Talk:Society

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Contents 1 Change 2 This really needs work 3 How about founding a Society portal 4 Homocentrism 5 Reorganization of article 6 Definition

[edit] Change

Have toned down US_jargon on the business meaning of Society--(talk to)BozMo 13:40, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] 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. JesseW 03:16, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I just made an edit along those lines. Just to be clear, the underlying sense of the word "society" seems to be a set of people (real individuals or roles) who share some kind of interactions. Every other definition of the word "society", like those on the OED, are just special kinds of that general sort. Lucidish 19:28, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How about founding a Society portal

Most Wikipedia articles on more abstract social issues that I have seen seem to be rather badly written (I haven't really taken a closer look at most of them, though), for example Diversity, Social Class, Religious Pluralism, Tolerance; Poverty could do with some improvement as well. In addition, they seem to be badly linked, everyone just does their bit of things without looking right and left. (This may be an exaggeration; I'm a relative newbie to Wikipedia, and especially so to social affairs.)

So I wonder whether one of the problems is that there is actually no place in Wikipedia where to co-ordinate improvement efforts for these issues - couldn't we found a Society portal? I feel it would be needed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Robin.rueth (talk • contribs).

The Society Portal was established in June 2005. Sunray 15:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Homocentrism

The article is biased and focuses on humans, although that may be good, it is perhaps too much. We need more information about societies among individuals in general, including animals, ie. primates, ants, bees, etc. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 04:10, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

An interesting point which I am very sympathetic to. Even Aristotle recognized that other animals were social. Lucidish 22:45, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that many animals are "social" beings. However, considering the definition of "Society" in the article (which is based on well-accepted social science definitions), animals would not live in societies. Communities, yes; societies no. The difference is that societies are large dispersed aggregates sharing a culture and institutions. Communities are groups of individuals sharing an environment, tending to have frequent interactions, and interdependance. Sunray 17:37, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reorganization of article

As this article is one of the core topics of the WP 1.0 Project and has barely progressed beyond removal of a "clean-up" tag, it has a long way to go, I would like to suggest that we reorganize it somewhat so it can be added to and upgraded. Here is a tentative organization of headings:

1. Origin and usage
2. Characteristics of society
3. Social networks
4. Criteria for membership
5. Characteristic patterns of organization
6. Shared belief or common goal
7. Ontology
8. See also
9. Notes
10. References

Comments? Alternatives? Sunray 06:50, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks good. It will be important to compare the notion of society to related concepts, i.e., organizations, groups, aggregates, cultures, crowds, and so on. I imagine this would fall under the second category. However, it seems to me also that the second category can be collapsed into the third.

I like the inclusion of "ontology". Lucidish 03:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, agreed that we should compare with other collectivities. Also agree about collapsing the 2nd and 3rd sections. The second looks out of place as it is. Sunray 05:52, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

My hope, and worry, is that there actually are conventions in the field about the use of these terms. It would be an excellent first step to make sure that we really are using the word, "society", in a way that is consistent with that in the field. To do that, we should collect a sample of sociological encyclopediae and dictionaries, and see how they match up with respect to all these terms. Lucidish 23:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. I've got the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, the Harper Collins Dictionary of Sociology and a couple of recent text books. Can you come up with any others? Sunray 06:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed the subheading "Why society?" as I don't think questions are good things to have in an article. I've also removed the part about "abstract". The term "society" is no more abstract than the term "individual" or "people". - FrancisTyers · 13:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition

"A society is a self-reproducing grouping of individuals occupying a particular territory, which may have its own distinctive culture and institutions. As culture is generally considered unique to humans, the terms "society" and "human society" have the same meaning. "Society," may refer to a particular people, such as the Nuer, to a nation state, such as Austria, or to a broader cultural group, such as Western society."

Wikipedia is mostly a pretty useful resource, but it lets itself down here: This is an utterly useless definition, and is wrong in a number of respects:

• there is no requirement for a society to be "self reproducing" that I know of, and almost no received national societies, let alone contingent ones, on the planet are entirely self reproducing (Tibet may come close);
• societies do not neccesarily occupy a particular territory (does Jewish society? Secular society? Internet society?) - territory is completely irrelevant to the concept, as far as I can see
• "which may have its own distinctive culture or institutions" is so weak an assertion as to tell us absolutely nothing, since its implication (which is clearly correct) is that societies need not have their own institutions or culture (whatever that might mean), so it does not define them (societies may or may not have their own variety of custard, but that isn't deemed fit for mention)
• even if "culture is generally considered unique to humans" (really?) it does NOT follow that "human society" and "society" are the same thing - even by the terms of this very definintion (is Nuer Society = Human Society?)
• the last sentence (why single out the Nuer, or the Austrians, by the way?) makes it clear that society has no precise meaning at all.

Why don't suggest a better definition? Because I have no idea what society means either - I don't think many people do - and simply knowing what it ISN'T isn't enough to create a meaningful definition. The best I can say is "a society is a contingent grouping of individuals", but even that would be original research.

Shouldn't this article be moved to wiktionary? ElectricRay 14:35, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with ElectricRay's comments on the definition (not altogther sure about moving to Wiktionary, though admit there is an argument to be made for this).
Can I suggest that anyone who does work on this page consider Runciman's (1963) commentary on why Max Weber's definition of the state (assertion of monopoly on legitimate use of violence) is so useful - it concentrates on what the state claims for itself, not on what the state "is" or what it "does". Trying to define the state in terms of what it "is" or what it "does" leads to functionalist and therefore circular definitions of the state (Social science and political theory. Cambridge [Eng.] University Press, 1963). Similarly, defining 'society' in terms of what it "is", or what it "does" leads one down the same path; one that ends with the proposition that 'society' is what sociologists study and vice versa.
Also one should consider what Andrew Sayer calls the 'double hermeneutic' - terms such as 'society' etc, are coined by social scientists as analytic constructs, but then 'leak out' into everyday discourse, to be used by the lay public to describe, and thereby to define, their own understanding of their context/behaviour (e.g., "that is so anal"). So the term aquires a 'common-sense' definition which may be utterly opposite to that intended by its coiner (e.g., the difference between the 'common-sense' and original Marxist definition of 'ideology' - Sayer, A. 1992. Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach, 2nd ed. London: Routledge).
Finally, one might have look at Raymond Williams' (1976, 1983 Fontana) Keywords regarding the history of "society", which also explains "society's" confused/confusing relation with "community", and consider this history alongside the symbolic interactionist argument that 'society' should never be thought of as an 'it' at all, as a thing; but instead thought of as a process.
The issues identified by Runciman, Sayer, and Williams, I would suggest, help account for the shortcomings in the present definition that ElectricRay identifies.
--Paulredfern1 17:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)