Social Fact
In sociology, social facts are the values, cultural norms, and social structures which transcend the individual and are capable of exercising a social constraint. French sociologist Émile Durkheim, who put the term into broad circulation, states that in the study of society, "The first and fundamental rule is to consider social facts as things." These "things" form the distinctive subject matter of sociology.
Read more about Social Fact: Durkheim's Social Fact, Mauss's Total Social Fact
Famous quotes containing the words social fact, social and/or fact:
“The difference between style and taste is never easy to define, but style tends to be centered on the social, and taste upon the individual. Style then works along axes of similarity to identify group membership, to relate to the social order; taste works within style to differentiate and construct the individual. Style speaks about social factors such as class, age, and other more flexible, less definable social formations; taste talks of the individual inflection of the social.”
—John Fiske (b. 1939)
“Could it not be that just at the moment masculinity has brought us to the brink of nuclear destruction or ecological suicide, women are beginning to rise in response to the Mother’s call to save her planet and create instead the next stage of evolution? Can our revolution mean anything else than the reversion of social and economic control to Her representatives among Womankind, and the resumption of Her worship on the face of the Earth? Do we dare demand less?”
—Jane Alpert (b. 1947)
“The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live—moreover, the only one.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)