Symbolic Sociology: Symbolic Materialism

Symbolic Anthropology was the concentrated study of the symbols of a culture. The symbols properties, their meanings, and what did they bring to the culture. Victor Turner explained this as the smallest unit of a ritual that still retains the ritual behavior. The examples of this could be banners on a birthday, good plates on Thanksgiving, and Christmas lights on Christmas, and small things that makes up the ritual itself. The symbols help make up these behaviors, there are properties and meanings behind these symbols. They can have many meanings, voices, and appearances, but they all must be a learned meaning. Symbolic Anthropology will help explain E3 as a ritual behavior by looking at the symbols that represents it and the smaller symbols that go into it.

The E3 symbol is of a yellow e and a red three while black texted spell out the words electronic entertainment expo. The

Clear of the contrast, Turner have more of a focus upon the symbolic meaning. The meaning that Weber didn’t focus upon in his studies. Weber focus on what the symbolic meaning is and the meaning it serves, thus justifying it in the grand scheme of the system. The understanding of symbolic meaning must come from the understanding that the people give it and the symbol itself and the ritual it serve. Thus focusing on the more physical aspect of culture, similar to Weber, though giving it a more flexible meaning. In which the culture could be better understood through this meaning. The theory can be used to understand the native’s surroundings and the actions that the native by the meaning. However the main thing that sets the current theory apart is the focus on the relationship of the natives have to the symbol. The unobservable behavior that Weber didn’t focus on, and was completely discarded from the earlier