Guided Reading and Analysis a New World Chapter 1 a New World of Many Cultures Answers

Cultural Change

As the hipster instance illustrates, culture is always evolving. Moreover, new things are added to material civilisation every mean solar day, and they bear upon nonmaterial culture as well. Cultures change when something new (say, railroads or smartphones) opens upwardly new ways of living and when new ideas enter a civilization (say, every bit a effect of travel or globalization).

Innovation: Discovery and Invention

An innovation refers to an object or concept's initial advent in society—it's innovative because it is markedly new. At that place are two ways to see an innovative object or idea: discover it or invent it. Discoveries make known previously unknown just existing aspects of reality. In 1610, when Galileo looked through his telescope and discovered Saturn, the planet was already there, merely until then, no 1 had known almost it. When Christopher Columbus encountered America, the country was, of course, already well known to its inhabitants. However, Columbus's discovery was new noesis for Europeans, and information technology opened the way to changes in European culture, as well as to the cultures of the discovered lands. For example, new foods such as potatoes and tomatoes transformed the European diet, and horses brought from Europe inverse hunting practices of Native American tribes of the Great Plains.

Inventions result when something new is formed from existing objects or concepts—when things are put together in an entirely new way. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, electric appliances were invented at an amazing stride. Cars, airplanes, vacuum cleaners, lamps, radios, telephones, and televisions were all new inventions. Inventions may shape a civilization when people use them in place of older ways of carrying out activities and relating to others, or every bit a way to carry out new kinds of activities. Their adoption reflects (and may shape) cultural values, and their utilize may crave new norms for new situations.

Consider the introduction of mod communication technology, such as mobile phones and smartphones. Equally more and more people began carrying these devices, telephone conversations no longer were restricted to homes, offices, and phone booths. People on trains, in restaurants, and in other public places became annoyed by listening to one-sided conversations. Norms were needed for cell phone use. Some people pushed for the idea that those who are out in the earth should pay attention to their companions and environment. However, technology enabled a workaround: texting, which enables quiet advice and has surpassed phoning as the chief manner to meet today's highly valued power to stay in touch anywhere, everywhere.

When the pace of innovation increases, it can lead to generation gaps. Technological gadgets that catch on apace with ane generation are sometimes dismissed past a skeptical older generation. A culture'south objects and ideas can cause not just generational but cultural gaps. Material culture tends to lengthened more quickly than nonmaterial culture; technology can spread through society in a thing of months, merely it can accept generations for the ideas and beliefs of society to change. Sociologist William F. Ogburn coined the term culture lag to refer to this fourth dimension that elapses betwixt the introduction of a new item of material civilisation and its acceptance equally part of nonmaterial culture (Ogburn 1957).

Culture lag tin can too crusade tangible issues. The infrastructure of the U.s.a., built a hundred years ago or more than, is having trouble supporting today's more heavily populated and fast-paced life. Yet in that location is a lag in conceptualizing solutions to infrastructure issues. Rising fuel prices, increased air pollution, and traffic jams are all symptoms of culture lag. Although people are becoming enlightened of the consequences of overusing resources, the means to support changes takes time to reach.

Sociologist Everett Rogers (1962) adult a model of the diffusion of innovations. As consumers gradually adopt a new innovation, the detail grows toward a marketplace share of 100 pct, or complete saturation inside a society. (Graph courtesy of Tungsten/Wikimedia Commons)

Diffusion and Globalization

The integration of world markets and technological advances of the last decades have allowed for greater exchange between cultures through the processes of globalization and improvidence. Offset in the 1980s, Western governments began to deregulate social services while granting greater liberties to private businesses. As a event, world markets became dominated past multinational companies in the 1980s, a new country of affairs at that time. We have since come to refer to this integration of international merchandise and finance markets every bit globalization . Increased communications and air travel have farther opened doors for international business organization relations, facilitating the menstruation not just of goods only too of information and people every bit well (Scheuerman 2014 (revised)). Today, many U.South. companies set up offices in other nations where the costs of resources and labor are cheaper. When a person in the U.s. calls to get information about banking, insurance, or calculator services, the person taking that phone call may be working in another country.

Alongside the process of globalization is diffusion , or the spread of material and nonmaterial culture. While globalization refers to the integration of markets, diffusion relates to a similar process in the integration of international cultures. Heart-class Americans tin can wing overseas and render with a new appreciation of Thai noodles or Italian gelato. Admission to television and the Internet has brought the lifestyles and values portrayed in U.Southward. sitcoms into homes around the globe. Twitter feeds from public demonstrations in one nation have encouraged political protesters in other countries. When this kind of improvidence occurs, material objects and ideas from i culture are introduced into another.

Officially patented in 1893 equally the "clasp locker" (left), the zipper did not lengthened through society for many decades. Today, it is immediately recognizable effectually the world. (Photo (a) courtesy of U.South. Patent Function/Wikimedia Commons; Photo (b) courtesy of Rabensteiner/Wikimedia Eatables)

Further Research

The Beats were a counterculture that birthed an entire move of art, music, and literature—much of which is still highly regarded and studied today. The man responsible for naming the generation was Jack Kerouac; yet, the man responsible for introducing the earth to that generation was John Clellon Holmes, a writer oft lumped in with the group. In 1952 he penned an article for the New York Times Magazine titled, "This Is the Beat Generation." Read that article and learn more about Clellon Holmes and the Beats: http://openstaxcollege.org/fifty/The-Beats

Think It Over

What are some examples of cultural lag that are present in your life? Do you recall applied science affects culture positively or negatively? Explain.

Practice

1. Your eighty-three-year-erstwhile grandmother has been using a computer for some time now. As a way to keep in touch on, you ofttimes send emails of a few lines to let her know about your day. She calls afterward every e-mail to respond signal past signal, but she has never emailed a response back. This can be viewed as an example of:

1. cultural lag
2. innovation
3. ethnocentricity
4. xenophobia

ii. Some jobs today advertise in multinational markets and permit telecommuting in lieu of working from a master location. This broadening of the task market and the fashion that jobs are performed tin be attributed to:

1. cultural lag
2. innovation
3. discovery
4. globalization

3. The major deviation between invention and discovery is:

1. Invention is based on engineering, whereas discovery is usually based on civilisation
2. Discovery involves finding something that already exists, simply invention puts things together in a new style
3. Invention refers to cloth civilisation, whereas discovery tin be textile or theoretic, like laws of physics
4. Invention is typically used to refer to international objects, whereas discovery refers to that which is local to one's civilisation

4. That McDonald'due south is found in well-nigh every country effectually the world is an example of:

1. globalization
2. diffusion
3. culture lag
4. xenocentrism

Self-Check: Pop Culture, Subculture, and Cultural Modify

Yous'll have more success on the Self-Check, if you've completed the two Readings in this section.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/alamo-sociology/chapter/cultural-change/

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