Human Society and Social Structures: A Comprehensive Overview

Assignment # 1UAE Society USO 101Student name: Maha Faisal Student ID: 2018 RN-BSN 36Questions:Why do you think individuals are keen to live amongst their own society?Human life and society almost go together, as the main component of the society is people. Also, society is the regularities, duties and ground rules for the human behavior. These practices are important for the humans as they will learn how to behave and interact with each other, especially if it is same society that human belong for.

Society does not exist autonomously without individual. The individual lives and acts within society as the Man is a social animal .Moreover, society exists to serve individual's needs. Also, Man is biologically and psychologically well-found to live in groups. Society has become an essential condition for human life to arise and to continue. It is more philosophical rather than sociological because it involves the question of values. Man depends on society. It is in the society that an individual is surrounded and covered by different culture.

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It is in the society again that he has to conform to the norms, occupy statuses and become members of groups. In addition, Society has major effect in the attitudes, beliefs, morals, ideals, religious way of thinking, languages, eating behavior, education and individual personality. Also human will learn about the formal rules for polite behavior in society .More over human will learn moral rules or principles of behavior for deciding what is right and wrong, which it will help in reducing the conflict and misunderstanding between the people in the society.

As well it will help to understand beliefs and ideas. Also same society will help people make decisions, to be cooperative with each other and to protect each other and to meet the need of each other .Finally , individual and society they are close to each other and each one is depending on each other especially if same their own society . Define the forms of the human society and explain each one separately?Hunting and gathering societies:The members of hunting and gathering societies primarily survive by hunting animals, fishing, and gathering plants. When the animals left the area, the plants died, or the rivers dried up, the society had to relocate to an area where resources were plentiful. Consequently, hunting and gathering societies, which were typically small, were quite mobile. In some cases, where resources in a locale were extremely plentiful, small villages might form. But most hunting and gathering societies were travelling, moving to search for food and water.Labor in hunting and gathering societies was divided equally among members. Because of the mobile nature of the society, these societies stored little in the form of extra goods. Therefore, anyone who could hunt, fish, or gather fruits and vegetables did so. These societies probably also had at least some division of labor based on gender. Males probably traveled long distances to hunt and capture larger animals. Females hunted smaller animals, gathered plants, made clothing, protected and raised children, and helped the males to protect the community from rival groups.Hunting and gathering societies were also tribal. Members shared an ancestral heritage and a common set of traditions and rituals. They also sacrificed their individuality for the sake of the larger tribal culture.Pastoral societies:Members of pastoral societies, which first emerged 12,000 years ago, pasture animals for food and transportation. And still they are exist today, primarily in the desert lands of North Africa where horticulture and manufacturing are not possible.Domesticating animals allows for a more manageable food supply than do hunting and gathering. Hence, pastoral societies are able to produce a surplus of goods, which makes storing food for future use a possibility. With storage comes the desire to develop settlements that permit the society to remain in a single place for longer periods of time. And with stability comes the trade of surplus goods between neighboring pastoral communities.Pastoral societies allow certain of its members (those who are not domesticating animals) to engage in non-survival activities.Horticultural societies:Unlike pastoral societies that rely on domesticating animals, horticultural societies rely on cultivating fruits, vegetables, and plants. These societies first appeared in different parts of the planet about the same time as pastoral societies. Like hunting and gathering societies, horticultural societies had to be mobile. Reduction of the land's resources or dwindling water supplies, for example, forced the people to leave. Horticultural societies occasionally produced extra, which permitted storage .Agricultural societies:Agricultural societies use technological advances to cultivate crops (especially grains like wheat, rice, corn, and barley) over a large area. Sociologists use the expression Agricultural Revolution to refer to the technological changes that occurred as long as 8,500 years ago that led to cultivating crops and raising farm animals. Increases in food supplies then led to larger populations than in earlier communities. This meant a greater surplus, which resulted in towns that became centers of trade supporting various rulers, educators, craftspeople, merchants, and religious leaders who did not have to worry about locating nourishment.Greater degrees of social stratification appeared in agricultural societies. For example, women previously had higher social status because they shared labor more equally with men. In hunting and gathering societies, women even gathered more food than men. But as food stores improved and women took on lesser roles in providing food for the family, they became more subordinate to men.As villages and towns expanded into neighboring areas, conflicts with other communities inevitably occurred. Farmers provided warriors with food in exchange for protection against invasion by enemies. A system of rulers with high social status also appeared. This dignity organized warriors to protect the society from invasion. In this way, the nobility managed to extract goods from the lesser persons of societyFeudal societies:From the 9th to 15th centuries, feudalism was a form of society based on ownership of land. Unlike today's farmers, vassals under feudalism were bound to cultivating their lord's land. In exchange for military protection, the lords exploited the peasants into providing food, crops, crafts, homage, and other services to the owner of the land. The caste system of feudalism was often multigenerational; the families of peasants may have cultivated their lord's land for generations.Between the 14th and 16th centuries, a new economic system emerged that began to replace feudalism. Capitalism is marked by open competition in a free market, in which the means of production are privately owned. Europe's exploration of the Americas served as one impetus for the development of capitalism. The introduction of foreign metals, silks, and spices stimulated great commercial activity in EuropeIndustrial societies: They are based on using machines (particularly fueldriven ones) to produce goods. The Industrial Revolution appeared first in Britain, and then quickly spread to the rest of the world.As productivity increased, means of transportation improved to better facilitate the transfer of products from place to place. Great wealth was attained by the few who owned factories, and the masses found jobs working in the factories.Postindustrial societies:Sociologists note that with the advent of the computer microchip, the world is witnessing a technological revolution. This revolution is creating a postindustrial society based on information, knowledge, and the selling of services. That is, rather than being driven by the factory production of goods, society is being shaped by the human mind, aided by computer technology. Although factories will always exist, the key to wealth and power seems to lie in the ability to generate, store, manipulate, and sell information.Sociologists speculate about the characteristics of postindustrial society in the near future. They predict increased levels of education and training, consumerism, availability of goods, and social mobility. While they hope for a decline in inequality as technical skills and knowhow begin to determine class rather than the ownership of property, sociologists are also concerned about potential social divisions based on those who have appropriate education and those who do not. Sociologists believe society will become more concerned with the welfare of all members of society. They hope postindustrial society will be less characterized by social conflict, as everyone works together to solve society's problems through scienceWhat is coherent group?It is set of characteristics of the members are connected or united because they share common aims, qualities, or beliefs and they will function as one unit. What do we mean by social structure? It refers to the pattern of social relationships in a society. Which it will regulates the interactions among members of the society, providing guidelines within the cultural norms for achieving the goals defined by cultural values. And it help in maintains societal stability. Also, it is established framework that makes for order in repetitive, recurring interactions among people. Reference:MacIver and Page (1965) Society. Macmillan and Company, London, 5-6. [Citation Time(s):1]Green A.W. (1968) Sociology: An Analysis of Life in Modern Society. McGraw Hill Book Company, New York, 10- 14. [Citation Time(s):1]