Brief Essay on Man as a Social Animal

Here is your essay on Man as a Social Animal!

Long ago, Aristotle expressed that ‘Man is essentially a social animal by nature’. He cannot live without society, if he does so; he is either beast or God. Man realises his goals, his existence in the society: he finds various ingredients in society through which he can attain the perfectness of the life. The day, he is born to the day he leaves this planet he is in the society

Man like ‘Robinson Crusoe’ can never develop his personality, language, culture and ‘inner deep’ by living outside the society. The statement that a man is a social animal implies that man cannot live without society. Society is indispensable for him. He needs society as matter of nature, necessity and for his well being. All these three implications are explained as follows:

1. Man is a social animal by nature. Man’s nature is such that he cannot afford to live alone. No human being is known to have normally developed in isolation. Maclver has cited three cases in which infants were isolated from all social relationships to make experiments about man’s social nature. The first case is of Kaspar Hauser who from his childhood until his seventeenth year was brought up in the woods of Nuremberg.

In his case it was found that at the age of seventeen he could hardly walk, had the mind of an infant and could mutter only a few meaningless phrases. In spite of his subsequent education he could never make himself a normal man.

The second case was of two Hindu children who in 1929 were discovered in a wolf den. One of the children died soon after discovery. The other child could walk only on all four, possessed no language except wolf like growls. She was shy of human being and afraid of them. It was only after careful and sympathetic training that she could learn some social habits.

The third case was of Anna, an illegitimate American child who had been placed in a room at the age of six months and discovered five years later. On discovery it was found that she could not walk or speak and was indifferent to people around her.

These cases prove that human being is social by nature. Human nature develops in man only when he lives in society, only when he shares with his fellow beings a common life. The accounts of the noble savage free from all social restraints living in woods and appeasing his appetite with the fruits are idyllic tales devoid of all historical value. Even the sadhus who have retired from worldly life live in the company of their fellows in the forest.

All this tends to show that society is something which fulfills a vital need in man’s constitution, it is not something accidentally added to or super imposed on human nature. His very existence is wielded into the fabrics of society. He knows himself and his fellow beings within the framework of society. Indeed, man is social by nature.

2. Man lives in society because necessity compels him so. Many of his needs will remain unsatisfied if he does not have the cooperation of his fellow beings. Every individual is the off- spring of a social relationship established between man and woman. The child is brought up under the care of his parents and learns the lessons of citizenship in their company.

If the newborn’ baby does not receive protection and attention by the society, he would not survive even a day. We get our needs of food, shelter arid clothing fulfilled only by living and cooperating with others. The stories of cases cited above prove that people reared among animals away from human beings remained animals in habits. The importance of society for physical and mental development is thus obvious. No one can become a human being unless he lives with human beings.

Fear of wild animal makes some seek cooperation of other; the satisfaction of food hunger, rest-hunger etc. through exchange or barter may bring some into relation; joint action and division of labour may be found necessary for the achievement of some common end which the individual alone may not be able to secure. The need for self-preservation, which is felt by every being makes a man social. Therefore, it is not due to his nature alone but also due to his necessities that man lives in society.

3. Man lives in society for his mental and intellectual development. Society preserves our culture and transmits it to succeeding generations. It both liberates and limits our- potentialities as individuals and moulds our attitudes, our beliefs, our morals and ideals.

The mind of a man without society, as feral cases show, remains the mind of an infant even at the age of adulthood. The cultural heritage directs our personality. Thus society fulfills not only our physical needs but also determines our mental equipment.

It therefore stands established beyond any doubt that man is a social animal. Man requires society as a sine qua non condition for his life as a human being. It is not one or a few particular needs or tendencies of man that compel him to live in society but without it his personality cannot come into being.

On the basis of the above discussion it may be concluded that individuals and society are interdependent. The relationship between them is not one-sided; both are essential for the comprehension of other. Neither the individuals belong to society as cells belong to the organism, not the society a mere contrivance to satisfy certain human needs. Neither the society itself has a value beyond the service which it renders to its members, not the individuals can thrive without society.

Neither the society is inimical to the development of individuality, nor it exists in its own right. In fact, both are complementary and supplementary to each other. Cooley writes: “A separate individual is an obstruction unknown to experience and individuals. Society and individuals do not denote separate phenomena but are simply collective and distributive aspects of the same thing.”

Explaining the relationship between individual and society Marcher observes: “Society with all the traditions, the institutions, the equipment it provides a great changeful order of social life, arising from the psychological as well as the physical needs of the individual, an order wherein human beings are born and fulfill themselves with whatever limitations and wherein they transmit to coming generations the requirement of living. We must reject any view of this pattern that sees the relationship between individual and society from merely one or the other side”.