is society abstract explain it
Answers
Answer:Society is abstract:
As written earlier, Maclver argued, “we may see the people but cannot see society or social structure, but only its only external aspects”. Social relationships are invisible and abstract. We can just realize them but cannot see or touch them. Therefore, society is abstract.
Wallerstein, in his World Systems Analysis (1974) writes: “No concept is more pervasive in modem social science than society, and no concept is used more automatically and unreflectively than society, despite the countless pages devoted to its definition.”
In popular speech the word ‘society’ has several meanings. Scores of definitions of the word ‘society’ exist and the word has a range of meanings extending far beyond sociology, including history, economics and political science.
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In everyday life this term is used for various kinds of social units or social aggregates as if it exists ‘out there’ and beyond the individual subject such as Indian Society, French Society, American Society, Capitalist Society, etc. At many times, we associate this term for secondary associations—Indian Sociological Society, The Theosophical Society, Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or to Children.
Likewise, in everyday speech, there is probably little distinction being made between society and nation, whereas in sociology such distinction would be significant. Not only this, the word ‘society” is interchangeably used for the community also.
Such a usage has its problems. Because of these problems Wallerstein argued that the concept of ‘society’ should be dropped from social analysis. Some symbolic interactionist says that there is no such thing as society. It is a useful covering term for things we do not know about or understand properly. Others, such as Emile Durkheim, treat society as a reality in its own right.
How sociologists view society?
As against its commonsense usage, sociologists use this term in a specific sense and in a precise way. In social sciences since nineteenth century there is a long debate about the use of the concept ‘society’. It was taken to mean as tissues of manners and customs that hold a group of people together. In some sense, ‘society represented something more enduring and deeper than the ‘state’, less manipulative and certainly more elusive.
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Sociologists have defined society with two angles:
1. In abstract terms, as a network of relationships between people or between groups.
2. In concrete terms, as a collection of people or an organisation of persons.
An earlier social scientist, L.T. Hobhouse (1908) defined society as “tissues of relationships”. R.M. Maclver (1937) also defined it in more or less the same terms as “web of social relations which is always changing”. Refining this definition, MacIver, along with his co-writer Charles Page, later on defined it in his new book Society: An Introductory Analysis (1949) thus: “It (society) is a system of usages and procedures, of authority and mutual aid, of many groupings and divisions, of controls of human behaviour and of liberties. This ever changing, complex system we call society.” For Maclver and Page, society is an abstract entity as they write, “We may see the people but cannot see society or social structure but only its external aspects … society is distinct from physical reality”.