What is "societal routine", in basic language please?

Question

What is "societal routine", in basic language please?

Answer 1

Break it down by the words in the term.... A routine society.

Societal routine is merely the manner in which a society runs - and governs itself.  It is the way we decide that THIS is a good thing and THAT isn't, and how we should deal with people that do the bad thing, and how we should reward folks that do the good thing.  It is a snapshot of a society and how it works on any given day.  The routine may change over time, but unless there is something very drastic that happens, it takes a long time.

Look at the US over the 20th century.  In the early century, it was all about the status quo and expansion (big families and getting large houses/plots of land).  In the 30's, it was all about scrimping and saving, as we were in the depths of the depression.  The 40's was all about the War (WWII).  The 50's we tried to keep the status quo again with nuclear families and traditional roles.  We were also very scared of the Communists and The Bomb... so a paranoid routine was pretty common.  The 60's saw a sexual revolution - and the huge majority of the taboos from the 50's were broken.  The 70's was one of disillusion and feeling lost because of the betrayal of President Nixon and the loss of the Vietnam War.  The 80's had a decade of greed in a scale that had never been seen before.  The 90's saw a resurgence of traditional values - but with new traditions.

It takes about a decade for things to change - unless we have things like September Eleventh, the bombing of Pearl Harbor or the Stock Market crash, then it can change overnight.