of high civilisation and popular culture vary over fourth dimension and identify. Shakespearean plays, considered popular culture when they were written, are now part of our order'south high culture. 5 hundred years from now, will our descendants associate Breaking Bad with the cultural elite?

Subculture and Counterculture

A subculture is just what it sounds like—a smaller cultural group within a larger culture; people of a subculture are part of the larger culture but too share a specific identity within a smaller group.

Thousands of subcultures be inside the U.s.a.. Ethnic and racial groups share the language, food, and community of their heritage. Other subcultures are united by shared experiences. Biker culture revolves effectually a dedication to motorcycles. Some subcultures are formed by members who possess traits or preferences that differ from the majority of a gild'south population. The torso modification community embraces aesthetic additions to the human body, such equally tattoos, piercings, and certain forms of plastic surgery. In the United States, adolescents often form subcultures to develop a shared youth identity. Alcoholics Anonymous offers support to those suffering from alcoholism. Only even as members of a subculture band together, they still place with and participate in the larger gild.

Sociologists distinguish subcultures from countercultures, which are a type of subculture that rejects some of the larger culture's norms and values. In contrast to subcultures, which operate relatively smoothly within the larger lodge, countercultures might actively defy larger order past developing their own set up of rules and norms to live by, sometimes even creating communities that operate outside of greater order.

Cults, a word derived from civilization, are as well considered counterculture group. The group "Yearning for Zion" (YFZ) in Eldorado, Texas, existed exterior the mainstream and the limelight, until its leader was defendant of statutory rape and underage marriage. The sect's formal norms clashed as well severely to be tolerated by U.S. police force, and in 2008, regime raided the compound and removed more than 2 hundred women and children from the property.

The Evolution of American Hipster Subculture

Skinny jeans, chunky glasses, and T-shirts with vintage logos—the American hipster is a recognizable figure in the modern Usa. Based predominately in metropolitan areas, sometimes clustered around hotspots such as the Williamsburg neighborhood in New York Metropolis, hipsters define themselves through a rejection of the mainstream. As a subculture, hipsters spurn many of the values and behavior of U.South. culture and prefer vintage vesture to fashion and a maverick lifestyle to one of wealth and power. While hipster culture may seem to be the new trend among immature, middle-class youth, the history of the group stretches back to the early decades of the 1900s.

Where did the hipster culture begin? In the early on 1940s, jazz music was on the rising in the Usa. Musicians were known equally "hepcats" and had a smoothen, relaxed quality that went confronting upright, mainstream life. Those who were "hep" or "hip" lived by the code of jazz, while those who were "foursquare" lived according to society's rules. The thought of a "hipster" was built-in.

The hipster move spread, and immature people, drawn to the music and mode, took on attitudes and language derived from the civilisation of jazz. Dissimilar the vernacular of the day, hipster slang was purposefully ambiguous. When hipsters said, "It's cool, man," they meant not that everything was proficient, but that information technology was the fashion information technology was.

In the 1940s, U.Southward. hipsters were associated with the "cool" culture of jazz. (Photograph courtesy of William P. Gottlieb/Ira and Leonore South. Gershwin Fund Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress)

By the 1950s, the jazz culture was winding downwards and many traits of hepcat culture were becoming mainstream. A new subculture was on the rise. The "Beat Generation," a championship coined by author Jack Kerouac, were anticonformist and antimaterialistic. They were writers who listened to jazz and embraced radical politics. They bummed around, hitchhiked the country, and lived in squalor.

The lifestyle spread. College students, clutching copies of Kerouac's On the Road, dressed in berets, black turtlenecks, and black-rimmed glasses. Women wore black leotards and grew their hair long. Herb Caen, a San Francisco journalist, used the suffix from Sputnik ane, the Russian satellite that orbited World in 1957, to dub the movement's followers "Beatniks."

As the Beat Generation faded, a new, related movement began. Information technology too focused on breaking social boundaries, merely information technology as well advocated freedom of expression, philosophy, and love. It took its name from the generations before; in fact, some theorists merits that Beats themselves coined the term to draw their children. Over time, the "piddling hipsters" of the 1970s became known simply as "hippies."

Today'due south generation of hipsters rose out of the hippie movement in the aforementioned manner that hippies rose from Beats and Beats from hepcats. Although contemporary hipsters may not seem to have much in common with 1940s hipsters, the emulation of nonconformity is notwithstanding in that location. In 2010, sociologist Marker Greif set about investigating the hipster subculture of the The states and establish that much of what tied the group members together was not based on fashion, musical sense of taste, or even a specific point of contention with the mainstream. "All hipsters play at being the inventors or first adopters of novelties," Greif wrote. "Pride comes from knowing, and deciding, what's cool in advance of the rest of the world. Yet the habits of hatred and allegation are endemic to hipsters because they feel the weakness of everyone'southward position—including their own" (Greif 2010). Much equally the hepcats of the jazz era opposed common culture with carefully crafted appearances of coolness and relaxation, modern hipsters reject mainstream values with a purposeful apathy.

Young people are often drawn to oppose mainstream conventions, fifty-fifty if in the same manner that others practice. Ironic, cool to the point of noncaring, and intellectual, hipsters continue to embody a subculture, while simultaneously impacting mainstream culture.

Intellectual and trendy, today'south hipsters define themselves through cultural irony. (Photograph courtesy of Lorena Cupcake/Wikimedia Commons)

Cultural Change

As the hipster instance illustrates, culture is always evolving. Moreover, new things are added to textile civilization every day, and they bear upon nonmaterial culture besides. Cultures change when something new (say, railroads or smartphones) opens up new ways of living and when new ideas enter a culture (say, as a event of travel or globalization).

Innovation: Discovery and Invention

An innovation refers to an object or concept's initial appearance in society—information technology's innovative because it is markedly new. In that location are two means to come across an innovative object or idea: discover information technology or invent it. Discoveries make known previously unknown simply existing aspects of reality. In 1610, when Galileo looked through his telescope and discovered Saturn, the planet was already there, but until and then, no one had known well-nigh information technology. When Christopher Columbus encountered America, the land was, of course, already well known to its inhabitants. However, Columbus's discovery was new cognition for Europeans, and information technology opened the style to changes in European civilization, also every bit to the cultures of the discovered lands. For case, new foods such as potatoes and tomatoes transformed the European diet, and horses brought from Europe changed hunting practices of Native American tribes of the Great Plains.

Inventions result when something new is formed from existing objects or concepts—when things are put together in an entirely new manner. In the late 1800s and early on 1900s, electric appliances were invented at an astonishing footstep. Cars, airplanes, vacuum cleaners, lamps, radios, telephones, and televisions were all new inventions. Inventions may shape a culture when people use them in identify of older ways of carrying out activities and relating to others, or as a style to acquit out new kinds of activities. Their adoption reflects (and may shape) cultural values, and their use may require new norms for new situations.

Consider the introduction of modern communication technology, such as mobile phones and smartphones. As more and more people began conveying these devices, phone conversations no longer were restricted to homes, offices, and telephone booths. People on trains, in restaurants, and in other public places became annoyed by listening to i-sided conversations. Norms were needed for cell phone use. Some people pushed for the thought that those who are out in the world should pay attending to their companions and surroundings. However, engineering enabled a workaround: texting, which enables quiet advice and has surpassed phoning as the chief way to meet today's highly valued ability to stay in touch on anywhere, everywhere.

When the step of innovation increases, it can lead to generation gaps. Technological gadgets that catch on quickly with one generation are sometimes dismissed by a skeptical older generation. A culture'due south objects and ideas can cause non just generational but cultural gaps. Textile culture tends to diffuse more than quickly than nonmaterial culture; technology can spread through lodge in a thing of months, but it can take generations for the ideas and beliefs of social club to change. Sociologist William F. Ogburn coined the term culture lag to refer to this time that elapses betwixt the introduction of a new particular of material culture and its acceptance as function of nonmaterial culture (Ogburn 1957).

Civilisation lag can as well cause tangible bug. The infrastructure of the U.s.a., built a hundred years ago or more than, is having trouble supporting today'south more than heavily populated and fast-paced life. Yet at that place is a lag in conceptualizing solutions to infrastructure bug. Ascension fuel prices, increased air pollution, and traffic jams are all symptoms of culture lag. Although people are condign aware of the consequences of overusing resources, the means to back up changes takes fourth dimension to accomplish.

Sociologist Everett Rogers (1962) developed a model of the diffusion of innovations. As consumers gradually adopt a new innovation, the item grows toward a marketplace share of 100 percent, or consummate saturation inside a lodge. (Graph courtesy of Tungsten/Wikimedia Commons)

Diffusion and Globalization

The integration of world markets and technological advances of the last decades have allowed for greater exchange between cultures through the processes of globalization and diffusion. Beginning in the 1980s, Western governments began to deregulate social services while granting greater liberties to private businesses. As a result, world markets became dominated by multinational companies in the 1980s, a new state of affairs at that fourth dimension. We accept since come up to refer to this integration of international trade and finance markets every bit globalization. Increased communications and air travel accept further opened doors for international business relations, facilitating the flow not just of goods but too of information and people every bit well (Scheuerman 2014 (revised)). Today, many U.S. companies prepare up offices in other nations where the costs of resources and labor are cheaper. When a person in the United States calls to get information about banking, insurance, or computer services, the person taking that call may be working in another country.

Alongside the procedure of globalization is diffusion, or the spread of textile and nonmaterial culture. While globalization refers to the integration of markets, diffusion relates to a similar process in the integration of international cultures. Heart-grade Americans tin can fly overseas and return with a new appreciation of Thai noodles or Italian gelato. Admission to television and the Internet has brought the lifestyles and values portrayed in U.South. sitcoms into homes around the globe. Twitter feeds from public demonstrations in one nation have encouraged political protesters in other countries. When this kind of diffusion occurs, material objects and ideas from one culture are introduced into another.

Officially patented in 1893 every bit the "squeeze locker" (left), the zipper did not diffuse through society for many decades. Today, it is immediately recognizable around the world. (Photograph (a) courtesy of U.Southward. Patent Part/Wikimedia Commons; Photo (b) courtesy of Rabensteiner/Wikimedia Eatables)

Summary

Sociologists recognize high culture and popular culture within societies. Societies are too comprised of many subcultures—smaller groups that share an identity. Countercultures reject mainstream values and create their own cultural rules and norms. Through invention or discovery, cultures evolve via new ideas and new ways of thinking. In many modernistic cultures, the cornerstone of innovation is engineering science, the rapid growth of which can lead to cultural lag. Technology is also responsible for the spread of both textile and nonmaterial culture that contributes to globalization.

Short Answer

Place several examples of pop civilisation and describe how they inform larger civilisation. How prevalent is the effect of these examples in your everyday life?

Glossary

countercultures

groups that reject and oppose gild'south widely accepted cultural patterns

civilization lag

the gap of time between the introduction of cloth civilization and nonmaterial culture's credence of it

diffusion

the spread of textile and nonmaterial culture from i civilisation to another

discoveries

things and ideas found from what already exists

globalization

the integration of international trade and finance markets

loftier culture

the cultural patterns of a society's elite

innovations

new objects or ideas introduced to culture for the starting time fourth dimension

inventions

a combination of pieces of existing reality into new forms

popular culture

mainstream, widespread patterns amid a society'southward population

subcultures

groups that share a specific identification, apart from a club'due south majority, even as the members be inside a larger society

Consider some of the specific issues or concerns of your generation. Are any ideas countercultural? What subcultures accept emerged from your generation? How have the bug of your generation expressed themselves culturally? How has your generation fabricated its mark on society'southward commonage culture?

What are some examples of cultural lag that are present in your life? Do you think engineering affects culture positively or negatively? Explicate.

Further Research

The Beats were a counterculture that birthed an unabridged motility of art, music, and literature—much of which is still highly regarded and studied today. The man responsible for naming the generation was Jack Kerouac; however, the human responsible for introducing the world to that generation was John Clellon Holmes, a author frequently lumped in with the grouping. In 1952 he penned an article for the New York Times Magazine titled, "This Is the Beat Generation." Read that article and learn more most Clellon Holmes and the Beats: http://openstaxcollege.org/l/The-Beats

Popular civilisation meets counterculture in this as Oprah Winfrey interacts with members of the Yearning for Zion cult. Read nigh it here: http://openstaxcollege.org/50/Oprah

References

Greif, Mark. 2010. "The Hipster in the Mirror." New York Times, November 12. Retrieved February 10, 2012 (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/books/review/Greif-t.html?pagewanted=1).

Ogburn, William F. 1957. "Cultural Lag equally Theory." Folklore & Social Research 41(iii):167–174.

Rogers, Everett M. 1962. Diffusion of Innovations. Glencoe: Free Printing.

Scheuerman, William. 2010. "Globalization." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by E. Due north. Revised 2014. Zalta, Summer. Retrieved February 10, 2012 (http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/globalization/).

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sociology/chapter/pop-culture-subculture-and-cultural-change/

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