Nature vs Culture - Essay Example

The connections between nature and culture are often so close that in common language, we may even go as far as saying something regarding the nature of a group of people where we mean culture. In essence, for many individuals who are not too careful about the distinction between the two, nature and culture become interchangeable terms that do not necessitate a closer examination. However, the philosophical and sociological perspectives on nature and culture certainly differentiate the two and the understanding of their difference becomes vitally important for all those who are interested in sociology, anthropology, management and even history.

Considering the various sociological perspectives that can be taken about nature and culture, two stand out from the others. These are the structural-functionalist perspective and the conflict perspective both of which consider nature and culture in very different lights. To better understand how they differ and the distinctions made by them about nature and culture it would be useful to examine them individually.

First, structural functionalism is founded on the idea that society is composed of structures that are supposed to perform a certain function. In essence, both nature and culture are social structures but culture is more of a social construct than nature (McClelland, 2000). For instance, if a culture is connected deeply to the principles of monogamy it is entirely possible that the cultural elements of the society would lead to the government outlawing polygamy.

On the other hand, some cultures may permit polygamy or even polyandry and thus the socially constructed laws in that country may permit individuals to create families in that manner. However, the functionalist perspective would suggest that the role of the family unit in both cultures could be more or less the same and the role is not solely dependent on how the family is formed.

Therefore, the role of culture in the functionalist perspective would be understood by examining the function performed by culture for a given society. The role of nature becomes something which deals with the individual and the skin-bound individual may not be included in the debate on the functions of culture for society. However, the nature of the individual may function quite importantly for a person who interacts with society and thus his/her nature may cause her to seek out groups which form a sub-culture in the larger culture.

On the other hand, the conflict perspective considers the field of sociology as well as the story of all human endeavours to be the study of a class struggle between the haves and the have-nots. Karl Marx can be considered to be the founder of this perspective of society since he and many of his followers considered the conflict between the higher and lower classes to be the basis of whatever happens in society (McClelland, 2000). The conflict between men and women, children and their parents as well as workers and their employers can be considered as a part of the sociological perspective given by Karl Marx (Gordon, 1978).

When it comes to nature, the conflict perspective considers the class battle to be the natural result of how economic systems and the culture of a capitalist system functions (Bauman, Z. 2000). The greed for more economic gains keeps the upper classes in a constant battle to control the lower classes while preventing them from gaining the commanding heights of an economy. The culture, therefore, serves to perpetuate the cause of the rich while it uses the social order to keep the poor individuals in their place. Nature again serves little purpose in such a situation since the rich make it their nature to be greedy while the poor may be told that it is in their nature to be complacent and that they should remain consumers of their culture (Baudrillard, 1998).

The only way out of this perpetual state is a revolt of the poor who overthrow their masters and then consider everything they did to be evil. At the same time, the revolt may not remain true to the fundamentals and with time, the ideals of the revolutionaries may completely fizzle out. It must be noted that such a revolt may only serve to create a new social order in which those who did not have control, violently seize control and then put their former masters in the position of slaves (McClelland, 2000).

Considering these perspectives as journeys or cycles, it becomes clear that the conflict perspective describes a cycle which starts and ends with a violent revolt in which the slaves overthrow their masters to become masters themselves. Even though the social order and social systems may change rapidly in such a revolt, after the passing of the storm the structure of society with a master-slave relationship between the classes continues to exist. On the other hand, the functionalist perspective may be seen as a journey as the function performed by an element of culture may evolve with time and may even become deprecated as the culture changes and develops on the journey it takes through internal or external influences.