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Structuralism

Levi-Strauss analysed cultural phenomena such as languages, myths and kinship systems to discover what ordered patterns, or structures, they seemed to display. These, he suggested, could reveal the structure of the human mind. He reasoned that behind the surface of individual cultures there must exist natural properties (universals) common to us all. Levi-Strauss focused his attention on the patterns or structures existing beneath the customs and beliefs of all cultures.

One such pattern is called opposition. The entire world could be conceptualised in this dualistic way. The reason people of all cultures tend to think in terms of opposites us that to think, we must classify, which means we must be able to distinguish between things.

In the industrialised world, the red light of a traffic signal means "stop", and green means "go". To Levi-Strauss, this is a mere external of culture, devoid of any deeper significance. Much more meaningful is how these facts convey information to drivers and pedestrians; through the contrast or opposition between red and green, and the switching from one colour to another. Red has a meaning only in relation to green. It is the structure or pattern of opposites that provides the messages, not the colours considered independently of each other.

Levi-Strauss likened people"s language to the "rules" that govern society, in that the governed are largely unconscious of what they know. He likened speech-the use of sounds and rules, mainly in the form of sentences-to the ideas and behaviour that result from the application of largely unconscious social rules. Members of a society are much more likely to be conscious of their actual ideas and behaviours than they are of the deeply structured rules that make these ideas and behaviours possible, but the ideas and behaviours of a given group of people can be understood if the unconscious of the unconscious structures in their minds can be discovered.

• Levi-Strauss puts forward that culture is to be understood as a surface phenomenon which reveals the universal human tendency to order and classify experiences and dynamics.
• Seeks to understand the "deep structures" in society.
• While the surface phenomenon may vary, the underlying ordering principles are the same.
• Levi-Strauss has analysed kinship and marriage, myth and ritual
• He argues that the human brain universally forms "Binary Oppositions". Here, people and society forms oppositions and contrasts. For example, the Yanomamo make a distinction between the things of the "jungle" and the "village". Man is of the village and animals are of the village. Man is of the village and animals are of the jungle. Moreover, in our society we form a distinction between man and woman, right and left, and raw and cooked.
• No term, therefore, is to be understood in isolation, but instead, as part of a contrasting system built up from the brain"s elementary function of contrast and opposition.
• He argues that myth and ritual serve to bridge these contradictions (i.e. bridge social dichotomies).

Problems with structuralism

• Structuralism tends to be static and "ahistorical" (not examining past events), thus not accounting for the way history effects the present.
• Poses a biological explanation for cultural, which sometimes ignores "social constructions".

Authority and the Exercise of Power

Systems of social stratification

Sociologist Max Weber established possible connections among power, prestige, and unequal access to resources. He suggested that social inequality tends to develop in a society when:

• People have unequal access to whatever is considered valuable: natural resources, labour, money, or (especially in non-western societies), intangibles such as ritual knowledge.
• People are entitled to different degrees of prestige, depending on criteria such as descent, wealth or race, or (more recently), education or Westernisation.
• Some people enjoy more power, either physical or ideological (based on ideas and charisma) than others.
• Such differences are both causes and characteristics of stratified societies.

Society ensures the appropriate behaviour of its members by rules about social stratification, especially through status, role and prestige.

Social class- a group of people in a stratified society, such as elites and commoners, who share a similar level of access to resources, power and prestige.

Rank- a position in hierarchical system of social classification.

Ascribed status- the social status that one is born into, includes gender, birth order, lineage, clan affiliation, and connection with elite ancestors.

Social stratification- a ranking of social statuses such that the individuals of a society belong to different groups having differential access to resources, power and prestige.

Status- the place that an individual occupies in the social structure

Role- a combination of the attitudes with a given status and the behaviour that expressed them.

Prestige- social reputation based on a subjective evaluation of social statuses relative to one another.

Class- a group defined by the amount of control it exerts over factors of production. (Those with more control are the higher classes and vice versa).

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