Society

A society is a group of people that form a semi-closed system , inwhich most interactions are with other individuals belonging to the group. A society is a network of relationships betweenpeople. A society is an interdependent community . The casual meaning ofsociety simply refers to a group of people living together in an ordered community. Societies are the main subject ofstudy of the social sciences .

Human societies are often organized according to their primary means of subsistence : social scientists identify hunter-gatherer societies, nomadic pastoral societies, horticulturalist or simple farming societies, and intensive agricultural societies, also called civilizations . Some consider Industrial and Post-Industrial societies to beseparate from traditional agricultural societies.

Societies can also be organized according to their political structure: inorder of increasing size and complexity, there are band societies , tribes , chiefdoms , and state societies.

The origin of the word society comes from the Latin societas, a "friendly association with others." Societas is derived from socius meaning "companion" and thusthe meaning of society is closely related to what is social . Implicit in the meaning ofsociety is that its members share some mutual concern or interest in a common objective. As such, society is often used assynonymous with the collective citizenry of a country as directed through nationalinstitutions concerned with civic welfare.

Peoples of many nations united by common political and cultural traditions, beliefs, or values are sometimes also said to be asociety (for example: Judeo-Christian, Eastern, Western, etc). When used in this context, the term is being used as a means ofcontrasting two or more "societies" whose representative members represent alternative conflicting and competing worldviews.

Also, some groups apply the title "society" to themselves, as the "American Society of Mathematics". In the United States,this is most common in commerce , in which a partnership between investors to start a business is usuallycalled a "society". In the United Kingdom, partnerships are not called societies but cooperatives or mutuals are often know as societies (such as friendly societies and building societies).

If society is something of a shibboleth , confusions in itsunderstanding can often be traced to the various nuances in which it has been used to describe a great variety of politicalopinion. For example, former British Prime Minister MargaretThatcher famously denied that society exists at all. However, Thatcher's use of the term was narrow and should be understoodwithin the context of her polemic. In the interview in Women's Own magazine, October 3 1987, Thatcher argued that the obligationfor solving social problems, commonly expected of the government, was more properly the responsibility of individuals andfamilies: "no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first" (Thatcher 1987).Thatcher only denies the existence of "society" as she understands it -- the idea that social welfare is the responsibility ofgovernment and not individuals.

Margaret Thatcher wasn't the only one to claim that society doesn't exist. There is still an ongoing debate in sociologicaland anthropological circles if there exists an entity we could call society. Marxisttheorists like Louis Althusser , Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Zizek argued that society isnothing more than an effect of the ruling ideology and shouldn't be used as asociological notion.

See also

• Evolution of societies
• Information society
• Social capital
• Social change

Sources

1. Definition of Society (social)
2. Learning Commons - What is Culture ? - GlossaryItem - Society