The Social Construction of Reality (Part 1)

     Finally, as the a semester of a full course load starts up again I'm gaining plenty of fodder to write on and publish here.  To kick things off, I'm taking a class titled "Social and Cultural Foundations of Psychotherapy."  The first book I am reading for the course is "The Social Construction of Reality" (follow the link for more info).  The reading assignments for the book are split into two sections.  Other texts read for the course and requiring a "Response Essay" or something similar will also be posted here.  I am also keeping journals for many of my courses.  That content is largely private, however, the inevitable reflection paper culminating from the journals may find their way here as well.  Below you will find my submitted response paper for the first half of Berger and Luckmann's book.

This essay is written in response to the first half (pages 1 - 15) of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality.  The formatting will consist of two sections, firstly, the points on which I would tend to agree with the authors (more or less “like”) and secondly, the points on which I would disagree with the authors and/or feel the more explanation or development is needed. My initial interpretation upon reading this book is that it has been quite some time since I’ve studied philosophy in the formal sense.  Perhaps there is good reasons for that.  Nevertheless, the debating spirit and love for wisdom persist.

Firstly, I like the initial premise that the book is written around a “sociology of knowledge.”  Essentially I interpreted this to mean the (sociology) development, functioning, organization, and classification of (knowledge) certainty that phenomena are real and that they possess specific characteristics.  Given the aforementioned definition of “knowledge” set forth by the authors (p.1).  I also concur with the authors’ sentiments towards language; “... language marks the co-ordinates of my life in society and fills that life with meaningful objects” (p.22).

The authors state that “language also typifies experiences, allowing me to subsume them under broad categories in terms of which they have meaning not only to myself but also to my fellowmen” (p.39).  What I like about this statement is that the symbolism of language allows for the development of sociological expectations and archetype development.  Schemas (Jung) are also developed in conjunction with these archetypes by the vehicle of attributed meanings ala language.  “Language possesses an inherent quality of reciprocity that distinguishes it from any other sign system” (p.37).  Furthermore, language develops (within a society) a coherent means of communication and conveyance of information (eg:  knowledge).

“Deviance from the institutionally ‘programmed’ courses of action become likely once the institutions have become realities divorced from their original relevance in the concrete social processes from which they arose” (p.62).  When a society begins to base their resilience on symbolic apperceptions, a distortion takes place.  What we then find is that dysfunction and deviance from social expectations occur more commonly because the “institutional programming” no longer serves the same functions as before.  Essentially the guest-perception of a romanticized social schema becomes the prefered perceptive filter.  However, this is in error because it ignores the host-perceptive mechanism that allowed the socio-fantasy of that romanticization to develop in the first place.

Stemming from these ideas, the authors write that “mythology as a conceptual machinery is closest to the naive  level of the symbolic universe - the level l on which there is the least necessity for theoretical universe-maintenance beyond the actual positioning of the universe in question as an objective reality” (p.110).  Of course, no matter how concrete or “close to the source” a preferred constructed mythos is, it will always be the victim of apperception, thus leaving something further to be desired.  “Mythological thought operates within the continuity between the human world and the world of the gods.  Theological thought serves to mediate between these two worlds, precisely because their original continuity now appears broken” (p. 111).

“Commonsense knowledge is the knowledge I share with others in the normal, self-evident routines of everyday life” (p. 23).  I found this definition to be somewhat irritating.  A certain bit of knowledge may be evident to one person and not to another, yet it still holds the title of “common sense.”  In an ironic twist we can easily find countless examples of persons within (our) society who (as we might say) without common sense; yet per the authors this bit of knowledge is still allegedly “self-evident” to them.  Furthermore on this note, the authors talk extensively about reciprocal typification.  I would suggest that the only social constant (reciprocal typification) is that change will occur.  Questions of when and how are subject to circumstantial conditions, however, the only potential certainty is that nothing will stay the same.  The authors do state that there is no apriori consistency (p.71) but linkage between symbols and functions is just that, symbolic (at best).  Archetypes carry significant weight in our expectations of self, others, groups, and the world, yet they are extremephied abstractions open for interpretation.  Symbolizations are subjectively variable, may not even be pragmatically accurate, or consistent in their representation.

The authors do make a valid point that persons objectify themselves (when referencing the self) when representing the self vis-a-vis socially defined roles (p.73).  For example; I am a student-philosopher and a therapist-in-training.  Thought the representation of myself via language (a symbolic interpretation) is not truly encompassing of “I.”  They may ascribe and describe my representation of “me” but they are not adequate predicates to formal sense of “I.”  The vehicles of socio-typical characteristics miss something.  They are lacking something very integral.  If social construction is “legitimate”, as the authors suggest, then they relationship is also mutually reciprocal.  That is, I contribute as much to the mechanisms of social construction as social construction attributes to “me”.

I was in some agreement with the authors’ sentiments that social constructs are constantly being reified (p.90-91).  However, in debates of logic, reification is known as a fallacy.  More to the point, resetting our social adaptations and archetypes to the proverbial 0 still leaves traces of and odes to its predecessors.  It owes something to them.  A complete re-birth of these constructions is only possible by imparting a completely new system.  However, doing so denies the constructed system of “0-” and its typifications any value.  This is not true, a given system is in fact the best matter of process for the time and circumstances that it was embodied in.  But adaptations of socially constructed realities do not take place in real time.  The manner of introspection is, by default, in retrospection.

Reference:

Berger, P., Luckmann, T. (1966).  The social construction of reality: A treatise in the

sociology of knowledge.  New York, New York.  Anchor Books. p.1 - 115.