Clock time is externalized and objectified, as opposed to body time, which is internalized and subjective. Moreover, we in the Western or “modern” world are so obsessed with clock time that we wear clocks on our bodies or keep clock time ever present via smartphones. Many wristwatches and virtually all smartphones now have stopwatches on them. Clock time is so normalized in our culture that some people evaluate worship services or sermons based on their length; God forbid that a sermon message should exceed 20 minutes!
Body time has to do with our intuitive sense of time as it is experienced, including internal rhythms such as breathing and heartbeat. On one of my first trips to the U.S. Southwest, I visited Taos Pueblo and discovered that a corn dance was to occur later that day. I asked a stupid question: “When will the dance begin?” Answer? “When the Taos elders feel that the community is moving in a common rhythm.” The start time had nothing to do with a clock. Notions of “using time,” “saving time,” or “time as money” are bizarre where body time is the dominant cultural motif.
Why do concepts of time matter? First, Western culture seems to be out of touch with body time. Yet the externalization of time (measurement by instruments) may put us out of touch with internal rhythms. We often eat when the clock says it’s time for lunch, not when our bodies tell us they need food. Second, when clock time begins to supersede body time and natural rhythms, our heart rate and respiration rhythms can speed up, and we stress out. Third, using different research methods, Edward Hall found an interesting social consequence related to rhythm that pointed to the same conclusion: When a spirit of harmony and solidarity exists in a group, the people tend to move to a common rhythm. Perhaps this is why so many groups—college Greek societies, faith communities, and civic groups like the Kiwanis—all have times when they sing together. Singing gets the group moving in a common rhythm, and this, in turn, creates feelings of social integration and solidarity.
Source: Hall, Edward T. 1984. The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time. New York: Penguin Random House.
By Keith A. Roberts. Your coauthor studied and traveled among Native American groups, often with groups of students, and was fascinated by their cultures.
Thinking Sociologically
Small, tightly knit societies with no meso or macro level often stress cooperation, conformity, and personal sacrifice for the sake of the community. Complex societies with established meso- and macro-level linkages tend to be more individualistic, stressing personal uniqueness, individual creativity, and critical thinking. Why do you think this is the case?
Components of Culture: Things and Thoughts
Things (material objects) and thoughts (nonmaterial ideas) make up our culture. Together they provide the guidelines for our lives.
Material Culture: The Artifacts of Life.
Material culture includes all the human-made objects we can see or touch, all the artifacts of a group of people—grindstones for grinding cassava root, microwave ovens for cooking, bricks of mud or clay for building shelters, hides or woven cloth for making clothing, books or computers for conveying information, tools for reshaping environments, vessels for carrying and sharing food, and weapons for dominating and subduing others.
Some material culture is from the local community; it is of micro-level origin. The kinds of materials with which homes are constructed and the materials used for clothing often reflect the geography and resources of the local area. Houses are an especially good example of material culture, because they result from local ideas of what a “home” looks like and shape the interactions and attitudes of people in the society. Likewise, types of jewelry, pottery, musical instruments, or clothing reflect tastes that emerge at the micro and meso levels of family, community, and subculture. At a more macro level, national and international corporations interested in making profits work hard to establish trends in fashion and style that may cross continents and oceans.
▲ Homes are good examples of material culture. Their construction is influenced not only by local materials but also by ideas of what a home should be. Homes shape the context in which family members interact, so they can influence the nonmaterial culture—including beliefs, values, and symbols. Houses, like clothes, act as symbols that communicate levels of prestige.
Keith Roberts
Material culture helps drive the globalization process. Workers in Asia and Central American countries now make many of our clothes. Our shoes may come from the Philippines. The last banana you ate probably grew in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, or Panama. That romantic diamond engagement ring—a symbol that represents the most intimate tie—may well be imported from a South African mine using low-paid or even slave labor. Our cars consist of parts produced on nearly every continent.
Thinking Sociologically
Think of examples of material culture that you use daily: stove, automobile, cell phone, computer, refrigerator, clock, money, and so forth. How do these material objects influence your way of life and the way you interact with others? How would your behavior be different if one of these material objects, say iPhones or money, did not exist?
Nonmaterial Culture: Beliefs, Values, Rules, and Language.
Saluting the flag, saying a blessing before meals, flashing someone an obscene gesture, and a football coach signaling what defensive formation to run for the next play are all acts with symbolic meaning. In the case of the salute and the prayer, the acts undergird a belief about the nation or about a higher spiritual presence. In each case something is communicated, yet each of these acts refers to something more abstract than any material object.
▲ Coaches and players use hand signals to cue each other into an upcoming play or to convey what defense or offense to set up—an example of nonverbal communication.
© Reuters/Matt Sullivan
Nonmaterial culture refers to the thoughts, language, feelings, beliefs, values, and attitudes that make up much of our culture. It is the invisible and intangible parts of culture that involve society’s rules of behavior, ideas, and beliefs that shape how people interact with others and with their environment. Although we cannot touch the nonmaterial components of our culture, they pervade our life and influence how we think, feel, and behave. Nonmaterial culture is complex, comprising four main elements: values, beliefs, norms or rules, and language.
Values are shared judgments about what is desirable or undesirable, right or wrong, and good or bad. They express the basic ideals of any group of people. In industrial and postindustrial societies, for instance, a good education is highly valued. That you are in college shows you have certain values toward learning and education. Gunnar Myrdal, a Swedish sociologist and observer of U.S. culture, referred to the U.S. value system as the American creed, so much a part of the