The term society does not only refer to a thing - a distinct group of people in a state, a family, a corporation, a school, a church - it also refers to a way of acting, to how things function, a mode of human experience. The definition of society must include its noun, verb and adjectival forms. We live in this society; we obey the rules of this organisation (noun). We engage in socialising (verb). Our activity might be said to have a purely social purpose (adjective). All three are part of what we experience as society. People, as social actors, participate in each other's lives. As defined previously this means that they act toward, with and against each other. And they do so in a wide variety of ways. They socialise.
Socialisation is a closely related term to society. As a technical term it refers to the process by which younger members of society are introduced to the customs, habits and traditions of their social setting. Children are socialised into their family by their parents and older siblings. Pupils are inducted into their school. Catechumens are taught the faith. A new employee is shown the work-place; a new recruit is inducted into the organisation. There are many ways in which we all need to be socialised and re-socialised. This is a process which is done unto us. Consider the way the verb is used. We socialise in society (active). We are socialised into society (passive).
We make judgements about the way people perform their tasks according to norms for those tasks. Social life is always filled with social actors making judgements about the performance of themselves and other social actors in social roles. Such judgement is not only a moral matter. as in "That's wrong!" Judgement can also be "She has good style" or "He does his work well" These are social judgements, but not necessarily moral criticisms. The judgement may be directed to manners, or the legitimacy of an action, or the frugal distribution of resources. It might not be directed to an act as to a process, not to what was said but with the way it was said, not with what was on the agenda but how the agenda was manipulated.
Some participants and their participation can be hidden; some are clearly seen. The valid and invalid use of power is implicit in social formation which makes and re-makes a binding web of inter-dependence. Society consists of a variety of forms of co-operation, competition and conflict. Within these forms of social interaction human responsibility is lived, expressed and developed historically, through time.
How then do we define society? Society is constituted by various societal structures and is therefore pluralistic. Society (as with the term `human community') is not an all-embracing social structure, even if it is a term by which we indicate that all social structures are involved in our humanity. Society can be construed in many different ways. When we offer our definitions of society we need to keep this in mind. Social institutions, organisations and relationships are the "things" of social life. Society does not only refer to the public legal order; or exclusively to the market; or to the differentiated structure of modern professions; or to the way in which public and private realms interact and intersect. Society can be studied from many angles : beliefs and creeds, love and caring, rules and laws, harmony, resource management, symbolism, traditions and power. Society can be counted, measured and mapped. It can be explored and its underlying coherences explained. The human community includes all the different societal institutions, organisations and relationships which have made up, and continue to make up, human life throughout history, across the globe. Society is in the process of development; it is the process of development.
The term "society" refers to us in social interaction. Society includes hierarchic management and chains-of-command as well as solidarity among those who view each other on an equal basis. It refers to a complex of human relations which intertwine with each other in a multitude of ways - institutional, organisational, inter-personal.
We can therefore say that society is structured as the co-ordinated inter-relationship of social structures and is the structured interaction within, between and outside of social structures. Society is socially structured, society is social intercourse, the living, acting, social intercourse of social actors.
Some relations are horizontal - as expressed in friendship or among fellow labourers, or in international relationships. Others are arranged in a vertical order of higher and lower, as expressed in a hierarchic line of command, in terms of those who possess legitimate authority and those who are subject to this authority.
Friendship is usually not vertical but horizontal, even if in some situations one friend exercises a greater personal authority than the other. One friend is a leader of a group in which the other is also located. Prisons are vertically integrated - prison guards rule prisoners; but a well-run prison will give due recognition to the horizontal dimension of the prisoners' social life in the day-to-day running of the prison, and reckon with the internal "pecking order" that develops among inmates. A University tutorial is structured vertically with tutor and class; but in a good class there will be an enriching horizontal dimension to the learning experience.
Social life can be construed in vertical or horizontal terms. There is another geometric analogy which we use to describe social structure. There is the internal life of the institution or organisation or relationship, and there is the external interweaving between that and the social context. Social things also have boundaries.
Let us illustrate briefly : a State is limited by its particular task. It is not a family; neither is a family a State, although States have been formed by the structure of ruling families. This is true of royalty, but it has also been shown to exist in the "New Class" Eastern European Communist dictatorships. Nevertheless the horizontal and vertical dimensions of both State and Family are interwoven, internally and externally, with each other, and in a rich fabric of cultural co-ordination. Sociological research investigates the fabric of social interaction which hold State and family structures together. But we should not forget that a family which controls the State will find that its life qua family is also shaped by its State duties.
Social institutions and social organisations and social relationships "do their own thing" and are formed positively and in a mutually positive manner. When families are doing family things well and when the State is doing its task well, we might well find that public justice is promoted, directly and also indirectly. Organizations will find their particular place and the development of friendship will also be encouraged. The market will also make its indispensable contribution.
Social research not only analyses positive integration; it also analyses social disintegration. Disintegration can be from the top down, and it can be horizontal also. It can be from the centre out, or occur from outside. Social disintegration does not usually occur in one isolated social structure. When society disintegrates it is the fabric of social inter-dependence which unravels.
Social research not only analyses social organisation; it analyses social dis-organisation as well. It considers social institutions like marriage, family, the State and the Church in the social network. But it also investigates the normative ways in which these institutions shape the entire social fabric for good or ill - we can think of marriage and divorce; families and family disintegration; State and political terror; Church and apostasy.
The scientific study of society not only identifies the normative structure of human responsibility, it also analyses how the construction, reconstruction and destruction of societies. It must also consider human irresponsibility. A one-sided concern for the positive normative social forms will make for an idealistic or romantic view of society. It will not be scientific research. Social research investigates the violation of the legitimate boundaries of social responsibility. Here again we recognise the importance of our idea of law in the study of society. It is from this that our understanding of norms makes sense.
The social ecology of mutual inter-dependence is a normative societal task for which all persons, structures, institutions, organisations and relationships carry some responsibility. The consideration of norms does not mean we give up the concept of causation, but we have to reckon with the multiplier effect in which social life shows an historical dimension. Social consequences are formed directly and indirectly. Attempts to identify the causes in social development must keep in mind that an individual human actor is a bundle of responsibilities, and any societal structure implies a complex web of inter-dependent social formation. Any social setting is a fabric of societal interaction. The network, or web, refers to an internal competence of social actors to fill their own social roles without the intervention, usurpation, or intermediate functioning, of other social actors acting in other social roles[1]. The social network is a concept which helps us to keep in mind that we are studying the social structures of variegated individuality. Everything is not simply part of a cosmic process that is becoming something else. But we need to gain insight into the manner in which all social structures mutually delimit each other whilst also contributing to the distribution of societal competence.
The integrity of any structure of social interaction, is found in its human (creaturely) character, subject to the norms which govern what humans should be. Humans have to believe and dis-believe, they cannot avoid the faith-aspect of their experience. Humans have to love and hate, subject to the normative constraints of an ethical aspect to their experience and person. They have to make judgements about the legitimate and illegitimate ways of living in, and contributing to, the ordering of, public life; of the harmonious or dissonant character of art, play and life-style; or of the wise use of resources; or of the appropriate expressions of manners and symbols; or of the clarity or otherwise in linguistic communication, of the progressive or regressive use of power and whether indeed something is logical or illogical. These are modes of normative responsibility which have their own character, but which cannot be avoided even when ignored. Social life is built upon, built up by and developed through such judgements. Society is the social structures of human responsibility.
There are important implications of this view. The authority of the Government is not that of the school teacher. The authority of the school teacher is not that of the doctor which in turn is not that of parents. But dangerous situations also require people to act responsibly "as if" they have the legal authority. Part of our exploration of human responsibility involves the judgement of such situations and the adjudication and resolution of the demarcation disputes that are bound to arise. A theory of society should help resolve such disputes, by a careful, empirical and historically sensitive analysis. Our society has many long-running demarcation disputes; but we also note alternative approaches in their resolution. The conflict occurs on various levels, and ideological pluralism is often worked deeply into the warp and weft of our society.
If we turn to social theory to define society, as we have done here, we must conclude that social theory is a part of the mosaic of social science - these include anthropology, politics, economics, linguistics, history, sociology, law, and aesthetics, not excluding ethics and the disciplines which examine religious faith in human culture.
Society has many sides - to some extent these sides coincide with the different ways in which society is studied across the various social sciences. Society is constituted by various societal structures and is therefore qualitatively pluralistic. Society is not all-embracing, yet Society in its entirety, can be construed in many different ways. For our purposes, society includes all the different institutions, organisations and relationships which have made up, and continue to make up, human life throughout history, across the globe. Society does not exhaust all the possible forms of social organisation, but in the interaction between structures and persons, new forms of social life appear. Society as the social structures of human responsibility is also the social structuring of our vocation Coram Deo.