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SOCIAL FORCES Decemnber,I937 CULTURE and SOCIOLOGY Volume i 6 Number 2. SOCIAL FORCES Decemnber,I937 CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY WILLIAM FIELDING OGBURN Universityof Chicago T HE definitionof culturemost often space, held there by balancing forces. quoted is that of Tyler: "Culture The ramifications of the latter discovery, is that complex whole which in- for instance, reached as far as the theory cludes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, of the state and supported the doctrine custom, and any other capabilities and of checks and balances, so evident in our habits acquired by man as a member of own governmental structure. Likewise society." A particular culture has been the ranifications of the idea of evolution defined by Redfield as "an organized body extended quite generally, especially to of conventional understandings, mnanifest societies. Out of it were developed the in act and artifact, which, persisting organismic theories of the state. A great through tradition, characterizes a human impetus was given to biological interpre- group." Excellent definitions both, yet tations of society by such men as Spencer culture is one of those large concepts, like and Huxley. The achievements of man democracy or science, a definition of which were seen as the direct outgrowth of his seems very bare and inadequate to convey inherited capacities. The wasps build its rich meanings. Different students will one type of house, the ants another, be- emphasize different aspects of culture as cause their biological structures are dif- most significant, and in the future impor- ferent. It followed, by inference, that tant new ideas about culture may be dis- the Aztecs have one type of culture and covered. At the present time the aspects the Egyptians another because their bi- of culture of most interest to sociologists ological natures are different. Function four ideas. may be grouped around was seen as following structure very closely. The European was further along in the scale of biological evolution than The study of culture developed out of the Australian black fellow since his cul- the soil of biological sociology. The Social evolu- impact of the discoveries of Darwin, partic- ture was more advanced. ularly the evolution of man from the tion was dependent upon biological evolu- anthropoids, on social thought was tre- tion. The monkeys had no civilization mendous. Nothing like it had so shocked because they had not evolved far enough. mankind since it was discovered that the Man, however, with his larger brain case earth was round and whirling through had gone further in biological progress I6i SOCIAL FORCES, VOL. 16, NO. 2 I6z SOCIAL FORCES and was capable of developing civiliza- Such was the background of sociological tion. thought when the concept of culture ap- It is interesting that the idea of culture, peared. But as the phenomena of cul- which later was so often opposed to tural growth were studied, it was observed biology, was developed by one of the most that social institutions evolved into new biologically-minded men of the age, forms in periods of history too short for Herbert Spencer. He remarked that there any biological evolution. Hence doubt was a time when there was no life on the was cast on any correlation of cultural earth. Everything was inorganic. In evolution and biological evolution, at the course of time, inorganic matter least during the historical period, if not evolved to a point when life appeared. since the ice ages. Peoples of the same Then the evolution of the organic matter race were noted to have greatly different began. When it reached the level of man, levels of civilization, and peoples of dif- there appearedculture or, as Spencercalled ferent racial types were observed to have it, the "superorganic" which, in turn, the same social institutions. The growth began its evolution. of a particular culture, ethnologists were Though Spencer helped to give birth to showing, was not so much from inventions the idea of culture, he never really saw its produced within that culture as from traits nature clearly. For instance, to him the imported from other cultures. Thus any superorganic was dependent in a most inevitable succession of stages was ne- intimate and direct way upon the organic. gated. The concept of the superorganic was then The close correlation of function and only the beginning of the unfolding of the structure may exist when such widely dif- concept of culture. If the variations in ferent species as rats and guinea pigs are the organic determined the nature of the compared, but among peoples the func- superorganic in detail, as Spencerthought, tions as measured by customs and institu- then sociology not only rested on biology, tions were not found to be correlated with but was really a biological science. any discernible structure. When an Es- Out of the tide of enthusiasm for bi- kimo adult who could not count above ten ology, there appeared those twin absurdi- and was thus supposed to be no further ties, the recapitulation theory and the advanced than a child was taught to solve successive stages theory. According to problems in calculus, the recapitulation the former the individual recapitulated theory lost its appeal. the history of the race, so that the less That tremendous cultural variations evolved primitive peoples were seen only were possible even if there were no races as children. According to the latter and that rapid social evolution could take theory, since social stages were determined place if biologically men evolved not at by biological stages of evolution, they all but were quite stationary, were ideas must follow in succession, as monogamy revolutionary to the biological sociology followed polygamy. Supposedly Russia of the time. Culture cut the chains that could not go from the household agricul- tied sociology to biology. This freedom tural economy to socialism without pass- meant an actual stimulus in proposing new ing through capitalism. The power of hypotheses and in generating new ideas education and of the diffusion of culture about civilization, and explanations there- traits in breaking up such a succession of for on other grounds than biology. stages was not appreciated. However, it should not be understood CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY 163 from the foregoing account that all fields being carried out by ethnologists in the of sociology were affected in this manner field. The literature was greatly en- by biology. There were, for instance, riched on different types of culture among many aspects of institutional relationships different peoples, and much was learned which were studied without any particu- about the organization of culture and the lar relationship to race, inheritance, or variations among the social institutions. instinct. However, many more phases of This type of phenomenon was inherently sociology were related to biological theo- interesting aside from race and tended to ries than was, for instance, the case with overshadow the description of biological economics or political science. behavior of groups. One angle from which these relation- The question then may be raised as to ships may be viewed was the controversy whether the definition of sociology as over the veiy nature of sociology itself. the study of the group gave the proper It was being variously described as the emphasis. It may be argued that there study of society, of the group, or of group was a large group of sociologists never behavior. Certainly back of these vari- much interested in psychological or ous conceptions was the idea of the group biological behavior of the group, but and group relations. The individual was who were rather more interested in the object of study of psychology or social organization, or in the culture biology, but the group was the particular carried by the group. Nevertheless, province of sociology. Sociology is de- if interest is primarily in the culture rived from the Latin word socios, mean- carried by the group, why say that the ing companion and implying a plural num- interest is in the group? To do this, ber of individuals. there must be a special definition of the With the wider acceptance of the mean- group. It must mean that the group and ing of culture, group behavior as a mere the culture carried by the group were type of inherited activity became of less very closely related, if not synonymous. importance. Discoveries regarding group Under the influence of biology, group processes such as social control, collective activity and behavior were seen as biolog- behavior, social pressure, mob action, ical products. It was the nature of man social contagion, ostracism, leadership, to behave this way in groups. It was and the social instincts, remained of im- instinct. The objective of sociology was portance to sociology, but interest tended to define more elaborately the nature of to shift to the cultural forms and patterns this group behavior. If this fuller de- carried by the group and to the various scription carried the investigation into habits and personalities favored by these social institutions, these became still the cultural influences. The field of group elaboration of instinctive social nature. action, viewed as a psychological and Since function was seen as so closely re- biological phenomenon, had been pretty lated to structure, the different group well cultivated, and, though still yield- functions, the different social institutions ing discoveries, had perhaps reached the were the product of different group capac- point of diminishing returns, at least at ities. With this view, sociology as a that time. Interest shifted to the cul- study of the group was, ipso facto, a study tural forms and their influence on the indi- of the group products, that is, its culture. vidual. Meanwhile descriptive work on But with the recognition that cultural the various cultures of the world was variations could occur without biological i64 SOCIAL FORCES variations, the group and the group's considered it for the primitive cultures, culture were no longer the same.
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