Relation between cultural capital and social capital in the transformation context of Vietnam in the late 20th century and early 21st century (continued and concluded)

Abstract

In Vietnam social life of recent 10 years, in media emerged some acute problems such as: “degradation of morals”, “depravation of personality”, “corruption of life-style”, “problem of cultural behaviour”, “disease of insensitiveness”... This situation is considered as to be caused by negative changes of culture. Studies on culture and society in recent two decades almost have unanimously evaluated that cultural changes are the cause of social unstableness that constitutes the barriers to development. However, what landmark is this “degradation” to be compared with? And in what context of transformation (before or after 1975, 1986, or 2000)? These questions have not received a clear answer yet. There is a fact that if not understanding the context, it is difficult to understand the cause. Besides that, the impacts of culture on society are referred to as natural, but in fact, it is not explained thoroughly what the mechanism of these impacts is. To contribute to explain these problems, this paper considers the culture as a kind of capital in transformed society from the vision of interaction between cultural capital and social capital in order to understand the causes and solutions.