Relation between Individual and Society

摘要

The relation between individual and society is very close. Essentially, “society” is the regularities, customs and ground rules of antihuman behavior. These practices are tremendously important to know how humans act and interact with each other. Society does not exist independently without individual. The individual lives and acts within society but society is nothing, in spite of the combination of individuals for cooperative effort. On the other hand, society exists to serve individuals—not the other way around. Human life and society almost go together. Man is biologically and psychologically equipped to live in groups, in society. Society has become an essential condition for human life to arise and to continue. The relationship between individual and society is ultimately one of the profound of all the problems of social philosophy. It is more philosophical rather than sociological because it involves the question of values. Man depends on society. It is in the society that an individual is surrounded and encompassed by culture, as a societal force. It is in the society again that he has to conform to the norms, occupy statuses and become members of groups. The question of the relationship between the individual and the society is the starting point of many discussions. It is closely connected with the question of the relationship of man and society. The relation between the two depends upon one fact that the individual and the society are mutually dependent, one grows with the help of the other. The aim of this paper is to show the questions: how a man is a social animal and how individual and society affect each other?