Society is inside man and man is inside society

Society is the most important concept used in sociology. It is the first and foremost
social group of human kind. It is as old as human being itself. The very existence of human
beings is tied up with society. When man’s collective life is institutionalized society came
into existence. Different institutions like family, school and state develops on the basis of
value system. All these institutions constitute human society.
The key to the mysteries of human nature is to be found in society. Society is the
human being in his social relations, and every human being is an individual personification
of social relations, a product not only of the existing social system but of all world history.
They absorbs what has been accumulated by the centuries and passed on through
traditions. Modern man carries within himself all the ages of history and all his own
individual ages as well. His personality is a concentration of various sections of culture. He
is influenced not only by modern mass media, but also by the writings of all times and
every nation. He is the living memory of history, the focus of all the wealth of knowledge,
abilities, skills, and wisdom that have been amassed through the ages.
It is sometimes said that society carries the individual as a river carries a boat. This
is a pleasant simile, but not exact. An individual does not float with the river; he is the
emotionally flowing river itself. The events of social life do not come about by themselves;
they are made. The great and small paths of the laws of history are blazed by human effort
and often at the expense of human blood. The laws of history are not charted in advance by
superhuman forces; they are made by people, who then submit to their authority as
something that is above the individual.
As a result of the conventional revolutions that followed, the owners of capital
acquired every privilege, and also political power. The noble demand that had been
inscribed on the banners of the predictable revolutions—liberty, equality and fraternity—
turned out to mean an abundance of privileges for some and oppression for others.
Individualism blossomed forth, an individualism in which everybody considered himself
the hub of the universe and his own existence and prosperity more important than anyone
else's. People set themselves up in opposition to other people and to society as a whole.
Such mutual isolation is a disease that corrupts the social whole. The life of another person,
even one's nearest, becomes no more than a temporary show, a passing cloud. The growing
government, utilitarianism and technologist in culture considerably narrow the
opportunities for human individuality to express and develop itself. The individual
becomes an insignificant cog in the gigantic machine controlled by capital. Separation
makes itself felt with particular force.