Parson

One of the most interesting things to me was Talcott Parson’s idea of system tasks.  There are four tasks include adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and latency.  According to Parson the society must be able to perform these to function properly and survive.  It is a major feat to say that these are the four things you must do to survive as a society.  Personally I find that a big one is adaptation.  I think that you can relate this to Darwin and survival of the fittest.  If you are not able to adapt to your habitat then you will die and this is completely relate able to a society.  These adaptions can be physical or social.  Good example is people that live in the desert.  They have certain practices and routines that allow them to survive in that given environment, much different that a society that is based in the Rocky Mountains.  The ability to gather food and shelter goes down to the must primal instincts but can also be expanded socially as well.  If you have a government in place you need the ability to please the people that you serve.  Though dictatorships do work, if the people are living in a democratic country then the government needs to make changes/adaptions for the people.

Also the other interesting one is latency where Parson pretty much states that a society needs to set guidelines; norms and morals.  It is a reoccurring theme in a lot of different ideologies, but it is really essential for a society to function properly.  If there is no guidelines what would be right or wrong.  We could have a Dark Knight Rises situation where anything goes and if someone makes a mistake or we don’t like you they are banished.  Needless these example is extreme, there is no doubt boundaries need to be laid out for the functionality of a society.