We explain what a social being is, why the human being is and the impact of the social on health. Also, the vision of Marxist theory.
What is a social being?
When speaking of a social being, especially with regard to the human being, it is referring to its need to exist within a society, that is, of being part of a group or a community, from which they obtain a sense of belonging and a sense of collective identity.
This human trait, that of being a gregarious being (that is, it tends to form communities), has been recognized since ancient times by scholars of our species. The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322), for example, called the human being a “political animal” (zoon politikón) or “civic animal”, in the sense that, unlike other animals, humans are capable of creating societies with a high level of organization and complex socialization.
It has been shown that devoid of a social environment, the human being suffers and sees his psychic and affective life deteriorated. Not in vain have banishment or exile been very common punishments since ancient times for those who are considered enemies of society or traitors to it.
On the other hand, Marxism understands social being in another way: the material relationship between human beings and nature, and between different social classes, throughout the process of production of goods. It is a concept closely related to social conscience, which is the set of ideas or intellectual representations that the human being has regarding the same process (and the place he occupies in it).
That is for Marxism the social being is the social place that the human being occupies in the chain of relations of production, while social conscience would be the degree of conscience, precisely, that it has with respect to its social being.