Search

The article presents a discussion on culture and social systems. Actions of individual persons in their capacities as members of a social system must be oriented in terms of the meanings of cultural symbol systems, of what is sometimes called patterns of culture. Furthermore, the society itself and various other social systems as object of orientation must also have meanings defined in cultural terms. Moreover, the two sets of meanings, that is, from the point of view of actors as components of their orientation patterns and of the objects to which they are oriented, must to some degree be integrated with each other at the cultural level. Cultural systems, however, are by no means fully integrated but may be regarded as varying from a pole of virtually complete integration to one of a nearly random assortment of meaning components. Furthermore, the actual behavior of individuals, their symbolically oriented action, may be to a widely varying degree congruent with the meanings of the cultural system.