What is "Society?"

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28 Feb 2012, 6:22 am

ruveyn wrote:

No. It is more of a gathering "place" where people like to chat with each other.

If by "gathering place" you mean a formation of an informal social group, then I have to disagree.
Ferdinand Tönnies in his Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft stated that no social group cannot be purely a Gemeinschaft (community) and purely a Gesellschaft (society), a group has to be a mixture of the two.

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pandabear
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28 Feb 2012, 8:27 am

Chipshorter wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

No. It is more of a gathering "place" where people like to chat with each other.

What is the distinction between the two?

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Bun
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28 Feb 2012, 8:44 am

People. Anyone that isn't me, or perhaps me as well... Though it'd be silly to say 'society' when I mean just myself.

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Chipshorter
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28 Feb 2012, 2:06 pm

pandabear wrote:

Chipshorter wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

No. It is more of a gathering "place" where people like to chat with each other.

What is the distinction between the two?

Gemeinschaft is an association in which individuals are oriented to the large association as much as, if not more than, to their own self interest. Individuals in Gemeinschaft are regulated by common mores, or beliefs about the appropriate behaviour and responsibility of members of the association, to each other and to the association at large; associations are marked by "unity of will".

Gesellschaft are associations in which, for the individual, the larger association never takes precedence over the individual's self interest, and these associations lack the same level of shared mores.

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29 Feb 2012, 2:40 am

in the context in which the original poster identifies the use of the term society, it is nothing more than a euphemism used by the media, the state or other interested party to suggest a consensus among the people that often doesn't actually exist, with a view to perpetuating some status quo or advocating some new measure that may or may not be of questionable intent.

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donnie_darko
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29 Feb 2012, 5:25 am

peebo wrote:

Agreed 100%

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29 Feb 2012, 12:31 pm

JNathanK wrote:

I guess when people say "society wants this" or "The American people want that". it means more of a general trend, because society is just a lot more complex and chaotic than that

Which proves proclamations and invocations in the Name of Society are nonsense.

In a crowd of One, I am Society.

ruveyn

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