To say that there are levels of culture, is to say that culture is stratified, meaning that it exists, and therefore is viewed, on several different levels. These levels help us to recognize the culture that exists in every different way. The three levels of culture that exist, are: International culture, National culture, and Subculture. With these three levels, we can categorize every aspect of the culture around us.

    International culture are the traditions and values that crosses boundaries and are present all around, no matter where we exist in the world. It is the culture that is built into our genetics, for the most part, and so it is not really that unique in its features. International culture, for example, would be infancy. Newborn human babies, regardless of whether they are born in a developed country like Canada or in the remote jungles of Uganda, are helpless, and require that somebody take care of them and their every need. Nobody needed to go to the Ugandan jungles and explain to the tribes there that babies need to be taken care of; they already knew. Another example of International culture would be the presence of language. No matter where you are in the world, the people living there have some sort of official language, as well as the languages spoken by the people who immigrated there. In Canada, the official languages are English and French, in Germany, the official language is German, and even the Australian Aborigines have a language that most of them will commonly understand. There has yet to be a people discovered anywhere in the world that does not speak a language. Even deaf people have a language, though it’s not a spoken one. Those are examples of International culture, because they are things that are present everywhere in the world, in some form or another.

    National culture is the presence of traditions and values that are not necessarily common to everybody in the world, but instead everybody in a certain nation. They are the traditions that only one or several particular groups of people are known for. National culture is not genetically programmed, but instead must be learned by the people in the group. An example of National culture would be hockey. Hockey is something that Canada is known for, even though there are plenty of teams in the United States and worldwide, and hockey culture is a well-developed part of Canada. However, Canadians are not born knowing how to play or appreciate hockey; it’s something that they must be taught. Perhaps they have parents who are hockey fans, or perhaps they succumbed to peer pressure and just went with the flow of their friends to the Molson Centre, or the Corel Centre, or to GM Place, depending on where they live in Canada, and watched the home team trounce the opposition. Regardless, it’s hard not to get excited, if you are sitting in the Molson Centre when the Montreal Canadians win a game. Still, this is something that must be learned and, furthurmore, it is not International, but National. Another example of National culture is fast food. McDonalds, despite being a worldwide chain, is based on a culture started in the United States and adopted by, notably, Canada and some parts of Western Europe. Even India, where cows are sacred, has a McDonalds or two. Again, though, people are not born liking, or even knowing about fast food; it is something that they must be taught, or must learn for themselves. In the past several years, though, I suppose McDonalds has, in a way, become a part of International culture, though I don’t think they have yet opened a franchise in the jungles of Uganda.

    Finally, Subculture is the traditions and values shared by people all over the world who are already influenced by International and National culture. It is a culture shared by a group within the group that is our complex society, or the complex society of other places in the world. For example, Popular culture is a Subculture that is present within all developed countries. In Canada and the United States, it currently consists of fast food, raves, and bands composed of members in their early teens, or just members acting like they are in their early teens. Another example of Subculture is the ethnic practices of a group within our society. Muslim Canadians, for example, may work at Dagwood’s or Corel Software, and they may drive BMW’s or Honda Civics, but they still may also wear their traditional headdress and eat their traditional food and speak in their traditional language. They, indeed, have a culture within the standard Canadian culture, which is a Subculture. In the same respect, I’m sure there are Canadians living abroad in foreign countries, where they take part of the typical National culture of the country they are living in, but they also may barbeque hamburgers or watch The Simpsons via satellite. They have created a Canadian subculture, therefore.
 
 
 
 
 

REGARDING PRODUCTION:
 

    Obviously, there are major differences in production between industrial and nonindustrial societies. Depending on what the society’s major source of income is, whether they are a developed, partially developed, or undeveloped country, and what their level of technology is, thepractices, means, and results of production will be different, sometimes drastically.

    One of the major differences between production in an industrial and a nonindustrial society is the mode of production, or the way production and labour is organized. As stated before, depending on how advanced the society is, their production will be different. In an industrial society, the division of labour is still very biassed. For example, while working at A&W, I was told by the manager that he would prefer to keep the men in the kitchen, while the women worked the cash. This is a not uncommon division in fast food restaurants, where the men work in the hot, muggy, foul-smelling kitchen for hours on end, while the women work out in front with the people and get to interact in a fairly simple job. The obvious message is that women are unable to function in the hostile, fast-paced environment of a fast food kitchen, for whatever reason, and also that women are naturally more presentable than men are and will better serve people. This is in contrast to most non-industrial societies, where both men and women have to share equally difficult labour responsibilities. In the case of the Betsileo of Madagascar, the men beat down the clumped earth, drive cattle through the mud, and thresh rice, whereas the women must plant the rice, carry it across the field, and stack and arrange it, after it’s been cultivated. Perhaps the men still have the more labourious tasks, but the women still must do manual labour as well.

    Another example of a difference in the mode of production, is the social relations for the work. In the case of A&W again, the manager paid myself and the other workers money to do the work for him. In ninety-percent of the cases, the food we prepared was sent out to other people. In a non-industrial society, the people who do all of the labour are not paid by anybody; they do the work, because they enjoy eating, and if they don’t plant and cultivate the food, they will die of starvation. The people who work the fields are, for the most part, members of the family who own the field. The father and sons prepare the earth, while the mother and daughters plant and pick the vegetables. What they have to show for it, in the end, is food that they can eat.

    The other major difference is in the means of production, or the factors, such as land, workers, and equipment, that go into the production. The obvious difference is that nonindustrial societies frequently are not very technologically advanced. Where, in Canada, we have threshers, tractors, and motorized plows, they frequently must make do with doing things by hand, using crude tools, or with the help of domestic beasts like oxen, mules, or horses. Also, the workers in nonindustrial societies are frequently also non-specializing. If women are expected to only know how to plant rice and weave baskets in order to survive, then there won’t be a single woman who is familiar with how to grow corn or sculp pottery. People do what they are expected to know how to do and nothing more, because they are not taught anything else and their task is integral to the survival of the group. This is contrasted in industrial societies, where men can be doctors, lawyers, farmers, or undertakers, or any job they want and so can women. This is due to the fact that, in industrial society, there is a surplus of food, usually, and so people can afford to do different things.