What is society?

This position defines society as a group bound by shared territory. It argues that societies evolved around the spaces people occupy — shaped by the bond between people and place — giving rise to a sense of spatial belonging and a tendency to mobilise around possession of land.

This position holds that society is defined by a shared culture. It argues that societies emerge around common values, beliefs, and tenets, and that a shared language binds their members together into a coherent, cooperating whole.

This position defines society as a group bound by a shared goal. It holds that societies form because people must collaborate to solve common problems or pursue common ends — arguing that without society humans are merely selfish, and that the state is society's fullest expression.

This position holds that society is a prison. It argues that societies are confinements of our own making, stifling individualism and free thought, and that collective rationalisation has effectively imprisoned the individual within shared norms and expectations.

This position holds that 'society' means different things to different people, with no single universal definition. It argues that societies vary so vastly from one another that no shared attribute captures them all, and that each society is defined by its own participants.

This position holds that society does not really exist. It argues there is no such thing as a collective 'society'—that what we take for it is merely the sum of randomised individual behaviour and interactions, since ultimately we are all separate individuals acting on our own.