Culture

Culture (/ˈkʌltʃər/) is the social behavior and norms found in human societies. Culture is
considered a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of phenomena that
are transmitted through social learning in human societies. Some aspects of human
behavior, social practices such as culture, expressive forms such
as art, music, dance, ritual, religion, and technologies such as tool usage, cooking, shelter,
and clothing are said to be cultural universals, found in all human societies. The concept
of material culture covers the physical expressions of culture, such as technology,
architecture and art, whereas the immaterial aspects of culture such as principles of social
organization (including practices of political organization and
social institutions), mythology, philosophy, literature (both written and oral),
and science comprise the intangible cultural heritage of a society.[1]
In the humanities, one sense of culture as an attribute of the individual has been the degree
to which they have cultivated a particular level of sophistication in the arts,
sciences, education, or manners. The level of cultural sophistication has also sometimes
been seen to distinguish civilizations from less complex societies. Such hierarchical
perspectives on culture are also found in class-baseddistinctions between a high culture of
the social elite and a low culture, popular culture, or folk cultureof the lower classes,
distinguished by the stratified access to cultural capital. In common parlance, culture is
often used to refer specifically to the symbolic markers used by ethnic groups to distinguish
themselves visibly from each other such as body modification, clothing or jewelry. Mass
culture refers to the mass-produced and mass mediated forms of consumer culture that
emerged in the 20th century. Some schools of philosophy, such as Marxism and critical
theory, have argued that culture is often used politically as a tool of the elites to manipulate
the lower classes and create a false consciousness, and such perspectives are common in
the discipline of cultural studies. In the wider social sciences, the theoretical perspective
of cultural materialism holds that human symbolic culture arises from the material conditions
of human life, as humans create the conditions for physical survival, and that the basis of
culture is found in evolved biological dispositions.
When used as a count noun, a "culture" is the set of customs, traditions, and values of a
society or community, such as an ethnic group or nation. Culture is the set of knowledge
acquired over time. In this sense, multiculturalism values the peaceful coexistence and
mutual respect between different cultures inhabiting the same planet. Sometimes "culture"
is also used to describe specific practices within a subgroup of a society, a subculture (e.g.
"bro culture"), or a counterculture. Within cultural anthropology, the ideology and analytical
stance of cultural relativism holds that cultures cannot easily be objectively ranked or
evaluated because any evaluation is necessarily situated within the value system of a given
culture.

Society
A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social
groupsharing the same geographical or social territory, typically subject to the same political
authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of
relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a
distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of
such relationships among its constituent of members. In the social sciences, a larger society
often evinces stratification or dominance patterns in subgroups.
Insofar as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would
not otherwise be possible on an individual basis; both individual and social (common)
benefits can thus be distinguished, or in many cases found to overlap. A society can also
consist of like-minded people governed by their own norms and values within a dominant,
larger society. This is sometimes referred to as a subculture, a term used extensively
within criminology.
More broadly, and especially within structuralist thought, a society may be illustrated as
an economic, social, industrial or cultural infrastructure, made up of, yet distinct from, a
varied collection of individuals. In this regard society can mean the objective relationships
people have with the material world and with other people, rather than "other people"
beyond the individual and their familiar social environment.

Politics
Politics (from Greek: πολιτικά, translit. Politiká, meaning "affairs of the cities") is the process
of making decisions that apply to members of a group.[1]
It refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance—organized control over a
human community, particularly a state.[2]
In modern nation states, people have formed political parties to represent their ideas. They
agree to take the same position on many issues, and agree to support the same changes to
law and the same leaders.[3]
An election is usually a competition between different parties.[4] Some examples of political
parties are the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, the Tories in Great
Britain and the Indian National Congress.
Politics is a multifaceted word. It has a set of fairly specific meanings that are descriptive
and nonjudgmental (such as "the art or science of government" and "political principles"),
but often does carry a connotation of dishonest malpractice.[1][5][6] The negative connotation
of politics, as seen in the phrase "play politics", for example, has been in use since at least
1853, when abolitionist Wendell Phillips declared: "We do not play politics; anti-slavery is no
half-jest with us."[7]
A variety of methods are deployed in politics, which include promoting one's own political
views among people, negotiation with other political subjects, making laws, and
exercising force, including warfare against adversaries.[8][9][10][11][12] Politics is exercised on a
wide range of social levels, from clans and tribes of traditional societies, through
modern local governments, companies and institutions up to sovereign states, to
the international level.
It is very often said that politics is about power.[13] A political system is a framework which
defines acceptable political methods within a given society. History of political thought can
be traced back to early antiquity, with seminal works such
as Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Politics and the works of Confucius.
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humans and human behaviour and societies in the past and
present.[1][2][3] Social anthropology and cultural anthropology[1][2][3] study the norms and values
of societies. Linguistic anthropology studies how language affects social life. Biological or
physical anthropology[1][2][3] studies the biological development of humans.
Archaeology, which studies past human cultures through investigation of physical evidence,
is thought of as a branch of anthropology in the United States,[4] while in Europe, it is viewed
as a discipline in its own right or grouped under other related disciplines, such as history.

Biology
Biology is the natural science that involves the study of life and living organisms, including
their physical structure, chemical
composition, function, development and evolution.[1] Modern biology is a vast field,
composed of many branches. Despite the broad scope and the complexity of the science,
there are certain unifying concepts that consolidate it into a single, coherent field. Biology
recognizes the cell as the basic unit of life, genes as the basic unit of heredity,
and evolution as the engine that propels the creation of new species. Living
organismsare open systems that survive by transforming energy and decreasing their
local entropy[2] to maintain a stable and vital condition defined as homeostasis. See glossary
of biology.
Sub-disciplines of biology are defined by the scale at which life is studied, the kinds of
organisms studied, and the methods used to study them: biochemistry examines the
rudimentary chemistry of life; molecular biology studies the complex interactions among
biological molecules; cellular biology examines the basic building-block of all life,
the cell; physiology examines the physical and chemical functions of tissues, organs,
and organ systems; ecology examines how organisms interact in their environment;
and evolutionary biology examines the processes that produced the diversity of life.[3]

Sociology
Sociology is the scientific study of society, including patterns of social relationships, social
interaction, and culture.[1][2][3] It is a social science that uses various methods of empirical
investigation[4] and critical analysis[5] to develop a body of knowledge about social order,
acceptance, and change or social evolution. Many sociologists aim to conduct research that
may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, while others focus primarily on refining
the theoretical understanding of social processes. Subject matter ranges from the micro-
sociologylevel of individual agency and interaction to the macro level of systems and
the social structure.[6]
The traditional focuses of sociology include social stratification, social class, social
mobility, religion, secularization, law, sexuality, gender, and deviance. As all spheres of
human activity are affected by the interplay between social structure and individual agency,
sociology has gradually expanded its focus to other subjects, such
as health, medical, economy, military and penalinstitutions, the Internet, education, social
capital, and the role of social activity in the development of scientific knowledge.
The range of social scientific methods has also expanded. Social researchers draw upon a
variety of qualitative and quantitative techniques. The linguistic and cultural turns of the mid-
twentieth century led to increasingly interpretative, hermeneutic,
and philosophic approaches towards the analysis of society. Conversely, the end of the
1990s and the beginning of 2000s have seen the rise of new analytically, mathematically,
and computationally rigorous techniques, such as agent-based modelling and social
network analysis.[7][8]
Social research informs politicians and policy
makers, educators, planners, legislators, administrators, developers, business magnates,
managers, social workers, non-governmental organizations, non-profit organizations, and
people interested in resolving social issues in general. There is often a great deal of
crossover between social research, market research, and other statistical fields.[9]

Political science
Political science is a social science which deals with systems of governance, and the
analysis of political activities, political thoughts and political behavior.[1] It deals extensively
with the theory and practice of politics which is commonly thought of as determining of the
distribution of powerand resources. Political scientists "see themselves engaged in
revealing the relationships underlying political events and conditions, and from these
revelations they attempt to construct general principles about the way the world of politics
works."[2]
Political science comprises numerous subfields, including comparative politics, political
economy, international relations, political theory, public administration, public policy,
and political methodology. Furthermore, political science is related to, and draws upon, the
fields of economics, law, sociology, history, philosophy, geography, psychology,
and anthropology.
Comparative politics is the science of comparison and teaching of different types
of constitutions, political actors, legislature and associated fields, all of them from an
intrastate perspective. International relations deals with the interaction between nation-
states as well as intergovernmental and transnational organizations. Political theory is more
concerned with contributions of various classical and contemporary thinkers and
philosophers.
Political science is methodologically diverse and appropriates many methods originating
in social research. Approaches include positivism, interpretivism, rational choice
theory, behaviouralism, structuralism, post-structuralism, realism, institutionalism, and
pluralism. Political science, as one of the social sciences, uses methods and techniques
that relate to the kinds of inquiries sought: primary sources such as historical documents
and official records, secondary sources such as scholarly journal
articles, surveyresearch, statistical analysis, case studies, experimental research, and
model building.