Download WORD - Indian Journal of Applied and Clinical Sociology

Ind. J. of Applied & Clinical Sociology 11 (1), 2016, 18-22
ISSN: 2230-9772 (Print); 2347-5927 (Online)
©: Human Development & Welfare Institute
A DICHOTOMY OF SOCIETY AND ITS INSTITUTIONS
DR. S.K.SHARMA 1
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Research Scholar, Human Development & Welfare institute, Patna.
A social institution is a complex,
integrated set of social norms organized
around the preservation of a basic societal
value. Obviously, the sociologist does not
define institutions in the same way as does
the person on the street. Lay persons are
likely to use the term "institution" very
loosely, for churches, hospitals, jails, and
many other things as institutions.
the development and maintenance of
orders. Sociologists operating in terms of
the functionalist model society have
provided the clearest explanation of the
functions served by social institutions.
Apparently there are certain minimum
tasks that must be performed in all human
groups. Unless these tasks are performed
adequately, the group will cease to exist.
An analogy may help to make the point.
We might hypothesize that cost
accounting department is essential to the
operation of a large corporation. A
company might procure a superior
product and distribute it then at the price
which is assigned to it, the company will
soon go out of business. Perhaps the only
way to avoid this is to have a careful
accounting of the cost of each step in the
production and distribution process
(Sociologyguide, 2015).
Sociologists often reserve the term
"institution" to describe normative
systems that operate in five basic areas of
life, which may be designated as the
primary institutions. (1) In determining
Kinship; (2) in providing for the legitimate
use of power; (3) in regulating the
distribution of goods and services; (4) in
transmitting knowledge from one
generation to the next; and (5) in
regulating our relation to the supernatural.
In shorthand form, or as concepts, these
five basic institutions are called the family,
government, economy, education and
religion.
India has been home to entire range of
social institutions since its antiquities.
There are all those texts that suggested
that most of social institutions originated
in India and propagated outside. The
institutions like family, education, religion,
economy, and state originated in India
however modern India have several
secondary institutions that not originated
in India and came from outsides. There
are sufficient text suggesting all those
The five primary institutions are found
among all human groups. They are not
always as highly elaborated or as distinct
from one another as into the United
States, but, in rudimentary form at last,
they exist everywhere. Their universality
indicates that they are deeply rooted in
human nature and that they are essential in
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primary social institutions originating in
India however there are very little texts
suggesting that there was society in India
even without all those social institutions. It
is not necessary that for survival and
existence a society would need all kinds of
social institutions. In fact freedom of
people getting lost due to overriding
provisions and functions of all those
institutions. The world is becoming global
and there would be new emerging new
social institutions what we may like or
dislike.
in particular types of social structures and
organizing relatively stable patterns of
human activity with respect to
fundamental problems in producing lifesustaining resources, in reproducing
individuals, and in sustaining viable
societal structures within a given
environment.”
Moreover, there are a variety of theoretical
accounts of social institutions, including
sociological as well as philosophical ones.
Social institutions need to be distinguished
from less complex social forms such as
conventions, rules, social norms, roles and
rituals. The latter are among the
constitutive elements of institutions. Social
institutions also need to be distinguished
from more complex and more complete
social entities, such as societies or cultures,
of which any given institution is typically a
constitutive component. A society, for
example, is more complete than an
institution since a society—at least as
traditionally understood—is more or less
self-sufficient in terms of human
resources, whereas an institution is not.
Social institutions are also organizations or
systems of organizations. Further, some
institutions are meta-institutions; they are
institutions such as government.
Creation of institution after institutions
and not ending earlier institution making
society reeling under great stress. Social
institutions are in every society and they
enabled and disabled different social
institutions differently. The globalization
and emerging modern society have created
new social institutiions and made existing
social institutions to bend or reshape. This
process would continues and almost a
range of social insitutions and its
functions, roles would get affected or
getting affected.
A society can exist without a social
institution as there would not be any
concept about the institution. The all
institutions and its secondary forms are
manufactured and have hidden and
manifested functions. Health, knowledge,
justice, and security could be ensured
without all those institutions.
It is sometimes claimed that in addition to
structure and function, social institutions
necessarily involve sanctions. It is
uncontroversial that social institutions
involve informal sanctions, such as moral
disapproval following on non-conformity
to institutional norms. There are atomistic
and holistic accounts of institutions in
addition to collective acceptance theory
and the teleological theory.
The term, “social institution” refers to
complex social forms that reproduce
themselves such as governments, the
family, human languages, universities,
hospitals, business corporations, and legal
systems (Zalta, 2007). Jonathan Turner has
defined social institutions as “a complex of
positions, roles, norms and values lodged
Searle’s theory of social institutions makes
use of three primitive notions, namely,
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collective intentionality, status functions
and a language with declaratives.
or foundations on which all those primary
institutions are based. So can decline of
entire secondary institutions would
ultimately would cause total collapse of all
those primary institutions. If the concept
would die then there would be family
without the idea of family, there would be
economy without the idea and concept of
economy, there would be education
without the concept of education, and
there would be state without a concept of
state. Even a religion could function
without a concept of religion.
It is convenient to conceive of social
institutions as possessed of three
dimensions, namely, structure, function
and culture. However, it needs to be kept
in mind that this is potentially misleading
since, as we saw above, there are
conceptual differences between functions
and ends. While the structure, function
and culture of an institution provide a
framework within which individuals act,
they do not fully determine the actions of
individuals.
Dying of those concepts and movement of
those concepts would affect the society.
Any malfunction of the secondary
institution only causes temporary damage
to the primary institutions and ultimately
that secondary institution gets corrected or
replaced by another secondary institution.
Distribution of justice is the basic demand
by the society and its members. In the
words of Ramdhari Singh Dinkar “Nyay jo
Chrayega, Ran Ko Voh Bulayaega”. If
there would be unequal distribution of
resources, opportunities, and if there
would be injustice there would not be
peace in the society.
A level of dichotomy persisted between
functioning of different secondary
institutions causing disorganization to the
concerned primary social institutions. If a
secondary institution within the primary
institution of family such as marriage,
patriarchy, matriarchy would mal function
then family would disorganize. Likewise if
short term marriages, short marital
relationship, living relationships, extra
marital relationships, prostitution would
be preferred then it would damage to the
primary institution of family.
Rise and fall of societies, nations, groups,
and institutions are a regular phenomenon.
The longevity factor depended upon the
matrix of all those interactions among
individuals, groups, and institutions.
There is a permanency factor associated
with all the primary social institutions. The
functioning of secondary institutions do
not cause total fall of those primary
institutions of family, education, economy,
religion, and state. Though different
scholars do see a scope for a society
without a family, education, religion,
economy, and state. The permanency
associated with primary social institutions
could be a matter of illusion because if
there would be no secondary institution
the existence of all those primary
intuitions would cease to exist because
there would be a total absence of any idea
Compulsory
schooling,
evaluation,
competition, and employment would
damage
education.
If
priesthood,
devotion, and blind faith would be more
valued then there would be fall of religion.
If banks, share market, and currency
would be stronger and if development or
welfare economy, Marxian approach
towards economy would be stronger then
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there would be fall of economy. If
government, courts, army would become
stronger then state would be weakened.
A children can take birth without a
marriage and can be nurtured without the
concept of a family. Justice can be
delivered without courts and their
proceedings. Education can be ensured
without formal education such as schools,
colleges, universities, and institutions.
Society can be defended without army.
Economy can prosper and deliver without
government, rules, banks, share market,
and currencies. A news or message may be
propagated without newspapers and mass
media. An economy can function without
the concept of profit, loss, recession,
demand, supply, marketing, and inflation.
All those not holistic symptoms only
troubles and give pain to humans whereas
an economy may run without those
concepts. Such concepts are mainly due to
faulty objectives and functions of social
institutions.
Therefore fall of secondary institutions
would not led towards an institution less
society however it would be needed to
total fall of idea about individualism, sense
of belonging, kinship, and kingships.
Certainly a society without an institution is
possible.
Conflict is the core principle of the
creation and existence. The world existed
because a conflicts of materials, ideas, and
actions. With every idea, action, and
thought always remaining in conflict with
one another. Even at individual levels
people remain conflicted by ideas, actions,
and thought within oneself. The conflict
could cause those ideas, thoughts, and
actions to get annihilate, divert, reorganize,
and even total nonexistence. Therefore
this entire creation certainly existed due to
conflicts.
The idea of conflict and cooperation
always exited and cooperation leads to
creation while conflict leads to roll back of
creation. The rollback of creation certainly
means the fall of idea of conflict or
cooperation. The idea may be due to
consciousness. Then during roll back the
consciousness separates and all wordily
action ceases. A society cannot do without
consciousness however, it may sustain
with a sense of detachment or without the
cognizance of self. Attachment and
cognizance of the self is the core reason of
formation of those institutions and that
may be eliminated even totally with
detachment and derecognizing the self.
Freedom form bondage could not be
easily caused in presence of all those social
institutions. Social institutions fast
becoming burden and making a wastage of
social value produce and creating conflicts.
The conflict being the supreme force of
creation and therefore all those primary
and social institutions existed and may fail
to exist due to conflicts. Suppose if there
would be no conflict then there would not
be existence and there would not be those
primary and secondary institutions.
Therefore if we want to go for an
institution less society then it would
require to make conflict total nonexistent.
How there would be end of total conflict.
Does this creation would fail to exist
without conflict then why we talk so much
about conflict management? If conflict is
just one aspect because a sense of
cooperation counters those conflicting
ideas. If conflicting ideas gets replaced by
the idea of cooperation then even also an
institution less society could exist.
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Most of the institutions not functioned
well. Freedom would occur if there would
be all institutions on equal footing. No
one would be more important or less
important. Social hierarchy, ranking, and
mobility are bad considerations.
all those social institutions and their
functions. People could be fixed in the
name of race, caste, color, language,
religion, nationality, urban, rural, literate,
illiterate, rich and poor.
There are society where one or some
social institutions existed. There are
societies without schools, yet they excel in
education. There are secular societies, and
there are societies without economy
however, still there could be a society
where any of those social institutions
being absent.
Different institutions with their functions
have compartmentalized the society and
therefore there could not be universal
society or whole world as one family or
society. For making all the world one
community including environment and
other animals it would require to dismantle
References
Sociologyguide. (2015). Sociology Guide to Students. Retrieved from
http://www.sociologyguide.com/basic-concepts/Social-Institutions.php
Zalta, E. N. (2007). Social Institutions. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/social-institutions/>. .
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