ABSTRACT
So just what is this thing called ‘the social’ which sociologists study and how can it be analyzed? This is a key place to start. Many people prefer to start with viewing human life as biological, individual, economic or religious, but for sociologists, the starting point has to be with the social. It is why it is an ‘ology’. It is a difficult idea with multiple meanings – indeed, when I first came to study it some fifty-odd years ago as an exuberant young gay man, I naively knew three others words that connected strongly to it: social partying, social work and social ism. At that time, I liked all three and thought it had to be a good subject to study! But I soon learnt it was oh so much more than that. In this chapter, we will start to explore the idea of the social and ponder a little of the ways sociologists think about society.
