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.

People can make their social institutions work for them by rolling up their sleeves and making the effort.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s almost equally famous British counterpart Margaret Thatcher once remarked to an interviewer that "there’s no such thing as society…there are [only] individual men and women" (Keay, 1987). 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, and that society as a whole can decide how to apportion those obligations, perhaps demanding more, materially, from its higher-income members, given their greater ability to pay. A further potential ramification is that government can’t be assumed to be acting on behalf of "society" since there is no such thing, only individual men and women. Those who hold the reins of power are also only individual men and women, it seems, so it can be assumed that they will focus on their own interests, like everyone else does.

The idea that society doesn’t exist, in the sense that it is not an actor that has a mind and that makes decisions, and that it therefore should not be spoken of as an actor or decision-maker in the way that individuals are, might seem to pass the common sense test. In terms of psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and even economics, however, the case is not so open and shut. Start with the idea that each individual possesses a coherent self that makes........

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