# Culture and Meaning



## Unkotare (Mar 12, 2014)

So, on this site there are a lot of people who point to various individual acts and draw from them conclusions about the 'success' or 'failure' of this or that group of people as representative of this or that subculture within the larger society.

Is it legitimate to draw such conclusions, and if so when and how is it legitimate to do so? Is any attempt to view isolated actions through the lens of sociological hermeneutics likely to bring greater understanding, or cause greater division?


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## Truthmatters (Mar 12, 2014)

it could be if you accept all FACTS.

the problem is half this country refuses any fact they don't like


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## Unkotare (Mar 12, 2014)

The question at hand is not a problem of fact. Read more carefully.


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## Michelle420 (Mar 12, 2014)

Unkotare said:


> So, on this site there are a lot of people who point to various individual acts and draw from them conclusions about the 'success' or 'failure' of this or that group of people as representative of this or that subculture within the larger society.
> 
> Is it legitimate to draw such conclusions, and if so when and how is it legitimate to do so? Is any attempt to view isolated actions through the lens of sociological hermeneutics likely to bring greater understanding, or cause greater division?



The problem is that each group has taken on the previous generation's plight in some form and so stereotypes and projections continue.


In recognizing the trauma carried over from previous generations you might be able to heal it.

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Individuals-Families-Nations-Trans-Generational/dp/1844090663]The Healing of Individuals, Families & Nations: Transgenerational Healing & Family Constellations Book 1 (Trans-Generational Healing & Family Constellations series): John Payne: 9781844090662: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]


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## Unkotare (Mar 12, 2014)

But the question is not of 'carrying over.' Rather, it is one of how to perceive and interpret actions as they are happening today (though the two are related, I suppose).


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## Michelle420 (Mar 12, 2014)

Unkotare said:


> But the question is not of 'carrying over.' Rather, it is one of how to perceive and interpret actions as they are happening today (though the two are related, I suppose).



I guess for me, I think things today are influenced by things not healed from the past.


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## Unkotare (Mar 12, 2014)

drifter said:


> Unkotare said:
> 
> 
> > But the question is not of 'carrying over.' Rather, it is one of how to perceive and interpret actions as they are happening today (though the two are related, I suppose).
> ...





Regardless, we are faced with how to interpret those things in the  here and now as per the OP.


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## Michelle420 (Mar 12, 2014)

Unkotare said:


> drifter said:
> 
> 
> > Unkotare said:
> ...



Forgiveness and not perpetuating stereotypes. I don't know.


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## midcan5 (Mar 12, 2014)

Interesting topic, especially in America today. I am currently reading a fascinating book on culture in America, 'The World Turned Inside Out: American Thought and Culture at the End of the 20th Century,' by James Livingston. It discusses the complex topic of the transition from the frontier American to industrial American to now. Americans like to think of themselves as independent individuals, it follows then that where ever you are in society, you are the agent of the place. With that in mind consider the quote below on Asian attitudes towards self. 

This idea of individual autonomy is so deeply embedded in Americans (especially on the right) that Paul Ryan could deliver at CPAC a speech, that while untrue, was believed and repeated. Its propaganda fit the republican cultural idea of dependency, and thus it works if you exist in that cultural frame. Culture can be a circle in which ideas are not examined but instead fit into a preconceived context. So the answer to the OP is it is very hard to change these notions. Can they be changed, of course they can, consider only the changes after the Great Depression, a situation which challenged all people to take another look. Also think of race and homosexuality and how they have changed in the minds of many people. 

'Cultural Models of Self in North American and East Asian Contexts'

"In a seminal paper, cultural psychologists Hazel Markus and Shinobu Kitayama proposed that previously observed differences in individualism and collectivism translated into different models of the self (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Specifically, they argued that in North American contexts, the dominant model of the self is an independent one, in which being a person means being distinct from others and behaving similarly across situations. In East Asian contexts, however, the dominant model of the self is an interdependent one, in which being a person means being fundamentally connected to others and being responsive to situational demands. For example, in a classic study (Cousins, 1989), American and Japanese students were asked complete the Twenty Statements Test, in which they were asked to complete the sentence stem, I am ______ twenty times. Whereas US participants were more likely to complete the stem with psychological attributes (e.g., friendly, cheerful) than Japanese, Japanese participants were more likely to complete the stem with references to social roles and responsibilities (e.g., a daughter, a student) (Cousins, 1989). These different models of the self result in different desired ways of interacting with others. An independent model of self teaches persons to express themselves and to influence others (i.e., change their environments to be consistent with their own beliefs and desires). In contrast, an interdependent model of self teaches persons to suppress their own beliefs and desires and to adjust to others (i.e., change their own beliefs and desires to fit in with their environments (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999; Morling, Kitayama, & Miyamoto, 2002; Weisz, Rothbaum, & Blackburn, 1984)." 

http://psych.stanford.edu/~tsailab/PDF/Culture and Emotion Chapter.pdf

Above was sourced from: Stanford University Culture and Emotion Lab

Livingston's blog: Politics and Letters | Just another WordPress.com weblog


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## Unkotare (Mar 12, 2014)

I don't buy the broad categorizations upon which, as a matter of assumption, such conclusions rest. Upon closer examination they break down into meaninglessness.


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## Unkotare (Jul 31, 2015)

Unkotare said:


> So, on this site there are a lot of people who point to various individual acts and draw from them conclusions about the 'success' or 'failure' of this or that group of people as representative of this or that subculture within the larger society.
> 
> Is it legitimate to draw such conclusions, and if so when and how is it legitimate to do so? Is any attempt to view isolated actions through the lens of sociological hermeneutics likely to bring greater understanding, or cause greater division?


.


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## eagle1462010 (Jul 31, 2015)

No, but straw mans exist in the heat of the political landscape..............It's just the way it is.........................doesn't put everyone with similar ideas in the pot to boil.


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## Abishai100 (Aug 6, 2015)

*3D Glasses: Intersection Idiom*

Those fun little diagrams in set theory logic (with the intersecting circles creating union sets, etc.) called Venn diagrams argue that members of differing groups can share characteristics and such overlaps in properties create interesting grouping comparisons.

When we watch a Hollywood (USA) movie such as "Toys" (1992), we are invited to examine/interpret the storyteller's view on some form of imagination.  Perhaps we find images that we can compare with our own private mental images and create analogies for exposition.

There is this inherent instinct to search for object/perception similarity since it helps us analyze compatibility, and compatibility guides conclusions about reactivity.

Two very different culture groups, for example, (say an African tribal group and a cosmopolitan New York urban group) may be afflicted with AIDS.  If medical researchers try to understand patterns of the disease in these two groups whose cultural/social experiences are very different, they may find interesting similarities in proportional cellular exuberance.




The Purple Rose of Cairo (Film)

Venn diagram (Wikipedia)


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