I found myself reflecting back to Peter Luckmann and Thomas Berger, who wrote the seminal work The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. I dug up the following and after reading it, decided I could do no better than to merely copy and paste it here. I wrote it in 2009, but it is most relevant to my thinking today. (I think my professor actually liked it as well.) I especially liked that it was grounded in a belief in the primary importance of social interaction and therefore, the ability of all to have certain control their own world--and therefore behavior.
Because the fundamental
premise of Berger and Luckmann is that social order “exists only as a product
of human activity” (Pg. 14) their challenge is to fully develop the ways that
knowledge becomes part of one individual and collective consciousness. Their work may be a sociological
treatment, but due to the fact that they stay so focused on an abstract plane,
the book reads like a philosophical treatise on the origins of knowledge. I think the characterization of this
work as a phenomenological philosophy is fair because Social Construction intends to explain the complex
influence that all social knowledge has on the eventual construction of the
current phenomena called social reality. B & L define reality as a “quality
appertaining to phenomena that we recognize as having a being independent of
our volition and to define knowledge as the certainty that phenomena are real
and they possess specific characteristics. “ (Pg. 1)
When we as readers struggle to understand B & L, we must
always remember that they begin from the rather large assertion that “sociology of knowledge must
concern itself with everything that passed for knowledge in society,” (Pg. 14) a tall task indeed.
Knowledge for B & L is the “sum
total of what everybody knows about a social world, an assemblage of maxims,
morals, proverbial nuggets of wisdom, values, beliefs, myths, and so forth.” (Pg. 65.) It is an attempt to
make sense of human behavior and interaction, mainly the man in the street, a
potentially irrational subject for analysis. Their intention is to make
sense of how human reality is constructed and they resist approaching it as
simplistic or narrowly originated.
While they utilize
religion and social production in order to develop their theory, Sociology of Knowledge essentially describes the
theoretical process of knowledge acquisition and eventual transmission
throughout society. Ironically, at the same time we struggle with rather
sophisticate philosophical approach the authors take to explaining they early
in the book tell us that their intention is to more fully explain “common sense
knowledge” and the process of socially constructing “everyday life.” (Pg.
15-19) B & L do not set out to describe the actual construct of
social behavior; Sociology of
Knowledge is primarily about how one’s social world is
built.
The complexity of the B
& L construct relates to their belief that “sociology must be carried out
in a continuous conversation with both history and philosophy or lose its
proper object of inquiry. This object is society as part of a human
world, made my men, inhabited by men, and, in turn, making men. It is a
humanistic discipline.” (Pg. 189) Society is the result of a myriad of
increasingly complex shared human interactions and experiences. B & L
belief that there are three parts to the socially constructed world. (Pg.
61)
1. Social order is a human product.
2. Society is an objective reality.
3. Man is a social product.
Additionally, the level
of process complexity builds when going from part one to part two to part
three. Starting at the point of social order creation, B & L trace
knowledge acquisition through a number of exceedingly more sophisticated levels
of knowledge acquisition until they reach primary and secondary socialization,
which seem to be the point at which knowledge is part of the individual and
collective objective and subjective consciousness. This is also when the
individual internalizes meaning into his own social world and becomes capable
of transmitting this meaning to future generations and possibly even switch
worlds. (Explanation: I am going to skip Parts I and II as they are
not pertinent to our concern today.)
Part three of the process
is when man is viewed as a social product and the individual begins to
internalize social meaning. Internalization is defined as, “the immediate
apprehension or interpretation of an objective even as expressing meaning, that
is, as a manifestation of another’s subjective process which thereby becomes
subjectively meaningful to myself.” (Pg. 129) It is both the basis for
understanding others and for understanding the world as a meaningful social
reality. At this level the individual is a participant in the creation of
social meaning and begins to transmit this reality to future generations. By ‘successful
socialization’ we mean the “comprehensive and
consistent induction of an individual in to the objective world of a
society.” (Pg. 130) Induction takes place through primary and secondary
socialization.
1. Primary socialization –
“the first socialization an individual undergoes in childhood through which he
becomes a member of society.” (Pg. 130) This is usually the most
important one for an individual and is carried out by the family. According to
B & L, at the time when primary socialization ends, the “he is an effective
member of society and in subjective possession of a self and a
world.” (Pg. 130)
Some Concluding
Thoughts
I think their
development of primary socialization was perhaps a bit too narrow and probably
a little too clean. While family is a predominate source of values and
beliefs, I would also argue that school, church, and peers are important
primary influences. These socialization agents are actively interacting
at ages that can have profound impact on the core knowledge that one
acquires. I am not entirely sure when these influences cease to be
meaningful.
The
Social Construction of Reality fundamentally
respects the role humans play in creating social knowledge. This
knowledge is highly personal to its creators and attempting to understand its
origins is a difficult proposition indeed. Their sophisticated
approach to understanding the deep individual and collective meaning may leave
the reader a bit confused at times, but the subject matter does not lend itself
to easy explanation, nor should it be. Meaning and consciousness
originates in the thoughts, ideas, values, beliefs, and language of individuals
and groups. B & L offer us a compelling social philosophical approach
to understanding how meaning is created and the possibility that it can also be
recreated. I dismiss any concerns about the date of publication and
consider the work as relevant today as in 1966. We as readers must
remember that this is first and foremost a treatise on process and is thus not
time bound. Let us not let the use of sexist language obfuscate their
serious pursuit of understanding. Their theory of knowledge
construction is easily applicable to contemporary society.
Ultimately, though, B
& L offer hope that we can control our own world. After all, we
created it. We are in a position to understand and change the nature of
the knowledge that we use to construct our social world because we own that
reality. Although I question the relative absence of recognition of economic
and political influence on socially constructed knowledge, B & L believe
that our reality is not external to us and therefore to a certain extent we
possess the ability to alter or change it. Understanding this as a
complex challenge, the point remains that this is as they say a “humanistic”
discipline and is thus focused clearly on the human condition. Power and
control reside in our consciousness. We must first understand the process
that has created our own consciousness and only then can we begin to change the
consciousness of others.
This "humanistic" conclusion is important to me. It implies for me they have a fundamental belief in the inherent goodness/rationality of humans. However, I suspect they would argue there is no such thinkg as a state of nature, but rather behavior is shaped--and explained--by knowledge acquired in both the primary and secondary socialization phases. This might explain why people do bad things, like the recent slaughter of innocent students in Oregon. Does it not also explain why people do good things as well. We can shape knowledge and behavior, but I cannot reduce my own belief that there is inherent goodness in us. If people go awry, I choose to belief external socialization has so strong as to overwhelm internal goodness. This struggle between good and evil is precisely why I am "The Uneasy Optimist...."
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