Chichi, Ankle Monitors, and Culture

Culture is universal. Every country, religion, and group in the world has some form of socially learned and shared ideas, behaviors, and material components of a society. Culture encompasses a wide range of physical artifacts that represent components of society, i.e., material culture, and ideas and symbols that represent components of society, which we refer to as nonmaterial culture. Let’s review two news stories to see how sociology can be used to better understand culture in our larger world.

In Ukraine, a story very different from the ongoing war with Russia has made the headlines. Specifically, a chimpanzee named Chichi escaped from the local zoo. After self-liberation, Chichi walked to a park, where he hung out until it started to rain. At that point, his zoo handlers located him, offered him a yellow raincoat to wear, and guided him on a bicycle back to the zoo. The unusual nature of this story probably elicited a “Wait, what?!” and a reread of the sentence, but this story can be analyzed even further by considering the material and nonmaterial culture. The material culture consists of the objects in the story that can be physically touched. The yellow raincoat and bicycle are examples of material culture. On the other hand, the nonmaterial culture takes a bit more digging. Nonmaterial culture consists of those things in a society that cannot be physically touched. Examples include dress codes, etiquette, rituals, and language just to name a few. Norms, the established guidelines and expectations of behavior, are also under the rubric of nonmaterial culture. A chimpanzee in a yellow raincoat riding a bike in a city park is, for most people, outside of the norm. How outside of the norm? Well, that depends because there are different levels of norms. Folkways, informal and common norms that guide everyday behavior, are minor norms. At the other end of the spectrum are taboos, norms that, if violated, cause revulsion and the most severe social sanctions. One could easily argue that Chichi’s day at the park didn’t cause the onlookers to experience revulsion or warrant an extreme social sanction like execution. On the contrary. For most onlookers, seeing a chimp in a raincoat riding a bike was a cellphone video-worthy violation of a folkway — one that they will probably remember for the rest of their lives.

Between the extremes of folkways and taboos are mores and laws. Mores are defined as informal norms based on moral and ethical factors. By comparison, laws are formal and legal rules enforced by the state. A more serious news story is needed to analyze these key terms. For example, the Mexican Supreme Court is considering instituting a strict “no bail” policy for nonviolent crimes. Whereas historically, only individuals who committed violent crimes would be held without bail, this new proposal would detain people pending trial for less serious crimes like fuel theft. Human rights activists have raised a host of alarms about this proposal. These concerns include everything from the historically slow nature of the Mexican judicial system (two men were recently released from prison wearing ankle monitors after spending 17 years awaiting trial) and the potential to violate international treaties. The non-material aspects of this story are easy to identify because moral and ethical issues are being called into question. As one would expect, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of this change, the laws in Mexico will be changed accordingly.

The story on Mexico also includes examples of material culture. The brief comment about the two men who were released after 17 years includes a reference to prison and ankle monitors. Both of these things can be physically touched. This leads us to consider an important aspect of culture; often, nonmaterial culture has a material counterpart, and vice versa. While laws are nonmaterial culture, jails and prisons are material culture. Similarly, the nonmaterial culture of religious beliefs has material culture in the form of holy texts. Nonmaterial political systems, like democracy, have material culture in the form of voting ballots and booths. Whenever you identify examples of nonmaterial culture, look for the material culture that works to make it real in our physical world. On the other hand, whenever you identify material culture, consider what nonmaterial culture supports its existence.