Karminn CDD Yangot SDS 202
2009-46397 Dr. Analyn Salvador-Amores

What is Society?
A Disquisition on the Society and Culture Relationship

With the verbosity of human language, one is able to come up with a myriad of definitions of society. I come from the standpoint of American Anthropology where culture is cardinal and central to the study of humanity.

Society is an organized group of people bound by culture. I argue that every society is bound1 by culture. Although, I believe we must distinguish the difference between a “social group” (in its loose definition, and not in the definition provided by Chinoy in Society and Culture) and society. Let me expound.

Animals can have social groups. However, animals do not organize themselves into societies2. In this sense, societies are human. I say so because humans are the only living organisms who have the capacity for culture. Animals, take for example the wolf pack that has a hierarchical structure in hunting, have a system of organization. Lions group themselves in prides. A group of Baboons is called a congress. However, these social groups are limited to the fulfilment of physical needs (that is, survival). Animals are not capable of culture as in writing, language, art, organized belief and others. Let us put in focus language. Animals are not capable of language. They produce sounds with finite meanings, but they are not able to produce sounds, organize them into words, and produce them connoting an