FIU How Does Our Society Work Discussion

Among the Main Functions of Society, social scientists agree that the following 10 best describe the whys of how we function within our global worldview: 

1. Satisfaction of basic needs

It is the primary function of society to organize people and their actions in such a way that they are guaranteed food, shelter, and vital protection. Included here are public health concerns that, although usually falls on the State, is a primary necessity of the organized people – ensure sanitation to prevent the spread of disease and medical care should it be required.

2. Preservation of order

Is the function that involves the different security bodies, formal and informal, created to protect the lives and assets of individuals. These groups become social institutions because their role is to meet the fundamental needs of people. The preservation of order also refers to the rules, norms, or laws that guide the behavior of people in the different stages and situations of their life from birth to death. Some scholars have proposed that this is the main function of an individual in society, “to control their wild and irrational impulses.”

3. Management of education

Within society, individuals develop the knowledge necessary to interact with their peers. They are also taught to make the most of their abilities, talents, and interests. Living in society allows the human being to be social by nature, to discover and develop his own personality by putting it into action in front of another human being. From within these social parameters, and to extend our means of cultural diversity, society should provide the conditions necessary for each individual to have the opportunity to learn from the language, history, and traditions of diverse cultures. Education, in this manner, serves to enhance both internal and external socially progressive channels of knowledge.

4. Management of the economy

The distribution of goods and services is another concern within a social group. Society, as a system, generates and distributes the material goods and services that will be dedicated to satisfying the basic and secondary needs of the human beings that comprise it. This distribution is determined according to the social and political philosophy that a specific society assumes as its own.

5. Power management

Just as the distribution of goods and services is a crucial concern within society, the shaping of figures and/or power groups also occupies much of society’s life. The administration of power from the institutions is what has led the human being to face wars and disputes throughout its history. Depending on the socio-political doctrine that prevails in a particular social group, that power will be centralized in the State or distributed among the different institutions that make up that group. 

6. Division of labor

The organization of society allows for a definition of the roles in the work that each individual will fulfill given the needs to be met. Raising constructions, providing security and food, educating, establishing communication channels, developing technologies are all tasks that involve the conjunction of different roles, and the application of different levels of strength and intelligence. Living in society makes clear these realities and guides people towards the distribution of the workforce that allows all tasks are fulfilled to provide well-being to individuals.

7. Communication management

For the human being, it is an inherent need to express and communicate, so in society, the conditions are created for this need to be fulfilled. This includes language to communication channels between different members of the social group, as well as between these and other social groups. If oral or artistic expressions such as dance or paintings were the most used forms of communication in primitive societies, today these are the technologies of communication and information (ICTs), which facilitate this task. Members of a society are concerned with using the communication tools that are available, and developing increasingly sophisticated ones, in order to ensure the continuity of the culture of that group in the next generations.

8. Preservation and transmission of culture

Each society develops common forms of behavior that are transmitted between its members and the following generations. This is a necessary function for the distinction of social groups and for the preservation of diversity. Culture is influenced by the conditions or characteristics that surround social groups, whether geographic, historical, economic, religious, or political.

9. Leisure

The way individuals have fun within a society is also something that must be taken into consideration since it is essential that human beings also require moments of recreation. Living in society facilitates the necessary infrastructure and technology so that people can take advantage of their free time as they choose.

10. Religiosity

The human being throughout its history and regardless of its location has manifested the imperative need to experience their religiosity – the expression of a relationship with transcendence and the divine. Humans seem to have the need to believe that there is something superior to them, and the origin of all that exists. Based on this need, different answers have been elaborated, which then materialize in different religious expressions. To live in society allows sharing with others the experience of religion and communion with other entities that seemingly give meaning to life. Religiousness also functions as a social atomizer, as a form of organization in which very specific rules, codes, and forms of communication of the believers are developed in the same dogma.

All these functions are interdependent and progressive in their complexity since the more mature a society, the more refined the ways in which those functions must be fulfilled.

THIS ASSIGNMENT WILL REMAIN OPEN FOR THE ENTIRE SEMESTER AS YOU WILL NEED TO REFERENCE THE 10 MAIN FUNCTIONS OF SOCIETY THROUGHOUT.

QUIZ:   https://www.gotoquiz.com/what_is_my_true_identity Links to an external site. 

ASSIGNMENT

For this summary, you are asked to look at the above 10 main functions of society. Then, take the attached identity quiz and according to your results, write your summary identifying examples of how your identity result might express itself within at least three (3) of the above criteria.