Revitalizing the Culture Concept

Culture was defined for social science in 1871 by Edward B. Tylor as complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, cus­ toms and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society (Tylor 1924:1). In contemporary parlance, culture consists of four sorts of elements: norms, values, beliefs, and expressive symbols. While the culture concept has been greatly elaborated, it has not been fundamentally changed (Kroeber & Kluckhohn 1952; Kroeber & Parsons 1958; Schneider & Bonjean 1973; Wagner 1975). In the decades since, however, there has been a major shift in the weight given to each of the four elements in the definition so that most recent works in the area, diverse as they are, differ markedly from those produced in the decade following World War II. While the works of that time focused on norms as arising from value commitments (Parsons 1951), the newer ten­ dency has been to focus on expressive symbols as portraying fundamental beliefs (Williams 1976). This shift has put American workers in touch with several European scholarly movements and has made for a veritable explo­ sion of new research and writing. No single clearly articulated perspective covers this field of work, but it is possible to discern four more or less distinct lines of activity, each of which accents expressive symbol-elements of culture. Each of these four broad perspectives is viewed in tum after a brief introduction.