ABSTRACT
Anything that counts as a significant social event can be characterised as involving individuals. This comes of the fact that individuals are the entities out of which society is constituted and that, as a whole does or suffers nothing that is not done or suffered by its parts, so society undergoes no visitation and sustains no activity that is not undergone or sustained by individual people. But what, it may be asked, of a natural catastrophe: is this not a significant social event, although it is not something that intrinsically involves individuals? The answer, we suggest, is that it has social significance only insofar as it bears other descriptions that refer us to individuals, such as a description of it as affecting people’s fortunes, opportunities, or attitudes. The cosmic ray that passes through the atmosphere, unnoticed and innocuous, is not a social event, and neither would any happening be that failed of a connection with persons.
