Here is your free essay on the Society

Societies are the most inclusive and complex social organizations in today’s world. Most other organizations exist within the confines of a society. All aspects of human social life are encompassed by a society, and to a large extent, the way in which a society functions will influence all the patterns of social ordering and cultural ideas that comprise it.

Societies are functionally autonomous in several ways. First, most social relationships occur within the boundaries of a society, with only a few relationships involving actors from different societies second, societies attempt to become as self-sufficient as possible by establishing procedures for securing whatever resources they require and satisfying the needs of their members.

Third, a society is the ultimate decision-making unit for its members and exercises sovereignty over all decisions concerning them. Cultural autonomy refers to the fact that all the members of a society possess a common and distinctive culture.

Many specific traits of this culture may be shared with other societies, and various parts of the society may display sub-cultures that differ somewhat from the societal culture. The common culture of the total society and especially its basic social values and norms form a distinctive and unified set of ideas unique to that society.

We often think of societies as identical to nation-states, since national political boundaries commonly coincide with societies and national governments exercise political control throughout entire societies.

Sometimes, there are wide disparities between nations and societies, as in Africa, where many nation- states were created by colonial powers without regard to native societal boundaries.

In other cases, a single political unit may encompass two or more societies, as in Canada, where many French-speaking Canadians feel that Quebec constitutes a distinctive society which should have political independence.

Why do patterns of social ordering and cultural ideas differ so widely among societies? For example, in some societies, social life is carried out primarily in relatively small groups (families or communities) and is governed by long established traditions or customs.

In such societies, formal organizations are relatively rare and unimportant, at least in affecting daily life. Deliberate and precise calculations of the efficiency of actions for reaching certain goals are rare in these societies.

By contrast, urban industrial societies such as the United States and Canada place much importance on the precise calculation of the consequences of actions. In these societies large, complex organizations are a prominent feature.

In an effort to describe the structural features of urban-industrial societies, social scientists frequently rate societies along a scale from simple to complex, rural to urban, homogeneous to heterogeneous, undifferentiated to specialized.

Examinations of societies at either end of such a continuum show numerous social and structural possibilities and serve as useful theoretical models for social change. The founder of this analytical approach was the German theorist Ferdinand Tonnies.

He named the two polar types of societies Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, usually translated into English as ‘community and society’ ‘Gemeinschaft’ is based on the natural will of the human beings, where people relate to one another as total personalities within a communal context. While in ‘Gesellschaft’ social relations become narrow, specific and purposeful.