HUMANITIES

HUMANITY
• Humanity is the human race, which includes everyone on Earth.
• The word Humanity is from the Latin
“Humanitas”
for
“human nature, kindness”.
HUMANITIES
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human
society and culture.
The humanities include the study of:
• Ancient and modern languages: A language is a structured system of
communication used by humans, based on speech and gesture (
spoken language), sign or often writing.
• Literature: Literature broadly is any collection of written work.
Literature is a method of recording, preserving and transmitting
knowledge and entertainment and can also have a social, psychological,
spiritual or political role.
• Philosophy: Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental
questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values,
mind, and language.
• History: is the study of the past.
Contd.
• Archaeology: Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the
recovery and analysis of material culture.
• Anthropology: Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with
human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies and linguistics, in both the present
and past, including past human species.
• Human geography: Human geography or anthropogeography is the branch of
geography that is associated and deals with humans and their relationships with
communities, cultures, economies, and interactions with the environment by studying
their relations with and across locations.
• Law: Law is a system of rules created and enforced through social or governmental
institutions to regulate behavior.
• Religion: Religion is a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices,
morals and beliefs.
• Art: Art is a wide range of human activities (or the products thereof) that involve
creative imagination and an aim to express technical proficiency, beauty, emotional
power or conceptual ideas.
MAN AND SOCIETY
UNIT 1
SOCIETY
• The word society comes from the latin root “socius”, meaning companion
or being with others.
• A society consists of people who share a territory, who interact with each
other and who share a culture.
• Some societies are in fact, groups of people united by friendship or
common interests.
Our respective societies teach us
1. how to behave
2. what to believe
3. how we will be punished if we don’t follow the laws or customs in place.
COMMON FEATURES OF SOCIETY
1. TERRITORY: most countries have formal boundaries, however a
society’s boundaries don’t have to be geopolitical borders.
2. INTERACTION: members of a society must come in contact with one
another. Geographic distance and language barriers can separate
societies within a country. e.g. 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.
3. CULTURE: refers to the language, values, beliefs, behavior and material
objects that constitute a people’s way of life. e.g. some features of
American culture are the English language, a democratic system of
Govt, cuisine and a belief in individualism and freedom.
Characteristics of Society
1. Society consists of people
2. Mutual Interaction and Mutual Awareness
3. Society depends on Likeness
4. Society rest on difference too
5. Co-operation and Division of Labor
6. Society implies Interdependence also
7. Society is dynamic
8. Social control
9. Culture - “Man is a Social Animal”
TYPES OF SOCIETIES
1. Hunting and Gathering Societies
2. Horticultural and Pastoral Societies
3. Agricultural Societies
4. Industrial Societies
5. Post industrial Societies
Hunting & Gathering Society
HUNTING AND GATHERING
SOCIETIES
• Existed 12,000 years ago
• Survive by hunting game and gathering edible plants.
• BASIC CHARACTERISTICS
1. Primary institution is family
2. Tend to be small
3. They tend to be nomadic
4. Members display a high level of interdependence
5. Labor division is based on gender; men hunt and women gather
The First Social Revolution- the domestication of plants and animals- led to
the birth of Horticultural and Pastoral societies.
Twilight of the Hunter-Gatherers: Pygmies in Africa
HORTICULTURAL AND PASTORAL
SOCIETIES
HORTICULTURAL AND PASTORAL
SOCIETIES
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES
• 10,000-12,000 years ago.
• Sprang in the most fertile areas of the Middle East(Egypt, Iran, Iraq,
Qatar, Saudi, UAE), Latin America and Asia.
• Hand tools used to tend crops( sticks or hoe/ khurpi like instruments
used to punch holes in ground so that crops could be planted).
• People could now grow their own crops.
• They no longer had to leave an area when the food supply was
exhausted, as they could stay in one place until the soil was depleted.
HORTICULTURAL AND PASTORAL
SOCIETIES
PASTORAL SOCIETIES
• Relies on the domestication and breeding of animals for food.
• Some geographic regions, such as the desert regions of North Africa,
cannot support crops, so these societies learned how to domesticate and
breed animals.
• Members move only when the grazing land ceases to be usable.
This led to Job Specialization as not all people were engaged in gathering or
production of food, others produced:
1. crafts,
2. became involved in trade or
3. provided goods as farming tools or clothing.
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES
• 5,000-6,000 YEARS ago
• Second social revolution
• Invention of plough(hal)
• The development of agricultural societies followed this general sequence:
1. Animals are used to pull ploughs.
2. Larger areas of land can then be cultivated.
3. As the soil is aerated during plowing, it yields more crops for longer periods of time.
4. Productivity increases, plenty of food, people do not have to move.
5. Towns form, then cities.
6. Job specialization increases.
7. Economy becomes more complex.
Plough
• Around this same time, the wheel was invented, along with writing, numbers
and what we would today call the arts.
• The invention of the steam engine- the third social revolution – took humans
from agricultural to industrial society.

Roots of Gender Inequality

Males tended to dominate more of the workforce, since physical strength was
necessary to control animals.
Since then, more prestige has been accorded to traditionally male jobs than to
female jobs and hence to more males than to females.
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES
• Began in the mid 1700’s when the steam engine was first used in Great Britain as a means
of running other machines.
• Uses advanced sources of energy.
• By 20th century, industrialized societies changed dramatically:
1. People and goods traversed much longer distances because of invention of automobiles
and harnessing of electricity.
2. Rural areas lost population.
3. Societies became urbanized.
4. Suburbs grew around cities to provide city dwellers alternate places to live.
5. Better food storage.
6. Mass communication.
7. Occupational specialization became more pronounced.
8. Person’s vocation became more of an identifier than his or her family ties.
GEMEINSCHAFT AND
GESELLSCHAFT
Sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies divided societies into two large categories:
1. Gemeinschaft Societies:
• primarily of villages
• everyone knows everyone else
• relationships are lifelong and based on kinship(blood relationship)
2. Gesellschaft Societies:
• modernized
• people have little in common with one other
• relationships are short term and based on self interest with little concern for
the well being of others.
POSTINDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES
POSTINDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES
• Developed over past few decades
• Economy based on services and technology not production.
CHARACTERISTICS:
1. Focus on ideas
2. Need for higher education
3. Shift in workplace from cities to home
MASS SOCIETY: in this, individual achievement is valued over kinship
ties and people often feel isolated from one another. Personal incomes
are generally high and there is great diversity among people.
NORMS
• A norm is a guideline or an expectation for behavior.
• Each society makes up its own rules for behavior and decides when
those rules have been violated and what to do about it.
• Norms change constantly.
How Norms Differ
Norms differ widely among societies and they can even differ from group to group
within the same society.
Norms differ according to;
• Different settings
e.g. the way we are expected to behave in a church differs from the way we are
expected to behave at a party, which also differs from the way we should behave in
a classroom.
• Different countries
e.g. In some African countries, it is acceptable for people in movie theatres to yell
frequently and make loud comments. In USA, people are expected to sit quietly
during a movie and shouting would be unacceptable.
• Different time periods
e.g. In US IN 1950s a woman almost never asked a man out on a date nor did she
pay for the date, but most women today feel comfortable.
Man & Society
Theories
1. Social Contract Theory
•Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau.
2. Organism Theory
• Herbert Spencer
3. Group Mind Theory
• Plato, Higgle
Social Contract Theory
Man in a state of nature is fundamentally good
I
When the idea of private property developed, society had to develop a system to
protect it
I
This system evolved as laws imposed by those with property onto those without
property
I
These laws bind people in unjust ways
I
Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains
Organismic Theory
Herbert Spencer believed that society is a living organism possessing organs, which
perform functions analogues to those of a plant or animal.
Spencer indicates that society resembles an organism in the following important
respects.
(i) Society like organism grows or develops gradually.
(ii)Society and organism both exhibit differential structure functions.
(iii)Both society and organism are composed of units. Society is composed of the
individuals and thus, individuals are considered as the units of society. Similarly,
organism is also composed of different organs such as eyes, ears, hands, legs, head
etc., and these are regarded as the units of an organism.
(iv) In both society and organism there exists close integration or interdependence
of parts.
Structural Analogies
SYSTEM SOCIETY ORGANISM
(Agricultural and Industrial)
Sustaining System Production Growth and
Development
Distributing System Communication and Circulatory System
Transportation
Regulative System Government Nervous System
Spencer is of the view that society differs from human
organism in the following important respects:
(i) In organic growth, nature plays a dominant role and organism
naturally grows. Social growth may be checked or stimulated by human
beings themselves.
(ii) The units of a society are not fixed in their respective positions like
those of the individual organism.
(iii) In an organism, consciousness is concentrated in the small part of
the aggregate, that is, in the nervous system while in a society it is
diffused throughout whole aggregate.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE
Structure refers to any recurring pattern of social behavior or more
specifically to the ordered interrelationship between the different
elements of a social system or society.
Social Structure comprises of
1. Institutional Structure
2. Relational Structure
The core institutional norms and meanings are cultural phenomenon
that exist only as shared ideas and representations in the minds of
individuals.
SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
• An institution is a set of norms surrounding for carrying out the
functions necessary for the survival of a society.
Various social institutions are:
1. Economy: provides for the production and distribution of goods and
services. When people rely on others for goods and services, they must
have something to exchange, such as currency( in industrialized
societies) or other goods or services( in non industrialized societies).

2. Government: institution entrusted with making and enforcing the

rules of a society as well as with regulating relations with other
societies.
3. Family
• a group of people related by either blood, marriage, or
adoption.
• a social institution that unites individuals into cooperative groups
that care for one another, including any children.
• people with or without legal or blood ties who feel they belong
together.

The institution of family has three important functions:

1. To provide for the rearing of children.
2. To provide a sense of identity or belonging among its members.
3. To transmit culture between generations.
Basic Types of Families
• Nuclear Family: family structure comprised of parent(s) and children
• Extended Family: family structure comprised of two or more generations of adults who live in the
same household & share economic resources

Additions to Family Types

• Blended Family: family structure formed when at least partner in a marriage has been married
before and has children from the previous marriage.
• Single Parent Family: family structure in which one parent is head of household raising
children without other parent.
• Childless Family: family structure in which the married couple choose to or cannot have
children.
• Same Sex Family: family structure composed of a homosexual couple living together as a family
with or without children.
Marriage
Reasons for Marriage
o Love
o Arrangement
o Economic Benefit
o Social Class
• Companionship
Two Basic Forms of Marriage
• Monogamy: marriage between one man & one women
• Polygamy: marriage of man/women to more than one person

Two Types of Marriage

• Exogamy: marriage to person outside kind or group
• Result: Heterogamy (different)

• Endogamy: marriage to person inside kind or group

• Result: Homogamy (similar)
• Ex: within race/age/cast
Divorce
• Reasons for Divorce
o women's independence;
o too early marriage;
o economic factors;
o poor intellectual, educational, and social skills;
o liberal divorce laws;
o sexual factors leading to incompatibility;
o role conflicts;
o alcoholism and substance abuse;
o risk-taking behavior;
o differences between the partners
4. Religion
Uniting Traditions: When families attend religious services or put up decorations, they
teach their children about their religion and how to observe it.
Two types:
• Monotheistic: based on the belief in a single deity
• Polytheistic: encompass many deities
Major World Religions:
• Christianity: most widespread religion, believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God
• Islam: Followers are Muslims, believe that the true word of God was revealed to the
prophet Muhammad around 570 AD.
• Hinduism: oldest major World Religion, dominant in India. Believed in principle of
karma and reincarnation.
• Buddhism: follow the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, a spiritual teacher of the 6th C
B.C.
5. Education
Every society has to prepare its young people for a place in adult life
and teach them societal values through a process called education.
Unequal Education
Economic status often determine the quality of education a student
receives.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
It refers to a system of structured inequality which rates and ranks
members of a society based on select criteria and limits access to
wealth, power, privileges and opportunities.
It is not a classification of individuals based on their attributes but an
established system of classifying groups.
Gisbert defines social stratification as “ division of society into
permanent groups or categories linked with each other by the
relationship of superiority and subordination”.
 3 Commonly Recognized Systems of
Stratification
1. estate
2. caste
3. class
ESTATE SYSTEM
• Part of the feudal system
• Prevalent in Europe
• During middle ages
• Closed system
• Social mobility is restricted
• Person’s social position is defined by law based on : land ownership
occupation
hereditary status
The estate system consists of:
1. feudal lords
2. clergy
3. merchants and craftsman
4. serfs
Wealth was concentrated in the hands of the few who enjoyed hereditary status and prestige.
CASTE SYSTEM
• Rigid form of stratification
• Based on: hereditary status
traditional occupation
restrictions on social relationships
CHARACTERISTICS:
1. Hierarchy
2. Hereditary status
3. Traditional occupation
4. Endogamy
5. Theory of pollution
6. Restrictions on social interaction and access to opportunities
7. Castes are localized groups
CASTE SYSTEM
 Brahman (Priests and teachers)
 Kshatriya (Rulers and soldiers)
 Vaishya (Merchants and traders)
 Shudra (Peasants and laborers) CASTE
 Dalit (outcastes doing degrading or polluting labor)

The status is ascribed determined by birth.

CLASS SYSTEM
Social Class- group of individual or families who occupy a similar position in the
economic system of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in
industrial societies.

CHARACTERISTICS:
1. Not rigid but flexible
2. Open system with increased social mobility
3. Based more on achievement than birth
4. Status is achieved than ascribed

Sociologists rely on the following to classify people into classes:

• income
• wealth
• level of education
• type of occupation
• material possession
• lifestyle
Stratification can also be based on:
• GENDER:
Men have had and continue to have more physical and social power and status than
women in the public sphere.
• AGE:
Gordon Marshal ‘Dictionary of Sociology’ defines age stratification as system of
inequalities linked to age.
It separates people in 3 groups according to age:
young,
old and
the rest.
There is unequal distribution of wealth, power and privileges among people at different
stages in the life course.
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