Society

A society is a group of human beings distinguishable from other groups by mutual interests, characteristic relationships, shared institutions and a common culture. == Definitions == The casual meaning of ''society'' simply refers to a group of people living together in an ordered community. The social sciences use the term ''society'' to mean a group of people that form a semi-closed (or semi-open) social system, in which most interactions are with other individuals belonging to the group. More abstraction, a ''society'' is defined as a network of relationships between entity. A ''society'' is also sometimes defined as an interdependent community. The origin of the word society comes from the Latin ''societas'', a "friendly association with others." Societas is derived from ''socius'' meaning "companion" and thus the meaning of society is closely related to what is social. Implicit in the meaning of society is that its members share some mutual concern or interest in a common objective. As such, society is often used as synonymous with the collective citizenry of a country as directed through national institutions concerned with civic welfare. == Organization == === Subsistence types === Human societies are often organized according to their primary means of subsistence: social scientists identify hunter-gatherer societies, nomadic pastoralism societies, horticulture or simple farming societies, and agriculture societies, also called civilizations. Some consider Industry and Post-Industrial societies to be separate from traditional agricultural societies. ===Social support=== One common theme for societies in general is that societies serve to aid individuals in a time of crisis; historically, when an individual in some community requires aid, for example at birth, death, sickness, or disaster, like-minded members of that community will rally others in that society to render aid, in some form, whether the aid is symbolic, linguistic, physical, mental, emotional, financial, medical, religious, etc. ===Ceremony and prestige=== Many societies will also 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 or other cultural factor accrues to the generous individual or group. ===Social obligation=== Some societies will bestow a status on some individual or larger group of people, when that individual or group performs an admired or desired action; This type of ''recognition'' is bestowed by members of that society on the individual or larger group in the form of some name, or title, or dress, or monetary reward, etc. Males especially are susceptible to this type of action and subsequent reward, even at the risk of their lives. Action by some individual or larger group in behalf of some ideal of their culture is seen in all societies. ===Common attributes of societies=== Even subsistence-based societies exhibit the characteristics of community action, generosity, and shared risk/reward, in common with other more technology-based civilizations. === Political power at the basis for some societies=== Societies can also be organized according to their political structure: in order of increasing size and complexity, there are band society, tribes, chiefdoms, and state societies, with varying degrees of political power, depending on the what culture geography, history environments that these societies have to contend with. Thus, when a society exists at the same time as other societies at the same level of technology and culture, but is also isolated geographically, that society is more likely to survive than an equivalent society which is prey to others which can encroach on their resources. See the history article for examples. ===Competition between societies=== But a society which is not able to offer an effective response to other societies which may be in competition with them will ultimately be subsumed into the culture of the competing society. See the technology article for examples. === Shared belief === Peoples of many nations united by common political and cultural traditions, beliefs, or values are sometimes also said to be a society (for example: Judeo-Christian, Eastern, Western, etc). When used in this context, the term is being used as a means of contrasting two or more "societies" whose representative members represent alternative conflicting and competing worldviews. === Common interest === Also, some academic, learned and scholarly societies and associations, such as the American Society of Mathematics, describe themselves as ''societies''. In the United Kingdom these are normally non-profit making and have charity status. In science they range in size to include national scientific societies including 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. === Commercial === In the United States, the title "society" is most common in commerce, in which a partnership between investor to start a business is usually called a "society". In the United Kingdom, partnerships are not called societies but cooperatives or mutuals are often known as societies (such as friendly society and building society). == Existence == As a related note, there is still an ongoing debate in sociological and anthropological circles if there exists an entity we could call society. Some Marxist theorists, like Louis Althusser, Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Zizek, argued that society is nothing more than an effect of the ruling ideology of a certain class system, and shouldn't be used as a sociological notion. ==References== [http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/society Definition of Society] from the OED. *[http://core.ecu.edu/soci/juskaa/SOCI2110/Lectures/Lect1 Lecture notes on "Defining Society"] from East Carolina University. *[http://www.wsu.edu:8001/vcwsu/commons/topics/culture/glossary/society.html Learning Commons - What is Culture ? - Glossary Item - Society] Human societies Sociology bn:সমাজ zh-min-nan:Siā-hōe simple:Society

Society

Have toned down US_jargon on the business meaning of Society--user talk:BozMoUser:BozMo 13:40, 21 May 2004 (UTC) ==This really needs work== Wow. I expected this to need work, since it's a pretty hard and general topic, but boy was I right. It's got a lot of good text and information, but many paragraphs assume meanings of society which are not explained beforehand, and the first paragraph/gloss is far too focused on the social science definition of society. However, this is a wiki, so it can be worked on, so I'm going to do so. Go Wikipedia! Specifically, I've added a ref to the def of society in the OED, and I'm going to integrate it into the article. The next job I think would be to figure out what other meanings of society are assumed by the article, and write explanations of them, and reorganize the article so the explanations precede their use. Then a ToC would be good, which would involve identifying the general structure of the article. Fun. User:JesseW 03:16, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Society

Articles in the category of society. See also :Category:Human societies Humans Human societies

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