Good Essay On Traditional And Modern Society

Traditional society is concerned with only those elements of societies that are limited in scope or they are obtained from indigenous and most often from ancient cultural beliefs. Modern society is concerned with those practices regarding industry and progress of large-scale societies. Modern society is different from that of traditional society depending on the complexity of an organization and their growth rate in complexity. Traditional societies are simple consisting of a single and unified system and have a single center of power whereas modern societies are complex. They consist of several centers of powers with a great number of autonomous systems, which communicate with each other.
There are numerous comparisons between traditional and modern society by exploring the differences in beliefs exhibit by each society. Traditional society is concerned more towards the development of society as a whole rather than emphasizing on personal gain. Traditional society is vertical hierarchical organization in which the caste or the particular class does division. Children differ from their parents, women from their husbands and sisters from their brothers. Ambitions are not much importance or highly valued. A modern society is horizontal hierarchical organization of functions performed by modern social systems and armed forces. Ambitions are highly valued and freedom is of great importance. In modern societies, individual freedom has high prestige and people are determined to achieve something in life. They have a choice to set their own goals. Unlike traditional societies, people are allowed to improve their lifestyle and appearance. Self-improvement is of much importance.
Traditional society is all about family relations and other people. Family is trustworthy but other people are not worth trusting and only response to them is hostility. Honor plays an important role in traditional societies. It is considered to be highly valued and worth of respect and prestige. It is the responsibility of family members to enhance their honor. Honor of any family is recognized from their members so they should serve it very well rather than destroying it for family. The only purpose of marriage in these societies is to make honor of the family as strong as possible. Only the elder members of family decide these marriages. Young people could not take such important decisions. They are considered stupid who are easily attracted towards love and feelings. Dowries are also considered important for marriages. It is a matter of honor for bride family to make it large as possible. Families provide all social security, health care and other services. Moreover, in traditional societies all kinds of problems are handled within the family. They settle all disputes within the family without making it to public. They solve problems such as alcoholism, mental illness, and sexual abuse secretly so that the honor of families cannot diminish. For most of the people, it is important to take revenge in these matters.
In traditional societies, men are considered brave and physically strong. They are self-confident and clever whereas women are self-sacrificing, patient, and somewhat emotional. Man and woman both should be honorable. An honorable woman is the one who shows modesty, secure through marriage in order to enhance the honor and she must have sons. Women are allowed to stay inside and take care of home and children. She must be good in cooking and preparation of good food. Women are not trusted and considered evil. In contrast to this, women in modern society are trusted and respected. They have complete freedom to do whatever they want in order to achieve their goals of life. They have permission to go out for jobs and serve their country and home. People are encouraged to aim high and climb the ladder of success. Because of this, they are determined to achieve all of the goals of life and produce effective results. All sources stand in opposition against the personal freedom of people. Unlike traditional society, they have a place in society according to their talent and power rather of what place they have in hierarchy at the time of birth. Traditional society has a closed system of belief based on only traditions and superstitions. It is simply a conservative system, which is same for the long time. People do not express new ideas. There is a deep sense of suspicion viewed in their ideas.
Most of the people in modern society are conformists who are afraid of being different from others. These people are more concerned with fashion and trends of modern society and continually changing them to keep a social distance. They consider it as an entitlement to happiness. Moreover, people in modern society are close to each other by power and things. In traditional society, strong bond of relationship is held together among people. They live close to each other. Everyone knows the feelings of other. Business life of people is not different from their personal life. People working in a business environment or other economic activities are same as those of their kin relations. They are unable to take apart the spiritual values from those of political values because these values are same. In contrast to traditional society, in modern society, things are different. It is easy to separate business life from personal life. It is coming up with new technology and changes in the environment. With the evolution of new ideas, goods and services are increasing at a very fast rate. It tends to undergo mutation at every point. Building of new cities and structures is of great importance. Modern society is dependent on knowledge. The more the knowledge, more the power one possesses. However, traditional society went on to the level of wisdom, which is beyond the knowledge.
People are more sympathetic and comfortable living in a modern society where people are encouraged to move forward without limitation. It is powerful and mechanized allowing people to move mountains and dig canals in order to get to the destination of success. They are determined to face all challenges in life that restrict them in achieving the goals of life. People have a choice of their own. In modern society, women are respected and trusted everywhere. They are not treated as an evil creature on earth. Their ambitions are valued with complete freedom of expression. There exists a traditional man somewhere inside the modern man who got the feeling of security for his extended family and he is in effort to fill the hole in modern society, which is developed because of loss of true spiritual feelings and humane parts of life.