How does a society emerge? Is it communism or capitalism that gives birth to it? Is it physical or conceptual? Can a nation or state have multiple societies? Is society communistic or capitalistic?
Here are my answers:
Power distributed and exercised hierarchically among groups and individuals is a requirement for the concept of society to emerge in a certain group or community. No wonder among indigenous peoples who are egalitarian and still untouched by civilization, they have no concept of society. In the fifties, there were forest-dwelling hunting and gathering groups who had no idea that they had been living in the Philippines. Even their concept of community was not clear. They went by kinship. Some Amazon Indians had the same experience. They had had no idea before loggers, pharmaceutical researchers, and missionaries reached them that they were part of Brazil.
It was not communism but communalism that gave birth to early societies. Our ancestors had to form communities for protection, warfare, resources, labor, power, and wealth. Nowadays, it's capitalism that gives birth to the concept of society among indigenous peoples. It's the capitalists who have changed the cultural landscape of the Amazon. Amazon Indians have learned that there is such a thing as "Brazilian society" because of the power that has reached and subjugated them. They have to accept its existence so their experience of being the exploited will make sense.
Society is purely conceptual, but it is oftentimes treated as physical. It is no different to our conceptualization and objectification of the universe. Such physicalization of society has something to do with the reduction and materialization of the vast cosmic universe we abstractly understand and cannot fathom. Cosmology has been replaced with society. Before society, comets, the stars, and the moon were blamed for illnesses, war loses, famine, floods. Now, we have politicians, governments, institutions, organizations, banks to blame for poverty, diseases, war, economic crisis.
Since society is conceptual, America, for example, can have multiple societies. American Feminists believe there's a patriarchal American society. I don't think such patriarchy exists in the consciousness of most American men. Blacks will always have the feeling of being in a racist American society because of their historical struggle. I don't think most Whites will accept they're racists. Multiple societies within a meta-society are possible because of the existence of multiple power structures or cells. Using America again, racial, political, cultural, economic, religious forms of power contribute to how the American Society, as a whole, is dissected, divided, and understood by different victimized and subjugated groups.
The very foundation of society is capitalistic. It's the power hierarchically distributed and exercised that gives birth to it. There's no communist(ic) society as Marx wanted. A communist(ic) society has no social norms, codes, and standards; thus its existence is not lasting. Communism, in my understanding, is not really a moral ideology but an anarchist one. We should learn from the experiments of Mao and Pol Pot, where anyone could be soldiers, executioners, "doctors," "lawyers," or all. The result was chaos. There's society because of hierarchy-- the demonized "class" to Marxists. Without hierarchy, there's no social order. It is social order, the basis of society, communism wants to destroy. How can communism be its foundation?
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