Society Education should engage us with each other and with the thoughts and findings of others, so that we can develop our latent capabilities. Having emphasized us as individuals, let me speak to us as a society. One of the bases of the social sciences is that people s beliefs, actions, and constraints result from more than the sum of identifiable actions by individuals. Behavioral and physiological processes interact with broader, social influences to determine human activity. Economists refer to external economies and diseconomies when the benefits or costs of one s actions can t be restricted to that actor.
Sociologists refer to social institutions or conventions that influence individuals behavior.
Political scientists and political economists refer to the political processes that generate formal and informal institutions and to the political processes that can change institutions . Geographers refer to the ways in which social proximity and regular interaction create distinctive places. Society, the collective, has a stake in education. A primary rationale for publicly-supported education is the social benefit or externality of an educated citizenry. In a democracy, the ability of my neighbor to reason and to criticize thoughtfully influences my own well-being.