THE MACRO-SOCIAL UNITS OF SOCIETY

Though we live in an international economy, the social unti of effective action is

the political society, primarily the nation-state. The nation is unit of competition
between states in the international order; the national society is the domestic
arena for political.

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It the basis of a claim of Aryan sueriority over other white races, and of the white
as against all others. Race today is a discredited idea, but thay very fact now
gives it a powerful negative affect in the accusation of racism which can hurled
against groups or even entire societes, such as that white culture in America is
racist, or that major institutions are racist, and so on. In that negative way,
racism, again, has become a blanket term.
Color, which once played a minor and submerged role and was even a negative
identification, since in the United States or India, or other mixed societes, one
usually married up to lighter color), today is used positive, binding role-in the
concept of negritude, or that black is beautiful. The great scare of Aryan
theorists in the early part of twentieth century was that the next century would
seea color war between peoples. Paradoxically, the theme of a color war, to
the extent it is voiced, nowcomes from black extremists who seek to use the idea
as a way of bringing a social group together, or to make scare demands on
dominant groups and nations.
Language identification finds its stength where groups have distinct cultural
identification through language, but finf themselves commingled nationally and
politically; for example, India where there are large linguistic groups such as the
Bengalis, Gujeratis, Marathis, whose language is spoken by tens of millions; in
Belgium, split between Finland and Wallons; or where the linguistic identification
serves to identify a submerged group, for example, Tamil in Sri Lanka, French in
Canada, and so on.
Given these multiple overlapping components, the term ethnicty is clearly a
confusing one. It may be either a residual category, designating some common
group tie not identified distinctively by language, color, or religion but rather by
common history and coherence through common symbol, for example, the
WASPs as ethnic; or it may be a generic term which allows one to identify loosely
any minority group within a dominant pattern, even though the particular unit of
identificationmay be national origin ( Irish, Italian, Polein the United States),

linguistic, racial or religious. Some sociologists have sought to escape these

confusions by talking of priprimordial groups as the sociological category for
primary ties.
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Reserving the particular designation of national, linguistic or religious groups for
the specific historical context. The term primordial, however, also includes clans
and tribes, or even extended families, and thus has its own limitations. The term
ascriptive Groups has been proposed for those whose ties are bound or given
in some way, as against achievement groups; but the term is embedded in an
analytical sociology that is too austere to be used for sociographic purposes.
Though there is an obvious difficultly in using the term ethnic in any consistent
way, that common designation for culturally defined communal group is too
pervasive to escape, and by and large, it will have to serve.
Class. Class is an economically based group, defined in ideological or interest
terms, in relation to the structure of production, or occupation, or the market.
The conditionsunder which a class can become a highly effective symbolic and
corporate unit depend on the context of conflict. Identification with a calass ( as
with all other social units) competes with the wide array of other modes of
attachment open to an individual. The strength of the class tie lies in the fact
that it is derived from an interest; and this has been the effective basis of
common action. Yet the very notion of class, with its overtones of social
differentiation, also carries with it, for every class but the highest, alowered
sociaol ranking and esteem and a sense of inferiority which, if reinforced by
distinctions in language (accent), manners, and tastes, reduces the ability of a
class identification to be an effective source of cohesion.
The embourgeoisement of the working class in advanced industrial societes,
plus, in the earier years of the twentieth century, a sense of strong national
identification, has tended to diminish the power of corporate class
consciousness. In the first half of the twentieth century it would not have been
uncommon for a worker in England or Sweden to say, i will rise with my class,
not out of it. It is doubtful that one would hear such sentiment is one of the
factors one as sociates with the rise of ethnic identification.
Sex. A half dozen years ago, one would not havelisted gender as a major macrosocial unit, yet in the United States and to a lesser extent in other western
societies, identification on the basis of sex is relevant in the demarcation of
effective acting units in the social arena. Just as with color, sexual identification
(womens liberation) cuts acreoss class or religion as an action unit in claiming
group rights.
The intention of this board classification should be apparent by now. There are
few, if any, identifications of a board social character that are exclusive as a
mode of emotional attachment. There is such a multiplicity of interests and
identities that inevitably they cross-cut each other in extraordinary fashions.In
india, an original demarcation was religious between Hindus and Muslims; and

after independence the country was partitioned primarily on that basis into india
and paskistan. Yet there was equally a cultural as well as geographical
demarcration among the Pakistani between Bengalis and West Pakistanis ( and
the latter include among themselves a half dozen distinct linguistic and cultural
groups) which finally led to separatist revolt by the Bengalis that itself raised
other questions. In eastern India, is the axis of demarcration to be cultural and
linguistic ( combining Dacca and Calcutta) in common Bengali state, or do the
Bengalis remain divided religiously between Muslim and Hindu, resulting in an
independent Bangladesh and the Bengali state within India? In Israel and the
Middle East, is it class or natiional feeling ( and what is Jordan?) or revolutionary
ideology that is the overriding identification? At one time, left wing Zionists
hoped to unite Jewish workers and Arab workers in one class front against the
bourgeoisie. But that effort failed. And though there is a Jewish Communist
party in Israel, it finds itself constantly torn apart by the national issue.
Identity and group definition- is not only immediately spatial, that is, the
relation with ones immadiate neighbors, but in volves levels of inclusiveness as
well. In Spain, one can think of oneself as a Basque or Catalan, or Castillian or
Andalusian; yet outside Spainj,one is a Spaniard as against a Frechman or Italian,
and, in a third level, as a European as against the American. One may be an
Argentinian, or a Chilean, or a Brazilian, but one is also
The intetion
Intermediete Social Units
1.Political parties
2. Functional groups
a. Major economic interests; business, farm, labor
b. Segmented economic interest; for example, professional associations
c. Economic comunal groups; for example, the poor, the aged, the disabled
3. Armies
4. Voluntary associations (for example, consumer, civic)
5. Age-graded groups (for example, youth, students)
6. Ethos communal groups ( ex: community of science)
7. Symbolic and expressiveidentifications
a. Regional (ex: Texans)
b. Socially deviant ( ex. Homosexual)