Social Theory
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Peter Berger
Social Constructionist
(1929-Present)
• Externalization
• Internalization
• Objectivation
• Secularization
QUOTATION
“People who like to avoid shocking discoveries, who prefer to believe that society is just what they were taught in Sunday School, who like the safety of the rules and the maxims of what Alfred Schutz has called the 'world-taken-for-granted,' should stay away from sociology. People who feel no temptation before closed doors, who have no curiosity about human beings, who are content to admire scenery without wondering about the people who live in those houses on the other side of that river, should probably also stay away from sociology. They will find it unpleasant or, at any rate, unrewarding. People who are interested in human beings only if they can change, convert, or reform them should also be warned, for they will find sociology much less useful than they hoped. And people whose interest is mainly in their own conceptual constructions will do just as well to turn to the study of little white mice. Sociology will be satisfying, in the long run, only to those who can think of nothing more entrancing than to watch men and to understand things human.” - Peter Berger (1)
This quote is from Berger’s Invitation to Sociology. Berger clearly states the only people fit for sociology are the ones who only want to deeply observe and understand humans, no more and no less.
CONTEXT
Peter Ludwig Berger was born in Vienna, Austria in 1929 to George William and Jelka Berger. In 1946 at the age of 17, Berger emigrated to the United States, and in 1952 he became a naturalized citizen. (8) After moving to the United States, Berger married Brigitte Kellner on September 28, 1959, and together they had two sons: Thomas Ulrich and Michael George. In 1954, Berger attended Wagner College where he received his M.A and Ph.D. in sociology from the New School of Research in New York (9). Berger published his major works during the 1960s. (7) Although recently retired, Berger most recently was the University Professor of Sociology and Theology at Boston University. (8)
CONNECTIONS
Following in Mead’s footsteps, Berger discusses the significance of language in The Social Construction of Reality. In addition, he has continued in Emile Durkheim’s path with the belief that it is natural for an individual to make sense of the world, which he mentions in The Sacred Canopy; humans make sense of the world by establishing a relationship with it through the process of externalization (11). Berger also elaborates on Max Weber’s view of rationalization by integrating his definition of secularization. Weber saw rationalization as the purging of the magical and spiritual forces from the world. This coincides with Berger’s study of secularization where culture is freed from the domination of religious institutions.11 Also, Berger and his colleague Thomas Luckmann were influenced by Alfred Schutz’s ideas of phenomenological sociology (being discussed only in Germany at that time), which they soon incorporated into their most famous work The Social Construction of Reality (7). Lastly, it was Berger and Luckmann’s social constructionist view of human cognition that influenced John Meyer and Brian Rowan, Eric Leifer and Harrison White, and William Roy’s three strands of economic sociology (5).
PERSPECTIVE
Social Constructionism. Along with Thomas Luckmann, Peter Berger founded a major theoretical perspective in sociology known as social constructionism. Together they wrote, The Social Construction of Reality in 1966. The book relates social constructionism as both the theory of knowledge and the sociology of knowledge. Social constructionism is the belief that the world is in fact socially constructed by humans, but paradoxically humans feel that the world they’ve created is natural or pre-made. It further explains that the ideas of understanding, significance and meaning are not solely developed from the individual, but are also shaped by the actions of other human beings. Social constructionism allows one to challenge conventional knowledge and to be suspicious about how the world appears to be. A focal point of social constructionism is discovering how groups and individuals formulate their perception of social reality. Together, externalization, internalization and objectivation make up the fundamental components of the theory (2).
THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTIONS
Externalization. In the Sacred Canopy, Berger defines externalization as the relationship that men establish with the world. Berger explains this concept by comparing men with mammals. Unlike other mammals, men are born unfinished. The process of becoming a man begins when the infant interacts with the environment. For other mammals the world is given to them, but for human beings, it is something that is not given and thus is created with the physical and mental activity of men. Man cannot only rely on what is within; man must e