Introducing Society 4 · Section 6

Make a list of phrases you have heard containing the word ‘culture’. Ask your friends and family what they mean by culture? What criteria do they use to distinguish among cultures? It may have occurred to you that our understanding of material culture, especially art, is incomplete without knowledge acquired from the cognitive and normative areas.

It is true that our developing understanding of social process would draw upon all these areas. But we might find that in a community where few have acquired the cognitive skill of literacy, it in fact becomes the norm for private letters to be read out by a third party. But as we see below, to focus on each of these areas separately provides many important insights. Cognitive Aspects of Culture The cognitive aspects of one’s own culture are harder to recognise than its material aspects (which are tangible or visible or audible) and its normative aspects (which are explicitly stated).

Cognition refers to understanding, how we make sense of all the information coming to us from our environment. In literate societies ideas are transcribed in books and documents and preserved in libraries, instititutions or archives. But in non-literate societies legend or lore is committed to memory and transmitted orally. There are specialist practitioners of oral tradition who are trained to remember and narrate during ritual or festive occasions.

Let us think about how writing may affect the production and consumption of art. In his influential book, Orality and Literacy Walter Ong cites a study of that states that only of the approximately , Dimensions of Culture Three dimensions of culture have been distinguished : (i) Cognitive: This refers to how we learn to process what we hear or see, so as to give it meaning (identifying the ring of a cell-phone as ours, recognising the cartoon of a politician). (ii) Normative: This refers to rules of conduct (not opening other people’s letters, performing rituals at death). (iii) Material: This includes any activity made possible by means of materials.

Materials also include tools or machines. Examples include internet ‘chatting’, using rice-flour paste to design kolam on floors. Activity Compare these definitions to see which of these (or combination of these) you find most satisfactory. You could do this by listing familiar uses of the word ‘culture’ (the culture of eighteenth century Lucknow, the culture of hospitality or the much used term ‘Western culture’...).

Which of the definitions best captures the impressions conveyed by each?