SOCIETY AND CULTURE
Concept of society
Long years ago, Aristotle stated that man is a social animal, that means they lives in the company of other such people. The roots word of society in Latin is socius which means friendship.
Society means to a group of people and the pattern of norms and interactions among them. Society is understood as a tangible object but for sociology and anthropology, it an intangible entity with multiple factors.
Several thinkers termed Society as following-
A society is a relatively large autonomous human group which is, relatively independent and self-perpetuating in demography.
Society is a group of people living in a social network having inter-relations and enjoy social status. Functional dimensions of society include a group in reciprocal relationships, interacting among themselves, helping each other towards a common interest. Structural dimensions of society include social heritage, institutions, folks, habits, traditions, emotions, ideals and ideas.
Characteristics of Society: –
For McIver “society is a web of social relationships “and “society means likeness”.
Concept of culture
It is not possible for human beings to live without social relations among people and some minimum tangible material objects. Without minimum social network of life of humans is not possible as culture provides design for their living.
Culture is historically created design for living which is unique to the human species. It has moral force developed over times to serves as a modal code of conduct for human action and behaviors in the society. Culture is does not transfer with blood and thus not non-genetic but is transferred from generations to next through inculcations, practices and learning. It has unity as well as diversity.
Society and Culture are related as a culture is the way of life of specific part of human society which is called their society.
The classic definition stated by E.B.Tylor in his book Primitive Culture in 1871 said that ‘Culture or Civilization, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and any capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society’. Tylor postulated one-way theory of unilinear development of human culture ranging from savagery, barbarism to civilization. Culture designs the collective system of their units. But it does not happen randomly. Ruth Benedict advocated that cultures are not haphazard collection of customs and beliefs, but are integrated, patterned systems.
Anthropologists formulated that culture has following features: –