Basics of Sociology 

How human society is different from animal society?

• The organism needs food and security.

• It is obvious that animals also live in society for certain purposes. However, the human society differs from animal society both in degree and kind. The human society is a society of civilized and cultured beings. It satisfies not only the physical but also the cultural needs of man.

• Animal society is mainly based on instincts or reflex behavior, whereas human society is based on reason or rational behavior. There are no rights and duties in animal society. Every animal life upon his physical powers whereas human society has a wonderful system of law and order.

• The animals live in society but are not conscious of it. The degree of social awareness is extremely dim. They lack the ability to perceive logical relations between things and the power of integrating (not merely associating) various order of things through mental synthesis. Of course, it may be said that bees show a remarkable degree of organization and therefore, intelligence in building their hexagonal cells for storing honey or that the birds evince a high degree of understanding in building their nest, singing their songs, and protecting themselves against the huntsmen, yet nobody would grant to bees, birds, or animals more intelligence than to man. Their division of labor is not learned, it is based upon biological specialization. Their societies are the sole result of biological evolution, rather than social evolution. The way in which animals perform their work is quasi-mechanical and stereo-typed whereas the work of man, even if it is inferior, is done with forethought and understanding.

How society is a continuous process?

• Society is a continuous process, in functioning in a normal way. Society is not imposed upon people, rather it is accepted by the members.

• The most important part in the functioning of society is negotiations. Due to social interaction society gets constituted and reconstituted.

In what way is going to college a sociological imagination?

• It draws the connections between the individual’s decision to go to college and larger social forces.

• Peer barrier, financial barrier, which leads to achievement barrier.