A society or a human society is a group of people related An interpersonal relationship is an association between two or more people that may range from fleeting to enduring. This association may be based on limerence, love and liking, regular business interactions, or some other type of social commitment. Interpersonal relationships take place in a great variety of contexts, such as family, friends, to each other through persistent relations such as social status In sociology or anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society . It may also refer to a rank or position that one holds in a group, for example son or daughter, playmate, pupil, etc, roles A role or a social role is a set of connected behaviors, rights and obligations as conceptualized by actors in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behavior and may have a given individual social status or social position. It is vital to both functionalist and interactionist understandings of society. Social role and social networks A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes," which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals sharing a distinctive culture Culture is a term that has various meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. However, the word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses: and institutions Institutions are structures and mechanisms of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals within a given human collectivity. Institutions are identified with a social purpose and permanence, transcending individual human lives and intentions, and with the making and enforcing of rules governing cooperative human. Without an article, the term refers either to the entirety of humanity or a contextually specific subset of people.
Used in the sense of an association, a society is a body of individuals outlined by the bounds of functional interdependence Interdependence is a dynamic of being mutually and physically responsible to, and sharing a common set of principles with others. This concept differs distinctly from "dependence" in that an interdependent relationship implies that all participants are emotionally, economically, ecologically and or morally "interdependent.", possibly comprising characteristics such as national A nation is a group of people who share culture, ethnic origin and language, often possessing or seeking its own independent government. The development and conceptualization of a nation is closely related to the development of modern industrial states and nationalist movements in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although or cultural identity Cultural identity is the identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as one is influenced by one's belonging to a group or culture. Cultural identity is similar to and has overlaps with, but is not synonymous with, identity politics, social solidarity Social solidarity refers to the integration, and degree and type of integration, shown by a society or group with people and their neighbors. It refers to the ties in a society - social relations - that bind people to one another. The term is generally employed in sociology and the other social sciences, language Language is a term most commonly used to refer to so-called "natural languages" — the spoken forms of communication ubiquitous among humankind. By extension the term also refers to the type of thought process which creates and uses language. Essential to both meanings is the systematic creation, maintenance and use of systems of or hierarchical organization Eusociality is a term used for the highest level of social organization in a hierarchical classification.
Canis lupus social ethologyLike other groupings, a society allows its members to achieve needs or wishes they could not fulfill alone; the social fact can be identified, understood or specified within a circumstance that certain resources, objectives, requirements or results, are needed and utilized in an individual manner and for individual ends, although they can't be achieved, gotten or fulfilled in an individual manner as well, but, on the contrary, they can be gotten only in a collective, collaborative manner; namely, team work becomes the valid functional means, to individual ends which an individual would need to have but isn't able to get.
More broadly, a society is an economic An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area, the labor, capital and land resources, and the economic agents that socially participate in the production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area. A given economy is the end result of a process that involves its technological evolution,, social The term Social refers to a characteristic of living organisms . It always refers to the interaction of organisms with other organisms and to their collective co-existence, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not, and irrespective of whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary or industrial Industry refers to the production of an economic good within an economy. There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction, and manufacturing; the tertiary sector, which deals with services (such as law infrastructure Infrastructure is the basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function. The term typically refers to the technical structures that support a society, such as roads, water supply, sewers, power grids, telecommunications, and so forth, made up of a varied collection of individuals. Members of a society may be from different ethnic groups An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or assumed- sharing cultural characteristics This shared heritage may be based upon putative common ancestry, history, kinship, religion, language, shared territory, nationality or physical appearance. Members of an ethnic group are. A society may be a particular ethnic group, such as the Saxons The Saxons were a confederation of Old Germanic tribes. Their modern-day descendants in Lower Saxony and Westphalia and other German states are considered ethnic Germans (the state of Sachsen is not inhabited by ethnic Saxons; the state of Sachsen-Anhalt is, though, in its northern and western parts); those in the eastern Netherlands are; a nation state The nation-state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a country as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity. The term "nation-state" implies that the two geographically coincide, and, such as Bhutan Coordinates: 27°25′01″N 90°26′06″E / 27.417°N 90.435°E The Kingdom of Bhutan (Hindi: भूटान), is a landlocked country in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalaya Mountains and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the Tibet Autonomous Region . Bhutan is separated; a broader cultural group, such as a Western society Western culture refers to cultures of European origin. The word society may also refer to an organized An organization is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals, controls its own performance, and has a boundary separating it from its environment. The word itself is derived from the Greek word organon, itself derived from the better-known word ergon voluntary association A voluntary association or union is a group of individuals who voluntarily enter into an agreement to form a body (or organization) to accomplish a purpose of people for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes. A "society" may even, though more by means of metaphor, refer to a social organism In sociology, the social organism is theoretical concept in which a society or social structure is viewed as a “living organism”. From this perspective, typically, the relation of social features, e.g. law, family, crime, etc., are examined as they interact with other features of society to meet social needs. All elements of a society or such as an ant colony An ant colony is an underground lair where ants live. Colonies consist of a series of underground chambers, connected to each other and the surface of the earth by small tunnels. There are rooms for nurseries, food storage, and mating. The colony is built and maintained by legions of worker ants, who carry tiny bits of dirt in their mandibles and or any cooperative Cooperation, co-operation or coöperation is the process of working or acting together, which can be accomplished by both intentional and non-intentional agents. In its simplest form it involves things working in harmony, side by side, while in its more complicated forms, it can involve something as complex as the inner workings of a human being aggregate such as for example in some formulations The Society of Mind is a book and theory of natural intelligence as written and developed by Marvin Minsky of artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. Textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents," where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chances of success. John McCarthy, who.
Conceptions of "Society"
A half-section of the 12th century Song Dynasty The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy. This dynasty also saw the first version of Night Revels of Han Xizai, original by Gu Hongzhong Gu Hongzhong was a Chinese painter during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period of Chinese history; the painting, which is a masterpiece of the era's artwork, portrays servants, musicians, monks, children, guests, hosts all in a single social environment, serves as an in-depth look into 10th-century Chinese social structure.
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Society, in general, addresses the fact that an individual has rather limited means as an autonomous unit. The Great apes The Hominidae form a taxonomic family, including four extant genera: chimpanzees, gorillas, humans, and orangutans have always been more (Bonobo The Bonobo , Pan paniscus, previously called the Pygmy Chimpanzee and less often, the Dwarf or Gracile Chimpanzee, is a great ape and one of the two species making up the genus Pan. The other species in genus Pan is Pan troglodytes, or the Common Chimpanzee. Although the name "chimpanzee" is sometimes used to refer to both species.Homo Humans commonly refers to the species Homo sapiens , the only extant member of the Homo genus of bipedal primates in Hominidae, the great ape family. However, in some cases the term is used to refer to any member of the genus Homo, Pan Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:) or less (Gorilla Gorillas are the largest of the living primates. They are ground-dwelling and predominantly herbivorous. They inhabit the forests of central Africa. Gorillas are divided into two species and either four or five subspecies. The DNA of gorillas is highly similar to that of a human, between 95 and 99% depending on what is counted, and they are the, Pongo The orangutans are the only exclusively Asian living genus of great ape. They are among the most intelligent primates and use a variety of sophisticated tools, also making sleeping nests each night from branches and foliage. They are generally not aggressive and live a mostly solitary life foraging for food. They are the largest living arboreal) social animals A social animal is a loosely defined term for an organism that is highly interactive with other members of its species to the point of having a recognizable and distinct society so Robinson Crusoe Robinson Crusoe, is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. The book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Venezuela, encountering Native Americans, captives, and mutineers before being rescued like situations are either fictions or unusual corner cases to the ubiquity of social context for humans who fall between presocial and eusocial Eusociality is a term used for the highest level of social organization in a hierarchical classification in the spectrum of animal ethology A primate is a member of the biological order Primates (/praɪˈmeɪtiːz/ prī·mā′·tēz; Latin: "prime, first rank"), the group that contains prosimians (including lemurs, lorises, galagos and tarsiers ) and simians (monkeys and apes). With the exception of humans, who inhabit every continent on Earth,[a] most primates live in.
Anthropology
Human societies are often organized according to their primary means of subsistence. Social scientists have identified hunter-gatherer A hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary subsistence method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without significant recourse to the domestication of either. Up to 80% of the food is obtained by gathering. The demarcation between hunter-gatherers and other societies which rely more societies, nomadic pastoral Pastoralism or pastoral farming is the branch of agriculture concerned with the raising of livestock. It is animal husbandry: the care, tending and use of animals such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, llamas, sheep, and so forth. It may have a mobile aspect, moving the herds in search of fresh pasture and water societies, horticulturalist Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic engineering, plant biochemistry, and plant physiology or simple farming societies, and intensive agricultural Agriculture is the production of food and goods through farming. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and stratified societies. The study of agriculture is known as societies, also called civilizations Civilization is a term used to describe a certain kind of development of a human society. A civilized society is often characterized by advanced agriculture, long-distance trade, occupational specialization, and urbanism. Aside from these core elements, civilization is often marked by any combination of a number of secondary elements, including a. Some consider industrial Industry refers to the production of an economic good within an economy. There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction, and manufacturing; the tertiary sector, which deals with services (such as law and post-industrial A post-industrial society is a society in which an economic transition has occurred from a manufacturing based economy to a service based economy, a diffusion of national and global capital, and mass privatization. The prerequisites to this economic shift are the processes of industrialization and liberalization. This economic transition spurs a societies to be qualitatively different from traditional agricultural societies.
Today, anthropologists and many social scientists vigorously oppose the notion of cultural evolution and rigid "stages" such as these. In fact, much anthropological data has suggested that complexity (civilization, population growth and density, specialization, etc.) does not always take the form of hierarchical social organization or stratification.
Also, cultural relativism Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of his or her own culture. This principle was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by his students. Boas first articulated the idea in 1 as a widespread approach/ethic has largely replaced notions of "primitive," better/worse, or "progress" in relation to cultures (including their material culture/technology and social organization).
According to anthropologist Maurice Godelier Born in Cambrai, France in 28 February 1934, Maurice Godelier is one of the most influential names in French anthropology. Directeur d'études at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Best known as one of the earliest advocates of Marxism's incorporation into anthropology, he is also known for his field work among the Baruya in Papua, one critical novelty in human society, in contrast to humanity's closest biological relatives (chimpanzees Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species: and bonobo), is the parental role assumed by the males, which supposedly would be absent in our nearest relatives for whom paternity is not in general determinable.[1][2]
Political Science
Societies may also be organized according to their political structure. In order of increasing size and complexity, there are bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and state societies. These structures may have varying degrees of political power, depending on the cultural geographical, and historical environments that these societies must contend with. Thus, a more isolated society with the same level of technology and culture as other societies is more likely to survive than one in closer proximity to others that may encroach on their resources (see history for examples). A society that is unable to offer an effective response to other societies it competes with will usually be subsumed into the culture of the competing society (see technology for examples).
Sociology
Sociologist Gerhard Lenski differentiates societies based on their level of technology, communication and economy: 1) hunters and gatherers, 2) simple agricultural, 3) advanced agricultural, 4) industrial, and 5) special (e.g. fishing societies or maritime societies).[3] This is somewhat similar to the system earlier developed by anthropologists Morton H. Fried, a conflict theorist, and Elman Service, an integration theorist, who have produced a system of classification for societies in all human cultures based on the evolution of social inequality and the role of the state. This system of classification contains four categories:
- Hunter-gatherer bands (categorization on duties and responsibilities.)
- Tribal societies in which there are some limited instances of social rank and prestige.
- Stratified structures led by chieftains.
- Civilizations, with complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional governments.
In addition to this there are:
- Humanity, mankind, that upon which rest all the elements of society, including society's beliefs.
- Virtual society is a society based on online identity, which is evolving in the information age.
Over time, some cultures have progressed toward more-complex forms of organization and control. This cultural evolution has a profound effect on patterns of community. Hunter-gatherer tribes settled around seasonal food stocks to become agrarian villages. Villages grew to become towns and cities. Cities turned into city-states and nation-states.[4]
Many societies will distribute largess, at the behest of some individual or some larger group of people. This type of generosity can be seen in all known cultures; typically, prestige accrues to the generous individual or group. Conversely, members of a society may also shun or scapegoat members of the society who violate its norms. Mechanisms such as gift-giving and scapegoating, which may be seen in various types of human groupings, tend to be institutionalized within a society. Social evolution as a phenomenon carries with itself certain elements that could be detrimental to the population it serves.
Some societies will bestow status on an individual or group of people, when that individual or group performs an admired or desired action. This type of recognition is bestowed by members of that society on the individual or group in the form of a name, title, manner of dress, or monetary reward. Adult male/female status, in many societies, is subject to a ritual or process of this type. Altruistic action in the interests of the larger group is seen in virtually all societies. The phenomena of community action, shunning, scapegoating, generosity, shared risk and reward are common to many forms of society.
Contemporary Usage
The term society is currently used to cover both a number of political and scientific connotations as well as a variety of associations.
Western society
Main article: Western worldThe development of the Western world has brought with it the emerging concepts of Western culture, politics and ideas, often referred to simply as Western society. Geographically, it covers at the very least the countries of Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand and sometimes also includes South America and Israel. The cultures and lifestyles of all of these stem from Western Europe. They all enjoy relatively strong economies and stable governments, allow freedom of religion, have chosen democracy as a form of governance, favor capitalism and international trade, are heavily influenced by Judeo-Christian values, and have some form of political and military alliance or cooperation.[5]
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Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:44:25 GMT+00:00
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live like a rock star take a cue from Society drive to your local hardware store and stock up on some diesel chain links tell the clerk its for your socks and not for personal use
Eric Randolph
Sat, 04 Sep 2010 13:51:44 GM
A blog about India and its neighbours, edited by Eric Randolph.
