Find the definition of the word society

A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members. In the social sciences, a larger society often exhibits stratification or dominance patterns in subgroups.

Societies construct patterns of behavior by deeming certain actions or concepts as acceptable or unacceptable. These patterns of behavior within a given society are known as societal norms. Societies, and their norms, undergo gradual and perpetual changes.

So far as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would otherwise be difficult on an individual basis; both individual and social (common) benefits can thus be distinguished, or in many cases found to overlap. A society can also consist of like-minded people governed by their own norms and values within a dominant, larger society. This is sometimes referred to as a subculture, a term used extensively within criminology, and also applied to distinctive subsections of a larger society.

More broadly, and especially within structuralist thought, a society may be illustrated as an economic, social, industrial or cultural infrastructure, made up of, yet distinct from, a varied collection of individuals. In this regard, society can mean the objective relationships people have with the material world and with other people, rather than «other people» beyond the individual and their familiar social environment.

Etymology and usage[edit]

The term «society» came from the 12th-century French société (meaning ‘company’).^[1] This was in turn from the Latin word societas, which in turn was derived from the noun socius («comrade, friend, ally»; adjectival form socialis) used to describe a bond or interaction between parties that are friendly, or at least civil. Without an article, the term can refer to the entirety of humanity (also: «society in general», «society at large», etc.), although those who are unfriendly or uncivil to the remainder of society in this sense may be deemed to be «antisocial». In the 1630s it was used in reference to «people bound by neighborhood and intercourse aware of living together in an ordered community».^[2] However, in the 18th century the Scottish economist, Adam Smith taught that a society «may subsist among different men, as among different merchants, from a sense of its utility without any mutual love or affection, if only they refrain from doing injury to each other.»^[3]

Conceptions[edit]

Humans fall between presocial and eusocial in the spectrum of animal ethology. The great apes have always been more (Bonobo, Homo, Pan) or less (Gorilla, Pongo) social animals. According to anthropologist Maurice Godelier, one critical novelty in society, in contrast to humanity’s closest biological relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos), is the parental role assumed by the males, which supposedly would be absent in our nearest relatives for whom paternity is not generally determinable.^[4][5]

In sociology[edit]

Sociologist Peter L. Berger defines society as «…a human product, and nothing but a human product, that yet continuously acts … upon its producer[s].» According to him, society was created by humans, but this creation turns back and creates or molds humans every day.^[6]

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).^[7] This is 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 of duties and responsibilities). Then came the agricultural society.
• 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, humankind, upon which rest all the elements of society, including society’s beliefs.
• Virtual society, 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.^[8]

Types[edit]

Societies are social groups that differ according to subsistence strategies, the ways that humans use technology to provide needs for themselves. Although humans have established many types of societies throughout history, anthropologists tend to classify different societies according to the degree to which different groups within a society have unequal access to advantages such as resources, prestige, or power. Virtually all societies have developed some degree of inequality among their people through the process of social stratification, the division of members of a society into levels with unequal wealth, prestige, or power. Sociologists place societies in three broad categories: pre-industrial, industrial, and postindustrial.^[9]

Pre-industrial[edit]

In a pre-industrial society, food production, which is carried out through the use of human and animal labor, is the main economic activity. These societies can be subdivided according to their level of technology and their method of producing food. These subdivisions are hunting and gathering, pastoral, horticultural, and agricultural.^[7]

Hunting and gathering[edit]

The main form of food production in hunter-gatherer societies is the daily collection of wild plants and the hunting of wild animals. Hunter-gatherers move around constantly in search of food.^[10] As a result, they do not build permanent villages or create a wide variety of artifacts, and usually only form small groups such as bands and tribes. However, some hunting and gathering societies in areas with abundant resources (such as the people of Tlingit in North America) lived in larger groups and formed complex hierarchical social structures such as chiefdom. The need for mobility also limits the size of these societies.^[11] Bands consist of 15 to 50 people related by kinship.^[12] Statuses within the tribe are relatively equal, and decisions are reached through general agreement. The ties that bind the tribe are more complex than those of the bands. Leadership is personal—charismatic—and used for special purposes only in tribal society. There are no political offices containing real power, and a chief is merely a person of influence.^[13] The family forms the main social unit, with most members being related by birth or marriage.^[14] The anthropologist Marshall Sahlins described hunter-gatherers as the «original affluent society» due to their extended leisure time:^[15] adults in foraging and horticultural societies work, on average, about 6.5 hours a day, whereas people in agricultural and industrial societies work on average 8.8 hours a day.^[16]

Pastoral[edit]

Pastoralism is a slightly more efficient form of subsistence. Rather than searching for food on a daily basis, members of a pastoral society rely on domesticated herd animals to meet their food needs. Pastoralists live a nomadic life, moving their herds from one pasture to another.^[17] Because their food supply is far more reliable, pastoral societies can support larger populations. Since there are food surpluses, fewer people are needed to produce food. As a result, the division of labor (the specialization by individuals or groups in the performance of specific economic activities) becomes more complex.^[9] For example, some people become craftworkers, producing tools, weapons, and jewelry, among other items of value. The production of goods encourages trade. This trade helps to create inequality, as some families acquire more goods than others do. These families often gain power through their increased wealth. The passing on of property from one generation to another helps to centralize wealth and power. Over time emerge hereditary chieftainships, the typical form of government in pastoral societies.

Horticultural[edit]

Fruits and vegetables grown in garden plots that have been cleared from the jungle or forest provide the main source of food in a horticultural society. These societies have a level of technology and complexity similar to pastoral societies. Historians use the phrase Agricultural Revolution to refer to the technological changes that occurred as long as 10,000 years ago that led to cultivating crops and raising farm animals.^[18] Some horticultural groups use the slash-and-burn method to raise crops.^[19] The wild vegetation is cut and burned, and ashes are used as fertilizers.^[20] Horticulturists use human labor and simple tools to cultivate the land for one or more seasons. When the land becomes barren, horticulturists clear a new plot and leave the old plot to revert to its natural state. They may return to the original land several years later and begin the process again. By rotating their garden plots, horticulturists can stay in one area for a fairly long period of time. This allows them to build semipermanent or permanent villages.^[21] The size of a village’s population depends on the amount of land available for farming; thus villages can range from as few as 30 people to as many as 2000.

As with pastoral societies, surplus food leads to a more complex division of labor. Specialized roles in horticultural societies include craftspeople, shamans (religious leaders), and traders.^[21] This role specialization allows people to create a wide variety of artifacts. As in pastoral societies, surplus food can lead to inequalities in wealth and power within horticultural political systems, developed because of the settled nature of horticultural life.

Agrarian[edit]

Agrarian societies use agricultural technological advances to cultivate crops over a large area. According to Lenski, the difference between horticultural and agrarian societies is the use of the plow.^[22] Increases in food supplies due to improved technology led to larger populations than in earlier communities. This meant a greater surplus, which resulted in towns that became centers of trade supporting various rulers, educators, craftspeople, merchants, and religious leaders who did not have to worry about locating nourishment.

Greater degrees of social stratification appeared in agrarian societies. For example, women previously had higher social status because they shared labor more equally with men. In hunting and gathering societies, women even gathered more food than men. However, as food stores improved and women took on different roles in providing food for the family, men took an increasingly dominant role in society. As villages and towns expanded into neighboring areas, conflicts with other communities inevitably occurred. Farmers provided warriors with food in exchange for protection against invasion by enemies. A system of rulers with high social status also appeared. This nobility organized warriors to protect the society from invasion. In this way, the nobility managed to extract goods from «lesser» members of society.

Industrial[edit]

Between the 15th and 16th centuries, a new economic system emerged. Capitalism is marked by open competition in a free market, in which the means of production are privately owned. Europe’s exploration of the Americas served as one impetus for the development of capitalism. The introduction of foreign metals, silks, and spices stimulated great commercial activity in European societies.

Industrial societies rely heavily on machines powered by fuels for the production of goods.^[23] This produced further dramatic increases in efficiency. The increased efficiency of production of the industrial revolution produced an even greater surplus than before. Now the surplus was not just agricultural goods, but also manufactured goods. This larger surplus caused all of the changes discussed earlier in the domestication revolution to become even more pronounced.

Once again, the population boomed.^[24] Increased productivity made more goods available to everyone. However, inequality became even greater than before. The breakup of agricultural-based societies caused many people to leave the land and seek employment in cities.^[25] This created a great surplus of labor and gave capitalists plenty of laborers who could be hired for extremely low wages.

Post-industrial[edit]

Post-industrial societies are societies dominated by information, services, and high technology more than the production of goods.^[26] Advanced industrial societies are now seeing a shift toward an increase in service sectors over manufacturing and production. The United States is the first country to have over half of its workforce employed in service industries. Service industries include government, research, education, health, sales, law, and banking.

Characteristics[edit]

Gender[edit]

The division of humans into male and female gender roles has been marked culturally by a corresponding division of norms, practices, dress, behavior, rights, duties, privileges, status, and power. Cultural differences by gender have often been believed to have arisen naturally out of a division of reproductive labor; the biological fact that women give birth led to their further cultural responsibility for nurturing and caring for children.^[27] Gender roles have varied historically, and challenges to predominant gender norms have recurred in many societies.^[28][29]

Kinship[edit]

All human societies organize, recognize and classify types of social relationships based on relations between parents, children and other descendants (consanguinity), and relations through marriage (affinity). There is also a third type applied to godparents or adoptive children (fictive). These culturally defined relationships are referred to as kinship. In many societies, it is one of the most important social organizing principles and plays a role in transmitting status and inheritance.^[30] All societies have rules of incest taboo, according to which marriage between certain kinds of kin relations are prohibited and some also have rules of preferential marriage with certain kin relations.^[31]

Ethnicity[edit]

Human ethnic groups are a social category that identifies together as a group based on shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. These can be a common set of traditions, ancestry, language, history, society, culture, nation, religion, or social treatment within their residing area.^[32][33] Ethnicity is separate from the concept of race, which is based on physical characteristics, although both are socially constructed.^[34] Assigning ethnicity to a certain population is complicated, as even within common ethnic designations there can be a diverse range of subgroups, and the makeup of these ethnic groups can change over time at both the collective and individual level.^[35] Also, there is no generally accepted definition of what constitutes an ethnic group.^[36] Ethnic groupings can play a powerful role in the social identity and solidarity of ethnopolitical units. This has been closely tied to the rise of the nation state as the predominant form of political organization in the 19th and 20th centuries.^[37][38][39]

Government and politics[edit]

The early distribution of political power was determined by the availability of fresh water, fertile soil, and temperate climate of different locations.^[40] As farming populations gathered in larger and denser communities, interactions between these different groups increased. This led to the development of governance within and between the communities.^[41] As communities got bigger the need for some form of governance increased, as all large societies without a government have struggled to function.^[42] Humans have evolved the ability to change affiliation with various social groups relatively easily, including previously strong political alliances, if doing so is seen as providing personal advantages.^[43] This cognitive flexibility allows individual humans to change their political ideologies, with those with higher flexibility less likely to support authoritarian and nationalistic stances.^[44]

Governments create laws and policies that affect the citizens that they govern. There have been multiple forms of government throughout human history, each having various means of obtaining power and the ability to exert diverse controls on the population.^[45] As of 2017, more than half of all national governments are democracies, with 13% being autocracies and 28% containing elements of both.^[46] Many countries have formed international political organizations and alliances, the largest being the United Nations with 193 member states.^[47]

Trade and economics[edit]

Trade, the voluntary exchange of goods and services, is seen as a characteristic that differentiates humans from other animals and has been cited as a practice that gave Homo sapiens a major advantage over other hominids.^[48] Evidence suggests early H. sapiens made use of long-distance trade routes to exchange goods and ideas, leading to cultural explosions and providing additional food sources when hunting was sparse, while such trade networks did not exist for the now extinct Neanderthals.^[49][50] Early trade likely involved materials for creating tools like obsidian.^[51] The first truly international trade routes were around the spice trade through the Roman and medieval periods.^[52]

Early human economies were more likely to be based around gift giving instead of a bartering system.^[53] Early money consisted of commodities; the oldest being in the form of cattle and the most widely used being cowrie shells.^[54] Money has since evolved into governmental issued coins, paper and electronic money.^[54] Human study of economics is a social science that looks at how societies distribute scarce resources among different people.^[55] There are massive inequalities in the division of wealth among humans; the eight richest humans are worth the same net monetary value as the poorest half of all the human population.^[56]

Conflict[edit]

Humans commit violence on other humans at a rate comparable to other primates, but kill adult humans at a high rate (with infanticide being more common among other animals).^[57] It is predicted that 2% of early H. sapiens would be killed, rising to 12% during the medieval period, before dropping to below 2% in modern times.^[58] There is great variation in violence between human populations with rates of homicide in societies that have legal systems and strong cultural attitudes against violence at about 0.01%.^[59]

The willingness of humans to kill other members of their species en masse through organized conflict (i.e., war) has long been the subject of debate. One school of thought is that war evolved as a means to eliminate competitors, and has always been an innate human characteristic. Another suggests that war is a relatively recent phenomenon and appeared due to changing social conditions.^[60] While not settled, the current evidence suggests warlike predispositions only became common about 10,000 years ago, and in many places much more recently than that.^[60] War has had a high cost on human life; it is estimated that during the 20th century, between 167 million and 188 million people died as a result of war.^[61]

Contemporary usage[edit]

The term «society» is currently used to cover both a number of political and scientific connotations as well as a variety of associations.

Western[edit]

The 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. It sometimes also includes Eastern Europe, 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.^[62]

Information[edit]

Although the concept of information society has been under discussion since the 1930s, in the modern world it is almost always applied to the manner in which information technologies have impacted society and culture. It, therefore, covers the effects of computers and telecommunications on the home, the workplace, schools, government, and various communities and organizations, as well as the emergence of new social forms in cyberspace.^[63]

One of the European Union’s areas of interest is the information society. Here, policies are directed towards promoting an open and competitive digital economy, research into information and communication technologies, as well as their application to improve social inclusion, public services, and quality of life.^[64]

The International Telecommunication Union’s World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva and Tunis (2003 and 2005) has led to a number of policy and application areas where action is envisaged.^[65]

Knowledge[edit]

As the access to electronic information resources increased at the beginning of the 21st century, special attention was extended from the information society to the knowledge society. An analysis by the Irish government stated, «The capacity to manipulate, store and transmit large quantities of information cheaply has increased at a staggering rate over recent years. The digitisation of information and the associated pervasiveness of the Internet are facilitating a new intensity in the application of knowledge to economic activity, to the extent that it has become the predominant factor in the creation of wealth. As much as 70 to 80 percent of economic growth is now said to be due to new and better knowledge.»^[66]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

• Boyd, Robert; Richerson, Peter J. (12 November 2009). «Culture and the evolution of human cooperation». Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 364 (1533): 3281–3288. doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0134. PMC 2781880. PMID 19805434.
• Bicchieri, Cristina; Muldoon, Ryan; Sontuoso, Alessandro (1 March 2011). «Social Norms».
• Briggs, Asa (2000). The Age of Improvement (2nd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-0-582-36959-7.
• Bulliet, Richard; Crossley, Pamela; Headrick, Daniel; Hirsch, Steven; Johnson, Lyman (2015). The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History. Vol. 1 (6th ed.). Cengage Learning. ISBN 9781285445670.
• Clutton-Brock, T.; West, S.; Ratnieks, F.; Foley, R. (12 November 2009). «The evolution of society». Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 364 (1533): 3127–3133. doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0207. PMC 2781882. PMID 19805421.
• Dunfey, Theo Spanos (29 May 2019). «What is Social Change and Why Should We Care?». Southern New Hampshire University.
• Lenski, Gerhard E. (1974). Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. ISBN 978-0-07-037172-9.
• OpenStax (2021). Introduction to Sociology, 3rd edition (PDF). Rice University. p. 99. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022.
• Rummel, R.J. (1976). «The State, Political System and Society». Understanding Conflict and War, Vol. 2: The Conflict Helix.

Further reading[edit]

• Althusser, Louis; Balibar, Étienne (2009). Reading Capital. London: Verso.
• Bottomore, Tom, ed. (1991). A Dictionary of Marxist Thought (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 45–48.
• Calhoun, Craig, ed. (2002). Dictionary of the Social Sciences. Oxford University Press.
• Griffen, Leonid (2021). «The Society as a Superorganism» (PDF). The Scientific Heritage. 5 (67): 51–60. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 September 2021.
• Hall, Stuart (1977). «Rethinking the Base and Superstructure Metaphor». In Bloomfield, J. (ed.). Papers on Class, Hegemony and Party. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
• Harman, Chris (Summer 1986). «Base and Superstructure». International Socialism. 2 (32): 3–44. Archived from the original on 27 June 2015.
• Harvey, David (2010). A Companion to Marx’s Capital. London: Verso.
• Jenkins, Richard (2002). Foundations of Sociology. London: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-0-333-96050-9.
• Larrain, Jorge (1983). Marxism and Ideology. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
• Lukács, Georg (1972). History and Class Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Postone, Moishe (1993). Time, Labour, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press.
• Williams, Raymond (1976). Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Fontana.
• — (1977). Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Definition of Society

(noun) A large group of interacting people in a defined territory, sharing a common culture.

Types of Society

• agrarian society
• egalitarian society
• feudal society
• horticultural society
• hunter-gatherer society
• industrial society
• information society
• pastoral society
• rank society
• stateless society
• stratified society

Society Pronunciation

Pronunciation Usage Guide

Syllabification: so·ci·e·ty

Audio Pronunciation

International Phonetic Alphabet

• American English – /səˈsaɪədi/
• British English – /səˈsʌɪəti/

Usage Notes

• Plural: societies
• “Whereas a society is composed of people, a culture is composed of ideas, behavior, and material possessions. Society and culture are interdependent; neither could exist without the other” (Kendall 2006:42).

Related Quotations

• “A social fact is every way of acting, whether fixed or not, which is capable of exercising an external constraint on the individual; or, which is general throughout a given society, whilst having an existence of its own, independent of its individual manifestations” (Durkheim [1895] 2004:50).
• “Each of us is a social being. We are born into a social environment; we fully develop in to human beings in a social environment; and we live our lives in a social environment. What we think, how we feel, and what we say and do all are shaped by our interactions with other people. The scientific study of these social interactions and of social organization is called sociology” (Hughes and Kroehler 2008:3).
• “If one wants to change society, one needs to understand the logic of how it operates” (Babbie 2011:62).
• “If religion protects man against the desire to kill himself, it is not because it preaches respect for his person based on arguments sui generis, but because it is a society. What constitutes this society is the existence of a certain number of beliefs and practices common to all the faithful which are traditional and therefore obligatory. The more numerous and strong these collective states are, the more strongly integrated is the religious community, and the greater its preservative value” (Durkheim [1897] 2004:74).
• “If the rights and perquisites of different positions in a society must be unequal, then the society must be stratified, because that is precisely what stratification means. Social inequality is thus an unconsciously evolved device by which societies insure that the most important positions are conscientiously filled by the most qualified persons. Hence every society, no matter how simple or complex, must differentiate persons in terms of both prestige and esteem, and must therefore possess a certain amount of institutionalized inequality” (Davis and Moore 1945:243).
• “In American society, the basic kinship system consists of parents and children, but it may include other relatives as well, especially grandparents. Each person in this system has certain rights and obligations as a result of his or her position in the family structure. Furthermore, a person may occupy several positions at the same time. For example, an 18-year-old woman may simultaneously be a daughter, a sister, a cousin, an aunt, and a granddaughter. Each role entails different rights and obligations. As a daughter, the young woman may have to defer to certain decisions of her parents; as a sister, to share her bedroom; as a cousin, to attend a wedding; and as a granddaughter, to visit her grandparents during the holidays” (Strong, Devault, and Cohen 2011:19).
• “No society lacks norms governing conduct. But societies do differ in the degree to which folkways, mores and institutional controls are effectively integrated with the goals which stand high in the hierarchy of cultural values. The culture may be such as to lead individuals to center their emotional convictions upon the complex of culturally acclaimed ends, with far less emotional support for prescribed methods of reaching out for these ends. With such differential emphases upon goals and institutional procedures, the latter may be so vitiated by the stress on goals as to have the behavior of many individuals limited only by considerations of technical expediency. In this context, the sole significant question becomes: Which of the available procedures is most efficient in netting the culturally approved value? The technically most effective procedure, whether culturally legitimate or not, becomes typically preferred to institutionally prescribed conduct. As this process of attenuation continues, the society becomes unstable and there develops what Durkheim called ‘anomie‘ (normlessness)” (Merton [1949] 1968:189).
• “Patriarchy literally means ‘rule of the fathers‘ and comes from the Old Testament—all power was given to male elders. Today, its meaning is more general: male domination of all the major institutions of society including government, religion, education, the economy, the military and the media” (Kaufman and Kimmel 2011:112).
• “Social stratification is universal but variable. Social stratification is found everywhere. Yet what is unequal and how unequal it is varies from one society to another. In some societies, inequality is mostly a matter of prestige; in others, wealth or power is the key element of difference. In addition, some societies contain more inequality than others” (Macionis 2012:225).
• “Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes more visible. Sometimes the object of the panic is quite novel and at other times it is something which has been in existence long enough, but suddenly appears in the limelight. Sometimes the panic passes over and is forgotten, except in folklore and collective memory; at other times it has more serious and long-lasting repercussions and might produce such changes as those in legal and social policy or even in the way society conceives itself” (Cohen 2002:1).
• “Sociology is the systematic study of human society and social interaction. It is a systematic study because sociologists apply both theoretical perspectives and research methods (or orderly approaches) to examinations of social behavior” (Kendall 2006:2).
• “Such an assumption seems to me to ignore the central fact about deviance: it is created by society. I do not mean this in the way it is ordinarily understood, in which the causes of deviance are located in the social situation of the deviant or in ‘social factors’ which prompt his action. I mean, rather, that social groups create deviance by making rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labelling them as outsiders. From this point of view, deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an ‘offender’. The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label” (Becker 1963:8–9).
• “The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to average members of the same society forms a particular system with a life of its own life; one might call it the collective or common consciousness” (Durkheim [1893] 2004:24).
• “The undue reliance which sociologists have placed upon the idea of ‘society’, where this means a bounded system, should be replaced by a starting point that concentrates upon analysing how social life is ordered across time and space – the problem of time-space distanciation. The conceptual framework of time-space distanciation directs our attention to the complex relations between local involvements (circumstances of co-presence) and interaction across distance (the connections of presence and absence). In the modern era, the level of time-space distanciation is much higher than in any previous period, and the relations between local and distant social forms and events become correspondingly ‘stretched’. Globalisation refers essentially to that stretching process, in so far as the modes of connection between different social contexts or regions become networked across the earth’s surface as a whole. Globalisation can thus be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa” (Giddens 1991:63–64).

Related Videos

Additional Information

• Word origin of “society” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
• Durkheim, Émile. [1893] 2013. The Division of Labour in Society, 2nd ed. edited by S. Lukes. London: Macmillan.
• Edwards, Michael. 2015. Civil Society. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Elias, Norbert. [1939] 2000. The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. Rev. ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Foley, Michael W., and Virginia Ann Hodgkinson, eds. 2003. The Civil Society Reader. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.
• Giddens, Anthony. 1973. The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies. London: Hutchinson.
• Grusky, David B., ed. 2014. Social Stratification: Class, Race, and Gender in Sociological Perspective. 4th ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• Harris, José, ed. 2001. Tönnies: Community and Civil Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Jenkins, R. 2002. Foundations of Sociology: Towards a Better Understanding of the Human World. Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Kerbo, Harold Ray. 2012. Social Stratification and Inequality: Class Conflict in Historical, Comparative, and Global Perspective. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Macionis, John J. 2017. Society: The Basics. 14th ed. Boston: Pearson.
• Massey, Douglas S. 2007. Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Outhwaite, W. 2006. The Future of Society. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Urry, John. 2000. Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-first Century. London: Routledge.
• Urry, John. 2007. Mobilities. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Weber, Max. 1946. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edited by H. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Williams, R. 2015. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. 2nd ed. London: Fontana.

Related Terms

• authority
• class
• division of labor
• institution
• population
• socialization
• structure
• study
• system

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References

Babbie, Earl R. 2011. The Basics of Social Research. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Becker, Howard Saul. 1963. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press.

Cohen, Stanley. 2002. Folk Devils and Moral Panics. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge.

Davis, Kingsley, and Wilbert E. Moore. 1945. “Some Principles of Stratification.” American Sociological Review 10(2):242–49. doi:10.2307/2085643.

Durkheim, Émile. [1893] 2004. “The Division of Labour in Society.” Pp. 19–38 in Readings from Emile Durkheim. Rev. ed., edited and translated by K. Thompson. New York: Routledge.

Durkheim, Émile. [1895] 2004. “The Rules of Sociological Method.” Pp. 43–63 in Readings from Emile Durkheim. Rev. ed., edited and translated by K. Thompson. New York: Routledge.

Durkheim, Émile. [1897] 2004. “Suicide.” Pp. 65–83 in Readings from Emile Durkheim. Rev. ed., edited and translated by K. Thompson. New York: Routledge.

Giddens, Anthony. 1991. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Hughes, Michael, and Carolyn J. Kroehler. 2008. Sociology: The Core. 8th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Kaufman, Michael, and Michael S. Kimmel. 2011. The Guy’s Guide to Feminism. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.

Kendall, Diana. 2006. Sociology in Our Times: The Essentials. 5th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Macionis, John. 2012. Sociology. 14th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Strong, Bryan, Christine DeVault, and Theodore F. Cohen. 2011. The Marriage and Family Experience: Intimate Relationships in a Changing Society. 11th ed. Boston: Cengage Learning.

Works Consulted

Abercrombie, Nicholas, Stephen Hill, and Bryan Turner. 2006. The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 5th ed. London: Penguin.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. 5th ed. 2011. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Andersen, Margaret L., and Howard Francis Taylor. 2011. Sociology: The Essentials. 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Brinkerhoff, David, Lynn White, Suzanne Ortega, and Rose Weitz. 2011. Essentials of Sociology. 8th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Bruce, Steve, and Steven Yearley. 2006. The SAGE Dictionary of Sociology. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Brym, Robert J., and John Lie. 2007. Sociology: Your Compass for a New World. 3rd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Collins English Dictionary: Complete and Unabridged. 6th ed. 2003. Glasgow, Scotland: Collins.

Delaney, Tim, and Tim Madigan. 2015. The Sociology of Sports: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Dillon, Michele. 2014. Introduction to Sociological Theory: Theorists, Concepts, and their Applicability to the Twenty-First Century. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Encyclopædia Britannica. (N.d.) Britannica Digital Learning. (https://britannicalearn.com/).

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Ferrante, Joan. 2011a. Seeing Sociology: An Introduction. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Ferrante, Joan. 2011b. Sociology: A Global Perspective. 7th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Ferris, Kerry, and Jill Stein. 2010. The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology. 2nd ed. New York: Norton.

Giddens, Anthony, and Philip W. Sutton. 2014. Essential Concepts in Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Griffiths, Heather, Nathan Keirns, Eric Strayer, Susan Cody-Rydzewski, Gail Scaramuzzo, Tommy Sadler, Sally Vyain, Jeff Bry, Faye Jones. 2016. Introduction to Sociology 2e. Houston, TX: OpenStax.

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Cite the Definition of Society

ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “society.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved April 14, 2023 (https://sociologydictionary.org/society/).

APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)

society. (2013). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/society/

Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “society.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed April 14, 2023. https://sociologydictionary.org/society/.

MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)

“society.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2013. Web. 14 Apr. 2023. <https://sociologydictionary.org/society/>.

so·ci·e·ty

 (sə-sī′ĭ-tē)

n. pl. so·ci·e·ties

1.

a. The totality of people regarded as forming a community of interdependent individuals: working for the benefit of society.

b. A group of people broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships, shared institutions, and a common culture: rural society; literary society.

2. An organization or association of persons engaged in a common profession, activity, or interest: a folklore society; a society of bird watchers.

3. The wealthy, socially dominant members of a community. Also called high society.

4. Companionship; company: enjoys the society of friends and family members.

5. Biology A colony or community of organisms, usually of the same species: an insect society.

---

[French société, from Old French, from Latin societās, fellowship, from socius, companion; see sek^w— in Indo-European roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

society

(səˈsaɪətɪ)

n, pl -ties

1. (Sociology) the totality of social relationships among organized groups of human beings or animals

2. (Sociology) a system of human organizations generating distinctive cultural patterns and institutions and usually providing protection, security, continuity, and a national identity for its members

3. (Sociology) such a system with reference to its mode of social and economic organization or its dominant class: middle-class society.

4. (Sociology) those with whom one has companionship

5. an organized group of people associated for some specific purpose or on account of some common interest: a learned society.

6.

a. the privileged class of people in a community, esp as considered superior or fashionable

b. (as modifier): a society woman.

7. the social life and intercourse of such people: to enter society as a debutante.

8. companionship; the fact or state of being together with someone else: I enjoy her society.

9. (Botany) ecology a small community of plants within a larger association

[C16: via Old French societé from Latin societās, from socius a comrade]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

so•ci•e•ty

(səˈsaɪ ɪ ti)

n., pl. -ties,
adj. n.

1. an organized group of persons associated together for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes.

2. a body of individuals living as members of a community; community.

3. human beings collectively, viewed as members of a community: the evolution of society.

4. a highly structured system of human organization for large-scale community living that normally furnishes protection, continuity, security, and a national identity for its members: American society.

5. such a system characterized by its dominant economic class or form: middle-class society; an industrial society.

6. those with whom one has companionship.

7. companionship; company.

8. the social life of wealthy, prominent, or fashionable persons.

9. the social class that comprises such persons.

10. the condition of those living in companionship with others, or in a community, rather than in isolation.

11. Biol. a closely integrated group of social organisms of the same species exhibiting division of labor.

adj.

12. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of elegant society: a society photographer.

[1525–35; < Middle French societe < Latin societās <soci(us) partner, comrade]

Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.

sociable, social, society — Sociable, social, society, etc. originate in Latin socius, «companion, fellow,» or «colleague.»

See also related terms for social.

Farlex Trivia Dictionary. © 2012 Farlex, Inc. All rights reserved.

Society

the attitude of taking an active part in events, especially in a social context. — activist, n.

an abnormal fear of people, especially in groups.

1. government by the best people.
2. an upper class based on quality, nobility, etc.

a dedication to aristocratie behavior.

the attitudes and actions of aristocrats.

a society or nation ruled by a person with absolute authority. — autocrat, n. — autocratie, adj.

In England. the aristocracy that gained its wealth and social posi-tion from the ownership of breweries.

a Utopian society in which all foods and other material needs will be prepared by chemical processes. — chemocrat, n.

an upper class based on wealth. Also chrysoaristocracy.

the area of political science concerned with citizenship.

a brotherhood, especially a group of men bound by a common goal or interest.

that portion of the upper class whose wealth comes from the cotton trade. — cottonocrat, n.

a doctrine of or belief in social equality or the right of all people to participate equally in politics.

attitudes or actions of well-intentioned but sometimes ineffectual people, especially in the area of social reform.

the branch of sociology that studies the environmental spacing and interdependence of people and their institutions. — ecologist, oecologist, n. — ecologie, oecologic, ecological, oecological, adj.

the process by which a person adapts to and assimilates the culture in which he lives.

the doctrine or practice of excluding certain groups or individuals from enjoyment of certain rights or privileges. — exclusionist, n.

theories and beliefs of J. G. Fichte (1762-1814), German philosopher and social thinker, a precursor of socialism. — Fichtean, n., adj.

government or domination of society by fools.

the state of being nonhomogeneous or inharmonious. — fractionalization, n.

a fellowship or association of men, as for a benevolent or charitable purpose or at a college.

a state in which the worst possible conditions exist in government, society, law. etc. See also utopia.

a ruling class that owes its power to its possession of land. — landocrat, n.

1. the system of manorial social and political organization, as in the Middle Ages.
2. its principles and practices.
3. Sometimes Pejorative. any small, strong unit of local political and social organization.

1. a matriarchal form of government.
2. a family, tribe, or other social group ruled by a matriarch or matriarchs. — matriarchic, adj.

government or dominance of society by the médiocre.

a powerful class composed of people who have achieved position on the basis of their merit rather than by birth or privilege. — meritocrat, n.

government or domination of society by the rich.

Facetious. a wealthy and dominant force in society whose wealth and power is based on control of oil.

the sociological theory that all cultures or societies follow the same fixed course of determinate evolution. See also evolution. — orthogenetic, adj.

the condition of being outcast from society. — pariahdom, n.

the domination of a social group, especially a small rural com-munity, by the parson.

1. behavior or attitudes typical of one who has recently acquired wealth or social position.
2. the state or quality of being a parvenu or upstart. — parvenu, n., adj.

1. a subdivision of an ancient Greek tribe or phyle.
2. a clan or other unit of a primitive tribe.

the state of living apart from society, like a hermit. — recluse, n. — reclusive, adj.

the rank, position or jurisdiction of a steward of a medieval prince or nobleman.

Facetious. snobs as a class in society.

the process of adapting to a social group; social intercourse or activity.

collective government or government by society as a whole.

a theory asserted sociologistically. — sociologistic, adj.

1. the science or study of the origin, development, organization, and functioning of human society.
2. the science of the fundamental laws of social relations, institutions, etc. — sociologist, n. — sociologie, sociological, adj.

the measurement of social attitudes within a group by sampling expressions of social acceptance or rejection. — sociometrist, n. — sociometrie, adj.

Rare. the study of the laws that govern the development of society.

a fellowship, brotherhood, or other association of a benevolent nature, especially in the Roman Catholic Church. — sodalist, n., adj.

Sociology. a theory that the possibility of founding a social organization upon a solidarity of interests is to be found in the natural interde-pendence of members of a society. — solidarist, n. — solidaristic, adj.

the feeling or expression of union in a group formed by a common interest.

a fellowship or association of women, as for a benevolent or charitable purpose or at a college.

a woman’s club or society, named after a club of that name, founded in 1869.

In Britain. the squires or landed gentry as a class.

the practice or custom, as among the ancient Spartans and Cretans, of eating the main meal of the day together in public to strengthen social and political bonds.

the harnessing of natural and social forces for a beneficial goal.

1. the practice of having a natural object or animate being, as a bird or animal, as the emblem of a family, clan, or group.
2. the practice of regarding such a totem as mystically related to the family, clan, or group and therefore not to be hunted.
3. a system of tribal organization according to totems. — totemic, adj.

the beliefs and policies associated with the welfare system.

-Ologies & -Isms. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Society

 the people in the fashionable world, 1813; certain communities of animals or insects.

Examples: society of beavers, 1794; of wasps, 1826.

Dictionary of Collective Nouns and Group Terms. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Society

 

1. Civilization, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder —Anon
2. A good civilization spreads over us freely like a tree, varying and yielding because it is alive. A bad civilization stands up and sticks out above us like an umbrella —G. K. Chesterton
3. A community is like a ship; every one ought to be prepared to take the helm —Henrik Ibsen
4. Modern society is like a Calder mobile: disturb it here and it jiggles over there, too —George F. Will
5. Social life is a form of do-it-yourself theater —Muriel Oxenberg Murphy, New York Times interview
6. Societies, like individuals, have their moral crises and their spiritual revolutions —Richard H. Tawney
7. Society is a kind of parent to its members. If it, and they, are to thrive, its values must be clear, coherent and generally acceptable —Milton R. Sapirstein
8. Society is a masked ball, where everyone hides his real character, and reveals it in hiding —Ralph Waldo Emerson
9. Society is like air; very high up, it is sublimated, too low down, a perfect choke-damp —Anon
10. Society is like a lawn, where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface —Washington Irving
11. Society is like a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not —Ralph Waldo Emerson
12. Society is like the air, necessary to breathe, but insufficient to live on —George Santayana

Similes Dictionary, 1st Edition. © 1988 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

society

1. used as an uncountable noun

Society refers to people in general, considered as a large organized group.

Women must have equal status in society.

The whole structure of society is changing.

When society has this meaning, don’t use ‘a’ or ‘the’ in front of it.

2. used as a countable noun

A society refers to the people of a particular country, considered as an organized group.

We live in a multi-cultural society.

Industrial societies became increasingly complex.

A society is also an organization for people who share an interest or aim.

The gardens are owned by the Royal Horticultural Society.

He was a member of the National Society of Film Critics.

Collins COBUILD English Usage © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 2004, 2011, 2012

society

A group of people who form a system of relationships and have their own culture.

Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words by Diagram Group Copyright © 2008 by Diagram Visual Information Limited

Britannica Dictionary definition of SOCIETY

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The gap in education in this country, the unfairness of the schools, is one of the great unfairness in this society.

Gaston Caperton

ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD SOCIETY

Via Old French societé from Latin societās, from socius a comrade.

PRONUNCIATION OF SOCIETY

GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY OF SOCIETY

Society is a noun.

WHAT DOES SOCIETY MEAN IN ENGLISH?

Definition of society in the English dictionary

The first definition of society in the dictionary is the totality of social relationships among organized groups of human beings or animals. Other definition of society is a system of human organizations generating distinctive cultural patterns and institutions and usually providing protection, security, continuity, and a national identity for its members. Society is also such a system with reference to its mode of social and economic organization or its dominant class.

WORDS THAT RHYME WITH SOCIETY

SYNONYMS OF «SOCIETY»

The following words have a similar or identical meaning as «society» and belong to the same grammatical category.

TRANSLATION OF SOCIETY

Find out the translation of society to 25 languages with our English multilingual translator.

TENDENCIES OF USE OF THE TERM «SOCIETY»

The term «society» is very widely used and occupies the 1.764 position in our list of most widely used terms in the English dictionary.

Principal search tendencies and common uses of society

FREQUENCY OF USE OF THE TERM «SOCIETY» OVER TIME

10 QUOTES WITH «SOCIETY»

Famous quotes and sentences with the word society.

10 ENGLISH BOOKS RELATING TO «SOCIETY»

Discover the use of society in the following bibliographical selection. Books relating to society and brief extracts from same to provide context of its use in English literature.

10 NEWS ITEMS WHICH INCLUDE THE TERM «SOCIETY»

Find out what the national and international press are talking about and how the term society is used in the context of the following news items.

REFERENCE

« EDUCALINGO. Society [online]. Available <https://educalingo.com/en/dic-en/society>. Apr 2023 ».

• Defenition of the word society

  • Human group of people, more or less large and complex, associated for some common interest and characterized by distinctive hierarchical relationships.
  • A formal association of people with similar interests.
  • a formal association of people with similar interests; «he joined a golf club»; «they formed a small lunch society»; «men from the fraternal order will staff the soup kitchen today»
  • the state of being with someone; «he missed their company»; «he enjoyed the society of his friends»
  • an extended social group having a distinctive cultural and economic organization
  • the fashionable elite
  • a formal association of people with similar interests
  • the state of being with someone

Synonyms for the word society

• • association
  • beau monde
  • bon ton
  • circle
  • citizens
  • civilization
  • club
  • companionship
  • company
  • comradeship
  • culture
  • fellowship
  • gild
  • good fellowship
  • group
  • guild
  • high society
  • humanity
  • institute
  • league
  • lodge
  • order
  • organization
  • people
  • polite society
  • smart set
  • the general public
  • the populace
  • the population
  • the public
  • the social order
  • the upper classes
  • the upper crust
  • the world
  • union

Similar words in the society

• • society
  • society’s

Meronymys for the word society

• • club member
  • Four Hundred
  • sector
  • social organization
  • social structure
  • social system
  • structure

Hyponyms for the word society

• • athenaeum
  • atheneum
  • boat club
  • bookclub
  • chapter
  • chess club
  • civilisation
  • civilization
  • country club
  • culture
  • frat
  • fraternity
  • freemasonry
  • glee club
  • golf club
  • hunt
  • hunt club
  • investors club
  • jockey club
  • open society
  • racket club
  • rowing club
  • service club
  • slate club
  • sorority
  • tribal society
  • turnverein
  • yacht club

Hypernyms for the word society

• • association
  • elite
  • elite group
  • friendly relationship
  • friendship
  • social group

See other words

• • What is festivity
  • The definition of trouper
  • The interpretation of the word troupers
  • What is meant by downsize
  • The lexical meaning troupes
  • The dictionary meaning of the word trouped
  • The grammatical meaning of the word factionalism
  • Meaning of the word knottier
  • Literal and figurative meaning of the word splinter group
  • The origin of the word downsized
  • Synonym for the word whoop it up
  • Antonyms for the word follower
  • Homonyms for the word unitarianism
  • Hyponyms for the word unitarianisms
  • Holonyms for the word work it
  • Hypernyms for the word unities
  • Proverbs and sayings for the word unitarians
  • Translation of the word in other languages park ranger

A society is a grouping of individuals, which is characterized by common interest and may have distinctive culture and institutions. A «society» may refer to a particular ethnic group, such as the Nuer, to a nation state, such as Switzerland, or to a broader cultural group, such as Western society. An organized group of people associated together for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes may also be considered a society.

Human beings are essentially social creatures, with the desire and need to be in close contact with others. Beginning with the family, human life is one of interdependence and sharing of physical, mental, and spiritual items. While conflict both within and between societies has been the dominant feature of human history, all societies strive to maintain harmony within (to ensure the happiness and safety of their members) and, at least in more recent times, many now seek harmony among diverse societies in efforts to establish a world of peace and prosperity for all.

Origin and usage

The term society emerged in the fifteenth century and is derived from the French société. The French word, in turn, had its origin in the Latin societas, «a friendly association with others,» from socius meaning «companion, associate, comrade or business partner.» Essential in the meaning of society is that its members share some mutual concern or interest, a common objective or common characteristics, often a common culture.

Society and culture are similar concepts, but their scopes are different. A society is an interdependent community, while culture is an attribute of a community: the complex web of shifting patterns that link individuals together. For example, Clifford Geertz suggested that «society» is the actual arrangement of social relations while «culture» consists of beliefs and symbolic forms. Edward Burnett Tylor wrote in 1871 that «culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.»

In the study of social sciences «society» has been used to mean a group of people that form a semi-closed social system, in which most interactions are with other individuals belonging to the group. According to sociologist Richard Jenkins, the term addresses a number of important existential issues facing people:

1. How humans think and exchange information. The sensory world makes up only a fraction of human experience, so in order to understand the world, we have to conceive of human interaction in the abstract, namely society.
2. Many phenomena cannot be reduced to individual behavior. In order to explain certain conditions, a view of something «greater than the sum of its parts» is needed.
3. Collectives often endure beyond the lifespan of individual members.
4. The human condition has always meant going beyond the evidence of our senses. In other words, every aspect of our lives is tied to the collective sense.^[1]

In political science, «society» is often used to mean the totality of human relationships, generally in contrast to the State, the apparatus of rule or government within a territory:

I mean by it [the State] that summation of privileges and dominating positions which are brought into being by extra-economic power…I mean by Society, the totality of concepts of all purely natural relations and institutions between man and man…—Franz Oppenheimer|^[2]

It should be noted, however, that some theorists, particularly Marxists, have argued that there is no entity that we could call «society.» The concept of a society as the sum total of social relations among members of a community contrasts with the perspective where society is simply the sum total of individuals in a territory, having no independent existence or characteristics beyond that which can be described on another level.

In the view of Karl Marx, human beings are intrinsically, necessarily, and by definition social beings who—beyond being «gregarious creatures»—cannot survive and meet their needs other than through social co-operation and association. Their social characteristics are therefore to a large extent an objectively given fact, stamped on them from birth and affirmed by socialization processes; and, according to Marx, in producing and reproducing their material life, people must necessarily enter into relations of production which are «independent of their will.»

By contrast, the sociologist Max Weber defined human action as «social» if, by virtue of the subjective meanings attached to the action by individuals, it «takes account the behavior of others, and is thereby oriented in its course.» In this case, the «social» domain really exists only in the intersubjective relations between individuals, but by implication the life of these individuals also exists in part outside the social domain. «Social» is thus implicitly also contrasted with «private.»

In the positivist sociology of Emile Durkheim, a social fact is an abstraction external to the individual which constrains that individual’s actions. In his 1895 work Rules of Sociological Method, Durkheim wrote:

A social fact is every way of acting, fixed or not, capable of exercising on the individual an influence, or an external constraint; or again, every way of acting which is general throughout a given society, while at the same time existing in its own right independent of its individual manifestations.

Durkheim gave a non-individualistic explanation of social facts arguing that social phenomena arise when interacting individuals constitute a reality that can no longer be accounted for in terms of the properties of individual actors. He distinguished between a traditional society–»mechanical solidarity»–which prevails if individual differences are minimized, and the modern society-«organic solidarity»–that develops out of cooperation between differentiated individuals with independent roles. In Durkheim’s view, sociology as the study of society and human social interaction is «the science of social facts.»

Types of societies

Social scientists differentiate societies based on a variety of factors. Gerhard Lenski, a sociologist, differentiates societies into six levels based on their level of technology, communication, and economy: (1) hunters and gatherers, (2) simple horticultural, (3) advanced horticultural, (4) simple agrarian, (5) advanced agrarian, and (6) industrial.^[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 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, which are generally egalitarian.
• Tribal societies, in which there are some limited instances of social rank and prestige.
• Chiefdoms, stratified structures led by chieftains.
• Civilizations, with complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional governments.

Societies consist minimally of a large extended family, and generally as groups of families connected either by kinship or by geopolitical factors (location, resources, common enemies, and so forth). Over time, some cultures 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 supplies eventually become agrarian villages. Villages grew to become towns and cities. Cities turned into city-states and nation-states. Ultimately, there is the level of all humanity, humankind.

The fundamental unit of human society is the family. Margaret Mead, based on her anthropological research, affirmed the centrality of the family in human society:

As far back as our knowledge takes us, human beings have lived in families. We know of no period where this was not so. We know of no people who have succeeded for long in dissolving the family or displacing it … Again and again, in spite of proposals for change and actual experiments, human societies have reaffirmed their dependence on the family as the basic unit of human living—the family of father, mother and children.^[4]

Band

A band society is the simplest form of human society. A band generally consists of a small kinship group, often no larger than an extended family or small clan. Bands have very informal leadership; the older members of the band generally are looked to for guidance and advice, but there are none of the written laws and law enforcement like that seen in more complex societies. Band customs are almost always transmitted orally. Formal social institutions are few or non-existent. Religion is generally based on family tradition, individual experience, or counsel from a shaman. Bands are distinguished from tribes in that tribes are generally larger, consisting of many families. Tribes have more social institutions and clearly defined leadership such as a «chief,» or «elder.» Tribes are also more permanent than bands; a band can cease to exist if only a small group walks out. Many tribes are in fact sub-divided into bands, in the United States, for example, many Native American tribes are made up of official bands living in specific locations.

Clan

A clan is a group of people united by kinship and descent, which is defined by perceived descent from a common ancestor. Even if actual lineage patterns are unknown, clan members nonetheless recognize a founding member or «apical ancestor.» As kinship based bonds can be merely symbolic in nature some clans share a «stipulated» common ancestor, which is a symbol of the clan’s unity. When this ancestor is not human, this is referred to a totem. Generally speaking, kinship differs from biological relation, as it also involves adoption, marriage, and fictive genealogical ties. Clans can be most easily described as sub-groups of tribes and usually constitute groups of seven to ten thousand people.

Tribe

A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states, though some modern theorists hold that «contemporary» tribes can only be understood in terms of their relationship to states. The term is often loosely used to refer to any non-Western or indigenous society.

In common understanding the word «tribe» is a social division within a traditional society consisting of a group of interlinked families or communities sharing a common culture and dialect. In the contemporary western mind the modern tribe is typically associated with a seat of traditional authority (tribal leader) with whom the representatives of external powers (the governing state or occupying government) interact.

For various reasons, the term «tribe» fell into disfavor in the latter part of the twentieth century. For many anthropologists, when the term was clearly defined it became an «ideal» concept, with no basis in reality. Thus, it was replaced with the designation «ethnic group,» which defines a group of people of common ancestry and language, shared cultural history, and an identifiable territory. Nevertheless, the term tribe is still in common use and the term used for recognized Native American governments in the United States.

Ethnic group

An ethnic group is a human population whose members identify with each other, usually on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or lineage. Ethnic groups are also usually united by common cultural, behavioral, linguistic, or religious practices.^[5] In this sense, an ethnic group is also a cultural community. This term is preferred over tribe, as it overcame the negative connotations that the term tribe had acquired under colonialism.

Chiefdom

A chiefdom is any community led by an individual known as a chief. In anthropological theory, one model of human social development describes a chiefdom as a form of social organization more complex than a tribe, and less complex than a state or a civilization. The most succinct (but still working) definition of a chiefdom in anthropology belongs to Robert Carneiro: «An autonomous political unit comprising a number of villages or communities under the permanent control of a paramount chief.»^[6] Chiefdoms have been shown by anthropologists and archaeologists to be a relatively unstable form of social organization. They are prone to cycles of collapse and renewal, in which tribal units band together, expand in power, fragment through some form of social stress, and band together again.

An example of this kind of social organization would be the Germanic Peoples who conquered the western Roman Empire in the fifth century C.E. Although commonly referred to as tribes, the Germanic Peoples were by anthropological definition not tribes, but chiefdoms. They had a complex social hierarchy consisting of kings, a warrior aristocracy, common freemen, serfs, and slaves.

Chiefdoms are characterized by pervasive inequality of peoples and centralization of authority. At least two inherited social classes (elite and commoner) are present, although social class can often be changed by extraordinary behavior during an individual’s life. A single lineage/family of the elite class will be the ruling elite of the chiefdom, with the greatest influence, power, and prestige. Kinship is typically an organizing principle, while marriage, age, and gender can affect one’s social status and role.

State

A state is a political association with effective dominion over a geographic area. It usually includes the set of institutions that claim the authority to make the rules that govern the people of the society in that territory, though its status as a state often depends in part on being recognized by a number of other states as having internal and external sovereignty over it. In sociology, the state is normally identified with these institutions: in Max Weber’s influential definition, it is that organization that has a «monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory,» which may include the armed forces, civil service, or state bureaucracy, courts, and police.

A city-state is a region controlled exclusively by a city, usually having sovereignty. Historically, city-states have often been part of larger cultural areas, as in the city-states of ancient Greece (such as Athens, Sparta and Corinth), the central Asian cities along the Silk Road (which included Samarkand and Bukhara), or the city-states of Northern Italy (especially Florence and Venice). Among the most creative periods in human history are those in which humanity organized itself in small independent centers. However, these small creative groupings usually survived for only short periods of time because they lacked the size and strength to defend themselves against the onslaught of larger social entities. Thus, they inevitably gave way to larger organizations of society, the empire and eventually the nation-state.^[7] Today, only Singapore, Monaco, and Vatican City arguably remain autonomous city-states.

The modern nation-state is larger and more populous than the city-states of ancient Greece or Medieval Europe. Those states were governed through face-to-face relationships of people that often lived within the walls of the city. The nation-state also differs from an empire, which is usually an expansive territory comprising numerous states and many nationalities which is united by political and military power, and a common currency. The language of an empire is often not the mother tongue of most of its inhabitants.

There are two directions for the formation of a nation-state. The first—and more peaceful way—is for responsible people living in a territory to organize a common government for the nation-state they will create. The second, and more violent and oppressive method—is for a ruler or army to conquer a territory and impose its will on the people it rules.

The modern nation-state is relatively new to human history, emerging after the Renaissance and Reformation. It was given impetus by the throwing off of kings (for example, in the Netherlands and the United States) and the rise of efficient state bureaucracies that could govern large groups of people impersonally. Frederick the Great in Germany is frequently cited as one of the originators of modern state bureaucracy. It is based on the idea that the state can treat large numbers of people equally by efficient application of the law through the bureaucratic machinery of the state.

Characteristics of society

The following components are common to all definitions of society:

• Criteria for membership, related to purpose or common goal
• Characteristic patterns of organization, defining relationships among members
• Social norms of acceptable behavior within the society

Criteria for membership

Generally the members of a society have a shared belief or common goal that binds them together. On the most basic level, that of a family or extended family, they share a common blood lineage. Some larger social groups, such as clans and ethnic groups also share a common lineage, although the connections may be more distant.

Ferdinand Tönnies argued that social groups can exist as personal and direct social ties that either link individuals who share values and belief (gemeinschaft) or impersonal, formal and instrumental social links (gesellschaft). In reality, though, all societies contain some elements of both types.

There are also «secret societies,» organizations that conceal their activities and membership from outsiders. The term «secret society» is also often used by the general public to describe a wide range of organizations, including college fraternities and fraternal organizations that may have non-public ceremonies. Freemasonry has often been called a «secret society» although Freemasons themselves argue that it is more correct to say that it is an esoteric society, in that certain aspects are private.^[8]

The most common phrasing being that Freemasonry has, in the twenty-first century, become less a secret society and more of a «society with secrets.»^[9]

Some academic, learned, and scholarly associations describe themselves as «societies» (for example, the American Society of Mathematics. More commonly, professional organizations often refer to themselves as societies (for example, the American Society of Civil Engineers or the American Chemical Society). In the United Kingdom and the United States, learned societies are normally nonprofit and have charitable status. In science, they range in size to include national scientific societies (such as the Royal Society) to regional natural history societies. Academic societies may have interest in a wide range of subjects, including the arts, humanities, and science.

Peoples of many nations united by common political and cultural traditions, beliefs, or values may be said to be a society (such as Judeo-Christian, Eastern, and Western). When used in this context, the term is employed as a means of contrasting two or more «societies» whose members represent alternative conflicting and competing worldviews.

Organization

Human societies are often organized according to their primary means of subsistence. As noted above, 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 be qualitatively different from traditional agricultural societies.

Societies may also be organized according to their political structure. In order of increasing size and complexity, there are bands, tribes or ethnic groups, 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. A society that is unable to offer an effective response to other competing societies will usually be subsumed into the culture of the more successful, competing society.

One common theme for societies is that they serve to aid individuals in a time of crisis. Traditionally, when an individual requires aid, for example at birth, death, sickness, or disaster, members of that society will rally others to render aid, in some form—symbolic, linguistic, physical, mental, emotional, financial, medical, or religious. 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 exchange and scapegoating tend to be institutionalized within a society.

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 may be bestowed by members of that society on the individual or group in the form of a name, title, manner of dress, or monetary reward.

Social networks are basically maps of the relationships between people. Structural features such as proximity, frequency of contact, and type of relationship (such as relative, friend, colleague) define various social networks.

Research in a number of academic fields has shown that social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.

Georg Simmel, writing at the turn of the twentieth century, was the first scholar to think directly in social network terms. His essays pointed to the nature of network size on interaction and to the likelihood of interaction in ramified, loosely-knit networks rather than groups. Looking at societies in terms of social networks allows a number of understandings of the way in which a society may function:

There is no assumption that groups of people must be in physical proximity in order to be the building blocks of society: less-bounded social systems, from nonlocal communities to links among Internet sites become potential origins of societies.

Individuals (persons, organizations, states) are not the most important features; the structure of their relationships become more significant.

The process of becoming a fully accepted member of a society may not depend on socialization into a fixed set of norms, but rather the structure and composition of relationships among members of the society affect the norms of appropriate behavior.

Norms

Social norms are rules or standards of behavior shared by members of a social group. A norm is an expectation of how people will behave, and generally it takes the form of a rule that is socially rather than formally enforced. Norms may be internalized—incorporated within the individual so that there is conformity without external rewards or punishments, or they may be enforced by positive or negative sanctions from without.

There are two schools of thought regarding norms. One view maintains that norms reflect a consensus, a common value system developed through socialization, the process by which an individual learns the culture of his group. Norms contribute to the functioning of the social system and are said to develop to meet certain assumed “needs” of the system. On the other hand, conflict theory holds that norms are a mechanism for dealing with recurring social problems. In this view, norms are imposed by one section of a society as a means by which it can dominate and exploit others.

Norms may take the form of customs, the society’s web of cultural rituals, traditions, and routines. These may not be punished severely. Norms that involve moral judgments that define wrong and right behavior, the allowed and the disallowed, what is wanted and not wanted within a culture—the taboo—these are more serious. Violation of such norms is usually considered by society as a threat to social organization and harshly sanctioned. Examples of this type include sexual promiscuity, and extreme styles of dress.

In highly organized societies, norms are formalized and precisely delimited. Certain types of rules or customs may become law, and regulatory legislation may be introduced to formalize or enforce the convention (such as laws which determine which side of the road vehicles must be driven). The breaking of legal norms invokes procedures and judgments through formal, legal institutions, such as police or the courts, set up to enforce them. These norms generally relate to individual violations of mores or to the adjustment of proprietary relationships. In a social context, a convention may retain the character of an «unwritten law» of custom (such as the manner in which people greet each other—by shaking each other’s hands, bowing, and so forth).

In early, non-specialized societies, people pooled their labor for the production of the necessities for survival. They tended to behave and think alike as they worked to achieve group-oriented goals. When societies became more complex, work became more specialized, and social bonds grew more impersonal as the culture shifted from altruism to economic where labor was exchanged for money. Individuals found it difficult to establish their status and role in society without clear norms to guide them. If conditions changed quickly, say during great prosperity or a great depression, the social system came under pressure and the erosion of existing norms without clear alternatives led to dissatisfaction, conflict, and deviance.

Emile Durkheim introduced the concept of anomie to describe an emerging state of social deregulation, one in which the norms or rules that regulated people’s expectations as to how they ought to behave were eroding and so people no longer knew what to expect from one another. This creates a society in which individual desires are no longer regulated by common norms becomes one where individuals are left without moral guidance in the pursuit of their goals, both on the individual level or in service to the society as a whole. In such a situation, the society inevitably fails.

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Aurobindo, Sri. Social and Political Thought. Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1970. ASIN B00T12PHRO
• Durkheim, Emile. The Division of Labor in Society. The Free Press, 1997. ISBN 0684836386
• Durkheim, Emile. Rules of Sociological Method. The Free Press, 1982. ISBN 0029079403
• Jenkins, Richard. Foundations of Sociology. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002. ISBN 0333960505
• Mead, Margaret, and Ken Heyman. Family. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1965. ISBN 0025836900
• Nolan, Patrick, and Gerhard Lenski. Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology. Oxford University Press, 2014. ISBN 978-0199382453
• Rambo, A. Terry and Kathleen Gillogly (eds.). Profiles in Cultural Evolution. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1991. ISBN 978-0915703234
• Simmel, Georg. Sociology: Investigations on the Forms of Sociation. 1908.
• Smith, Anthony D. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1988. ISBN 0631161694
• Tönnies, Ferdinand. Community and Civil Society. Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521561191
• Tylor, Edward B. Primitive culture: Researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, language, art, and custom. Gordon Press, 1976. ISBN 087968464X
• United Grand Lodge of England. Constitutions of the Antient Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons. Forgotten Books, 2017. ISBN 978-1330365311
• Weber, Max. Economy and Society. University of California Press, 1978. ISBN 978-0520035003

Historically, any person becomes a member of society automatically. And this does not require any additional links, knowledge and opportunities. What is society? The definition of this concept is quite multifaceted. This is a whole system of human communication, interaction, division into different interest groups and the kind of activity.

History

Modern society did not happen by itself. Its predecessor is the primitive community, uniting people according to their interrelations, way of life. The community helped the ancestors to act more organically in order to survive in difficult natural conditions.

According to historical data, the communities of some of the ancestors of modern man confronted other sociological organizations of this kind — hence the first conflicts were formed. The reason for such counteractions could serve: interracial hatred, the rejection of one species of another (interspecific crossing and so on), the division of food products and the territory of residence.

What is society? Definition in dictionaries

Groups of people united by one goal, as well as the population of a particular state and even the whole planet — all this is society. This concept is deciphered as organized human interaction, whether it is a circle of interests or a political party. The social, human society unites in itself a large number of people, although possessing a different worldview, but having one common desire — to live and coexist.

The word «society» has one root with the word «communicate». This explains the point that without communication itself no society can be formed, since both concepts are closely interrelated. Dormitory, community, community, public — these words are single-root with «society» and, in fact, represent certain groups of people in constant interaction.

The company can be treated as a company or a company (OJSC, LLC, CJSC and others), as well as various organizations that have a limited number of people united by their interests.

In the dictionary of YE Yatsenko, the short meaning of the word «society» is indicated. In a broad sense, the term is treated as a separate part of the world, which is the union of all existing ways of interaction and influence of people against each other, as well as the forms of their organizations.

Definition and meaning of the word «society» according to VI Dal

The very concept as such in the dictionary of the great Russian lexicographer is not, however, it has a one-root with it expression «to communicate», which, according to the author’s interpretation, also means «society». The meaning of the word in the dictionary of Dal is literally a union, joining, mixing something (somebody). For example, «look at cases separately, do not communicate with one another.»

«Communicate» is not only a society, an association, etc., the given word has another explanation. Communicate means to communicate, talk, enter into a dialogue with an interlocutor, inform, tell, share news.

Structure

Social life, social relations, constant interaction — all this helps to disassemble in detail what society is. The definition of this concept is not possible without structuring the society as a whole organism.

The development of the social system is subject to external influences. The functioning of society occurs according to a certain pattern, where each individual can radically change his views on the life of others, their moral principles, and also history.

The structure of the company includes the following categories:

1. Social groups.
2. Segments of society.
3. The commonality.
4. Institutes.

These components of society are united by social relations. Their role in the development of any community, community is quite high. Social relations are divided into connections and interactions.

Social relations are formed by mutual consent of the members of society in accordance with the stated goal, which must be achieved. That is, the establishment of such relations takes place only in certain social conditions of residence for each individual.

Social interactions are a series of processes that affect people, helping to change established concepts and principles. Different effects of individuals on each other provoke the development of new relationships. They are entrenched and strong connections between individuals and groups of people.

Symptoms

What is society? The definition of a word would not have been possible without the social structure of society, the signs of the organization of people:

• In each specific group of people there is an abundance of the most diverse social subsystems, structures. It is not just a certain number of individuals united by something, it is a whole complex system in which various social groups are infinitely evolving and being created: families, tribes.
• Society is self-sufficient. That is, it is itself able to create certain conditions for normal functioning. No part of the society can exist separately, without contact and without interacting with the other.
• The main difference of society is its dynamism and nonlinearity, being in constant movement, growth. The main character here is a person, since without his participation the further development of society is impossible.

Relationships and Relationships

What is society? The definition and meaning of the word consist in the interaction of people among themselves, namely, in the social structure. This concept is a historically established, stable system of connections and relations between each individual and social elements (groups and others).

After the birth and acquisition of basic knowledge, the period of growing up, a person, consciously or unconsciously, gets into a society whose members are close to him for any interests, character, purpose. Modern society is far from ideal, because it does not have a clear, definite division of people into subgroups, and individuals can often be out of place.

Communication and constant interaction in groups occurs according to the traditions that have developed in them and the moral foundations. Despite equality before the law, there is a constant inequality in groups, without it the society itself would not have formed without it. The meaning and interpretation of the general inequality lies both in the social difference between the layers of the population, and in the distinctive characteristics of individuals. For example, each person has a gift for some kind of activity, but is absent to another. Another example: wealthy, wealthy people have a higher standard of living than people with lower incomes.

Basic Types

The society, like any other well-coordinated social system, is delineated into several basic types:

• Traditional.
• Industrial.
• Postindustrial.

Traditional Society

Has a distinctive feature in the form of a particularly developed agriculture. In this type of relationship between the elements of society are based on the traditions that have developed throughout its history. According to sociology, traditional society is weak, in view of the fact that it is practically incapable of developing, as it uses outdated concepts of peace and life.

Industrial Society

Main characteristics of the type: high production growth, consumer attitude to natural resources, solving problems of any plan with the help of scientific knowledge and technology. Members of the society mainly pursue only one goal — to meet their own social needs, regardless of environmental problems.

Post-industrial society

The modern world is essentially a given type of society. The prerogative here is the problems of the surrounding nature, the development of industry, obtaining information and knowledge, technological progress. In the postindustrial society there is a more noticeable growth in the service sector than in the industrial sector.