Culture and Civilization

Concepts

Culture is one of the most complex concepts in social theory. In their classical investigation in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckohn already listed several hundred definitions which were used in scientific discourse. In the current usage of language, two concepts of culture may be distinguished: (1) An extended concept of culture that describes all man-made creations of human living conditions; “culture” here is in contrast to all things found in nature. The spectrum of cultural forms then stretches from house building to the use of tools, clothing, and social manners to state and social institutions up to the spheres of science and art. (2) A narrow concept of culture, on the other hand, limits itself to spiritual and artistic aspects. It often carries a connotation of something “higher” and free of purpose. “Culture” in this context is mainly identical with the literature, the fine arts, and philosophy. For a long period of time the extended concept of culture was used mainly in anthropology and ethnology, whereas for the most part, sociology was concerned with the scope of the narrow concept of culture. Today sociological research attempts to concern itself more with the forms of daily culture, such as table manners, sport types, and interior decorating. In current empirical research the immaterial dimension of culture is highlighted: conceptions, orientations, norms, and values which guide the actions of those involved. As an example, Ronald Inglehart described the change of values in the Western world that have occurred since the 1960s as going from a materialistic to a postmaterialistic set of preferences. It has permanent effects on the way people live their lives, whether they are primarily concerned with striving for material goods or if they are looking for self fulfillment, for meaning, and for a better quality of life through preserving an intact environment.

Although the object culture itself has a long historical tradition and the linguistic roots of “culture” and “civilization” are derived from ancient Latin (colere [to live, to build in the agricultural sense], cultus, cultura; civis [citizen], civilis), the more complex and collectively oriented concept of culture as we know it today was established as late as in the second half of the 18th century. Authors like Johann Gottfried Herder, Denis Diderot, and Thomas Paine wrote about the cultures of peoples and correlated those with a historical perspective of development and progress in contrast to wildness and barbarism. Certain evolving language configurations then resulted in an important differentiation: “Culture” (German “Kultur”) was used predominantly in the German speaking region while the term “civilization” (French “civilisation”) was more common in the Anglo-Saxon and French regions. Both conceptual traditions contain nearly the same meanings and are often connected with a common European or “occidental” culture.

The differences were only partly accentuated; for example, when the German sociologist Alfred Weber (the brother of Max Weber) in 1912 stated that “culture” marks a step in the development of the process of civilization beyond the necessities and utilities of daily life (a scenario similar to that in Oswald Spengler's influential work concerning the “Decline of the West” (1918)). In the context of the First World War, especially in Germany, there were some nationalistically motivated attempts to distinguish the apparently more valuable (spiritual, moral, inner) German “Kultur” (culture) from the Western “Zivilisation” (civilization) that was negatively described as being “technical” and “superficial.” In this “battle of the cultures” German sociologists Werner Sombart, Ernst Troeltsch, and George Simmel, among others, participated while on the French side Emile Durkheim, amongst others, also took a polemic stance.

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