Culture Theory and Industrial Analysis

DOI10.1177/000271625127400103
Date01 March 1951
Published date01 March 1951
AuthorPaul Meadows
Subject MatterArticles
9
Culture
Theory
and
Industrial
Analysis
By
PAUL
MEADOWS
HE
concept
of
culture
has
proved
T in
recent
years
to
be
a
powerful
and
proficient
liaison
among
the
differ-
ent
approaches
to
the
study
of
human
behavior.
The
reason
is
fairly
simple:
The
cultural
approach
provides
a
basis
for
selection,
organization,
and
interpretation
by
its
assumption
that
any
society
has
a
structure
of
institutions,
of
values,
of
ide-
ologies
and
by
assuming
that
no
part
is
to
be
understood
without
reference
to
its
place
in
the
whole.’
The
concept
of
culture
is
peculiarly
serviceable
in
the
analysis
of
industrial
societies.
For
culture
is
itself
a
tech-
nological
concept,
&dquo;an
instrumental
re-
ality,
an
apparatus
for
the
satisfaction
of
human
needs.&dquo;
2
Evolved
and
elabo-
rated
through
man’s
meaningful
inter-
action
with
.the
natural
environment,
culture
itself
becomes
for
human
beings
a
new
environment.
The
culturalized
act-product
of
an
organic
plasticity
which
enables
man
to
invent
and
learn
-is
contained
fundamentally
in
the
dis-
covery,
invention,
communication,
and
use
of
meanings.
Cultural
reality
con-
sists
of
events
to
which
human
beings
have
given
a
meaning,
to
which
they
have
assigned
a
positive
or
negative
meaning
for
human
need
satisfaction.
The
culturalized
act
involves
the
use
of
meanings
and
their
vehicles
in
human
goal
satisfaction.3
CULTURE
SYSTEMS
Every
society
develops
a
culture,
its
own
organized
relationship
to
its
world.
Its
culture
functions
as
a
system
of
meanings
and
vehicles
of
meanings.
As
a
system,
the
culture
may
be
open
or
closed,
integrated,
unintegrated,
or
dis-
integrated.
As
a
system,
moreover,
the
culture
may
be
said
to
have
its
own
sub-
systems.
The
technological
system
is
composed
of
the
material,
mechanical,
physical,
and
chemical
instruments,
together
with
the
techniques
of
their
own,
by
means
of
which
man,
as
an
animal
species,
is
articulated
with
his
natural
habitat.
Here
we
find
the
tools
of
production,
the
means
of
subsist-
ence,
the
material
of
shelter,
the
instru-
ments
of
offense
and
defense.
The
socio-
logical
system
is
made
up
of
interpersonal
relations
expressed
in
patterns
of
behavior,
collective
as
well
as
individual.
In
this
category
we
find
social,
kinship,
economic,
political,
military,
ecclesiastical,
occupa-
I-
tional
and
professional,
recreational,
etc.
systems.
The
ideological
system
is
com-
posed
of
ideas,
beliefs,
knowledge,
ex-
pressed
in
articulate
speech
or
other
sym-
bolic
form.
Mythologies
and
theologies,
legend,
literature,
philosophy,
science,
folk
words
and
common
sense
knowledge,
make
up
this
category.4
Collectively,
these
subsystems
of
cul-
ture
perform
essential
functions
for
hu-
man
societies.
Together,
they
provide
and
maintain
their
biological
adequacy,
their
historic,
social,
and
physical
con-
tinuity,
the
socialization
of
their
young,
their
production
and
exchange
of
goods
and
services,
order
in
their
internal
and
1
Caroline
F.
Ware,
ed.,
The
Cultural
Ap-
proach
to
History
(New
York:
Columbia
University
Press,
1940),
p.
14.
2
Bronislaw
Malinowski,
The
Dynamics
of
Culture
Change
(New
Haven:
Yale
Univer-
sity
Press,
1945),
p.
44.
3
Cf.
Paul
Meadows,
"The
Cultural
Organi-
zation
of
Action,"
The
Philosophy
of
Science,
XIII
(October
1946),
pp.
332-338.
4
Leslie
A.
White,
The
Science
of
Culture
(New
York:
Farrar,
Straus
&
Company,
Inc.,
1949),
p.
364.

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