Abstract
Conceptions of culture, collective memory, ethnic identity and cultural explanations are reviewed and criticized. Subjective culture is conceived off as shared denotative, connotative and pragmatic knowledge. Culture is conceptualized as fluid tension systems in which there is a coexistence of heterogeneous and contradictory aspects. Cultural values designed what is desirable in societies and are related to five basic themes of social coordination, like the relation with authority; the relationship between the person and society; the concept of masculinity and femininity, conflicts and their resolution and the conception of time. Cultural explanations posits that a social behavior in accord with a widely shared moral attitude occurs in spite the situation may offer different opportunities. A cultural explanation should be tested against situational and socio-structural explanations. Direct assessment of the norm and values are necessary to avoid tautological reasoning in cultural explanations. Culture is also a set of regular situational contingencies or collective and practices and subjects learn to define situations and practices in cultural perspective. A cultural explanation should pit "desirable institutional arrangements" against non-volitional situational contingencies or socio-structural characteristics that are the effects of non desired historical changes. Culturalist explanation assume that culture arise in an dependent manner of situational forces, like peasantry life style and the representations of limited good, social life in slums and culture of poverty, or herding economies, state weakness and dominance of cavalry as social career and honour culture. Nonobstant values and norms have a life apart from the situations and endure beyond the demise of original situations, as shows the culture of honour case. However, most of data on culture and socioeconomic development shows that individualism and protestant work ethic's (PWE) beliefs are a result and not a cause of economical growth. Contrary to Weber's ideas the PWE were more strongly endorsed in poorer, collectivistic and high power distance societies. Finally, some data suggest that culture can act as independent variable, like is the case of social capital and economic development.
