eli5: How come when referring to stuff that we can’t see and is more of a theory, ie: society, space-time, family unit, we refer to it as a “fabric”

Question

“The fabric of society”. “The fabric of time and space”. “The family fabric”. Etc.

In: 0

Answer 1

It’s a metaphor/analogy. Fabric is a piece of cloth woven together from many threads attached together to form a whole. And the whole resulting piece of cloth is sensitive to “pulling” any of the “threads” that make up the whole fabric.

You can see how families or even whole societies resemble a “fabric”. They are units made of many people or groups acting like the threads in a cloth. Together they form one thing, and if something affects one member/group/thread, it indirectly affects the others as well. Like a fabric.