If society does indeed make people what it needs them to be, the obvious following question is this: what is society’s goal? What are the “imperatives society has to pursue” (Peet 140)? If society’s needs are met by the state of its people, the answer lies then in examining what the people are and do. The overwhelming number of people in the United States seem occupied with the buying and selling of commodities, anywhere from Hummers to Hershey’s to Hallmark’s. Somehow the production of items such as massive cars, chocolates, and greeting cards seems to be less urgent than the “imperatives” described by Parsons.
The notion that society is driven forward by needs seems to have little historical support. The most primitive societies of man, such as those of the Kalahari bushmen described by Sahlins in The Post-Developed Reader, have remained static in their development for millennia and yet seem to have very little specialization, roles, or driving imperatives. Toennies attempts to argue away inconvenient examples of societies such as the bushmen’s by dividing societies into two categories: gemeinschaft and gesellschaft, claiming that the first traditional, communal-style society exists in families or neighborhoods (organizations dependent on a greater state), while the second self-serving, driven society extends to the entire independent state or multinational companies. This dismissal of static societies can be dismissed in turn, as traditional societies such as the bushmen are also as self-sustained and independent, or even more so, than the modern nation state. If all independent societies evolved based off of needs, then the modern world would have remained in a primitive state of relative freedom from want, as with the bushmen.
The idea that “people must stick together in societies to survive” seems, as well, to be false (Peet 114), as throughout the ages people have been known to survive alone, whether as hermits, lone hunters, or the ostracized. The only truly imperative mutual dependency is for the purpose of reproduction and the continuation of the human race. If not involved in procreation, man can, in fact, be an island.
The question then remains: what common goal prompts people to form societies and become mutually-dependent in its pursuit? Luxuries. Commodities. Comforts. Massive cars, chocolates, and greeting cards, as well as electricity, running water, packaged food, and entertainment. Society desires ease, leisure, and pleasure, and the less uncomfortable work necessary to attain these, the better. To achieve these ends, the West has forgotten, distorted, or reconstructed the meaning of the word “need” while the developing world lives in squalor to produce its luxuries. This is what society demands and needs to satiate its avarice, hierarchical lounging and labouring classes.
