March 19th - What Makes Societies as they are

 Relying on what I learnt in my sociology classes I think that a good starting point in trying to find out just what it is that keeps societies as they are is the word ‘culture’ which describes the very essence of our everyday lives, how we live day by day, how we get our needs met, how we relate to each other and how we live within a system of values and beliefs.  

The term ‘CULTURE’ has been used by anthropologists to refer to all the procedures and trappings which make day to day life in any group possible -  the language, religion, behaviour, values, rituals  and social customs of any group.

It seems that an interesting and perhaps significant distinction can be made between the cultures of:
Pre-industrial societies which were land-based with their needs almost exclusively being met by the land they occupied, their population size controlled by the resources of their land (Not quite sure how this happens but it probably involves starvation and misery but I can't go into that now) and their culture very much locally determined and  
Industrial societies whose populations, after development,  grew (and their culture changed)  because they were supported by resources (and ideas!)  being imported from far and wide.

Our culture isn’t set in stone but is constantly changing and we learn it through a process of ’socialisation'  from a very early age.  We quickly pick up customs and rituals, the expectations of others, our place in the order of things and this becomes our ‘social reality’ which is largely beyond question.  

Its interesting and significant for our exploration of what’s wrong with our 21^st world that we can distinguish between  the way people were socialised in  earlier times (as well as current day societies as yet untouched by ‘development’) and our modern-day 'developed' world dominated as it is by industrial production.  I’ll think about that next.