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Society: essay on the meaning and definition of society (661 words).

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The term society has been derived from the Latin word ‘Socius’ which means a companion, association or fellowship. It is because man always lives in the company of his fellow beings. This led George Simmel to remark that sociability is the essence of society. The term society is understood in different sense. In our day today discussion society is used to refer to the members of specific in group for example-Advice Society, Harijan Society etc. some other time it refers to some institutions like Arya Samaj, Brahmo Samaj. At some other time society refers to an association like consumer’s society, co-operative society or cultural society. Society is also used in the sense of a group such as rural society or urban society.

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But in Sociology, Society refers not to a group of people but to the complex pattern of the norms or interaction or relationships that arise among them. People exist only as an agent of social relationships. Mere congregation of individuals does not constitute society. Rather society refers to the complicated network of social relationships by which every individual is interrelated with his fellowmen. Hence Society is abstract, not concrete, in nature. We can’t touch it but fill it. Because society resides in the minds of individual.

Society is a process of living not a thing, a motion rather than structure. A system of social relationships is the most important aspect of society. Not all relationships are social. A social relationship implies reciprocal awareness among individuals. This reciprocal awareness direct and indirect are the characteristic of every social relationship. This idea of reciprocal awareness is implied in F.H. Giddings definition of society i.e. “a number of like-minded individuals, who know and enjoy their like-mindedness and are, therefore, able to work together for common ends.” Thus elements of society exists in the ‘Consciousness of Kind’ of Giddings, ‘we feeling’ of Cooley or ‘a common propensity of W.I. Thomas.

When more than one individual live together and mutual relationship develop among them and different social processes like mutual co-operation, competition and conflict constantly take place in society. The relationships established around these create society. Here exists blood relationship between parents and children, brothers and sisters.

Voters and leaders are bound in a political relationship. There exists an economic relationship between the customer and shopkeeper. There exists a social relationship among neighbors. There exists a religious relationship between the priest and the family members. The network of these relationships is what we call society.

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1.2 Understanding Society

Learning objectives.

• Explain the debunking motif.
• Define the sociological imagination.
• Explain what is meant by the blaming-the-victim ideology.

We have just seen that sociology regards individuals as social beings influenced in many ways by their social environment and perhaps less free to behave and think than Americans ordinarily assume. If this insight suggests to you that sociology might have some other surprising things to say about the social world, you are certainly correct. Max Weber (1864–1920), a founder of sociology, wrote long ago that a major goal of sociology was to reveal and explain “inconvenient facts” (Gerth & Mills, 1946, p. 147). These facts include the profound influence of society on the individual and also, as we shall see throughout this book, the existence and extent of social inequality.

In line with Weber’s observation, as sociologists use the sociological perspective in their theory and research, they often challenge conventional understandings of how society works and of controversial social issues. This emphasis is referred to as the debunking motif , to which we now turn.

The Debunking Motif

As Peter L. Berger (1963, pp. 23–24) noted in his classic book Invitation to Sociology , “The first wisdom of sociology is this—things are not what they seem.” Social reality, he said, has “many layers of meaning,” and a goal of sociology is to help us discover these multiple meanings. He continued, “People who like to avoid shocking discoveries…should stay away from sociology.”

As Berger was emphasizing, sociology helps us see through conventional understandings of how society works. He referred to this theme of sociology as the debunking motif . By “looking for levels of reality other than those given in the official interpretations of society” (p. 38), Berger said, sociology looks beyond on-the-surface understandings of social reality and helps us recognize the value of alternative understandings. In this manner, sociology often challenges conventional understandings about social reality and social institutions.

For example, suppose two people meet at a college dance. They are interested in getting to know each other. What would be an on-the-surface understanding and description of their interaction over the next few minutes? What do they say? If they are like a typical couple who just met, they will ask questions like, What’s your name? Where are you from? What dorm do you live in? What’s your major? Now, such a description of their interaction is OK as far as it goes, but what is really going on here? Does either of the two people really care that much about the other person’s answers to these questions? Isn’t each one more concerned about how the other person is responding, both verbally and nonverbally, during this brief interaction? For example, is the other person paying attention and smiling? Isn’t this kind of understanding a more complete analysis of these few minutes of interaction than an understanding based solely on the answers to questions like, What’s your major? For the most complete understanding of this brief encounter, then, we must look beyond the rather superficial things the two people are telling each other to uncover the true meaning of what is going on.

As another example, consider the power structure in a city or state. To know who has the power to make decisions, we would probably consult a city or state charter or constitution that spells out the powers of the branches of government. This written document would indicate who makes decisions and has power, but what would it not talk about? To put it another way, who or what else has power to influence the decisions elected officials make? Big corporations? Labor unions? The media? Lobbying groups representing all sorts of interests? The city or state charter or constitution may indicate who has the power to make decisions, but this understanding would be limited unless one looks beyond these written documents to get a deeper, more complete understanding of how power really operates in the setting being studied.

Social Structure and the Sociological Imagination

One way sociology achieves a more complete understanding of social reality is through its focus on the importance of the social forces affecting our behavior, attitudes, and life chances. This focus involves an emphasis on social structure , the social patterns through which a society is organized. Social structure can be both horizontal or vertical. Horizontal social structure refers to the social relationships and the social and physical characteristics of communities to which individuals belong. Some people belong to many networks of social relationships, including groups like the PTA and the Boy or Girl Scouts, while other people have fewer such networks. Some people grew up on streets where the houses were crowded together, while other people grew up in areas where the homes were much farther apart. These are examples of the sorts of factors constituting the horizontal social structure that forms such an important part of our social environment and backgrounds.

The other dimension of social structure is vertical. Vertical social structure , more commonly called social inequality , refers to ways in which a society or group ranks people in a hierarchy, with some more “equal” than others. In the United States and most other industrial societies, such things as wealth, power, race and ethnicity, and gender help determine one’s social ranking, or position, in the vertical social structure. Some people are at the top of society, while many more are in the middle or at the bottom. People’s positions in society’s hierarchy in turn often have profound consequences for their attitudes, behaviors, and life chances, both for themselves and for their children.

In recognizing the importance of social structure, sociology stresses that individual problems are often rooted in problems stemming from the horizontal and vertical social structures of society. This key insight informed C. Wright Mills’s (1959) classic distinction between personal troubles and public issues . Personal troubles refer to a problem affecting individuals that the affected individual, as well as other members of society, typically blame on the individual’s own failings. Examples include such different problems as eating disorders, divorce, and unemployment. Public issues , whose source lies in the social structure and culture of a society, refer to social problems affecting many individuals. Thus problems in society help account for problems that individuals experience. Mills felt that many problems ordinarily considered private troubles are best understood as public issues, and he coined the term sociological imagination to refer to the ability to appreciate the structural basis for individual problems.

To illustrate Mills’s viewpoint, let’s use our sociological imaginations to understand some important contemporary social problems. We will start with unemployment, which Mills himself discussed. If only a few people were unemployed, Mills wrote, we could reasonably explain their unemployment by saying they were lazy, lacked good work habits, and so forth. If so, their unemployment would be their own personal trouble. But when millions of people are out of work, unemployment is best understood as a public issue because, as Mills (1959, p. 9) put it, “the very structure of opportunities has collapsed. Both the correct statement of the problem and the range of possible solutions require us to consider the economic and political institutions of the society, and not merely the personal situation and character of a scatter of individuals.”

The growing unemployment rate stemming from the severe economic downturn that began in 2008 provides a telling example of the point Mills was making. Millions of people lost their jobs through no fault of their own. While some individuals are undoubtedly unemployed because they are lazy or lack good work habits, a more structural explanation focusing on lack of opportunity is needed to explain why so many people were out of work as this book went to press. If so, unemployment is best understood as a public issue rather than a personal trouble.

Another contemporary problem is crime, which we explore further in Chapter 7 “Deviance, Crime, and Social Control” . If crime were only a personal trouble, then we could blame crime on the moral failings of individuals, and some explanations of crime do precisely this. But such an approach ignores the fact that crime is a public issue, because structural factors such as inequality and the physical characteristics of communities contribute to high crime rates among certain groups in American society. As an illustration, consider identical twins separated at birth. One twin grows up in a wealthy suburb or rural area, while the other twin grows up in a blighted neighborhood in a poor, urban area. Twenty years later, which twin will be more likely to have a criminal record? You probably answered the twin growing up in the poor, rundown urban neighborhood. If so, you recognize that there is something about growing up in that type of neighborhood that increases the chances of a person becoming prone to crime. That “something” is the structural factors just mentioned. Criminal behavior is a public issue, not just a personal trouble.

Although eating disorders often stem from personal problems, they also may reflect a cultural emphasis for women to have slender bodies.

Christy McKenna – grab – CC BY-SA 2.0.

A third problem is eating disorders. We usually consider a person’s eating disorder to be a personal trouble that stems from a lack of control, low self-esteem, or another personal problem. This explanation may be OK as far as it goes, but it does not help us understand why so many people have the personal problems that lead to eating disorders. Perhaps more important, this belief also neglects the larger social and cultural forces that help explain such disorders. For example, most Americans with eating disorders are women, not men. This gender difference forces us to ask what it is about being a woman in American society that makes eating disorders so much more common. To begin to answer this question, we need to look to the standard of beauty for women that emphasizes a slender body (Whitehead & Kurz, 2008). If this cultural standard did not exist, far fewer American women would suffer from eating disorders than do now. Even if every girl and woman with an eating disorder were cured, others would take their places unless we could somehow change the cultural standard of female slenderness. To the extent this explanation makes sense, eating disorders are best understood as a public issue, not just as a personal trouble.

Picking up on Mills’s insights, William Ryan (1976) pointed out that Americans typically think that social problems such as poverty and unemployment stem from personal failings of the people experiencing these problems, not from structural problems in the larger society. Using Mills’s terms, Americans tend to think of social problems as personal troubles rather than public issues. As Ryan put it, they tend to believe in blaming the victim rather than blaming the system .

To help us understand a blaming-the-victim ideology, let’s consider why poor children in urban areas often learn very little in their schools. A blaming-the-victim approach, according to Ryan, would say that the children’s parents do not care about their learning, fail to teach them good study habits, and do not encourage them to take school seriously. This type of explanation may apply to some parents, in Ryan’s opinion, but it ignores a much more important reason: the sad shape of America’s urban schools, which are decrepit structures housing old textbooks and out-of-date equipment. To improve the schooling of children in urban areas, he wrote, we must improve the schools themselves, and not just try to “improve” the parents.

As this example suggests, a blaming-the-victim approach points to solutions to social problems such as poverty and illiteracy that are very different from those suggested by a more structural approach that “blames the system.” If we blame the victim, we would spend our limited dollars to address the personal failings of individuals who suffer from poverty, illiteracy, poor health, eating disorders, and other difficulties. If instead we blame the system, we would focus our attention on the various social conditions (decrepit schools, cultural standards of female beauty, and the like) that account for these difficulties. A sociological perspective suggests that the latter approach is ultimately needed to help us deal successfully with the social problems facing us today.

Sociology and Social Reform: Public Sociology

This book’s subtitle is “understanding and changing the social world.” The last several pages were devoted to the subtitle’s first part, understanding . Our discussion of Mills’s and Ryan’s perspectives in turn points to the implications of a sociological understanding for changing the social world. This understanding suggests the need to focus on the various aspects of the social environment that help explain both social issues and private troubles, to recall Mills’s terms.

The use of sociological knowledge to achieve social reform was a key theme of sociology as it developed in the United States after emerging at the University of Chicago in the 1890s (Calhoun, 2007). The early Chicago sociologists aimed to use their research to achieve social reform and, in particular, to reduce poverty and its related effects. They worked closely with Jane Addams (1860–1935), a renowned social worker who founded Hull House (a home for the poor in Chicago) in 1899 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. Addams gained much attention for her analyses of poverty and other social problems of the time, and her book Twenty Years at Hull House remains a moving account of her work with the poor and ill in Chicago (Deegan, 1990).

About the same time, W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963), a sociologist and the first African American to obtain a PhD from Harvard University, wrote groundbreaking books and articles on race in American society and, more specifically, on the problems facing African Americans (Morris, 2007). One of these works was his 1899 book The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study , which attributed the problems facing Philadelphia blacks to racial prejudice among whites. Du Bois also helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). A contemporary of Du Bois was Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862–1931), a former slave who became an activist for women’s rights and worked tirelessly to improve the conditions of African Americans. She wrote several studies of lynching and joined Du Bois in helping to found the NAACP (Bay, 2009).

American sociology has never fully lost its early calling, but by the 1940s and 1950s many sociologists had developed a more scientific, professional orientation that disregarded social reform (Calhoun, 2007). In 1951, a group of sociologists who felt that sociology had abandoned the discipline’s early social reform orientation formed a new national association, the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP). SSSP’s primary aim today remains the use of sociological knowledge to achieve social justice ( http://sssp1.org ). During the 1960s, a new wave of young sociologists, influenced by the political events and social movements of that tumultuous period, took up the mantle of social reform and clashed with their older colleagues. A healthy tension has existed since then between sociologists who see social reform as a major goal of their work and those who favor sociological knowledge for its own sake.

In 2004, the president of the American Sociological Association, Michael Burawoy, called for “public sociology,” or the use of sociological insights and findings to address social issues and achieve social change (Burawoy, 2005). His call ignited much excitement and debate, as public sociology became the theme or prime topic of several national and regional sociology conferences and of special issues or sections of major sociological journals. Several sociology departments began degree programs or concentrations in public sociology, and a Google search of “public sociology” in November 2010 yielded 32,000 results. In the spirit of public sociology, the chapters that follow aim to show the relevance of sociological knowledge for social reform.

Key Takeaways

• The debunking motif involves seeing beyond taken-for-granted assumptions of social reality.
• According to C. Wright Mills, the sociological imagination involves the ability to recognize that private troubles are rooted in public issues and structural problems.
• Early U.S. sociologists emphasized the use of sociological research to achieve social reform, and today’s public sociology reflects the historical roots of sociology in this regard.

For Your Review

• Select an example of a “private trouble” and explain how and why it may reflect a structural problem in society.
• Do you think it is important to emphasize the potential use of sociological research to achieve social reform? Why or why not?

Bay, M. (2009). To tell the truth freely: The life of Ida B. Wells . New York, NY: Hill and Wang.

Berger, P. L. (1963). Invitation to sociology: A humanistic perspective . Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.

Burawoy, M. (2005). 2004 presidential address: For public sociology. American Sociological Review, 70 , 4–28.

Calhoun, C. (2007). Sociology in America: An introduction. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Sociology in America: A history (pp. 1–38). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Deegan, M. J. (1990). Jane Addams and the men of the Chicago school, 1892–1918 . New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

Gerth, H., & Mills, C. W. (Eds.). (1946). From Max Weber: Essays in sociology . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination . London, England: Oxford University Press.

Morris, A. D. (2007). Sociology of race and W. E. B. Du Bois: The path not taken. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Sociology in America: A history (pp. 503–534). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Ryan, W. (1976). Blaming the victim . New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Whitehead, K., & Kurz, T. (2008). Saints, sinners and standards of femininity: Discursive constructions of anorexia nervosa and obesity in women’s magazines. Journal of Gender Studies, 17, 345–358.

Sociology Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Society and Culture

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What Is a Society?

According to sociologists, a society is a group of people with common territory, interaction, and culture. Social groups consist of two or more people who interact and identify with one another.

Example: The society of the Yanomamo has fluid but definable land boundaries. Located in a South American rain forest, Yanamamo territory extends along the border of Brazil and Venezuela. While outsiders would have a hard time determining where Yanomamo land begins and ends, the Yanomamo and their neighbors have no trouble discerning which land is theirs and which is not.

Example: Although Islam was practiced in both parts of the country, the residents of East Pakistan spoke Bengali, while the residents of West Pakistan spoke Urdu. Geographic distance, language differences, and other factors proved insurmountable. In 1971, the nation split into two countries, with West Pakistan assuming the name Pakistan and East Pakistan becoming Bangladesh . Within each newly formed society, people had a common culture, history, and language, and distance was no longer a factor.

Example: Some features of American culture are the English language, a democratic system of government, cuisine (such as hamburgers and corn on the cob), and a belief in individualism and freedom.

The United States is a society composed of many groups of people, some of whom originally belonged to other societies. Sociologists consider the United States a pluralistic society , meaning it is built of many groups. As societies modernize, they attract people from countries where there may be economic hardship, political unrest, or religious persecution. Since the industrialized countries of the West were the first to modernize, these countries tend to be more pluralistic than countries in other parts of the world.

Many people came to the United States between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. Fleeing poverty and religious persecution, these immigrants arrived in waves from Europe and Asia and helped create the pluralism that makes the United States unique.

Pluralism in the Neighborhood

Both cities and regions reflect pluralism in the United States. Most major American cities have areas in which people from particular backgrounds are concentrated, such as Little Italy in New York, Chinatown in San Francisco, and Little Havana in Miami. Regionally, people of Mexican descent tend to live in those states that border Mexico. Individuals of Cuban descent are concentrated in Florida. Spanish-speaking people from other Caribbean islands, such as Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, are more likely to live in the Northeast.

Assimilation

Some practices that are common in other societies will inevitably offend or contradict the values and beliefs of the new society. Groups seeking to become part of a pluralistic society often have to give up many of their original traditions in order to fit in—a process known as assimilation .

Example: When people arrive in the United States from other countries, they most likely speak a foreign language. As they live here, they generally learn at least some English, and many become fluent. Their children are most likely bilingual, speaking English as well as the language of their parents. By the third generation, the language originally spoken by their grandparents is often lost.

In pluralistic societies, groups do not have to give up all of their former beliefs and practices. Many groups within a pluralistic society retain their ethnic traditions.

Example: Although Chinese immigrants started arriving in the United States 150 years ago, Chinese-American communities still follow some traditions, such as celebrating the Lunar New Year.

Melting Pot?

The United States is commonly referred to as a melting pot , a society in which people from different societies blend together into a single mass. Some sociologists prefer the term “multicultural,” pointing out that even if a group has been in this country for many generations, they probably still retain some of their original heritage. The term “ multiculturalism ” recognizes the original heritages of millions of Americans, noting that Americans who are originally from other societies do not necessarily have to lose their individual markers by melting into the mainstream.

In a truly pluralistic society, no one group is officially considered more influential than another. In keeping with this belief, the United States does not, for example, put a legal quota on how many Italian Americans can vote in national elections, how many African Americans may run for public office, or how many Vietnamese Americans can live on a certain street. However, powerful informal mechanisms, such as prejudice and discrimination, work to keep many groups out of the political process or out of certain neighborhoods.

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Open Education Sociology Dictionary

Table of Contents

Definition of Society

( noun ) A large group of interacting people in a defined territory, sharing a common culture .

Types of Society

• agrarian society
• egalitarian society
• feudal society
• horticultural society
• hunter-gatherer society
• industrial society
• information society
• pastoral society
• rank society
• stateless society
• stratified society

Society Pronunciation

Pronunciation Usage Guide

Syllabification : so·ci·e·ty

Audio Pronunciation

Phonetic Spelling

• American English – /suh-sIE-uh-tee/
• British English – /suh-sIE-uh-tee/

International Phonetic Alphabet

• American English – /səˈsaɪədi/
• British English – /səˈsʌɪəti/

Usage Notes

• Plural: societies
• “Whereas a society is composed of people, a  culture is composed of ideas, behavior , and material possessions. Society and  culture are interdependent; neither could exist without the other” (Kendall 2006:42).

Related Quotations

• “A social fact is every way of acting, whether fixed or not, which is capable of exercising an external constraint on the individual ; or, which is general throughout a given society , whilst having an existence of its own, independent of its  individual manifestations” (Durkheim [1895] 2004:50).
• “Each of us is a social being. We are born into a social environment; we fully develop in to human beings in a social environment; and we live our lives in a social environment. What we think, how we feel, and what we say and do all are shaped by our interactions with other people . The scientific study of these social interactions and of social organization is called sociology ” (Hughes and Kroehler 2008:3).
• “If one wants to change society , one needs to understand the logic of how it operates” (Babbie 2011:62).
• “If religion protects man against the desire to kill himself, it is not because it preaches respect for his person based on arguments sui generis , but because it is a society. What constitutes this society is the existence of a certain number of beliefs and practices common to all the faithful which are traditional and therefore obligatory. The more numerous and strong these collective states are, the more strongly integrated is the religious community, and the greater its preservative value ” (Durkheim [1897] 2004:74).
• “If the rights and perquisites of different positions in a society must be unequal, then the society must be stratified , because that is precisely what stratification means. Social inequality is thus an unconsciously evolved device by which societies insure that the most important positions are conscientiously filled by the most qualified persons . Hence every society, no matter how simple or complex, must differentiate persons in terms of both prestige and esteem, and must therefore possess a certain amount of institutionalized inequality ” (Davis and Moore 1945:243).
• “In American society, the basic kinship system consists of parents and children , but it may include other relatives as well, especially grandparents . Each person in this system has certain rights and obligations as a result of his or her position in the family structure . Furthermore, a person may occupy several positions at the same time. For example, an 18-year-old woman may simultaneously be a daughter , a sister , a cousin , an aunt , and a granddaughter . Each role entails different rights and obligations. As a daughter , the young woman may have to defer to certain decisions of her parents ; as a sister , to share her bedroom; as a cousin , to attend a wedding ; and as a granddaughter , to visit her grandparents during the holidays” (Strong, Devault, and Cohen 2011:19).
• “No society lacks norms governing conduct. But societies do differ in the degree to which folkways , mores and  institutional controls are effectively integrated with the goals which stand high in the hierarchy of  cultural values . The  culture may be such as to lead  individuals to center their emotional convictions upon the complex of  culturally acclaimed ends, with far less emotional support for prescribed  methods of reaching out for these ends. With such differential emphases upon goals and  institutional procedures, the latter may be so vitiated by the stress on goals as to have the behavior of many  individuals limited only by considerations of technical expediency. In this context, the sole significant question becomes: Which of the available procedures is most efficient in netting the  culturally approved value? The technically most effective procedure, whether  culturally legitimate or not, becomes typically preferred to  institutionally prescribed conduct. As this process of attenuation continues, the society becomes unstable and there develops what Durkheim called ‘ anomie ‘ ( normlessness )” (Merton [1949] 1968:189).
• “ Patriarchy literally means ‘ rule of the fathers ‘ and comes from the Old Testament —all power was given to male elders. Today, its meaning is more general : male domination of all the major  institutions of society including government , religion , education , the economy , the military and the media ” (Kaufman and Kimmel 2011:112).
• “ Social stratification is universal but variable. Social stratification is found everywhere. Yet what is unequal and how unequal it is varies from one society to another. In some societies, inequality is mostly a matter of prestige ; in others, wealth or power is the key element of difference. In addition, some societies contain more inequality than others” (Macionis 2012:225).
• “Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media ; the moral barricades are manned by editors , bishops , politicians and other right-thinking people ; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes more visible. Sometimes the object of the panic is quite novel and at other times it is something which has been in existence long enough, but suddenly appears in the limelight . Sometimes the panic passes over and is forgotten, except in folklore and collective memory; at other times it has more serious and long-lasting repercussions and might produce such changes as those in legal and social policy or even in the way society conceives itself” (Cohen 2002:1).
• “ Sociology is the systematic study of human society and social interaction. It is a  systematic study because sociologists apply both theoretical perspectives and research methods (or orderly approaches) to examinations of social behavior ” (Kendall 2006:2).
• “Such an assumption seems to me to ignore the central fact about deviance : it is created by society. I do not mean this in the way it is ordinarily understood, in which the causes of deviance are located in the social situation of the deviant or in ‘social factors’ which prompt his action. I mean, rather, that social groups create deviance by making rules whose infraction constitutes deviance , and by applying those rules to particular people and labelling them as outsiders. From this point of view, deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an ‘offender’. The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label” (Becker 1963:8–9).
• “The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to average members of the same society forms a particular system with a life of its own life; one might call it the collective or common consciousness ” (Durkheim [1893] 2004:24).
• “The undue reliance which sociologists have placed upon the idea of ‘society’, where this means a bounded system, should be replaced by a starting point that concentrates upon analysing how social life is ordered across time and space – the problem of time-space distanciation. The conceptual framework of time-space distanciation directs our attention to the complex relations between local involvements (circumstances of co-presence) and interaction across distance (the connections of presence and absence). In the modern era, the level of time-space distanciation is much higher than in any previous period, and the relations between local and distant social forms and events become correspondingly ‘stretched’. Globalisation refers essentially to that stretching process, in so far as the modes of connection between different social contexts or regions become networked across the earth’s surface as a whole. Globalisation can thus be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa” (Giddens 1991:63–64).

Related Videos

Additional Information

• Word origin of “society” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
• Durkheim, Émile. [1893] 2013. The Division of Labour in Society , 2nd ed. edited by S. Lukes. London: Macmillan.
• Edwards, Michael. 2015.  Civil Society . 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Elias, Norbert. [1939] 2000. The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations . Rev. ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Foley, Michael W., and Virginia Ann Hodgkinson, eds. 2003.  The Civil Society Reader .  Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.
• Giddens, Anthony. 1973. The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies . London: Hutchinson.
• Grusky, David B., ed. 2014.  Social Stratification: Class, Race, and Gender in Sociological Perspective . 4th ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• Harris, José, ed. 2001. Tönnies: Community and Civil Society . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Jenkins, R. 2002. Foundations of Sociology: Towards a Better Understanding of the Human World . Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Kerbo, Harold Ray. 2012.  Social Stratification and Inequality: Class Conflict in Historical, Comparative, and Global Perspective . 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Macionis, John J. 2017. Society: The Basics . 14th ed. Boston: Pearson.
• Massey, Douglas S. 2007. Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System . New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Outhwaite, W. 2006. The Future of Society . Oxford: Blackwell.
• Urry, John. 2000. Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-first Century . London: Routledge.
• Urry, John. 2007. Mobilities . Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Weber, Max. 1946. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology , edited by H. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Williams, R. 2015. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society . 2nd ed. London: Fontana.

Related Terms

• division of labor
• institution
• socialization

Babbie, Earl R. 2011. The Basics of Social Research . Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Becker, Howard Saul. 1963. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance . New York: Free Press.

Cohen, Stanley. 2002. Folk Devils and Moral Panics . 3rd ed. New York: Routledge.

Davis, Kingsley, and Wilbert E. Moore. 1945. “Some Principles of Stratification.” American Sociological Review  10(2):242–49. doi: 10.2307/2085643 .

Durkheim, Émile. [1893] 2004. “The Division of Labour in Society.” Pp. 19–38 in Readings from Emile Durkheim . Rev. ed., edited and translated by K. Thompson. New York: Routledge.

Durkheim, Émile. [1895] 2004. “The Rules of Sociological Method.” Pp. 43–63 in Readings from Emile Durkheim . Rev. ed., edited and translated by K. Thompson. New York: Routledge.

Durkheim, Émile. [1897] 2004. “Suicide.” Pp. 65–83 in Readings from Emile Durkheim . Rev. ed., edited and translated by K. Thompson. New York: Routledge.

Giddens, Anthony. 1991. The Consequences of Modernity . Cambridge: Polity Press.

Hughes, Michael, and Carolyn J. Kroehler. 2008.  Sociology: The Core . 8th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Kaufman, Michael, and Michael S. Kimmel. 2011. The Guy’s Guide to Feminism . Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.

Kendall, Diana. 2006. Sociology in Our Times: The Essentials . 5th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Macionis, John. 2012. Sociology . 14th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Strong, Bryan, Christine DeVault, and Theodore F. Cohen. 2011. The Marriage and Family Experience: Intimate Relationships in a Changing Society . 11th ed. Boston: Cengage Learning.

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Delaney, Tim, and Tim Madigan. 2015. The Sociology of Sports: An Introduction . 2nd ed. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

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Cite the Definition of Society

ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “society.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary . Retrieved April 12, 2024 ( https://sociologydictionary.org/society/ ).

APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)

society. (2013). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary . Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/society/

Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “society.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary . Accessed April 12, 2024. https://sociologydictionary.org/society/ .

MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)

“society.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary . Ed. Kenton Bell. 2013. Web. 12 Apr. 2024. < https://sociologydictionary.org/society/ >.

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The Seeing America Project

Course: the seeing america project   >   unit 8, family, community, society, “improving” the new world, freedom and un freedom, creativity in the face of adversity, native populations displaced, “little commonwealths”, “the best poor man’s country”, the great american agenda, “pursuit of happiness”, seeking freedom, migration and immigration, grappling with modernity, depression and world wars, changing dynamics of american families, at the table, “we the people”, want to join the conversation.

What is Society? Here’s a Simple Explanation

This article dives into the questions on what society is and this particular question has been debated, fought and multiple meanings have been formed and made thus this paper tries to give an insight on it and the importance of tolerance and acceptance of differences to continue living.

We often hear from people that we have a responsibility to society or will not approve of what we have done? Who are the we in society, is it a group of people or questions such as what size is the right size to be called one? one thing is sure is that it is not a physical object that can be touched as sociologist such as Peter L. Bergers says it is a manmade idea as it is a concept of the mind, therefore, it is an abstract concept so every person will have their own version and understanding of what society is.  We know this from the number of different governments, groups, communities, and tribes that show that many types and diverse forms of governments exist and that shows that there is not just one right way to live as a society.

When we talk about what does society approves of can be very different as in one monogamy is approved where a husband can marry only one wife and in another, a husband can have many wives like the tribal Gond in India who practise polygyny. Therefore it has different definitions according to different sociologists thus it is difficult for a universal definition of what society actually is to be made.

In sociology, there is the social contract theory which talks about the beginning of society, and according to this theory, all human beings are born free and equal in the world. The three famous classical representatives of this theory are Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and J.J Rousseau. Therefore to provide a small insight into the theory let us take Thomas Hobbes that held that without it existing, human life would be “ solitary poor, nasty, brutish and short. ” According to Thomas Hobbes, it came to existence and was formed because people needed something (which is society) which would offer protection by binding everyone to a set of rules to avoid chaos and would benefit them. However, this theory does have its criticisms as it may not have come up from a contract that which is made up by individuals who have decided to work together for further benefit especially when they have been said to be brutish and nasty and anthropologist has found that most primitive people lived in some form of society or another however unorganized it is.

Societies are complex ever-changing and might be what glues us together as people in it can be very different from each other as they can come from various backgrounds, speak different languages have different occupations, religion or beliefs still come together and is shaped by the relationships between these individuals no matter the differences. Therefore if you look into the past and the present you will notice that societies have been evolving in order to survive. Hence it has gone through countless changes, for example, the renaissance stands for rebirth which was a movement to promote a new wave of thinking which is largely connected to social change.

Just as individuals are the ones who mold society, it shapes us too. We shape it by bringing in certain reforms, changes like the recent protest on black lives matters will hopefully change the direction of the society which aims to end systematic racism and privilege which has been the present USA for centuries. The stark realities on how corrupt, twisted humanity can be is baffling however at the same time there are positive aspects such as unity, love and the difference in it. Individuals and groups may be socially unified in some aspects and disintegrated in other ways therefore different aspects of a society and culture change at different speeds. There are thoughts on if society ends will the world go into chaos as there are many dystopian books and movies on a world with different types of living and communities and some of these books showcase the harsh realities of our world which we either refuse to acknowledge or do not realize therefore it has its negatives aspects as well as its positives aspects.

To live in a society that is free from discrimination seems too perfect and far-fetched however even this has its questions on what is right and wrong thus this idea may seem too utopian. However once a dreamer always a dreamer and just as there are many ways of being human there are many types and aspects of society that have existed, changed, and will in future change again.

Some interesting books and videos for an insight:

• Between the World and Me: written by Ta-Nehisi Coates is an easy read but has deep meanings and provides a dept insight into our society. It may also be considered timely with the current situation in the north as it gives some perspective on why it is “black lives matter”, and why that phrase is much more than just “all lives matter”.
• BRAVE NEW WORLD – written by Aldous Huxley is set in a London dystopia on its own created timeline. It shows us a different type of society we could live in. the book describes a world in which the individuals are brainwashed and mentally manipulated by a dictating which leaves you with chills as it feels similar to some situations on our planet.
• Émile Durkheim on Suicide & Society: Crash Course Sociology #5: In this YouTube series Nicole Sweeney talks about the questions whether big and small about society.
• What is society?: If you want to read a short paper instead of watching the crash course series on YouTube then “What is a society?” written by Thomas Hylland Eriksen is the paper to read as it raises basic questions on what is society and what do we mean when we say “we” in society.

Read: Types of Societies

Mayumi Nongrum

Mayumi Oseng Apang Nongrum is currently an undergraduate student pursuing anthropology, history and international relations. She is an individual striving for a better tomorrow.

Social Justice Warrior

An often mocking term for one who is seen as overly progressive

Dictionary Entries Near society

société en commandite

society finch

Cite this Entry

“Society.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/society. Accessed 12 Apr. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of society.

Kids Definition of society  (Entry 2 of 2)

Legal Definition

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Nglish: Translation of society for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of society for Arabic Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about society

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Definition of society – Learner’s Dictionary

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society noun ( PEOPLE IN SAME COUNTRY )

• The book discusses the impact of Christian thinking on western society.
• A fair justice system is an important part of civilized society.
• People are still very conscious of class in British society.
• They have forfeited the right to live in society.
• Our aim is to create a fairer , more inclusive society.

society noun ( ORGANIZATION )

(Definition of society from the Cambridge Learner's Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

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singing or playing notes that are at the right pitch (= level) or that agree with others being sung or played

Alike and analogous (Talking about similarities, Part 1)

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Study Today

Largest Compilation of Structured Essays and Exams

Essay on Society | Meaning & Definition

January 22, 2018 by Study Mentor Leave a Comment

India is our country, we feel proud to call ourselves as Indians. Why we feel proud is because there are certain cultures and customs that come naturally to us on account of being an Indian.

Many traditions that our ancestors followed and we have been taking it across in our blood even today are part of our culture systems that come to us naturally.

We live in a set up that gives us the feeling of being part of a wholesome culture that teaches us values to do the right things, something that tells us about our own selves, the rich heritage that we are proudly part of, etc.

This feeling of oneness with our culture and traditions comes within a definite set up and this is exactly what we call as society. In a society, we are expected to live in co-operation with our fellow community members and maintain peace and harmony with one another.   

There are no definite rules and regulations laid out to bring about peace and harmony, but it is a kind of mutual understanding and basis of co-existence that creates a need for peaceful loving.

If we lived in a joint family, the big family set up could be treated as a society, for example. Within the family, the elders make the rules of the house and the youngsters are expected to follow them without questioning.

There are certain principles that the family has, and is expected to be followed by all members. These may not be rules as such, but a few doctrines that every family has and respects them for their own benefit.

Going against these rules may create conflict within the house, much to the anger of the elders and things may go hay-wire and that’s when resolving issues become important. The same thing happens in a larger societal place as well.   

Table of Contents

Respect your Society  

We see lots of people who live in our country but have all the love for a totally different country that they are not part of. That’s because they find it difficult to go by the norms of the society they live in and prefer moving towards a different societal set up that has some other norms of their own.

Image Credit: Source 

We find it very common from elders that, when a married woman steps out of the house without the sacred vermilion on her forehead, it’s going to be talked about by all people in their neighborhood. Why this happens, is because, the society she lives in, has pressed the fact from ages that the vermillion on the head is a must for married woman.

If it isn’t present, then that’s called a bad omen. This simply means that, society starts treating this as a norm and indirectly applies to all people living around there. Whether it is really acceptable or not is a different question, but there are certain perception that goes with societal norms.   

Society is formed by people who think in a certain way, whose behavior is influenced by the people belonging to the particular society and the thinking goes in line with the general opinion formed within the common set up. Let us take up an example of festival celebrations within the community.

If it’s the time of dasara, we can see the women of the community gathering together at a community hall and taking part in the preparations and organizations of various activities for devotees. Why do such a large number of people come forward to take part in such events is the next question to think over.

That is because of their common belief about the goodness that persists in taking part in such events and also that a huge crowd puller activity is going to be based on a lot of self interest.

The common thoughts prevailing in the community regarding celebrations of such communal events marks the unity of people and their belief systems, which is further strengthened on such accounts.

Within a large society, people with like-minded ideas and belief systems share common liking for certain things and activities and they get together to create an encouraging atmosphere to spread the word to other places.   

Society as a Unit

We as individuals are smaller sub units of a large unit called society. The society around us teaches us to be tolerant towards each other. When there is a happy moment for our neighbor staying beside our house, we greet them as well as a token of appreciation.

Why should we actually greet our neighbor, they may be unrelated to us and we might have no personal connection with them as well. But our cultural instincts make us create the goodwill between two individuals and that is exactly why we go ahead and shake hands with them.   

Suppose a school boy has a fall while he is playing in the park and his parents are away and unaware about the fall. Immediately, people around the small child flock to him to see that the child has not suffered any big injury on account of the fall.

From where does this concern for an unknown child spring from? We find no connection with the small child as such. The answer is, we have a certain caring tendency towards the child that comes naturally to us. Our society around us teaches us to care for people around us.

Nobody in person actually comes to teach us these qualities, we learn by observing these acts from others. It comes without us having to think whether to actually do it or not.   

Qualities we learn from our Society  

Society teaches us to be good citizens of the country . We imbibe values of  hospitality and mutual concern for each other through daily interactions with people in the society. Society enables people to think in a broader way, it teaches us to be concerned about our fellow beings.

It gives us space to show love and respect for each other. Not only humans, but we ought to be compassionate about other creatures as well. We have to learn to tolerate different kinds of mentalities and accept different opinions from various generations of people.

We have to learn to take care of the old, society allows us to be respectful and caring towards our elders. We all love little children, we have to be patient towards them.   

Society consists of people from all walks of life. We have working as well as the non working community staying together in families. Men are the main bread-earners of the family and women support their income. Some women choose to be home makers to take care of their children and the aged people in their homes.

We have to treat them with dignity. We have all kinds of professionals within the society. Some may be engineers, doctors, lawyers, technicians etc. some other may prefer teaching, banking, having their own businesses etc. We have to be tolerant towards all kinds of people from all walks of life.

Society also provides various shopping centers, movie halls, malls, complexes, areas for entertainment, etc. Community halls within the society provide space for people gathering to attend functions or other important events. Playgrounds and parks provide recreation for children, elderly and other members of the society.

Banks and other financial institutions aid citizens in financial saving opportunities. Loans are provided by banks for personal uses in case people have to borrow money. Educational institutions are major part of society where in students spend maximum of their time doing their studies and excel in higher education to achieve their degrees and become professionally capable.

Jobs are provided in any large society at both the government and at the private levels and concerns. Hospitals treat sick patients and provide appropriate medication. Timely administration of right medicines is very important in any treatment.

The society should also be considered about health and hygiene concerns to be rid of any diseases and infections. Security concerns are a bigger matter in any society and they should be given priority over other factors. Law makers should ensure smooth implementation of law of the land.

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an organized group of persons associated together for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes.

a body of individuals living as members of a community; community.

the body of human beings generally, associated or viewed as members of a community: the evolution of human society.

a highly structured system of human organization for large-scale community living that normally furnishes protection, continuity, security, and a national identity for its members: American society.

such a system characterized by its dominant economic class or form: middle-class society; industrial society.

those with whom one has companionship.

companionship; company: to enjoy the society of good friends.

the social life of wealthy, prominent, or fashionable persons.

the social class that comprises such persons.

the condition of those living in companionship with others, or in a community, rather than in isolation.

Biology . a closely integrated group of social organisms of the same species exhibiting division of labor.

Ecclesiastical . ecclesiastical society .

of, relating to, or characteristic of elegant society: a society photographer.

Origin of society

Synonym study for society, other words for society, other words from society.

• so·ci·e·ty·less, adjective
• in·ter·so·ci·e·ty, adjective
• non·so·ci·e·ty, noun, plural non·so·ci·e·ties.
• sub·so·ci·e·ty, noun, plural sub·so·ci·e·ties.
• un·der·so·ci·e·ty, noun, plural un·der·so·ci·e·ties.

Words Nearby society

• social welfare
• social work
• societal development
• societal marketing
• Society Islands
• Society of Friends
• Society of Jesus
• society verse

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use society in a sentence

Half a century later, it is clear that this narrow, stockholder-centered view of corporations has cost society severely.

Brazil’s Civil Rights Framework was society ’s response to similar attempts by the government to censor the internet.

The goal is to create a society that treats everyone equally, and that gives everyone, including the most vulnerable members of our society , a fighting chance to succeed.

I think the most important thing is to consider what is good for the overall community, and we all want the overall society to recover as soon as possible.

We have gotten away from our source and this has caused our societies to be imbalanced.

As an example of good science-and- society policymaking, the history of fluoride may be more of a cautionary tale.

“The institution of marraige [sic] is under attack in our society and it needs to be strengthened,” Bush wrote.

Those are troubling numbers, for unfettered speech is not incidental to a flourishing society .

Compared with neighbors Myanmar, Vietnam, and Laos, Cambodia appears to have a blossoming civil society .

Strangio is at his best when exposing what appears to be a flourishing civil society in Cambodia.

Those in whom the impulse is strong and dominant are perhaps those who in later years make the good society actors.

I haven't much time for seeing any one, except my patients, and the people I meet in society .

William has thus been happily able to report to the society the approaching conversion of M'Bongo and his imminent civilization.

The blind Samson of labor will seize upon the pillars of society and bring them down in a common destruction.

He has told me that their society produced on him the effect of the cool hands of saints against his cheek.

British Dictionary definitions for society

/ ( səˈsaɪətɪ ) /

the totality of social relationships among organized groups of human beings or animals

a system of human organizations generating distinctive cultural patterns and institutions and usually providing protection, security, continuity, and a national identity for its members

such a system with reference to its mode of social and economic organization or its dominant class : middle-class society

those with whom one has companionship

an organized group of people associated for some specific purpose or on account of some common interest : a learned society

the privileged class of people in a community, esp as considered superior or fashionable

( as modifier ) : a society woman

the social life and intercourse of such people : to enter society as a debutante

companionship; the fact or state of being together with someone else : I enjoy her society

ecology a small community of plants within a larger association

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with society

see under mutual admiration society.

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

4.1 Types of Societies

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you should be able to:

• Describe the difference between preindustrial, industrial, and postindustrial societies
• Explain the role of environment on preindustrial societies
• Interpret the ways that technology impacts societal development

In sociological terms, society refers to a group of people who live in a definable community and share the same cultural components. On a broader scale, society consists of the people and institutions around us, our shared beliefs, and our cultural ideas. Typically, many societies also share a political authority.

Consider China and the United States. Both are technologically advanced, have dense networks of transportation and communications, rely on foreign trading partners for large portions of their economies, focus on education as a way to advance their citizens, and have large and expensive militaries. Both countries have citizens that may be largely satisfied with their governments and ways of life, while still holding some degree of distrust or discontent regarding their leaders. And both have a rural versus urban disparity that can cause tension and economic inequality among the population. An individual family or even a whole office full of people in one of the countries may look and act very similarly to families or offices in the other country.

But what is different? In China, a far greater percentage of people may be involved in manufacturing than America. Many of China’s cities didn’t evolve from ports, transit centers, or river confluences hundreds of years ago, but are newly created urban centers inhabited by recent transplants from other locations. While citizens in the U.S. can openly express their dissatisfaction with their government through social activism in person or, especially, online, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are banned in China, and the press is controlled by the government. Their appearance might be very similar, but the two countries are very different societies.

Sociologist Gerhard Lenski Jr. (1924–2015) defined societies in terms of their technological sophistication. As a society advances, so does its use of technology. Societies with rudimentary technology depend on the fluctuations of their environments, while industrialized societies have more control over the impact of their surroundings and thus develop different cultural features. This distinction is so important that sociologists generally classify societies along a spectrum of their level of industrialization—from preindustrial to industrial to postindustrial.

Preindustrial Societies

Before the Industrial Revolution and the widespread use of machines, societies were small, rural, and dependent largely on local resources. Economic production was limited to the amount of labor a human being could provide, and there were few specialized occupations. The very first occupation was that of hunter-gatherer.

Hunter-Gatherer

Hunter-gatherer societies demonstrate the strongest dependence on the environment of the various types of preindustrial societies. As the basic structure of human society until about 10,000–12,000 years ago, these groups were based around kinship or tribes. Hunter-gatherers relied on their surroundings for survival—they hunted wild animals and foraged for uncultivated plants for food. When resources became scarce, the group moved to a new area to find sustenance, meaning they were nomadic. These societies were common until several hundred years ago, but today only a few hundred remain in existence, such as indigenous Australian tribes sometimes referred to as “aborigines,” or the Bambuti, a group of pygmy hunter-gatherers residing in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Hunter-gatherer groups are quickly disappearing as the world’s population explodes.

Changing conditions and adaptations led some societies to rely on the domestication of animals where circumstances permitted. Roughly 7,500 years ago, human societies began to recognize their ability to tame and breed animals and to grow and cultivate their own plants. Pastoral societies , such as the Maasai villagers, rely on the domestication of animals as a resource for survival. Unlike earlier hunter-gatherers who depended entirely on existing resources to stay alive, pastoral groups were able to breed livestock for food, clothing, and transportation, and they created a surplus of goods. Herding, or pastoral, societies remained nomadic because they were forced to follow their animals to fresh feeding grounds. Around the time that pastoral societies emerged, specialized occupations began to develop, and societies commenced trading with local groups.

Sociology in the Real World

Where societies meet—the worst and the best.

When cultures meet, technology can help, hinder, and even destroy. The Exxon Valdez oil spillage in Alaska nearly destroyed the local inhabitants' entire way of life. Oil spills in the Nigerian Delta have forced many of the Ogoni tribe from their land and forced removal has meant that over 100,000 Ogoni have sought refuge in the country of Benin (University of Michigan, n.d.). And the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 drew great attention as it occurred in the United States. Environmental disasters continue as Western technology and its need for energy expands into less developed (peripheral) regions of the globe.

Of course not all technology is bad. We take electric light for granted in the United States, Europe, and the rest of the developed world. Such light extends the day and allows us to work, read, and travel at night. It makes us safer and more productive. But regions in India, Africa, and elsewhere are not so fortunate. Meeting the challenge, one particular organization, Barefoot College, located in District Ajmer, Rajasthan, India, works with numerous less developed nations to bring solar electricity, water solutions, and education. The focus for the solar projects is the village elders. The elders agree to select two grandmothers to be trained as solar engineers and choose a village committee composed of men and women to help operate the solar program.

The program has brought light to over 450,000 people in 1,015 villages. The environmental rewards include a large reduction in the use of kerosene and in carbon dioxide emissions. The fact that the villagers are operating the projects themselves helps minimize their sense of dependence.

Horticultural

Around the same time that pastoral societies were on the rise, another type of society developed, based on the newly developed capacity for people to grow and cultivate plants. Previously, the depletion of a region’s crops or water supply forced pastoral societies to relocate in search of food sources for their livestock. Horticultural societies formed in areas where rainfall and other conditions allowed them to grow stable crops. They were similar to hunter-gatherers in that they largely depended on the environment for survival, but since they didn’t have to abandon their location to follow resources, they were able to start permanent settlements. This created more stability and more material goods and became the basis for the first revolution in human survival.

Agricultural

While pastoral and horticultural societies used small, temporary tools such as digging sticks or hoes, agricultural societies relied on permanent tools for survival. Around 10,000 B.C.E., an explosion of new technology known as the Agricultural Revolution made farming possible—and profitable. Farmers learned to rotate the types of crops grown on their fields and to reuse waste products such as manure as fertilizer, which led to better harvests and bigger surpluses of food. New tools for digging and harvesting were made of metal, and this made them more effective and longer lasting. Human settlements grew into towns and cities, and particularly bountiful regions became centers of trade and commerce.

This is also the age in which people had the time and comfort to engage in more contemplative and thoughtful activities, such as music, poetry, and philosophy. This period became referred to as the “dawn of civilization” by some because of the development of leisure and humanities. Craftspeople were able to support themselves through the production of creative, decorative, or thought-provoking aesthetic objects and writings.

As resources became more plentiful, social classes became more divisive. Those who had more resources could afford better living and developed into a class of nobility. Difference in social standing between men and women increased. As cities expanded, ownership and preservation of resources became a pressing concern.

The ninth century gave rise to feudal societies . These societies contained a strict hierarchical system of power based around land ownership and protection. The nobility, known as lords, placed vassals in charge of pieces of land. In return for the resources that the land provided, vassals promised to fight for their lords.

These individual pieces of land, known as fiefdoms, were cultivated by the lower class. In return for maintaining the land, peasants were guaranteed a place to live and protection from outside enemies. Power was handed down through family lines, with peasant families serving lords for generations and generations. Ultimately, the social and economic system of feudalism failed and was replaced by capitalism and the technological advances of the industrial era.

Industrial Society

In the eighteenth century, Europe experienced a dramatic rise in technological invention, ushering in an era known as the Industrial Revolution. What made this period remarkable was the number of new inventions that influenced people’s daily lives. Within a generation, tasks that had until this point required months of labor became achievable in a matter of days. Before the Industrial Revolution, work was largely person- or animal-based, and relied on human workers or horses to power mills and drive pumps. In 1782, James Watt and Matthew Boulton created a steam engine that could do the work of twelve horses by itself.

Steam power began appearing everywhere. Instead of paying artisans to painstakingly spin wool and weave it into cloth, people turned to textile mills that produced fabric quickly at a better price and often with better quality. Rather than planting and harvesting fields by hand, farmers were able to purchase mechanical seeders and threshing machines that caused agricultural productivity to soar. Products such as paper and glass became available to the average person, and the quality and accessibility of education and health care soared. Gas lights allowed increased visibility in the dark, and towns and cities developed a nightlife.

One of the results of increased productivity and technology was the rise of urban centers. Workers flocked to factories for jobs, and the populations of cities became increasingly diverse. The new generation became less preoccupied with maintaining family land and traditions and more focused on acquiring wealth and achieving upward mobility for themselves and their families. People wanted their children and their children’s children to continue to rise to the top, and as capitalism increased, so did social mobility.

It was during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of the Industrial Revolution that sociology was born. Life was changing quickly and the long-established traditions of the agricultural eras did not apply to life in the larger cities. Masses of people were moving to new environments and often found themselves faced with horrendous conditions of filth, overcrowding, and poverty. Social scientists emerged to study the relationship between the individual members of society and society as a whole.

It was during this time that power moved from the hands of the aristocracy and “old money” to business-savvy newcomers who amassed fortunes in their lifetimes. Families such as the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts became the new power players and used their influence in business to control aspects of government as well. Eventually, concerns over the exploitation of workers led to the formation of labor unions and laws that set mandatory conditions for employees. Although the introduction of new technology at the end of the nineteenth century ended the industrial age, much of our social structure and social ideas—like family, childhood, and time standardization—have a basis in industrial society.

Postindustrial Society

Information societies , sometimes known as postindustrial or digital societies, are a recent development. Unlike industrial societies that are rooted in the production of material goods, information societies are based on the production of information and services.

Digital technology is the steam engine of information societies, and computer moguls such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are its John D. Rockefellers and Cornelius Vanderbilts. Since the economy of information societies is driven by knowledge and not material goods, power lies with those in charge of storing and distributing information. Members of a postindustrial society are likely to be employed as sellers of services—software programmers or business consultants, for example—instead of producers of goods. Social classes are divided by access to education, since without technical skills, people in an information society lack the means for success.

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• Solar Eclipse 2024

What the World Has Learned From Past Eclipses

C louds scudded over the small volcanic island of Principe, off the western coast of Africa, on the afternoon of May 29, 1919. Arthur Eddington, director of the Cambridge Observatory in the U.K., waited for the Sun to emerge. The remains of a morning thunderstorm could ruin everything.

The island was about to experience the rare and overwhelming sight of a total solar eclipse. For six minutes, the longest eclipse since 1416, the Moon would completely block the face of the Sun, pulling a curtain of darkness over a thin stripe of Earth. Eddington traveled into the eclipse path to try and prove one of the most consequential ideas of his age: Albert Einstein’s new theory of general relativity.

Eddington, a physicist, was one of the few people at the time who understood the theory, which Einstein proposed in 1915. But many other scientists were stymied by the bizarre idea that gravity is not a mutual attraction, but a warping of spacetime. Light itself would be subject to this warping, too. So an eclipse would be the best way to prove whether the theory was true, because with the Sun’s light blocked by the Moon, astronomers would be able to see whether the Sun’s gravity bent the light of distant stars behind it.

Two teams of astronomers boarded ships steaming from Liverpool, England, in March 1919 to watch the eclipse and take the measure of the stars. Eddington and his team went to Principe, and another team led by Frank Dyson of the Greenwich Observatory went to Sobral, Brazil.

Totality, the complete obscuration of the Sun, would be at 2:13 local time in Principe. Moments before the Moon slid in front of the Sun, the clouds finally began breaking up. For a moment, it was totally clear. Eddington and his group hastily captured images of a star cluster found near the Sun that day, called the Hyades, found in the constellation of Taurus. The astronomers were using the best astronomical technology of the time, photographic plates, which are large exposures taken on glass instead of film. Stars appeared on seven of the plates, and solar “prominences,” filaments of gas streaming from the Sun, appeared on others.

Eddington wanted to stay in Principe to measure the Hyades when there was no eclipse, but a ship workers’ strike made him leave early. Later, Eddington and Dyson both compared the glass plates taken during the eclipse to other glass plates captured of the Hyades in a different part of the sky, when there was no eclipse. On the images from Eddington’s and Dyson’s expeditions, the stars were not aligned. The 40-year-old Einstein was right.

“Lights All Askew In the Heavens,” the New York Times proclaimed when the scientific papers were published. The eclipse was the key to the discovery—as so many solar eclipses before and since have illuminated new findings about our universe.

To understand why Eddington and Dyson traveled such distances to watch the eclipse, we need to talk about gravity.

Since at least the days of Isaac Newton, who wrote in 1687, scientists thought gravity was a simple force of mutual attraction. Newton proposed that every object in the universe attracts every other object in the universe, and that the strength of this attraction is related to the size of the objects and the distances among them. This is mostly true, actually, but it’s a little more nuanced than that.

On much larger scales, like among black holes or galaxy clusters, Newtonian gravity falls short. It also can’t accurately account for the movement of large objects that are close together, such as how the orbit of Mercury is affected by its proximity the Sun.

Albert Einstein’s most consequential breakthrough solved these problems. General relativity holds that gravity is not really an invisible force of mutual attraction, but a distortion. Rather than some kind of mutual tug-of-war, large objects like the Sun and other stars respond relative to each other because the space they are in has been altered. Their mass is so great that they bend the fabric of space and time around themselves.

Read More: 10 Surprising Facts About the 2024 Solar Eclipse

This was a weird concept, and many scientists thought Einstein’s ideas and equations were ridiculous. But others thought it sounded reasonable. Einstein and others knew that if the theory was correct, and the fabric of reality is bending around large objects, then light itself would have to follow that bend. The light of a star in the great distance, for instance, would seem to curve around a large object in front of it, nearer to us—like our Sun. But normally, it’s impossible to study stars behind the Sun to measure this effect. Enter an eclipse.

Einstein’s theory gives an equation for how much the Sun’s gravity would displace the images of background stars. Newton’s theory predicts only half that amount of displacement.

Eddington and Dyson measured the Hyades cluster because it contains many stars; the more stars to distort, the better the comparison. Both teams of scientists encountered strange political and natural obstacles in making the discovery, which are chronicled beautifully in the book No Shadow of a Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse That Confirmed Einstein's Theory of Relativity , by the physicist Daniel Kennefick. But the confirmation of Einstein’s ideas was worth it. Eddington said as much in a letter to his mother: “The one good plate that I measured gave a result agreeing with Einstein,” he wrote , “and I think I have got a little confirmation from a second plate.”

The Eddington-Dyson experiments were hardly the first time scientists used eclipses to make profound new discoveries. The idea dates to the beginnings of human civilization.

Careful records of lunar and solar eclipses are one of the greatest legacies of ancient Babylon. Astronomers—or astrologers, really, but the goal was the same—were able to predict both lunar and solar eclipses with impressive accuracy. They worked out what we now call the Saros Cycle, a repeating period of 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours in which eclipses appear to repeat. One Saros cycle is equal to 223 synodic months, which is the time it takes the Moon to return to the same phase as seen from Earth. They also figured out, though may not have understood it completely, the geometry that enables eclipses to happen.

The path we trace around the Sun is called the ecliptic. Our planet’s axis is tilted with respect to the ecliptic plane, which is why we have seasons, and why the other celestial bodies seem to cross the same general path in our sky.

As the Moon goes around Earth, it, too, crosses the plane of the ecliptic twice in a year. The ascending node is where the Moon moves into the northern ecliptic. The descending node is where the Moon enters the southern ecliptic. When the Moon crosses a node, a total solar eclipse can happen. Ancient astronomers were aware of these points in the sky, and by the apex of Babylonian civilization, they were very good at predicting when eclipses would occur.

Two and a half millennia later, in 2016, astronomers used these same ancient records to measure the change in the rate at which Earth’s rotation is slowing—which is to say, the amount by which are days are lengthening, over thousands of years.

By the middle of the 19 th century, scientific discoveries came at a frenetic pace, and eclipses powered many of them. In October 1868, two astronomers, Pierre Jules César Janssen and Joseph Norman Lockyer, separately measured the colors of sunlight during a total eclipse. Each found evidence of an unknown element, indicating a new discovery: Helium, named for the Greek god of the Sun. In another eclipse in 1869, astronomers found convincing evidence of another new element, which they nicknamed coronium—before learning a few decades later that it was not a new element, but highly ionized iron, indicating that the Sun’s atmosphere is exceptionally, bizarrely hot. This oddity led to the prediction, in the 1950s, of a continual outflow that we now call the solar wind.

And during solar eclipses between 1878 and 1908, astronomers searched in vain for a proposed extra planet within the orbit of Mercury. Provisionally named Vulcan, this planet was thought to exist because Newtonian gravity could not fully describe Mercury’s strange orbit. The matter of the innermost planet’s path was settled, finally, in 1915, when Einstein used general relativity equations to explain it.

Many eclipse expeditions were intended to learn something new, or to prove an idea right—or wrong. But many of these discoveries have major practical effects on us. Understanding the Sun, and why its atmosphere gets so hot, can help us predict solar outbursts that could disrupt the power grid and communications satellites. Understanding gravity, at all scales, allows us to know and to navigate the cosmos.

GPS satellites, for instance, provide accurate measurements down to inches on Earth. Relativity equations account for the effects of the Earth’s gravity and the distances between the satellites and their receivers on the ground. Special relativity holds that the clocks on satellites, which experience weaker gravity, seem to run slower than clocks under the stronger force of gravity on Earth. From the point of view of the satellite, Earth clocks seem to run faster. We can use different satellites in different positions, and different ground stations, to accurately triangulate our positions on Earth down to inches. Without those calculations, GPS satellites would be far less precise.

This year, scientists fanned out across North America and in the skies above it will continue the legacy of eclipse science. Scientists from NASA and several universities and other research institutions will study Earth’s atmosphere; the Sun’s atmosphere; the Sun’s magnetic fields; and the Sun’s atmospheric outbursts, called coronal mass ejections.

When you look up at the Sun and Moon on the eclipse , the Moon’s day — or just observe its shadow darkening the ground beneath the clouds, which seems more likely — think about all the discoveries still yet waiting to happen, just behind the shadow of the Moon.

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‘Right to freedom from torture’: UN experts urge the Gambia not to decriminalise FGM

Repealing ban would mean return of ‘one of the most pernicious forms of violence committed against women and children’

A team of UN experts has urged Gambian lawmakers not to repeal a ban on female genital mutilation, saying such a move would set a dangerous global precedent.

In a letter dated 8 April and made public on Thursday , the experts, led by Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, said allowing the unchecked return of “one of the most pernicious forms of violence committed against women and children” would violate their right to freedom from torture.

Mama Fatima Singhateh, who was the Gambian justice minister when the law banning FGM was passed in 2015 and is now special rapporteur on the sale, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children, was also one of the four signees.

Gambian lawmakers overwhelmingly backed an amendment to the law banning FGM in a second-round vote on 18 March.

Almameh Gibba, the legislator who sponsored the new bill, said he did so to “uphold religious loyalty and safeguard cultural norms and values” in the Muslim-majority state.

The Gambia banned FGM in 2015 in a law that makes the practice punishable by up to three years in prison or 50,000 dalasis (£586) in fines. It was the outcome of years of lobbying by rights groups within and beyond the country, with some of them led by FGM survivors.

“In addition to the backtracking that the intended amendments would result in the rights of women and girls in the Gambia, it would set a dangerous global precedence of governments facilitating female genital mutilation, instead of directing resources to the prevention of and protection from the practice,” the letter says.

About half of the west African country’s 2.7 million people are women. Many of them have either had to go through the practice or have relatives who have done so. UN estimates say that could be as high as up to three-quarters of all women between 18 and 49 in the country.

The law came as a relief to girls and women. It was widely hailed by the international community as a sign of progress and an example for other countries to follow. But it was unpopular in sections of the Gambia, which remains a deeply religious society.

Calls to repeal it began last year after the first major conviction under the law: three women in the northern village of Bakadagi were found guilty of mutilating eight infant girls.

Even though the fines of 15,000 dalasi (£176) each were considered lenient, an influential imam was sufficiently displeased by the matter that he paid part of their fines and then started a campaign to roll back the law.

“This campaign against female circumcision is actually a fight against Islam. But we are ready to sacrifice everything … those who arrested them and the magistrate who sentenced them and any other person who support them, we will curse them until we leave this world to ensure that Allah destroys them,” Abdoulie Fatty, the imam, was quoted as saying last September by local daily the Standard.

That campaign soon made its way to parliament where a final vote is now set for June. However, the president would still be required to give final assent to the change.

If successful, the amendment would mean the “wellbeing, safety and security of women and girls in the Gambia is not the priority for the government”, Alsalem told the Guardian in an email.

Some experts fear the action could also stagnate the fight to entrench the rights of women and girls more generally.

“What happens in the Gambia does not stay in the Gambia,” Alsalem said.

• Female genital mutilation (FGM)
• United Nations
• Violence against women and girls

More on this story

Trainee FGM ‘cutter’ who fled the Gambia fights renewed risk to girls

Move to overturn FGM ban in the Gambia postponed

Woman who handed over British girl, 3, for FGM in Kenya given seven years

Woman convicted of taking British girl, three, for female genital mutilation in Kenya

Number of new FGM cases referred to NHS in England down by a quarter

Huge FGM rise recorded in Somalia during coronavirus lockdown

Sudan to outlaw female genital mutilation

'Calamitous': domestic violence set to soar by 20% during global lockdown

True numbers of FGM victims could be far higher as countries fail to record cases

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What is the difference between a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse?

It almost time! Millions of Americans across the country Monday are preparing to witness the once-in-a-lifetime total solar eclipse as it passes over portions of Mexico, the United States and Canada.

It's a sight to behold and people have now long been eagerly awaiting what will be their only chance until 2044 to witness totality, whereby the moon will completely block the sun's disc, ushering in uncharacteristic darkness.

That being said, many are curious on what makes the solar eclipse special and how is it different from a lunar eclipse.

The total solar eclipse is today: Get the latest forecast and everything you need to know

What is an eclipse?

An eclipse occurs when any celestial object like a moon or a planet passes between two other bodies, obscuring the view of objects like the sun, according to NASA .

What is a solar eclipse?

A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon comes in between the Earth and the sun, blocking its light from reaching our planet, leading to a period of darkness lasting several minutes. The resulting "totality," whereby observers can see the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere, known as the corona, presents a spectacular sight for viewers and confuses animals – causing nocturnal creatures to stir and bird and insects to fall silent.

Partial eclipses, when some part of the sun remains visible, are the most common, making total eclipses a rare sight.

What is a lunar eclipse?

A total lunar eclipse occurs when the moon and the sun are on exact opposite sides of Earth. When this happens, Earth blocks the sunlight that normally reaches the moon. Instead of that sunlight hitting the moon’s surface, Earth's shadow falls on it.

Lunar eclipses are often also referred to the "blood moon" because when the Earth's shadow covers the moon, it often produces a red color. The coloration happens because a bit of reddish sunlight still reaches the moon's surface, even though it's in Earth's shadow.

Difference between lunar eclipse and solar eclipse

The major difference between the two eclipses is in the positioning of the sun, the moon and the Earth and the longevity of the phenomenon, according to NASA.

A lunar eclipse can last for a few hours, while a solar eclipse lasts only a few minutes. Solar eclipses also rarely occur, while lunar eclipses are comparatively more frequent. While at least two partial lunar eclipses happen every year, total lunar eclipses are still rare, says NASA.

Another major difference between the two is that for lunar eclipses, no special glasses or gizmos are needed to view the spectacle and one can directly stare at the moon. However, for solar eclipses, it is pertinent to wear proper viewing glasses and take the necessary safety precautions because the powerful rays of the sun can burn and damage your retinas.

Contributing: Eric Lagatta, Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

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Guest Essay

Why Is Biden Struggling? Because America Is Broken.

By Damon Linker

Mr. Linker, a former columnist at The Week, writes the newsletter Notes From the Middleground.

Seven months away from a rematch election pitting President Biden against former President Donald Trump, the incumbent is struggling. Mr. Biden suffers from persistently low approval ratings, he barely manages to tie Mr. Trump in national head-to-head polls and he lags behind the former president in most of the swing states where the election will be decided (despite some recent modestly encouraging movement in his direction).

The question is why.

When Mr. Biden’s defenders seek to answer the question, most of them tick off declining rates of inflation, historically low unemployment, strong economic growth, a list of legislative accomplishments and other evidence of a successful presidency. This suggests the problem is primarily a failure of communication — the thing flailing administrations always blame first, since it implies the path to improvement requires little more than doing a better job of “getting the message out” about how great the president is doing.

It’s usually wiser to listen to what voters are saying — beyond the obvious concerns about the president’s age.

Recently, Gallup released the latest edition of its longstanding survey measuring “satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S.” Three out of four Americans (75 percent) claimed to be dissatisfied. The long-term trend tells a clear story: From the mid-1990s to late 2004, the level of satisfaction bounced around between 39 percent and 71 percent. But in the aftermath of the George W. Bush administration’s failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and during a yearslong violent insurgency challenging American military occupation of the country, numbers began to slide. They would reach a low of 9 percent satisfaction in October 2008, in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

What followed was a very slow 12-year recovery of satisfaction across almost the entirety of the Obama and Trump administrations, with a post-2004 high of 45 percent reached in February 2020, on the eve of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. By January 2021, the level of satisfaction was back down to 11 percent, just two points off its historical low. Under Joe Biden, Americans briefly became somewhat more upbeat — but figures have sunk again from the mid-30s to the high teens and low 20s in recent months.

These findings mirror what other pollsters have found when they asked respondents about whether they think the country is on the right or wrong track, and about their trust in government and confidence in American institutions . The latter number has been slowly falling since the 1960s, but it, too, really began to collapse in 2004, eventually reaching the low 30s by 2007. In 2023, just 26 percent of Americans expressed confidence in our institutions.

In January 2021, Alana Newhouse published an essay in Tablet, “Everything Is Broken,” that gave voice to this incredibly widespread (but underreported) sentiment. Why did so many people in the United States believe that, as Ms. Newhouse put it in a follow-up essay , “whole parts of American society were breaking down before our eyes”?

The examples are almost too numerous to list: a disastrous war in Iraq; a ruinous financial crisis followed by a decade of anemic growth when most of the new wealth went to those who were already well off; a shambolic response to the deadliest pandemic in a century; a humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan; rising prices and interest rates; skyrocketing levels of public and private debt; surging rates of homelessness and the spread of tent encampments in American cities; undocumented migrants streaming over the southern border; spiking rates of gun violence, mental illness, depression, addiction, suicide, chronic illness and obesity, coupled with a decline in life expectancy.

That’s an awful lot of failure over the past 20-odd years. Yet for the most part, the people who run our institutions have done very little to acknowledge or take responsibility for any of it, let alone undertake reforms that aim to fix what’s broken. That’s no doubt why angry anti-establishment populism has become so prominent in our politics over the past decade — with Mr. Trump, a political outsider, taking over the Republican Party in 2016 by running against the elites of both parties, and Senator Bernie Sanders giving the establishment favorite Hillary Clinton a run for her money that same year by taking on the banking and finance sectors of the economy, along with their Democratic and Republican enablers.

Mr. Biden has never been that kind of politician. Most of the time he speaks and acts as if he thinks American institutions are doing perfectly fine — at least so long as Mr. Trump doesn’t get his hands on them. Part of that is undoubtedly because Mr. Biden is an incumbent, and incumbents always find themselves having to defend what they’ve done in office, which isn’t compatible with acting like an insurgent going to war against the system.

Then there’s the fact that Mr. Biden has worked within our elected institutions since the Nixon administration, making him deeply invested in them (and implicated in their failures). Finally, as a Democrat who came of age during the heyday of mid-20th-century liberalism, Mr. Biden is wedded to the idea of using a functional, competent and capable federal government to improve people’s lives — whether or not more recent history validates that faith.

This places him badly out of step with the national mood, speaking a language very far removed from the talk of a broken country that suffuses Mr. Trump’s meandering and often unhinged remarks on the subject. The more earnest statements of the third-party candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , Cornel West and Jill Stein also speak to aspects of our brokenness, taking ample and often nostalgic note of what’s gone wrong and promising bold, if vague, action to begin an effort of repair.

That leaves Mr. Biden as the lone institutionalist defender of the status quo surrounded by a small army of brokenists looking for support from an electorate primed to respond to their more downcast message.

There may be limits to what Mr. Biden can do to respond. For one thing, his 81-year-old frailty can’t help appearing to mirror the fragile state of our public institutions. For another, in an era of political bad feeling, when presidential approval ratings sink quickly and never recover, incumbents from both parties may no longer enjoy the kind of advantage in seeking re-election that they once did, at least at the national level.

Still, there are things the Biden campaign could do to help the president better connect with voters.

First, he should stop being so upbeat — about the economy in particular — and making the election entirely about the singular awfulness of his opponent. While the latter sounds evasive, the former makes the president seem hopelessly out of touch and risks antagonizing people who aren’t in the mood for a chipper message.

Mr. Biden should instead try to meet Americans where they are. He should admit Washington has gotten a lot of things wrong over the past two decades and sound unhappy about and humbled by it. He could make the argument that all governments make mistakes because they are run by fallible human beings — but also point out that elected representatives in a democracy should be upfront about error and resolve to learn from mistakes so that they avoid them in the future. Just acknowledging how much in America is broken could generate a lot of good will from otherwise skeptical and dismissive voters.

Even better would be an effort to develop a reform agenda: Mr. Biden could declare it’s long past time for America to put its house in order, to begin cleaning up the messes of the past two decades, to face our problems and return to our own best national self. He might even think of adapting and repurposing for the center-left a few lines from Ronald Reagan’s first Inaugural Address : “It’s not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work — work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it.”

In concrete terms, this means pledging to reform existing institutions and programs, not promising to build new ones on top of the ambitious legislation and substantial spending Congress passed during Mr. Biden’s first two years in office. It means, instead, a commitment to pause and begin assessing what government has been doing at all levels, under both Republican and Democratic leadership, over the past two decades.

It means, more specifically, a resolution to continue and expand existing reviews into what worked and what didn’t during the pandemic — in red states and blue states, in cities, suburbs and small towns — in order to prepare for a better response the next time we confront a public-health emergency. It means talking honestly about the surging and unsustainable national debt and what it will take to begin reining it in. It means trying to help government function better, including a concerted effort to increase state capacity , eliminate regulations that constrain the nation’s housing supply and build on the administration’s attempts at permitting reform to streamline or remove regulations that slow down and increase the cost of private as well as public development.

These projects will far outlast a second Biden term. But the president can promise to get them started, with the remaining work to be completed by presidents and generations to come.

Taking this approach may help to neutralize the populist advantages Mr. Trump enjoys (at least when he isn’t running as an incumbent). However much voters appreciate his denunciations of a corrupt and rigged system, as well as his management of the economy over the first three years of his presidency, they have no love for the G.O.P.’s obsession with pairing cuts to entitlement programs and upper-income tax rates with draconian restrictions on abortion — not to mention Mr. Trump’s focus on personal grievances and legal recklessness. That leaves plenty of room for Mr. Biden to make a case for himself as the guy who can enact the sweeping reforms American needs, and without all the unnecessary and dangerous drama a second Trump administration would surely bring.

Everything is broken — or so it feels to many of our fellow citizens. Denying this reality only empowers populist candidates whose message acquires its potency by pointing to an entrenched political establishment unwilling or unable to learn from (or even admit) its myriad mistakes. That shirking needs to stop. And it should do so with Joe Biden.

Damon Linker, who writes the newsletter “ Notes From the Middleground ,” is a senior lecturer in the department of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and a senior fellow at the Open Society Project at the Niskanen Center.

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