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MAN AND SOCIETY: RELATIONSHIP OF SOCIETY AND MAN AS AN INDIVIDUAL

A Research Paper
Presented to the
Graduate School
Colegio de la Purisima Concepcion

In partial fulfillment of the requirements of the course

Rev. Fr. MICHAEL B. VASQUEZ

by

CHRISTINE JOY V. PERION

December 2022

Abstract:
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Aristotle expressed that “Man is essentially a social animal by nature”. He cannot live without

society, if he does so; he is either beast or God. Man has to live in society for his existence and

welfare. In almost all aspect of his life he feels the need of society. Biologically and

psychologically he compelled to live in society. Man can never develop his personality,

language, culture and “inner deep” by living outside the society. The essence of the fact is that

man has always belonged to a society of some sort, without which man cannot exist at all.

Society fulfills all his needs and provides security. Every human took birth, grows, live and die

in society. Without society human’s life is just like fish out of water. Hence there exists a great

deal of close relationships between man and society. Both are closely inter-related,

interconnected and inter-dependent. Relationship between the two is bilateral in nature. Man is

a social animal because his nature makes him so. Sociality or sociability is his natural instinct.

He can’t but live in society. All his human qualities such as: to think, to enquire, to learn

language, to play and work only developed in human society. All this developed through

interaction with others. One can’t be a normal being in isolation. His nature compels him to live

with his fellow beings. He can’t afford to live alone. Human nature develops in man only when

he lives in society, only when he shares with his fellow begins a common life. Society is

something which fulfils a vital need in man’s constitution, it is not something accidentally added

to or super imposed on human nature. He knows himself and his fellow beings within the

framework of society. Indeed, man is social by nature. The social nature is not super-imposed on

him or added to him rather it is inborn.

Keywords: Society, Social Life, Individual

Introduction

Man is a social animal. He has a natural urge to live an associated life with others. Man

needs society for his existence or survival. The human child depends on his parents and others

for its survival and growth. The inherent capacities of the child can develop only in society. The

ultimate goal of society is to promote good and happy life for its individuals. It creates

conditions and opportunities for the all round development of individual personality. Society

ensures harmony and cooperation among individuals in spite of their occasional conflicts and

tensions. If society helps the individuals in numerous ways, great men also contribute to society

by their wisdom and experience. Thus, society and individuals are bound by an intimate and

harmonious bond and the conflicts between the two are apparent and momentary. In a well-

ordered society, there would be lasting harmony between the two.

The relationship between individual and society is ultimately one of the profound of all

the problems of social philosophy. 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 encompassed by culture, as a societal force. It is in the society again that he has

to conform to the norms, occupy statuses and become members of groups.

Discussions

Implication 1: Man is a Social Animal in Nature

Man is a social animal because his nature makes him so. Sociality or sociability is his

natural instinct. He can’t but live in society. All his human qualities such as: to think, to enquire,

to learn language, to play and work only developed in human society. All this developed through

interaction with others. One can’t be a normal being in isolation. His nature compels him to live
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with his fellow beings. He can’t afford to live alone. Famous sociologist MacIver has cited three

cases in which infants were isolated from all social relationships to make experiments about

man’s social nature. The first case was of Kasper Hauser who from his childhood until his

seventeenth year was brought up in woods of Nuremberg. In his case it was found that at the age

of seventeen he could hardly walk, had the mind of an infant and mutter only a few meaningless

phrases. In spite of his subsequent education he could never make himself a normal man. The

second case was of two Hindu children who in 1920 were discovered in a wolf den. One of the

children died soon after discovery. The other could walk only on all four, possessed no language

except wolf like growls. She was shy of human being and afraid of them. It was only after

careful and sympathetic training that she could learn some social habits. The third case was of

Anna, an illegitimate American child who had been placed in a room at age of six months and

discovered five years later. On discovery it was found that she could not walk or speech and was

indifferent to people around her. All the above cases prove that man is social by nature. Human

nature develops in man only when he lives in society, only when he shares with his fellow begins

a common life. Society is something which fulfils a vital need in man’s constitution, it is not

something accidentally added to or super imposed on human nature. He knows himself and his

fellow beings within the framework of society. Indeed, man is social by nature. The social nature

is not super-imposed on him or added to him rather it is inborn.

Implication 2: Man in Society

Essentially, “society” is the regularities, customs and ground rules of antihuman

behavior. These practices are tremendously important to know how humans act and interact with

each other. Society does not exist independently without individual. The individual lives and acts

within society but society is nothing, in spite of the combination of individuals for cooperative
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effort. On the other hand, society exists to serve individuals―not the other way around. Human

life and society almost go together. Man is biologically and psychologically equipped to live in

groups, in society. Society has become an essential condition for human life to arise and to

continue. The relationship between individual and society is ultimately one of the profound of all

the problems of social philosophy. 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 encompassed by culture, as a societal force. It is in the society again that he has

to conform to the norms, occupy statuses and become members of groups. The question of the

relationship between the individual and the society is the starting point of many discussions. It is

closely connected with the question of the relationship of man and society. Man needs society for

his existence or survival. The human child depends on his parents and others for its survival and

growth. The inherent capacities of the child can develop only in society. The ultimate goal of

society is to promote good and happy life for its individuals. It creates conditions and

opportunities for the all round development of individual personality. Society ensures harmony

and cooperation among individuals in spite of their occasional conflicts and tensions. If society

helps the individuals in numerous ways, great men also contribute to society by their wisdom and

experience. Thus, society and individuals are bound by an intimate and harmonious bond and the

conflicts between the two are apparent and momentary. In a well-ordered society, there would be

lasting harmony between the two. Society The term “society” means relationships social beings,

men, express their nature by creating and re-creating an organization which guides and controls

their behavior in myriad ways. Society liberates and limits the activities of men and it is a

necessary condition of every human being and need to fulfillment of life. Society is a system of

usages and procedures of authority and mutual aid many divisions of controls of human behavior
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and of liberties. This changing system, we call society and it is always changing. Society exists

only where social beings “behave” toward one another in ways determined by their recognition

of one another. Society not confined to man. It should be clear that society is not limited to

human beings. There are many degrees of animal societies, likely the ants, the bee, the hornet,

are known to most school children. It has been contended that wherever there is life there is

society, because life means heredity and, so far as we know, can arise only out of and in the

presence of other life. All higher animals at least have a very definite society, arising out of the

requirements their nature and the conditions involved in the perpetuation of their species. In

society each member seeks something and gives something. A society can also consist of

likeminded people governed by their own norms and values within a dominant, large society

moreover; a society may be illustrated as an economic, social or industrial infrastructure, made

up of a varied collection of individuals. Finally, we can say that the word “society” may also

refer to an organized voluntary association of people for religious, benevolent, cultural,

scientific, political, patriotic or other purposes. Society is universal and pervasive and has no

defined boundary or assignable limits. A society is a collection of individuals united by certain

relations or modes of behavior which mark them off from others who do not enter into those

relations or who differ from them in behavior. In this way we can conclude that, society is the

whole complex of social behavior and the network of social relationship.

Implication 3: Relationship between Individual and Society

Human cannot survive without society and societies cannot exist without members. Still

there may be conflicts between the individual and society; one can imagine that social systems
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function better when they have considerable control over their individual members, but that this

is a mixed blessing for the system’s members. Likewise can competition with other societies

strengthen the social system, while wearing out its constituent members? This idea was voiced

by Rousseau (1769) who believed that we lived better in the original state of nature than under

civilization, and who was for that reason less positive about classic Greek civilization than his

contemporaries. The relation between individual and society has been an interesting and a

complex problem at the same time. It can be stated more or less that it has defied all solutions so

far. No sociologist has been able to give a solution of the relation between the two that will be

fully satisfactory and convincing by reducing the conflict between the two to the minimum and

by showing a way in which both will tend to bring about a healthy growth of each other.

Aristotle has treated of the individual only from the point of view of the state and he wants the

individual to fit in the mechanism of the state and the society. It is very clear that relation

between individual and society are very close.

Conclusion

Society and individual are made mutually dependent and responsible and mutually

complementary. There is no rigid rule to develop the individual in a particular pattern suitable to

the rules of the society. Society demands greater sacrifices from its greater individuals while the

fruits of the works of all are meant equally for all. The general rule is: the higher the status and

culture of the individual are, the lesser his rights are and the greater his duties are. A sincere

attempt is made by the sociologists to bring to the minimum the clash between the individual and

the society, so that there will be few psychological problems for the individual and the society

both. The inherent capacities, energies and weaknesses of the individual are properly taken into
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account and the evolution of the relation between the two is made as natural as possible. Human

values and idealism being given due respect, the development of the relation between the two is

more or less philosophical.

References

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