The Symbolic Culture That Makes Up the ‘Fabric’ of Society as a Binder That Integrates the Community

Abstract

When defining the concept of culture, a number of definitions highlight the components. The Hungarian Interpretive Dictionary also defines culture as two ‘groups of material and spiritual values created by humanity’, highlighting two major groups of cultural 
components. The former is the material culture that includes beings of a material nature created by humans,  while the latter, the symbolic culture includes beings of a symbolic nature. Others break it down into elements called  tangible (objectified) and intangible (spiritual). In my study,  I deal with the narrower, symbolic culture. I want to show  that symbolic culture is the ‘connecting fabric’, the cohesive  force of human associations, and as such, it  functions as a force that integrates and controls the  community. By unfolding the elements of symbolic culture,  I demonstrate that societies create with them order in the  disordered reality, bring predictability into the chaotic world of phenomena.