Is Society Real?

"Saying 'there is no society, only men and women,' is like saying that there are no people, only organs. Recognizing the mutuality between, and the reality of, both a whole and its parts is sensible and productive. As with the brain, an understanding of our relation to society benefits from examination on multiple levels."

"One reason the remark has been quoted so often is that it seems able to do double duty as a counter to political liberalism. On the one hand, it appears to challenge claims that individuals cannot be held accountable for their failures because they are mainly 'products of society' rather than of their own choices. On the other hand, it seems to undercut the liberal view that individuals have obligations to society."

Margaret Thatcher's famous statement that society does not exist, only individual men and women, has been widely cited to counter liberal political arguments about individual accountability and social obligations. The remark appears to challenge the idea that individuals are products of society and to undermine claims that society can impose obligations on its members. However, this perspective contains a fundamental logical flaw: denying society's existence while acknowledging individuals is equivalent to claiming people exist without organs forming a brain. Society functions as a real, multi-level phenomenon that cannot be reduced to individual components alone. Understanding social dynamics requires examining relationships across multiple levels of analysis, similar to how understanding the brain requires studying both individual neurons and integrated systems. Individuals can effectively shape their social institutions through active engagement and effort.

Read at Psychology Today