Is Society Anything More Than the Sum of Its Individual Parts?
Society, in its simplest terms can be described as a body of individuals living as members of a community' (Oxford Dictionary, second edition). To define society, the expression, individual, has to be used and therefore this could suggest that one cannot survive without the other, rather like the chicken and the egg scenario; which came first? Durkheim, a sociological posivist, believed that society was the creator of individualism and to prove this, he utilised and investigated into the reasons why individuals committed suicide; whether it was an individual act or a rebellion against society. Looking at Durkheim's study will enable a greater understanding of the relationship between society and it's individual parts.
Society is the world we live in. It is the country we reside in. The town we shop in. The family we are born in. It encompasses a range of cultures, traditions, places and people. It provides rules and regulations that individuals are supposed to abide by, but do not always do. It provides occupations, homes, schools, universities; a life. But is it the society that makes the individual, or the individual that creates the society? Why Jason runs away,' (Why Jason runs away, Carol Sarler, 1992) is an article telling of an 18-year old boy who is abandoned by what seems every institution of society. The article attempts to outline possibilities as to the reason why this young, confused boy rejected the norms and values of the society he was born into and raises the debate whether Jason became a social problem for society because of his individual behaviour in which he is control of, or whether it was societies integration and regulation that forced Jason into a troublesome life with his family and the authorities. Jason was born into a working-class family in a council house in Haverfordwest where there is chronic unemployment' (Why Jason runs away, Carol Sarler, 1992, Page 2). His mother had given birth at seventeen to Jason with an alcoholic
Society is the world we live in. It is the country we reside in. The town we shop in. The family we are born in. It encompasses a range of cultures, traditions, places and people. It provides rules and regulations that individuals are supposed to abide by, but do not always do. It provides occupations, homes, schools, universities; a life. But is it the society that makes the individual, or the individual that creates the society? Why Jason runs away,' (Why Jason runs away, Carol Sarler, 1992) is an article telling of an 18-year old boy who is abandoned by what seems every institution of society. The article attempts to outline possibilities as to the reason why this young, confused boy rejected the norms and values of the society he was born into and raises the debate whether Jason became a social problem for society because of his individual behaviour in which he is control of, or whether it was societies integration and regulation that forced Jason into a troublesome life with his family and the authorities. Jason was born into a working-class family in a council house in Haverfordwest where there is chronic unemployment' (Why Jason runs away, Carol Sarler, 1992, Page 2). His mother had given birth at seventeen to Jason with an alcoholic