Summary: Culture & Meaning
Professor Dick Houtman
Lecture 1: What is Culture? And What is Cultural Sociology?
What Is Culture?
• Geert Hofstede et al. (book 2010):
o “Ways of thinking, feeling, and doing that one has learned from, and shares with, others”
o “A sort of ‘mental programming’ or ‘software of the mind’”
• Dick Houtman:
o “Everything a group of people believes, finds, or assumes to know”
▪ It is always a group thing
o “A series of codes that explains ‘what belongs to what’ (= classification) and ‘what these
categories mean’ (= evaluation)”
▪ Example: what qualifies as food and how can different categories of food be
evaluated < tasty or not tasty
➔ Prof: I will never ask definitions on the exam, but it’s just for your own understanding!
• Culture is a profoundly ‘social’ phenomenon < it is always a group thing:
o Culture is not biologically inherited, but socially learned
o Culture is not strictly personal, but shared with others
This is why culture is pre-eminently studied by the social sciences, especially cultural anthropology
and (cultural) sociology
• Hofstede et al. (2010): One can compare the relationship between human biology and culture to
that between the hardware and software of computers
o Hardware: the human physiological / biological constitution which makes mental
programming possible in the first place
o Software: the culture(s) one has learned
What Is Not Culture?
So, two things are excluded from the notion of culture: everything that has not been learned and/or
is not shared with others
o Not learned: nature, including human nature, i.e., the human biological, physiological
constitution (bodies, genes, hormones...)
o Not shared with others: one’s personality, a strictly individual outcome of
biological/genetic and social influences
So, What Does Culture Capture?
• Ideas about what classifies as ‘food’ (goats’ eyes, live fish, pork?!) and about how to eat it
(cutlery, chop sticks, right hand?!)
o The right hand is to eat, and the left hand is the wipe when you go to the toilet… < Not
familiar with this habit in the West
• Greeting rituals
• Ideas about morally (un)acceptable behaviour (e.g., crime, sexism, racism, homophobia...)
• Ideas about group memberships and identities: the group(s) one identifies with and how it differs
from other groups
• Most important according to prof: ideas about the good society and the meaning of life:
o Political ideologies like conservatism, liberalism, socialism, populism
o Religions and worldviews
• Metaphysical beliefs about human society, nature and the supernatural
o It is much more than religion
o Example: socialists believe in classes and liberals believe in individualists
1
,➔ Of course, culture changes!!! < For example: Beauty Standards
o In different areas, there are different ideas of being beautiful
▪ Changes through history, but also changes in cultures
o Cultural Diversity: Beauty Standards
▪ Example: same female body, photoshopped in four countries
o Cultural Diversity: other example = Meanings of Natural Disasters
Culture can be understood as the shared ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that people learn from each
other. Hofstede and his colleagues describe it as a kind of “mental programming” or “software of the
mind,” meaning it shapes how we see the world and behave within it. Houtman defines culture in a
slightly different way: as everything that a group of people believes, assumes to know, or considers
meaningful. Importantly, culture is always a group phenomenon. It provides codes that tell us how to
classify things (what belongs to what category) and how to evaluate them (what is good or bad, desirable
or undesirable). For instance, cultures differ in what they consider “food” and how they judge whether it
is tasty or not.
Because culture is not something we are born with but something we learn from others, it is profoundly
social. It is not biologically inherited but socially acquired, and it is not just individual but always shared.
This is why the social sciences – especially anthropology and cultural sociology – study culture in depth.
Hofstede illustrates this with a computer metaphor: our biological constitution is like the hardware (the
body and brain), while culture is like the software (the learned mental programming that runs on it).
Equally important is understanding what does not count as culture. Two things fall outside this concept:
1. What is not learned → nature and human biology (our genes, hormones, physical body).
2. What is not shared with others → individual personality, which is shaped by both biology and
unique social influences but is not collective.
So, what does culture include? It captures a wide variety of shared ideas and practices, such as:
• What qualifies as food and how it should be eaten (e.g., with chopsticks, with the right hand, with
cutlery).
• Greeting rituals.
• Norms about acceptable or unacceptable behavior (crime, sexism, racism, homophobia, etc.).
• Beliefs about identity and group membership: who we are, which groups we belong to, and how
we differ from others.
• Above all, culture involves ideas about the “good society” and the meaning of life—expressed in
political ideologies (conservatism, liberalism, socialism, populism), religions, and broader
worldviews.
Culture also includes metaphysical beliefs that go beyond religion. For example, socialists believe in the
existence of social classes, while liberals emphasize individuals. These beliefs structure how people
understand society, nature, and even the supernatural.
Finally, it is crucial to remember that culture changes over time and across places. Ideas about beauty,
for example, differ between societies and shift throughout history. What is considered attractive in one
country or era may not be valued in another. Similarly, the meanings attached to natural disasters
(whether they are seen as divine punishment, natural cycles, or consequences of climate change) vary
between cultures. This shows how diverse and dynamic culture truly is.
What Is Positivist Sociology?
• Ontological assumption (= what social reality is): “behind” or “underneath” culture lies a “more
fundamental” social reality
• Epistemological assumption (= what knowledge about social reality is and how it can be
attained): “objective” social-scientific knowledge about social reality is produced by “unbiased,”
“neutral” research
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,• So, here culture is trumped by science: people’s beliefs and understandings are basically
irrational and irrelevant: they just blur social reality as it “really” is
o Knowledge is superior to culture (culture is just the nonsense that people believe…)
• Positivist Sociology in Action
o Auguste Comte (sociology’s name-giver)
▪ Auguste Comte (1798-1857): sociology’s name-giver and godfather of positivism
▪ Believed that science could provide non-religious foundations for morality...
▪ ... and that sociology could distinguish on strictly scientific grounds between
“normal” / “abnormal” and “good” / “bad”
▪ Comte even proclaimed himself the positivist “high priest” of a self-conceived
“Religion of Humanity”
▪ This transformation of science into a secular religion has embarrassed many later
sociologists...
▪ ... who have in response tried to defend the credibility of positivism by
portraying all this as a mere “accident” or “exception”
➔ Prof: here science becomes a religion; the optimistic-positivist approach
But Scientific (St) Marx did exactly the same:
o Karl Marx (one of sociology’s three classical founders)
▪ “The economic interests of workers and capitalists are incompatible, which is
why class struggle is ‘normal’ and collaboration between labor and capital is
‘abnormal’”
▪ Notion of “false class consciousness”: “Workers who want to maintain capitalism
are too stupid to understand their own ‘objective’ class interests!”
➔ Prof: knowledge (sociologists know what is going on) being priviliged above culture
(people’s believes are stupid and irrelevant)
Same with (the “early”) Scientific (St) Durkheim, even though he completely reverts Scientific (St)
Marx’s assertion ...:
o (“Early”) Emile Durkheim (one of sociology’s three classical founders)
▪ “Labor and capital have identical economic interests, which is why class struggle
is ‘pathological’ and industrial peace is ‘normal’”
▪ “In industrial societies collaboration between labor and capital (‘organic
solidarity’) is ‘normal’ and class conflict is ‘abnormal’”
• Positivist Sociology in Action
o So Marx and (the “early”) Durkheim are both convinced that they know what modern
society “really” or “essentially” is... but the problem is that their claims are incompatible:
▪ Karl Marx: “Modern society = capitalist society” ➔ Unbridgeable conflict of
interest between labor and capital
▪ Emile Durkheim: “Modern society = industrial society” ➔ Shared interest of
labor and capital in expansion of industrialism
o Much like Comte, then, Marx and (the “early”) Durkheim also assume that there are two
different social realities:
1. A “real” social reality “behind” / “underneath” culture: more fundamental than
what people themselves believe, find, or assume to know, and to be discovered
and revealed by sociology
2. An “unreal” social reality (=culture): what people themselves believe, find, or
assume to know, to be critiqued by sociology and replaced by a rational insight
into how social reality “really” is
➔ Prof: the nonsence that people believe in
3
,Essentialism in Marx and Durkheim
• “Essentialism” = the conviction that social phenomena (e.g., “modern society”) have fixed and
immutable features that make them what they are and that can be discovered by science
• Essence of modern society according to Marx: Unbridgeable conflict of interest between owners
of the means of production and those selling their labor power
• Essence of modern society according to Durkheim: Mutual dependence between owners of the
means of production and those selling their labor power
Essentialism and Authentication
• “Authentication” = assigning a phenomenon a status of “realness” on the basis of the alleged
presence of a particular essence
• “De-authentication” = assigning a phenomenon the status of “unrealness” on the basis of the
alleged absence of a particular essence
o Examples:
▪ “He is a real Dutchman” ▪ “Spirituality is not real
▪ “She only likes real caviar” religion”
▪ “Populism is not real
politics”
• People rely on authentication and de-authentication to protect their beliefs against annoying
facts and events that throw them into doubt:
o Example: the British racist about his Pakistani friend and neighbor: “But Mohammed is
not a real Pakistani”
o Example: Liberal Muslims about Islamic fundamentalists: “Those are not real Muslims”
o Example: Islamic fundamentalists about liberal Muslims: “Those are not real Muslims”
• Islam is a good example, indeed:
o Rightist-populist essentialization and authentication: “Islam is an intolerant and violent
religion, so liberal and tolerant Muslims are not ‘real’ Muslims”
o Leftist-multiculturalist essentialization and authentication: “Islam is a peaceful religion,
so Islamic terrorists are not ‘real’ Muslims”
• Cultural-sociological understanding of Islam:
o Islam has no “essence”: there are no Muslims who are “more real” or “less real” than
others
o Islam, like anything else, is what people make of it
o Cultural sociology studies the variegated understandings of Muslims and Islam among
Muslims and non-Muslims
• “Real” Buddhism?! The quintessential cuddly religion of the West...
o Myanmar (former: Burma): about 50 million inhabitants < 80-90% Buddhists and 5%
Muslims (“Rohingya’s”), but 50/50 in Rakhine province
o “Real” Buddhism?! Burmese Buddhism in the 2010s
o Name of the spiritual leader: Ashin Wirathu
➔ The ‘cuddly religion’ of Buddhism resulted in a violence conflict, and the reaction of the rest
of the world was: “But these aren’t ‘real’ Buddhists…”
What’s Wrong with Positivist Sociology?
• A positivist sociology based on essentialist notions of ‘realness’ is deeply problematical:
o There are no fixed and immutable features that make it possible for science to “discover”
whether social phenomena are “real” or “unreal”
o Distorting and/or repressing phenomena that do not match one’s beliefs is a far cry from
intellectual skepticism and open-mindedness
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,• Three debatable consequences of positivism:
1) Sociology is transformed into a sort of secular religion that deals in metaphysical claims
about what things “really” are and “really” mean
2) Sociologists moralize about the world (“pathological,” “abnormal,” “irrational”...) rather than
engaging in serious empirical research
3) Cultural understandings of “laypersons” are dismissed as inferior and irrational: “objective”
scientific knowledge is placed above culture
Positivist sociology is built on two main assumptions. First, the ontological assumption: beneath culture
lies a more fundamental social reality. Second, the epistemological assumption: this reality can be
studied “objectively” through neutral, unbiased science. In this view, culture is seen as noise – irrational
beliefs that obscure how society really works. Science is treated as superior to culture.
Comte, Marx, and early Durkheim are examples of this positivist approach. Comte (1798–1857),
sociology’s name-giver, believed science could provide a non-religious moral foundation. He even
promoted a “Religion of Humanity,” turning science itself into a kind of secular religion. Marx, in turn,
argued that the essence of society is capitalism, where workers and capitalists have unbridgeable conflicts
of interest. Workers who did not recognize this suffered from “false class consciousness.” Early Durkheim
took the opposite position: he claimed that modern (industrial) society is based on cooperation, where
collaboration between labor and capital is normal, and conflict is pathological. Despite their differences,
both Marx and Durkheim assumed they knew the “real” nature of modern society – placing sociology’s
knowledge above people’s everyday beliefs.
This reveals essentialism, the idea that social phenomena have fixed features that define what they
“really” are. For Marx, the essence of society is class struggle; for Durkheim, it is solidarity and
interdependence. Essentialism goes hand in hand with authentication (declaring something real because
it fits the essence) and de-authentication (declaring it unreal because it doesn’t). We see this in phrases
like “She’s a real Muslim” or “That’s not real politics.” Competing groups often use this logic: right-wing
populists may claim “violent Islam is the real Islam,” while multiculturalists may insist “peaceful Islam is
the real Islam.” A cultural-sociological perspective, however, rejects this essentialism: Islam has no single
essence. It is what people make of it, and cultural sociology studies these different interpretations. The
same goes for Buddhism, which in the West is idealized as peaceful, but in Myanmar has also been tied to
violent conflict – leading outsiders to say, “Those aren’t real Buddhists.”
The problem with positivist sociology is that it rests on this flawed essentialism. There are no fixed
essences that science can uncover. When sociologists try to define what society “really” is, three issues
arise:
1. Sociology risks becoming a secular religion, making metaphysical claims about “real” meanings.
2. Sociologists moralize (labeling things abnormal, pathological, irrational) instead of doing open
empirical research.
3. Everyday cultural understandings are dismissed as irrational, while “objective” scientific
knowledge is elevated above them.
In short, positivist sociology overstates science’s authority, reduces culture to mere illusion, and struggles
with its own contradictions.
What Is Cultural Sociology?
• Humans differ in the cultural perspectives from which they look at the same social reality (e.g.,
liberal, conservative, Catholic, populist...)*
• Cultural sociology studies these perspectives and their social consequences rather than the
“essences” that positivists take social reality to consist of
*Important: this also applies to sociologists, with much “sociological theory” being no more than
metaphysics and moralism...
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,• From a cultural-sociological point of view society is nothing more or less than the shared webs of
meaning that people weave, maintain, and reconstruct (compare anthropologist Clifford Geertz,
1926-2006)
o “Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he
himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an
experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning.” – Clifford
Geertz
• Social phenomena do not have ‘fixed’, ‘objective’, ‘essential’ or ‘real’ meanings: “Meaning is not
inherent in the act” (Douglas & Waksler, 1982, p. 10)
• Non-cultural / positivist sociologists neglect actors’ meanings to tacitly replace them with their
own (e.g., defining homosexuality or homophobia at will as either ‘normal’ or ‘deviant’)... thus
normalizing these meanings rather than engaging in their cultural-sociological study
• By disregarding actors’ meanings positivist sociology easily portrays dissimilar phenomena as
similar, e.g.:
o Drinking wine in public with one’s loved one in Paris, France, and Tehran, Iran
o Refusals by orthodox Protestants and afficionados of spirituality (SBNR=“spiritual, but
not religious”) to have their children vaccinated
o Installing solar panels on the roof by frugal and environmentally concerned persons
• By disregarding actors’ meanings positivist sociology easily portrays similar phenomena as
dissimilar, e.g.:
o A funeral service in a church, a silent march after a murder case, a commemoration of
war victims
o Vegetarians eating meat, Jews or Muslims eating pork, Hindus eating beef, and anti-
globalists eating McDonald’s hamburgers
o Religious fundamentalists and scientists believing in the existence of one ‘real’ truth,
binding on everyone
• Deviance as an example
o Deviance = “Any thought, feeling, or action that members of a social group judge to be a
violation of their values or rules” (Douglas & Waksler, 1982: 10)
o So an act, feeling, or action is not deviant, but is defined as such by members of a
particular group (with members of other groups often disagreeing...)
o And of course: what used to be defined as deviant in the past, may now be seen as
normal (e.g., use of drugs, homosexuality) – and vice versa (e.g., smoking in public,
beating one’s children)
• Christian Smith (2003, p. 46): “We are all really believers. The lives that we live and the knowledge
we possess are based crucially on sets of basic assumptions and beliefs (...)”
• Christian Smith (2003, p. 55): “Only by believing in, committing to, placing faith in certain
suppositions and propositions can we human animals ever be capable to perceive, think, know, feel,
will, choose, and act”
• Humans are animals living in human-made stories about the world (e.g., religions, political
ideologies)
• These stories sort phenomena (classification) and explain what they mean (evaluation) (e.g.,
what is good, what is normal, what is ugly...)
• Humans tend to ground culture meta- physically...
o … to help them forget that culture is of their own making ...
o ... and thus to help them accept culture as a “true” representation of what the world is
“really” like
6
,• Cultural sociology is a sociological approach aimed at the study of
1) (the historical origins of, and changes in) cultural ideas, and
2) the consequences of these ideas for social action and social relations
• Cultural sociology is not a testable theory, but a theoretical perspective (= a way of looking): just
like academic disciplines (e.g., psychology, biology...) it cannot be empirically confirmed or
refuted
• Only cultural-sociological theories (as distinct from perspectives) can be empirically confirmed or
refuted
• Cultural sociology is not a substantively specialized, but a general sociology
• Examples of substantive sociological specializations: sociology of work, sociology of science,
sociology of the arts, political sociology, sociology of religion, environmental sociology...
• Cultural sociologists can study work, science, art, politics, religion, environmental issues, or
whatever
• Cultural sociology is not interested in strictly personal evaluations or interpretations
(psychology!), but only in learned and collective ones
o Example: “I don’t like Brussels’ sprouts”
• Cultural sociology is not interested in mere ‘opinions’ or ‘judgments’ (satisfaction, agreement...),
but rather in the values / evaluation criteria that inform them
Culture’s Hardness
• Culture is in a sense ‘harder’ than formal law:
o No formal rules are needed to remind people of meanings that they take for granted
(“Forbidden for pickpockets” is joking about the obvious; “Forbidden to walk on the
grass” means that everyone does it)
▪ Of course you don’t put a sign to forbid pickpockets at a bar – or if there is a sign
you can’t walk on the grass, it means all students walk on the grass in the park
when the sun is shining…
o Formal rules that are not rooted in culture will typically not be obeyed either (compare
issues concerning the enforceability of law, civil disobedience...)
• Culture is not necessarily less ‘hard’ than biology or technology either ➔ Example:
o Culture determines for what goals a technology can legitimately be deployed (so: use of
‘hard’ technology is determined by ‘soft’ (?!) culture)
o Culture (e.g., lifestyles) influences the way humans treat their bodies (e.g., inflicting pain,
getting diseases, matters of life and death)
o Medical technology: culture determines for what goals technology can be legitimately
deployed...
▪ Ethical questions: should we always want to do a medical treatement…
o Military technology: culture determines for what goals technology can be legitimately
deployed...
o Many humans are prepared to suffer, even die, for their ideals
o Many humans are prepared to kill in the name of their ideals
• Cultural dreams of ethnic or religious ‘purity’ cause biological inbreeding through a preference
for in-group marriages (so here culture shapes biology!)
• Anne Fausto Sterling (1944), professor in Biology and Gender Studies at Brown University, USA:
“There are not two different sexes, but in fact no less than five, so not only ‘gender’ is culturally
constructed, but so is ‘sex’...”
➔ Prof: this is another example of how culture shapes biology: “We believe there are only two sexes,
so we make sure that there are only two, by for example operate babies already very early when the
sex isn’t clear < In reality however, there would be five different sexes…”
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,Cultural Sociology’s Scienticity
• Cultural sociology dismisses as non-sociological moralism all assertions that what a group
believes, finds, or assumes to know is ‘actually true’ or ‘actually false’:
o There are always ‘other’ groups that believe, find, or assume to know very different,
even incompatible, things: ‘our’ (?) truth is ‘their’ (?) falsity, and vice versa
o Most of what a group of people believes, finds, or assumes to know is subject to change:
today’s truth is yesterday’s falsity, and vice versa
• What ‘we’ (?) hold to be true is typically historically and culturally contingent: it is what ‘our’ (?)
culture has made us believe (learned in education, from our parents, the media, etcetera)
• “The most important thing that one can know about a man* is what he* takes for granted and the
most elemental and important facts about a society are those that are seldom debated” (Louis Wirth,
1936)
o Louis Wirth (1897-1952): Chicago School (urban sociology); PhD 1926; Student of Robert
Park
o *This also applies to women, who did however not yet exist before WWII...
• Rather than moralizing about the world, cultural sociology addresses two strictly empirical
questions:
o When, where and how did a particular cultural idea emerge and which groups (have)
propagate(d) or rather reject(ed) it?
o What wider social consequences does this particular cultural idea have, e.g., through
informing the social actions of those who embrace it and/or evoking resistance by those
who reject it?
• From a cultural-sociological point of view it does not matter whether the beliefs of a group are
‘true’ or ‘false’: they influence the actions of its members anyway
Summary for Dummies:
- William Thomas (1863-1947): “If men (sic) define situations as real, they are real in their
consequences”
- Tareq Aziz (1936-2015): “What people belive is more important than what is true”
Cultural sociology starts from the idea that humans see the same social reality in different ways: liberal,
conservative, Catholic, populist, and so on. Instead of looking for fixed “essences” like positivists, cultural
sociology studies these perspectives and the consequences they have for social life. Following Geertz and
Weber, society is understood as webs of meaning that people themselves spin, share, and reinterpret.
Meanings are not inherent in acts; they are assigned by groups. This is why phenomena can be defined
differently depending on perspective—for example, what counts as deviance, religion, or even food.
Homosexuality, drug use, or smoking in public illustrate how what is considered “deviant” can change
over time.
By neglecting actors’ meanings, positivist sociology often distorts reality: it can portray very different
actions as the same (e.g., drinking wine in Paris vs. Tehran) or similar actions as different (a funeral, a
silent march, and a war commemoration). Cultural sociology instead focuses on how people define
situations and how these definitions shape behavior.
Humans live in stories – religions, ideologies, worldviews – that classify what is normal, good, or ugly. We
tend to treat these stories as if they were absolute truths, even though they are human-made. Cultural
sociology therefore studies two things:
1. Where cultural ideas come from, how they change, and who embraces or rejects them.
2. The consequences these ideas have for social action and relations.
Importantly, cultural sociology is not a testable theory but a perspective—a way of looking. It can be
applied to any area of sociology (work, politics, religion, environment, art, etc.), but it is only interested in
collective, learned meanings, not in individual likes or opinions.
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,Culture is also surprisingly “hard.” Rules only work if rooted in shared meanings; without cultural backing,
law is ineffective. Culture even shapes how technology and biology are used: for example, deciding
whether medical or military technologies are legitimate, or reducing five natural sexes (as biologist
Fausto-Sterling argues) to two by culturally enforcing binary categories.
Finally, cultural sociology stresses scientific neutrality: it does not judge whether beliefs are true or false.
What matters is that beliefs – true or false – have consequences. As the sociologist Thomas put it: “If
people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” Or in the words of Iraqi politician
Aziz: “What people believe is more important than what is true.”
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, Reader 1: Jack D. Douglas & Frances C. Waksler. 1982. “Major Issues in the Sociology of
Deviance.” Pp. 3-25 in The Sociology of Deviance: An Introduction, Boston: Little, Brown,
and Company.
I. The Ambiguity of Deviance and the Role of Social Context
"Deviance" refers to many things for different people, suggesting something bad, wrong, strange,
illegal, or unusual.
A. Case Studies Illustrating Definitional Issues
Chapter begins by examining 2 examples of suicide to highlight issues that arise when calling
suicide a deviant act.
• Case Study 1: Karen Kenyon's Husband (Dick): Dick's suicide was utterly unexpected, causing
profound shock and sorrow among his loved ones. For Karen, the act was puzzling,
ambiguous, and confusing, lacking clear explanation. His suicide was viewed as problematic
and difficult to understand in their social context, and it did not follow the rules of acceptable
and expected behavior.
• Case Study 2: Taki Zenzaburo (Japanese Context): Taki Zenzaburo committed hara-kiri (ritual
disembowelment) after being ordered to kill foreigners. His suicide was performed according
to prescribed social rules and ceremonies. Those who observed the act did not view it as
problematic; he offered a reason that made sense to them. In the context of Japanese
society, his suicide was nondeviant because it followed specific social and moral rules.
B. Conclusion from Case Studies: these 2 cases demonstrate that fundamental issue in sociology
of deviance is knowledge of social context in which deviance takes place. Judgments about
whether an act is deviant or nondeviant are often based on common-sense knowledge employed
by social group members.
II. Defining Deviance: The Sociological Approach
To study deviance empirically, sociologists must move beyond individual preconceptions and
establish an ostensive definition – one that points to the types of phenomena they want to study.
A. The Funnel of Possible Definitions (Figure 1.1): authors present a "funnel of possible
definitions of deviance," ranging from most inclusive to least inclusive.
• Most Inclusive: feeling that something is vaguely wrong, strange, peculiar.
• More restrictive levels: used by criminologists, focusing mainly on violations of morally
legitimate misdemeanor or felony laws.
• Least Inclusive: judgment that something is absolutely evil (e.g., the ultimate definitions of
"Evil" associated with religion or the occult).
B. The Chosen Sociological Definition (Level V): authors choose a definition at Level V: "Judgment
that something violates values or rules."
• Characteristics of Level V: this definition includes acts judged to violate certain values or
rules, regardless of whether those rules are right or wrong.
• Rationale: level V is deemed most suitable for sociological analysis because it is sufficiently
broad to allow for a great variety of comparative data, including forms of deviance not
formalized in law.
III. Methodological Challenges for Sociologists
A. Common Sense and Study of Deviance: common sense refers to shared ideas, beliefs, values,
and feelings that are taken for granted by the people involved in a stable human social activity.
• Distinction: scientific knowledge attempts to establish general laws. Unlike common
sense, science requires extensive, explicit evidence and attempts to disprove theories.
• Challenge: early sociologists relied heavily on common-sense assumptions. However,
modern sociology aims to critically assess common-sense assumptions and replace them
with ideas better suited to scientific testing. For sociologists, common sense is a topic for
study, not a source of sociological theories.
10
Professor Dick Houtman
Lecture 1: What is Culture? And What is Cultural Sociology?
What Is Culture?
• Geert Hofstede et al. (book 2010):
o “Ways of thinking, feeling, and doing that one has learned from, and shares with, others”
o “A sort of ‘mental programming’ or ‘software of the mind’”
• Dick Houtman:
o “Everything a group of people believes, finds, or assumes to know”
▪ It is always a group thing
o “A series of codes that explains ‘what belongs to what’ (= classification) and ‘what these
categories mean’ (= evaluation)”
▪ Example: what qualifies as food and how can different categories of food be
evaluated < tasty or not tasty
➔ Prof: I will never ask definitions on the exam, but it’s just for your own understanding!
• Culture is a profoundly ‘social’ phenomenon < it is always a group thing:
o Culture is not biologically inherited, but socially learned
o Culture is not strictly personal, but shared with others
This is why culture is pre-eminently studied by the social sciences, especially cultural anthropology
and (cultural) sociology
• Hofstede et al. (2010): One can compare the relationship between human biology and culture to
that between the hardware and software of computers
o Hardware: the human physiological / biological constitution which makes mental
programming possible in the first place
o Software: the culture(s) one has learned
What Is Not Culture?
So, two things are excluded from the notion of culture: everything that has not been learned and/or
is not shared with others
o Not learned: nature, including human nature, i.e., the human biological, physiological
constitution (bodies, genes, hormones...)
o Not shared with others: one’s personality, a strictly individual outcome of
biological/genetic and social influences
So, What Does Culture Capture?
• Ideas about what classifies as ‘food’ (goats’ eyes, live fish, pork?!) and about how to eat it
(cutlery, chop sticks, right hand?!)
o The right hand is to eat, and the left hand is the wipe when you go to the toilet… < Not
familiar with this habit in the West
• Greeting rituals
• Ideas about morally (un)acceptable behaviour (e.g., crime, sexism, racism, homophobia...)
• Ideas about group memberships and identities: the group(s) one identifies with and how it differs
from other groups
• Most important according to prof: ideas about the good society and the meaning of life:
o Political ideologies like conservatism, liberalism, socialism, populism
o Religions and worldviews
• Metaphysical beliefs about human society, nature and the supernatural
o It is much more than religion
o Example: socialists believe in classes and liberals believe in individualists
1
,➔ Of course, culture changes!!! < For example: Beauty Standards
o In different areas, there are different ideas of being beautiful
▪ Changes through history, but also changes in cultures
o Cultural Diversity: Beauty Standards
▪ Example: same female body, photoshopped in four countries
o Cultural Diversity: other example = Meanings of Natural Disasters
Culture can be understood as the shared ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that people learn from each
other. Hofstede and his colleagues describe it as a kind of “mental programming” or “software of the
mind,” meaning it shapes how we see the world and behave within it. Houtman defines culture in a
slightly different way: as everything that a group of people believes, assumes to know, or considers
meaningful. Importantly, culture is always a group phenomenon. It provides codes that tell us how to
classify things (what belongs to what category) and how to evaluate them (what is good or bad, desirable
or undesirable). For instance, cultures differ in what they consider “food” and how they judge whether it
is tasty or not.
Because culture is not something we are born with but something we learn from others, it is profoundly
social. It is not biologically inherited but socially acquired, and it is not just individual but always shared.
This is why the social sciences – especially anthropology and cultural sociology – study culture in depth.
Hofstede illustrates this with a computer metaphor: our biological constitution is like the hardware (the
body and brain), while culture is like the software (the learned mental programming that runs on it).
Equally important is understanding what does not count as culture. Two things fall outside this concept:
1. What is not learned → nature and human biology (our genes, hormones, physical body).
2. What is not shared with others → individual personality, which is shaped by both biology and
unique social influences but is not collective.
So, what does culture include? It captures a wide variety of shared ideas and practices, such as:
• What qualifies as food and how it should be eaten (e.g., with chopsticks, with the right hand, with
cutlery).
• Greeting rituals.
• Norms about acceptable or unacceptable behavior (crime, sexism, racism, homophobia, etc.).
• Beliefs about identity and group membership: who we are, which groups we belong to, and how
we differ from others.
• Above all, culture involves ideas about the “good society” and the meaning of life—expressed in
political ideologies (conservatism, liberalism, socialism, populism), religions, and broader
worldviews.
Culture also includes metaphysical beliefs that go beyond religion. For example, socialists believe in the
existence of social classes, while liberals emphasize individuals. These beliefs structure how people
understand society, nature, and even the supernatural.
Finally, it is crucial to remember that culture changes over time and across places. Ideas about beauty,
for example, differ between societies and shift throughout history. What is considered attractive in one
country or era may not be valued in another. Similarly, the meanings attached to natural disasters
(whether they are seen as divine punishment, natural cycles, or consequences of climate change) vary
between cultures. This shows how diverse and dynamic culture truly is.
What Is Positivist Sociology?
• Ontological assumption (= what social reality is): “behind” or “underneath” culture lies a “more
fundamental” social reality
• Epistemological assumption (= what knowledge about social reality is and how it can be
attained): “objective” social-scientific knowledge about social reality is produced by “unbiased,”
“neutral” research
2
,• So, here culture is trumped by science: people’s beliefs and understandings are basically
irrational and irrelevant: they just blur social reality as it “really” is
o Knowledge is superior to culture (culture is just the nonsense that people believe…)
• Positivist Sociology in Action
o Auguste Comte (sociology’s name-giver)
▪ Auguste Comte (1798-1857): sociology’s name-giver and godfather of positivism
▪ Believed that science could provide non-religious foundations for morality...
▪ ... and that sociology could distinguish on strictly scientific grounds between
“normal” / “abnormal” and “good” / “bad”
▪ Comte even proclaimed himself the positivist “high priest” of a self-conceived
“Religion of Humanity”
▪ This transformation of science into a secular religion has embarrassed many later
sociologists...
▪ ... who have in response tried to defend the credibility of positivism by
portraying all this as a mere “accident” or “exception”
➔ Prof: here science becomes a religion; the optimistic-positivist approach
But Scientific (St) Marx did exactly the same:
o Karl Marx (one of sociology’s three classical founders)
▪ “The economic interests of workers and capitalists are incompatible, which is
why class struggle is ‘normal’ and collaboration between labor and capital is
‘abnormal’”
▪ Notion of “false class consciousness”: “Workers who want to maintain capitalism
are too stupid to understand their own ‘objective’ class interests!”
➔ Prof: knowledge (sociologists know what is going on) being priviliged above culture
(people’s believes are stupid and irrelevant)
Same with (the “early”) Scientific (St) Durkheim, even though he completely reverts Scientific (St)
Marx’s assertion ...:
o (“Early”) Emile Durkheim (one of sociology’s three classical founders)
▪ “Labor and capital have identical economic interests, which is why class struggle
is ‘pathological’ and industrial peace is ‘normal’”
▪ “In industrial societies collaboration between labor and capital (‘organic
solidarity’) is ‘normal’ and class conflict is ‘abnormal’”
• Positivist Sociology in Action
o So Marx and (the “early”) Durkheim are both convinced that they know what modern
society “really” or “essentially” is... but the problem is that their claims are incompatible:
▪ Karl Marx: “Modern society = capitalist society” ➔ Unbridgeable conflict of
interest between labor and capital
▪ Emile Durkheim: “Modern society = industrial society” ➔ Shared interest of
labor and capital in expansion of industrialism
o Much like Comte, then, Marx and (the “early”) Durkheim also assume that there are two
different social realities:
1. A “real” social reality “behind” / “underneath” culture: more fundamental than
what people themselves believe, find, or assume to know, and to be discovered
and revealed by sociology
2. An “unreal” social reality (=culture): what people themselves believe, find, or
assume to know, to be critiqued by sociology and replaced by a rational insight
into how social reality “really” is
➔ Prof: the nonsence that people believe in
3
,Essentialism in Marx and Durkheim
• “Essentialism” = the conviction that social phenomena (e.g., “modern society”) have fixed and
immutable features that make them what they are and that can be discovered by science
• Essence of modern society according to Marx: Unbridgeable conflict of interest between owners
of the means of production and those selling their labor power
• Essence of modern society according to Durkheim: Mutual dependence between owners of the
means of production and those selling their labor power
Essentialism and Authentication
• “Authentication” = assigning a phenomenon a status of “realness” on the basis of the alleged
presence of a particular essence
• “De-authentication” = assigning a phenomenon the status of “unrealness” on the basis of the
alleged absence of a particular essence
o Examples:
▪ “He is a real Dutchman” ▪ “Spirituality is not real
▪ “She only likes real caviar” religion”
▪ “Populism is not real
politics”
• People rely on authentication and de-authentication to protect their beliefs against annoying
facts and events that throw them into doubt:
o Example: the British racist about his Pakistani friend and neighbor: “But Mohammed is
not a real Pakistani”
o Example: Liberal Muslims about Islamic fundamentalists: “Those are not real Muslims”
o Example: Islamic fundamentalists about liberal Muslims: “Those are not real Muslims”
• Islam is a good example, indeed:
o Rightist-populist essentialization and authentication: “Islam is an intolerant and violent
religion, so liberal and tolerant Muslims are not ‘real’ Muslims”
o Leftist-multiculturalist essentialization and authentication: “Islam is a peaceful religion,
so Islamic terrorists are not ‘real’ Muslims”
• Cultural-sociological understanding of Islam:
o Islam has no “essence”: there are no Muslims who are “more real” or “less real” than
others
o Islam, like anything else, is what people make of it
o Cultural sociology studies the variegated understandings of Muslims and Islam among
Muslims and non-Muslims
• “Real” Buddhism?! The quintessential cuddly religion of the West...
o Myanmar (former: Burma): about 50 million inhabitants < 80-90% Buddhists and 5%
Muslims (“Rohingya’s”), but 50/50 in Rakhine province
o “Real” Buddhism?! Burmese Buddhism in the 2010s
o Name of the spiritual leader: Ashin Wirathu
➔ The ‘cuddly religion’ of Buddhism resulted in a violence conflict, and the reaction of the rest
of the world was: “But these aren’t ‘real’ Buddhists…”
What’s Wrong with Positivist Sociology?
• A positivist sociology based on essentialist notions of ‘realness’ is deeply problematical:
o There are no fixed and immutable features that make it possible for science to “discover”
whether social phenomena are “real” or “unreal”
o Distorting and/or repressing phenomena that do not match one’s beliefs is a far cry from
intellectual skepticism and open-mindedness
4
,• Three debatable consequences of positivism:
1) Sociology is transformed into a sort of secular religion that deals in metaphysical claims
about what things “really” are and “really” mean
2) Sociologists moralize about the world (“pathological,” “abnormal,” “irrational”...) rather than
engaging in serious empirical research
3) Cultural understandings of “laypersons” are dismissed as inferior and irrational: “objective”
scientific knowledge is placed above culture
Positivist sociology is built on two main assumptions. First, the ontological assumption: beneath culture
lies a more fundamental social reality. Second, the epistemological assumption: this reality can be
studied “objectively” through neutral, unbiased science. In this view, culture is seen as noise – irrational
beliefs that obscure how society really works. Science is treated as superior to culture.
Comte, Marx, and early Durkheim are examples of this positivist approach. Comte (1798–1857),
sociology’s name-giver, believed science could provide a non-religious moral foundation. He even
promoted a “Religion of Humanity,” turning science itself into a kind of secular religion. Marx, in turn,
argued that the essence of society is capitalism, where workers and capitalists have unbridgeable conflicts
of interest. Workers who did not recognize this suffered from “false class consciousness.” Early Durkheim
took the opposite position: he claimed that modern (industrial) society is based on cooperation, where
collaboration between labor and capital is normal, and conflict is pathological. Despite their differences,
both Marx and Durkheim assumed they knew the “real” nature of modern society – placing sociology’s
knowledge above people’s everyday beliefs.
This reveals essentialism, the idea that social phenomena have fixed features that define what they
“really” are. For Marx, the essence of society is class struggle; for Durkheim, it is solidarity and
interdependence. Essentialism goes hand in hand with authentication (declaring something real because
it fits the essence) and de-authentication (declaring it unreal because it doesn’t). We see this in phrases
like “She’s a real Muslim” or “That’s not real politics.” Competing groups often use this logic: right-wing
populists may claim “violent Islam is the real Islam,” while multiculturalists may insist “peaceful Islam is
the real Islam.” A cultural-sociological perspective, however, rejects this essentialism: Islam has no single
essence. It is what people make of it, and cultural sociology studies these different interpretations. The
same goes for Buddhism, which in the West is idealized as peaceful, but in Myanmar has also been tied to
violent conflict – leading outsiders to say, “Those aren’t real Buddhists.”
The problem with positivist sociology is that it rests on this flawed essentialism. There are no fixed
essences that science can uncover. When sociologists try to define what society “really” is, three issues
arise:
1. Sociology risks becoming a secular religion, making metaphysical claims about “real” meanings.
2. Sociologists moralize (labeling things abnormal, pathological, irrational) instead of doing open
empirical research.
3. Everyday cultural understandings are dismissed as irrational, while “objective” scientific
knowledge is elevated above them.
In short, positivist sociology overstates science’s authority, reduces culture to mere illusion, and struggles
with its own contradictions.
What Is Cultural Sociology?
• Humans differ in the cultural perspectives from which they look at the same social reality (e.g.,
liberal, conservative, Catholic, populist...)*
• Cultural sociology studies these perspectives and their social consequences rather than the
“essences” that positivists take social reality to consist of
*Important: this also applies to sociologists, with much “sociological theory” being no more than
metaphysics and moralism...
5
,• From a cultural-sociological point of view society is nothing more or less than the shared webs of
meaning that people weave, maintain, and reconstruct (compare anthropologist Clifford Geertz,
1926-2006)
o “Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he
himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an
experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning.” – Clifford
Geertz
• Social phenomena do not have ‘fixed’, ‘objective’, ‘essential’ or ‘real’ meanings: “Meaning is not
inherent in the act” (Douglas & Waksler, 1982, p. 10)
• Non-cultural / positivist sociologists neglect actors’ meanings to tacitly replace them with their
own (e.g., defining homosexuality or homophobia at will as either ‘normal’ or ‘deviant’)... thus
normalizing these meanings rather than engaging in their cultural-sociological study
• By disregarding actors’ meanings positivist sociology easily portrays dissimilar phenomena as
similar, e.g.:
o Drinking wine in public with one’s loved one in Paris, France, and Tehran, Iran
o Refusals by orthodox Protestants and afficionados of spirituality (SBNR=“spiritual, but
not religious”) to have their children vaccinated
o Installing solar panels on the roof by frugal and environmentally concerned persons
• By disregarding actors’ meanings positivist sociology easily portrays similar phenomena as
dissimilar, e.g.:
o A funeral service in a church, a silent march after a murder case, a commemoration of
war victims
o Vegetarians eating meat, Jews or Muslims eating pork, Hindus eating beef, and anti-
globalists eating McDonald’s hamburgers
o Religious fundamentalists and scientists believing in the existence of one ‘real’ truth,
binding on everyone
• Deviance as an example
o Deviance = “Any thought, feeling, or action that members of a social group judge to be a
violation of their values or rules” (Douglas & Waksler, 1982: 10)
o So an act, feeling, or action is not deviant, but is defined as such by members of a
particular group (with members of other groups often disagreeing...)
o And of course: what used to be defined as deviant in the past, may now be seen as
normal (e.g., use of drugs, homosexuality) – and vice versa (e.g., smoking in public,
beating one’s children)
• Christian Smith (2003, p. 46): “We are all really believers. The lives that we live and the knowledge
we possess are based crucially on sets of basic assumptions and beliefs (...)”
• Christian Smith (2003, p. 55): “Only by believing in, committing to, placing faith in certain
suppositions and propositions can we human animals ever be capable to perceive, think, know, feel,
will, choose, and act”
• Humans are animals living in human-made stories about the world (e.g., religions, political
ideologies)
• These stories sort phenomena (classification) and explain what they mean (evaluation) (e.g.,
what is good, what is normal, what is ugly...)
• Humans tend to ground culture meta- physically...
o … to help them forget that culture is of their own making ...
o ... and thus to help them accept culture as a “true” representation of what the world is
“really” like
6
,• Cultural sociology is a sociological approach aimed at the study of
1) (the historical origins of, and changes in) cultural ideas, and
2) the consequences of these ideas for social action and social relations
• Cultural sociology is not a testable theory, but a theoretical perspective (= a way of looking): just
like academic disciplines (e.g., psychology, biology...) it cannot be empirically confirmed or
refuted
• Only cultural-sociological theories (as distinct from perspectives) can be empirically confirmed or
refuted
• Cultural sociology is not a substantively specialized, but a general sociology
• Examples of substantive sociological specializations: sociology of work, sociology of science,
sociology of the arts, political sociology, sociology of religion, environmental sociology...
• Cultural sociologists can study work, science, art, politics, religion, environmental issues, or
whatever
• Cultural sociology is not interested in strictly personal evaluations or interpretations
(psychology!), but only in learned and collective ones
o Example: “I don’t like Brussels’ sprouts”
• Cultural sociology is not interested in mere ‘opinions’ or ‘judgments’ (satisfaction, agreement...),
but rather in the values / evaluation criteria that inform them
Culture’s Hardness
• Culture is in a sense ‘harder’ than formal law:
o No formal rules are needed to remind people of meanings that they take for granted
(“Forbidden for pickpockets” is joking about the obvious; “Forbidden to walk on the
grass” means that everyone does it)
▪ Of course you don’t put a sign to forbid pickpockets at a bar – or if there is a sign
you can’t walk on the grass, it means all students walk on the grass in the park
when the sun is shining…
o Formal rules that are not rooted in culture will typically not be obeyed either (compare
issues concerning the enforceability of law, civil disobedience...)
• Culture is not necessarily less ‘hard’ than biology or technology either ➔ Example:
o Culture determines for what goals a technology can legitimately be deployed (so: use of
‘hard’ technology is determined by ‘soft’ (?!) culture)
o Culture (e.g., lifestyles) influences the way humans treat their bodies (e.g., inflicting pain,
getting diseases, matters of life and death)
o Medical technology: culture determines for what goals technology can be legitimately
deployed...
▪ Ethical questions: should we always want to do a medical treatement…
o Military technology: culture determines for what goals technology can be legitimately
deployed...
o Many humans are prepared to suffer, even die, for their ideals
o Many humans are prepared to kill in the name of their ideals
• Cultural dreams of ethnic or religious ‘purity’ cause biological inbreeding through a preference
for in-group marriages (so here culture shapes biology!)
• Anne Fausto Sterling (1944), professor in Biology and Gender Studies at Brown University, USA:
“There are not two different sexes, but in fact no less than five, so not only ‘gender’ is culturally
constructed, but so is ‘sex’...”
➔ Prof: this is another example of how culture shapes biology: “We believe there are only two sexes,
so we make sure that there are only two, by for example operate babies already very early when the
sex isn’t clear < In reality however, there would be five different sexes…”
7
,Cultural Sociology’s Scienticity
• Cultural sociology dismisses as non-sociological moralism all assertions that what a group
believes, finds, or assumes to know is ‘actually true’ or ‘actually false’:
o There are always ‘other’ groups that believe, find, or assume to know very different,
even incompatible, things: ‘our’ (?) truth is ‘their’ (?) falsity, and vice versa
o Most of what a group of people believes, finds, or assumes to know is subject to change:
today’s truth is yesterday’s falsity, and vice versa
• What ‘we’ (?) hold to be true is typically historically and culturally contingent: it is what ‘our’ (?)
culture has made us believe (learned in education, from our parents, the media, etcetera)
• “The most important thing that one can know about a man* is what he* takes for granted and the
most elemental and important facts about a society are those that are seldom debated” (Louis Wirth,
1936)
o Louis Wirth (1897-1952): Chicago School (urban sociology); PhD 1926; Student of Robert
Park
o *This also applies to women, who did however not yet exist before WWII...
• Rather than moralizing about the world, cultural sociology addresses two strictly empirical
questions:
o When, where and how did a particular cultural idea emerge and which groups (have)
propagate(d) or rather reject(ed) it?
o What wider social consequences does this particular cultural idea have, e.g., through
informing the social actions of those who embrace it and/or evoking resistance by those
who reject it?
• From a cultural-sociological point of view it does not matter whether the beliefs of a group are
‘true’ or ‘false’: they influence the actions of its members anyway
Summary for Dummies:
- William Thomas (1863-1947): “If men (sic) define situations as real, they are real in their
consequences”
- Tareq Aziz (1936-2015): “What people belive is more important than what is true”
Cultural sociology starts from the idea that humans see the same social reality in different ways: liberal,
conservative, Catholic, populist, and so on. Instead of looking for fixed “essences” like positivists, cultural
sociology studies these perspectives and the consequences they have for social life. Following Geertz and
Weber, society is understood as webs of meaning that people themselves spin, share, and reinterpret.
Meanings are not inherent in acts; they are assigned by groups. This is why phenomena can be defined
differently depending on perspective—for example, what counts as deviance, religion, or even food.
Homosexuality, drug use, or smoking in public illustrate how what is considered “deviant” can change
over time.
By neglecting actors’ meanings, positivist sociology often distorts reality: it can portray very different
actions as the same (e.g., drinking wine in Paris vs. Tehran) or similar actions as different (a funeral, a
silent march, and a war commemoration). Cultural sociology instead focuses on how people define
situations and how these definitions shape behavior.
Humans live in stories – religions, ideologies, worldviews – that classify what is normal, good, or ugly. We
tend to treat these stories as if they were absolute truths, even though they are human-made. Cultural
sociology therefore studies two things:
1. Where cultural ideas come from, how they change, and who embraces or rejects them.
2. The consequences these ideas have for social action and relations.
Importantly, cultural sociology is not a testable theory but a perspective—a way of looking. It can be
applied to any area of sociology (work, politics, religion, environment, art, etc.), but it is only interested in
collective, learned meanings, not in individual likes or opinions.
8
,Culture is also surprisingly “hard.” Rules only work if rooted in shared meanings; without cultural backing,
law is ineffective. Culture even shapes how technology and biology are used: for example, deciding
whether medical or military technologies are legitimate, or reducing five natural sexes (as biologist
Fausto-Sterling argues) to two by culturally enforcing binary categories.
Finally, cultural sociology stresses scientific neutrality: it does not judge whether beliefs are true or false.
What matters is that beliefs – true or false – have consequences. As the sociologist Thomas put it: “If
people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” Or in the words of Iraqi politician
Aziz: “What people believe is more important than what is true.”
9
, Reader 1: Jack D. Douglas & Frances C. Waksler. 1982. “Major Issues in the Sociology of
Deviance.” Pp. 3-25 in The Sociology of Deviance: An Introduction, Boston: Little, Brown,
and Company.
I. The Ambiguity of Deviance and the Role of Social Context
"Deviance" refers to many things for different people, suggesting something bad, wrong, strange,
illegal, or unusual.
A. Case Studies Illustrating Definitional Issues
Chapter begins by examining 2 examples of suicide to highlight issues that arise when calling
suicide a deviant act.
• Case Study 1: Karen Kenyon's Husband (Dick): Dick's suicide was utterly unexpected, causing
profound shock and sorrow among his loved ones. For Karen, the act was puzzling,
ambiguous, and confusing, lacking clear explanation. His suicide was viewed as problematic
and difficult to understand in their social context, and it did not follow the rules of acceptable
and expected behavior.
• Case Study 2: Taki Zenzaburo (Japanese Context): Taki Zenzaburo committed hara-kiri (ritual
disembowelment) after being ordered to kill foreigners. His suicide was performed according
to prescribed social rules and ceremonies. Those who observed the act did not view it as
problematic; he offered a reason that made sense to them. In the context of Japanese
society, his suicide was nondeviant because it followed specific social and moral rules.
B. Conclusion from Case Studies: these 2 cases demonstrate that fundamental issue in sociology
of deviance is knowledge of social context in which deviance takes place. Judgments about
whether an act is deviant or nondeviant are often based on common-sense knowledge employed
by social group members.
II. Defining Deviance: The Sociological Approach
To study deviance empirically, sociologists must move beyond individual preconceptions and
establish an ostensive definition – one that points to the types of phenomena they want to study.
A. The Funnel of Possible Definitions (Figure 1.1): authors present a "funnel of possible
definitions of deviance," ranging from most inclusive to least inclusive.
• Most Inclusive: feeling that something is vaguely wrong, strange, peculiar.
• More restrictive levels: used by criminologists, focusing mainly on violations of morally
legitimate misdemeanor or felony laws.
• Least Inclusive: judgment that something is absolutely evil (e.g., the ultimate definitions of
"Evil" associated with religion or the occult).
B. The Chosen Sociological Definition (Level V): authors choose a definition at Level V: "Judgment
that something violates values or rules."
• Characteristics of Level V: this definition includes acts judged to violate certain values or
rules, regardless of whether those rules are right or wrong.
• Rationale: level V is deemed most suitable for sociological analysis because it is sufficiently
broad to allow for a great variety of comparative data, including forms of deviance not
formalized in law.
III. Methodological Challenges for Sociologists
A. Common Sense and Study of Deviance: common sense refers to shared ideas, beliefs, values,
and feelings that are taken for granted by the people involved in a stable human social activity.
• Distinction: scientific knowledge attempts to establish general laws. Unlike common
sense, science requires extensive, explicit evidence and attempts to disprove theories.
• Challenge: early sociologists relied heavily on common-sense assumptions. However,
modern sociology aims to critically assess common-sense assumptions and replace them
with ideas better suited to scientific testing. For sociologists, common sense is a topic for
study, not a source of sociological theories.
10
