July 18th, 2010
Berger, Peter L., Thomas Luckmann, and Texas Tech University. Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Anchor Book. New York: Doubleday, 1967.
Socialization: [T]he comprehensive and consistent induction of an individual into the objective world of a society or a sector of it” (130).
Having discussed in the last post the three moments of externalization, objectivation, and internalization, I am now focusing the discussion into a post specifically on the topic of internalization, which is the “moment” most relevant to my study. Read the rest of this entry »
July 13th, 2010
Berger, Peter L., Thomas Luckmann, and Texas Tech University. Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Anchor Book. New York: Doubleday, 1967.
“Society is a human product. Society is an objective reality. Man is a social product” (61).
Berger and Luckman argue that one must understand both the objective and subjective aspects of reality. To do so, one should view society in terms of an “ongoing dialectical process composed of the three moments of externalization, objectivation, and internalization” (129).
The authors present the idea that there is an institutional world. “Institutionalization occurs whenever there is a reciprocal typification of habitualized actions by types of actors. Put differently, any such typification is an institution” (54). Therefore, the institution is formed by the society. For example, Read the rest of this entry »
July 12th, 2010
Berger, Peter L., Thomas Luckmann, and Texas Tech University. Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Anchor Book. New York: Doubleday, 1967.
“Man’s consciousness is determined by his social being.” – Marx
I open this post with the Marx quote because of its direct relevance to this topic, but also to address the debates that have occurred over what he was actually saying in this line. Early Marxism tended to identify this thought with economic structure and the reflection of it. However, Marx intended a more human analysis. “What concerned Marx was that human thought is founded in human activity… and in the social relations brought about by this activity. ‘Substructure’ and ‘superstructure’ are best understood if one views them as, respectively, human activity and the world produced by that activity” (6).
Read the rest of this entry »