What We Refer to as Normal: How Culture Works Everywhere
A sociological deep dive into how culture creates humans.
What we refer to as normal – has become the globalized normal. It is why we can go into almost every major city and see large buildings or experience the frustration of vehicular traffic. However, to truly understand human behavior and its multiplicity of originating topographies – we have to turn to sociology, then take a detour into semiotics and end up in anthropology.
The ubiquitous nature of cookie-cutter architecture is yet another phenomenon not studied enough within the world of sociology.
Where do all of these habits originate from? Culture. However, there is an assumption that must be dealt with here – culture is simultaneously particular and universal. What does that mean? It means that culture operates on two levels at the same time.
These two levels can be better understood as:
- Insular
- Collective
Let’s not get too academic though, as this needs to be something that can be applied to individuals and groups.
First things first – each idea is not a closed loop. Each one can influence the other. On top of this, each type of culture is deferred or always changing depending on intersubjective elements that guide its process. In short, these types of cultures are always changing and never static. Fluctuation is the only constant in how these two types of culture operate.
In insular culture, behaviors like having a friendship is something that humans do. Connection. Relationality. Identity. Close-quarter intimacy. These are all characteristics of that make us all human. However, there is a danger here when hearing the word ‘human’ to assume there is a universal quality that makes us a species – there is not. To assume this is to assume that language can capture essence – we can all agree, it will never be able to do so.
In insular culture, certain behaviors are mimetic – or they catch on. So, in this sense, we can either assume due to evolution, or globalism, that friendship is not necessarily inherent to being human, but that either environmental pressures (the need to protect oneself), or the influence of intercultural relationships (i.e., trade, prosocial behavioral) are the causes of what compels people to employ friendship in their lives across the world.
In my research, and opinion, things like friendship SEEM universal, because the nature of the desire to make meaning in our lives is what motivates us to copy behaviors that form lasting bonds. Everything from being a social media influencer to a school janitor is less about the roles we play and more about the connections we desire and help us to make sense of being alive.
Insular culture operates like a feedback loop with a form of language. However, the language can be better understood as an ideology. Both insular and collective cultures speak through ideology – it’s the mother tongue of how culture is proliferated.
But do not think of ideology just as Marx did, as some false way to see the world (yes, it is true), but it is a way for people to connect and communicate. Another way to understand the nature of insular culture is to include things like pop culture, family, friendships, workplaces, and even commuter culture.
Most people would assume these would be parts of collective culture due to the collective nature of how people identify through groups – the reason why this is not the case is because these groupings have their own internal and externalization of the individual characteristics, we can see prevalent across the world. It’s also how we can interact with different families who have different values, beliefs, and identities.
The same is true across a culture.
Groupings should not be understood as collective, but rather as a social phenomenon that has developed and been normalized due to evolutionary pressures to conform to one’s environment.
This is where insular culture functions as a relational way for people to interact. However, interaction doesn’t happen alone. Relationships do not just occur, they are mediated. How? Well, think of it this way, an idea is always mediating our understanding of ourselves and others.
I relate to my sister through the medium of being a family member. This comes with its ideas, actions, and assumptions on how to be in a family. This goes across all areas of society, no matter if it is an insular or collective culture that drives it.
To explore the nature of culture at large, we have to deconstruct how collective culture manifests itself across different contexts.
Collective culture has nothing to do with people and everything to do with ideas, values, beliefs, codified behavior, and the ongoing processes of how these become normalized through themselves. What does that mean? Well, it means, for example, that beliefs reinforce beliefs.
Or, that values are reinforced by values. Every element of collective culture – which can also be experienced worldwide tends to be self-referential closed-loops. Then, as closed loops, they interact with other closed loops to create a fluid system.
Okay, that is way too wordy. Let’s use an example.
Beliefs connect to beliefs. Then, values relate to other values. Behaviors drive other behaviors. So, let’s say that someone believes that stealing is the right thing to do. That belief is not enough to justify their behavior. They need to justify it with other beliefs, like that: no one owns property.
Notice this is a belief that begets another belief. Then the belief becomes a value (or ethic).
Notice I am arguing that there is a difference between beliefs and ethics/values. They are not the same. They have their own closed feedback loops. So, beliefs are also impacted by the nature of the relational aspect of being part of an insular culture (i.e., think social groups). This means that someone has had to identify as someone who believes that stealing is correct.
What we can do is see this play out across both sets of cultures in the area of semiotics.
Semiotics is an area of linguistics and sociology that studies how symbols represent established or desired cultural values. Like a stop sign. However, a better way to understand semiotics is to deconstruct symbols from the premise that the meaning behind them is infinite and environmentally defined.
Back to the stop sign.
It represents power. It represents the law. The government. The police (if you speed past the stop sign, that is!). Caring for others (by agreeing not to run past a stop sign, we also accept that our choices can impact others.). There are many others - but, semiotics also include placement. Meaning, semiotics also studies where objects are in relationship to bodies (us). Notice most stop signs, and even stop lights (worldwide) are *usually* above us —- why? Because the law is above us.
Semiotics operate across all different cultures and are always more than just signs of any kind - but, tell us what a culture values - and even how they value them. The how usually finds itself in the form of behaviors that we accept & act as ‘laws’ that we use to relate to each other.
The reality is that there are many more nuances to how these elements work across different contexts, spaces, identities, and cultures. This will be explored in a future newsletter.