Social inequality: cultural foundations

It seems to me that everyone is aware of such a topic as social and information inequality.
This inequality is not only a technocratic problem, but also a cultural problem. The reason for
the internal complexity of modern society is the diversity of customs, beliefs, interests and
attitudes that have emerged in global cultural development. In accordance with this diversity,
people form groups in a socio-cultural society. In order to understand this issue in more
details, first we need to define the concept of culture, what it consists of and what
characteristics it possesses. Moreover, to understand the development of culture in the
context of globalization and what exactly leads to social inequality.

What is culture? Definition.

The word "culture" is translated from Latin cultura as "soil cultivation", but later it was
interpreted as "upbringing, education, reverence or development".

This term has great significance in various areas of our lives and is the object of research in
various scientific fields, including psychology, economics, linguistics, cultural studies,
philosophy and many others.

General definition: culture is the various manifestations of human life, consisting of self-
knowledge, self-expression and accumulation of skills and abilities.

Also, culture is a certain set of codes attributed to each member of society as norms and
rules of behavior. Therefore, we can say that its main function is managerial.

In my opinion, a good definition was given by Max Weber, a sociologist: "Culture is a system
of spiritual and material values that subjugates people's lives".

Spiritual (non-material) values are, for example, family, friendship, love, stability. These
are some ideals that serve as beacons for all people. We all want them to be in our lives
because they are associated with a good life.

Material values are what we can buy, build, create (house, car, gadgets, "beautiful life").
These are also values, because people appreciate such things.

What is culture made up of? Spiritual and material values

This phenomenon is a system consisting of two equal parts: material culture and spiritual.

Material includes material objects, their creation and use.

The spiritual part is something that you can't touch with your hands. These are the values
filled with meanings which are used to master and apply objects of the material world.

Main characteristics of culture and defining thesis

Now i would like to note the main characteristics of culture:

Continuity - cultural products are passed on from generation to generation and are valuable
to the group, society, country or planet as a whole;

Cultural traditions are what we build on the experience of our ancestors;

Innovation is defined as transforming and improving the knowledge we have gained from
our predecessors.

Defining thesis of culture

Each culture is unique because it is a system of internal cultural elements called values,
which were mentioned above. Values are material and spiritual, respectively, for each
society a set of values will be different.

The core of culture (traditions, customs) is very conservative and may not change for
centuries or even millennia. For example, the Russian society is characterized by hospitality,
respect for elders and the like.

At the same time, the external layers of culture are variable and supple. For example,
this idea of an interesting (desirable) life changes over the years. In order to notice that we
can compare the dreams of children 20-30 years ago and the dreams of modern teenagers.

All cultures are good or bad only in comparison with yours. And this is a subjective
(inaccurate) look. We have to avoid it, because to understand someone else's culture, you
have to abstract from yours

How culture creates inequalities

The beginning of the 21st century marked a new reading of the historical context,
characterized by a gradual "experience" of crises, economic growth and more vigorous
attempts of social reform. Among the most significant systemic changes is the gradual
humanization of the economy. Every year, more and more national and regional social
projects and programs aimed at socialization of various groups of society are implemented in
the world. Culture is increasingly understood as a necessary resource for further social
modernization.

The culture of a society rarely represents something unified and homogeneous, its
homogeneity is typical only for the most simple, archaic societies. The more complex the
structure of society is, the more heterogeneous are its institutions; it is more remote and
problematic in the achievement of cultural unity. The distinctive feature of modern society -
its differences in national, social, demographic, class, gender, religious, material and many
other characteristics - has led to social inequality. Of course, people differ by age, sex, race,
level of intelligence and many other characteristics. Differences between people that are
caused by their physiological and mental characteristics are called natural. Natural
differences are not harmless; they can become the basis for unequal relations between
individuals. The strong force the weak, the cunning defeats the simpleton. Inequality arising
from natural differences is the first form of inequality. Social differences, i.e. those created by
social factors such as lifestyle, social role in society, division of labor, etc., lead to
differences in income levels, ownership of different amounts of property, power, prestige,
education, and achievement of better social status.
In modern society equality of people is one of the basic values, as an ideal construction this
value is not questioned, but in practical life it is unattainable. In a consumer society, the idea
of equality leads to cultural decay. After all the culture without hierarchy, without
representation about high and low, turns to the gloomy desert where a human has nothing to
aspire to and on whom to equalize. Thus, culture as if justifies the emergence of different
levels of social development, which is the basis for social inequality, the emergence of rich
and poor, the stratification of society, its stratification (strata layer, which includes people
with the same income, power, education, prestige). Social stratification as a stable and
actually universal element of social life is always based on certain notions that explain and
justify the necessity and even justice of inequality. Moreover, modern societies have their
own variant of explaining (and justifying) social inequality - the myth that a person is the
smith of his own destiny, but unfortunately, facts and social practice indicate that this is not
always the case.

Each individual as a social being is born in certain social conditions, his life is largely
determined by circumstances independent of his will and personal qualities, in particular his
social status, level of education and even the place of residence of his parents. The simplest
example: the opportunity to get a higher education, on which his future career depends to a
great extent, is not the same for natives of a large city and a small village, remote from urban
centers. Additionally, a child born and living among a family of alcoholics is unlikely to be
able to receive the education necessary for further successful social promotion. Is it only his
fault that he "did not take his chance"? Toby Morris showed this in his comic "The
pencilsworld: On a plate. Short story about privilege" for The Wireless, where he talks about
the concept of inequality and privilege not in an academic and technical manner, but in a
simple and easy language that everyone can understand. Toby says, "I'm not trying to say
I'm against that idea that if we work hard, we succeed, I would like to think that is true, for
the most part, but I think people often forget or don't realize that our starting points, or our
paths to success, aren't all even. Some people have to overcome more obstacles in the path
to succeeding than others. Personally, I fully agree with him. Although the idea about
different starting points and their impact on further cultural development is quite trivial, even
in modern society, where there is an open and flexible system of stratification, high social
positions are not always occupied by the worthiest people; the representatives of the lower
strata often lack the opportunity to show and develop their abilities.

If we turn to The Sociology Book and in particular to Richard Sennett's work "The tools of
freedom become the sources of indignity," we will see that trying to balance this inequality by
providing equal opportunities in education for people from different social backgrounds is
also not the solution, because "to people who have always valued hard, physical labor, the
'pen-pushing' jobs of the middle class, aren't considered “real work”. These jobs aren't
worthy, so workers couldn't see themselves with respect while doing them. Thus, when
trying to move from one stratum to another, the working class ends up facing a big mental
problem. Since the initial development of a person in the same environment with certain
cultural values, on the one hand, leads to a sense of betrayal in front of those who stayed in
the same native environment, and on the other hand, this transition does not bring proper
satisfaction because of the lack of acceptance of people of high society. However, it is also
impossible to leave everyone "in their places", because one of the main regularities of the
modern stage of civilization development is its increasing orientation on the use of
information resources of society and scientific knowledge. This trend has become more and
more visible in the last decades of the XX century, and in the XXI century it not only
survived, but also became dominant. Many scientists connect their hopes for the possibility
of overcoming the global crisis of modern civilization, as well as the solution of many global
problems of our time, the most important of which is the problem of survival of mankind as a
biological species, the problem of mind preservation on the planet Earth, with the large-scale
use of information and scientific knowledge as a strategic resource for the further evolution
of society. That is why in recent years, the concept of the development of society based on
the priority use of scientific knowledge (knowledge-based society) has attracted increasing
attention. This concept assumes that as a result of creation and active use by a significant
part of the country's population of a geographically distributed and widely accessible network
of knowledge bases (primarily in the field of technology and advanced technologies), it will
be possible to ensure accelerated system-based scientific and technical development of a
country. As a result, it will create the necessary basis for its socio-economic (cultural)
development as well. The very idea of this concept does not cause serious objections.
However, for its practical implementation, it is necessary that scientific and technical
knowledge be presented in a form suitable for its wide social use, be understood (accepted)
by a significant part of the population of a given country and its regions. Overall, it is here
that one more specific aspect of the problem of information inequality starts to manifest itself
- the cultural one.

Let us consider the culturological aspect of the problem. Its essence is that nowadays the
overwhelming part of knowledge in the field of the newest achievements of science,
technology and development of technologies is presented and distributed (due to a number
of reasons) first of all in a very limited number of languages of the advanced countries of the
world (dominant) community. These languages include, first of all, English, which in recent
decades has become de facto the most popular language of presentation and dissemination
of scientific and technical information in the world. It is also necessary to mention Russian,
German and French, which today represent a significant part of the latest scientific and
technical achievements of mankind. Finally, in the last years of the 20th century, an
increasing number of technological innovations received in the Eastern countries were
presented in Japanese and Korean. The essence of the linguistic problem under
consideration is that only a relatively small part of our planet's population is fluent in the
languages listed above, which represent today the largest number of scientific and
technological achievements of modern civilization. At the same time, the vast majority of the
population of the Earth cannot take full advantage of this knowledge, if only because they do
not understand the language in which this knowledge is represented. And due to the
ongoing demographic explosion in the countries of Asia and Africa, whose population has
recently been growing annually by almost 100 million people, the number of people
belonging to this very category, in the coming decades, will grow faster and faster.

Thus, the problem of information inequality is not only a technocratic problem, but also an
unambiguously cultural problem.

Each modern society has by definition a complex and heterogeneous internal structure. The
reasons for the internal complexity of society should be sought in the diversity of customs,
beliefs, interests and cultural attitudes according to which people form groups in society. In
addition, people who make up an integral human society occupy a certain place in social
structures in which positions and social statuses have the property to be grouped. For
example, such grouping may be based on national, confessional, property and other
characteristics. The heterogeneity of a society is studied using two main basic
characteristics - heterogeneity and inequality. Cultural heterogeneity is a set of indicators
that demonstrate the degree of diversity and heterogeneity of society, emphasizing the
richness of its shades. Effectively, according to these indicators, it is impossible to say
whether an individual who holds a social position in one group is higher or lower, in relation
to an individual who holds a position in another group. In other words, cultural heterogeneity
reflects only differences in the positions of individuals. Cultural heterogeneity is described by
the system of nominal parameters illustrating the system of horizontal differentiation of
human society. Examples of nominal parameters include gender, nationality, religion, etc.
The system of cultural heterogeneity illustrates the system of horizontal differentiation of
human society. All these parameters are nominal only within a given culture and within a
particular historical period. So, in the present culture, in the modern society it is impossible to
tell that the person is higher or lower than another only because he has another nationality
or other sex. When using the concept of "heterogeneity" it is always indicated by the nominal
character by which there is division of people in society. Cultural heterogeneity shows how
stable and consistent a given human society is. A society with a low degree of heterogeneity
(or homogeneous in many nominal terms) is a more sustainable social entity than a society
with a high degree of heterogeneity. This is due to the very nature of ingroup and outgroup
relations. In other words, people try to support the groups they consider their own and put
them above other groups.

Another basic characteristic of society is inequality. Inequality is a natural difference in the

state of the members of modern society by some indicators. Such indicators are described in
terms of rank parameters. From them we can say whether a given individual or group is
higher or lower in relation to other individuals. The current culture allows for such
inequalities. For example, inequality in income or official status is unobjectionable, unlike
inequality on the basis of nationality. Inequality is perpetuated in any society through social
institutions. It creates a system of norms according to which people must be included in
unequal relations, accept these relations and not oppose them.

Inequality indicators must necessarily be monitored and evaluated in each society. This is
due to the degree of inequality that may exceed some permissible limits. The increase in
social inequality is due to unequal social exchanges within a society. The initial inequality of
people according to physical data, energy, purposefulness and motivation level allows one
group to engage in unequal exchanges with other groups. Exceeding the permissible level of
inequality leads to a large difference in the standard of living of certain status groups of
society, which can be regarded as discrimination, infringement of certain groups. This fact
often leads to social tension in a society and serves as a favorable ground for the
emergence, development and spread of social conflicts. Therefore, each society should
develop a system of regulators to reduce social inequality.

Analyzing the works of various world sociologists, I realized that there is no universal
solution to the problem of social inequality. Essentially, the only thing that can help in the
current conditions of unprecedented globalization is the increase of cultural hybridization.
Despite that, it is hard to imagine that in the end all people on earth will identify with a single,
world culture. Although such a scenario is not only expected by some of our contemporaries,
it was predicted by great minds in the past. Nevertheless, there is every reason to believe
that such expectations and predictions are unrealistic. Of course, any comparison is
dangerous. Still, since hybridization, a term borrowed from botany, let us assert that waiting
for the information of the whole variety of cultures to be brought to one hybrid, a single world
culture, is as illusory and undesirable as waiting for a single fruit to emerge as a result of
crossing into a place of many species.