THE 10 MOST IMPORTANT FUNCTIONS OF SOCIETY - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The functions of society are oriented to guarantee the survival and progress of individuals. Some of the most important are meeting basic needs, preserving order, or education.

In that sense, society is a form of organization in which people agree and order their way of life and the way in which they will manage their resources. Without society, millions of people could not survive and the human population would be much smaller.

For this, institutions have emerged such as the set of rules or organizations that coordinate the behavior of people in relation to an area of ​​their lives. The State, the church or the security forces are examples of such institutions.

Society is the object of study of sociologists and has been the concern of many philosophers throughout history.

Main functions of society

Among the main functions of the company we can mention:

1. Satisfaction of basic needs

It is the primary function of society; organize people and their actions in such a way that they are guaranteed food, shelter and vital protection.

This is also where public health comes in, which, although it tends to fall to the State, is a primary need of organized people; ensure sanitation to prevent the spread of disease and medical attention if required.

2. Preservation of order

It is the function that involves the different security bodies, formal and informal, created to protect the life and property of individuals. They become a social institution because their role is to meet a fundamental need of people.

The order also refers to the rules, norms or laws that guide the behavior of people in the different stages and situations of their life from birth to death.

Some philosophers have proposed that this is the main function of the organization of man in society: to control his irrational and savage impulses.

3. Education management

Within society, individuals acquire the necessary knowledge to interact with their peers, in the first instance. But then they are also trained to make the most of their abilities, talents, and interests.

Living in community allows human beings to be social by nature, discovering and developing their own personality by putting it into action in front of another human being.

This community should provide the necessary conditions for each individual to have the opportunity to learn from the language, history and culture of that group, to how to use their own abilities for their growth and progress within the group.

4. Management of the economy

The distribution of goods and services is another concern within a social group.

Society, as a system, generates and distributes material goods and services that will be used to satisfy the basic and secondary needs of the human beings that comprise it.

This distribution occurs in accordance with the social and political philosophy that said society assumes as its own.

5. Power management

Just as the distribution of goods and services is a crucial concern within society, the conformation of figures and / or power groups also occupies a large part of life in society.

The administration of power from the institutions is what has led the human being to face wars and disputes throughout its history.

Depending on the socio-political doctrine that prevails in a certain social group, that power will be centralized in the State or distributed among the different institutions that make up that group.

In this function appears that human dimension according to which the roles of dominance or submission are adopted and the most primitive tensions of the desire to possess are resolved.

In fact, the delimitation of a domain territory, enters into this function since the territorial limits will end up being the jurisdictional limits.

This also means that the management of power must take place within the social group but also in relation to other groups.

6. Division of labor

The organization in society also allows defining the roles in terms of the work that each individual will fulfill given the needs to be satisfied.

Building buildings, providing security and food, educating, establishing communication channels, developing technologies, are all tasks that involve the conjunction of different roles and the application of different levels of strength and intelligence.

Living in society makes this reality clear and guides people towards a distribution of the workforce that allows all tasks to be fulfilled to provide well-being to individuals.

7. Communication management

For the human being, the need for expression and communication is inherent, so in society the conditions are created for that need to be satisfied.

This includes from the language to the communication channels (streets, bridges, etc.) between the different members of the social group, as well as between these and the other social groups.

If in primitive societies orality or artistic expressions such as dance or paintings were the most widely used ways of communicating, today it is communication and information technologies (ICTs) that facilitate this task.

The members of society are concerned with using the communication tools that are available and developing others that are increasingly sophisticated, in order to guarantee the continuity of the culture of that group in the following generations.

8. Preservation and transmission of culture

Each society develops common forms of behavior that are transmitted between its members and to subsequent generations. This is a necessary function for the distinction of social groups and for the preservation of diversity.

Culture is influenced by the conditions or characteristics that surround the social group, be they geographical, historical or political.

The way of doing things to survive is learned in the relationship with others that is fostered in society.

9. Leisure

The fun of the members of a social group is also something that must be considered, since the human being also requires moments of relaxation.

Living in society provides the necessary infrastructure and technology so that people can take advantage of their free time as they prefer.

Regardless of the diverse opinions that may be generated regarding this or that way of experiencing leisure, social groups generate these spaces and thereby contribute to satisfying another human need that, in the end, affects people's health.

10. Religiosity

The human being throughout its history and regardless of its location, has manifested the imperative need to experience its religiosity. That expression of a relationship with transcendence.

Man seems to have the need to believe that there is something superior to him, an origin of Everything. From this need, different responses have been elaborated that, later, materialize in different religious expressions.

Living in society allows you to share with others the experience of a religion, of a communion with another entity that seems to give meaning to life.

Religiosity also functions as a social atomizer, as a form of organization in which very particular rules, codes and forms of communication are elaborated for believers in the same dogma.

All these functions are interdependent and progressive in their complexity since the more mature a society is, the more refined must be the ways in which these functions must be fulfilled.

References

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