cultural particulars sociology definition

Humanity is essentially a symbolic-i.e., cultural, rather than social-phenomenon.

Stating the point explicitly in this way shifts the focus of inquiry from social structures-the general focus of social sciences-to symbolic processes and opens up a completely new research program, in its significance analogous to the one that Darwin established for biology. The justification is provided not by the existence as such of society among humans but by the symbolic manner in which human societies are transmitted and regulated. It represents a reality of its own, nonorganic kind, justifying the existence of an autonomous science. This empirical evidence of human distinctiveness shows that humanity is more than just a form of life-i.e., a biological species. Culture in this sense qualitatively-and radically-separates human beings from the rest of the biological animal kingdom.

It is the symbolic transmission of human ways of life (both the symbolic transmission itself and the human ways of life that are necessarily so transmitted) to which the term “culture” implicitly refers. Instead, it is explained by the fact that, while all other animals transmit their ways of life, or social orders, primarily genetically, humans transmit their ways of life primarily symbolically, through traditions of various kinds and, above all, through language. Keeping in mind the minuscule quantitative difference between the genome of Homo sapiens and that of chimpanzees (barely more than 1 percent), it is clear that the enormous difference in variability of ways of life cannot be accounted for genetically-that is, in terms of biological evolution. Comparing human beings with other animals immediately highlights the astonishing variability and diversity of human societies and human ways of life (what humans actually do in their roles as parents, workers, citizens, and so on) and the relative uniformity of animal societies, even among the most social and intelligent animals, such as wolves, lions, dolphins, and primates. Comparative zoology provides the empirical basis for such an identification. Intellectually, the first step in that direction would be to identify the quality that distinguishes humanity from the subject matter of biology, defining humanity as an ontological category in its own right. The possible emergence of a new intellectual center of the world in East and South Asia, offsetting and eventually nullifying vested interests in the United States, could create the conditions necessary for the rise of a science of humanity, one that would be capable of progressively accumulating objective knowledge of its subject matter.

Cultural particulars sociology definition