Portal:Society
The Society Portal
A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent of members. In the social sciences, a larger society often exhibits stratification or dominance patterns in subgroups.
Societies construct patterns of behavior by deeming certain actions or speech as acceptable or unacceptable. These patterns of behavior within a given society are known as societal norms. Societies, and their norms, undergo gradual and perpetual changes.
Insofar as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would otherwise be difficult on an individual basis; both individual and social (common) benefits can thus be distinguished, or in many cases found to overlap. A society can also consist of like-minded people governed by their own norms and values within a dominant, larger society. This is sometimes referred to as a subculture, a term used extensively within criminology, and also applied to distinctive subsections of a larger society.
More broadly, and especially within structuralist thought, a society may be illustrated as an economic, social, industrial or cultural infrastructure, made up of, yet distinct from, a varied collection of individuals. In this regard society can mean the objective relationships people have with the material world and with other people, rather than "other people" beyond the individual and their familiar social environment. (Full article...)
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Japanese and British troops attack members of the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists ("Boxers") at Beijing Castle during the Boxer Rebellion of 1899¨C1901. The Boxers, angered by foreign imperialist expansion into Qing dynasty China, had engaged in looting, arson, and killings of foreigners. In 1900, the Empress Dowager Cixi employed the Boxers to attack foreign settlements in Beijing. The uprising was eventually put down by 20,000 troops from the Eight-Nation Alliance.
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- ... that according to legend, Robert Kirk was taken to fairyland for revealing the secrets of the Good People?
- ... that Steven Gan took advantage of a loophole in Malaysian Internet law to create the country's first independent news source?
Anniversaries this month
- 10 January 1966 – Foundation of the Kuwait Red Crescent Society, as a branch of the international Red Crescent Society
- 10 January 1990 – Nusantara Society was founded comprising research fellows, professors, lecturers, students and postgraduates of Moscow and St. Petersburg academic institutions, universities and higher schools, studying the vast region of Nusantara, populated by peoples speaking Austronesian languages
- 11 January 1902 – Formation of the Fiscal Philatelic Society (1908 advertisement pictured), an early twentieth century philatelic society that is seen as a predecessor to today's Cinderella Stamp Club and The Revenue Society
- 13 January 1873 – Death of Henry Venn, an Anglican clergyman who served as honorary secretary of the Church Missionary Society from 1841 to 1873
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