Question

define and provide examples of material and non-material culture, as well as subcultures and counter cultures. DEFINE IN OWN WORDS.

Answer 1

Material culture involves position of material items or artefacts a physical presence to define the cultural status, way of living and level of recognition and value added to the people in the materialistic culture. For example in material culture, objects such as Land holdings, cattles, live stocks, material currency and valuable artefacts, etc are used to define the cultural richness and status in the society. Whereas in contrast the non material culture involves the richness and the values of the culture belonging to the value based systems such as thoughts, beliefs, morals, languages, customs and traditions. The best example of non material culture can be seen in the Indian culture where the traditional values and morals are considered more important as compared to materials holding such as the amount of money are the number of houses and cars belonging to the person in the society.

Sub-culture can be described as a part of the larger cultural group distinguish by social economic and values system but belonging to an extent to the larger part and being a subset of the larger culture with minor distinct differences does naming it as a subculture. So essentially the subculture is a smaller group within a larger group of the similar culture. Some examples of subculture can be the kotha culture hippie culture which are part of a normal society but are distinct in their moral values and way of living.

Counter culture on the other and can be defined as a culture which place is foundation on the opposite value to a particular culture and basing their fundamental in a position to the beliefs and values system of other culture. The values of counter culture are in a position and deviate from a larger culture and some time are also referred as rebellious cultural group against the dominant culture. The example of counter culture can be the feminist cultural groups where they are pose the traditional cultural norms and values of the traditionally dominant masculinism.