How people view "society"

[oremosjuntos]

Hey all!

I’ve been noticing that when people define “society” around a secular setting they refer to traditional values, the Church, institutions, and people who are against what they believe to be right, such as in same-sex marriage. They often view “society” negative, while, for us in the faith actually see the opposite. People, like myself, view society as everyone in general, the media, etc., and not a select few who just say no to everything. I think this is based on the assumption that anyone who’s opposed to something just states a firm “no” and disregards the subject. For the Church, we know that this is definitely not true, I mean, look at all the works, religious and lay people alike, go about explaining certain issues not on just doctrinal terms, but under the light of the oral tradition passed down for centuries, revelation, Tradition with a capital “T”, and the words of Christ Himself. That’s our foundation! Anyways, have you others seen this type of contradiction between the definition of society between how it’s defined in a Catholic setting and a secular setting?

 

[LoveandMercy]

Yes society means absolutely nothing to me, in the sense of being a thing of the world… Worldly sense… You know society is a weak terminology that gets used … Overused in a bigot type of way - aiming bigot at secular people.

 

[Sentinel947]

Society=Popular culture. Secular, Non Catholic. Many people here use it because we feel Catholicism is not “in” or culturally popular.

 

[Jared2914]

Yes, the word means different things to different people. I use it on these forums to represent the majority of people in the US, and the majority are non-Catholics or Catholics that are not practicing. If you add up those numbers, you will see probably 75% of the population is in that group. So “society” represents the common opinion, which is secular. They don’t follow the Church or God. They only care what they want right this second, a selfish viewpoint.

 

[SecretCatholic]

It’s a nebulous concept, used to generalize and often to justify wrong actions. I suppose we could just replace the word with the term “the public opinion” in most contexts. Its usefulness is limited by this broad definition.

 

[GEddie]

It’s a nebulous concept, used to generalize and often to justify wrong actions. I suppose we could just replace the word with the term “the public opinion” in most contexts. Its usefulness is limited by this broad definition.

Not really; “society” is the aggregate of people that form a government, thorough which to make everybody do its will.

ICXC NIKA

 

[empther]

“The story of man is that the individual must deal with the world.”

“When something goes wrong he’s to blame, she’s to blame, neither is to blame. The world is to blame.”

Society has structure, but it also has chaos. “What’s in it for me?” takes priority over “we’re all in this together”.

 

[RC_Sojourner]

Not really; “society” is the aggregate of people that form a government, thorough which to make everybody do its will.
ICXC NIKA

Yes, this is basically correct.

Society is simply a reflection of how all individuals live their lives in a _______ nation. I could’ve said society there.]

So, you can have a multi-racial society, a multi-lingual society. Or you can have a relatively homogenous society in terms of race and language.

Anyways, I think its bad to talk about “society” too much, because then we forget what it is, a reflection of many individuals. For instance, our society reflects that most people commute too and from work, most people watch television, use the internet, etc, etc. Have smart phones, let alone cellphones.

What does a society look like where most people are blue collar workers, who live within walking distance of where they work? A society where most families have someone who served in WWII, who wen through rationing, who planted Victory Gardens, and who constructed bomb shelters in the backyard?

Right… I hope the above 2 examples give a pretty clear picture as to what we do in our daily lives has a huge impact on “society”. Society is simply a reflection of many individuals, that are grouped together- mainly by the places they live- same country, same state, same city, etc. Or by ethnic group, language they speak, religion, etc.

-I’m a history and political science major