Society+as+a+Human+Product


 * Berger, Peter, and Thomas Luckmann. “Society as a Human Product,” in //Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings//. Edited by Charles Lemert. 4th ed. Philadelphia: Westview Press, 2010.**

(synthesis and discussion by Sonja)

SUMMARY:
 * The human “state of nature” is chaos. If we were reduced to our biological reality, we would find that we would not be orderly or cohesive. The question then becomes where social cohesion and order come from.
 * Social order is a human product, created through the joint activity of individuals. Berger and Luckmann posit that “externalization as such is an anthropological //necessity//” (emphasis added) (391).
 * We are creatures of habit. Our habitualization, once becoming a reciprocal and “typical” habit shared by a number of people, creates an //institutionalization//.
 * Institutions have in common as shared history, and they control actions in a particular way.
 * It is these institutions, created by the reciprocity of habituation, perpetuated over generations and taking on the appearance of an “objective” reality, that create the social world.
 * The creation of the social world is, therefore, a dialectic, with its members interacting with one another and creating the structure in which they reside.

DISCUSSION:
 * The idea that the social world, created through habit and the build up of institutions, is an anthropological //necessity// is interesting. What would the theory lose if it were an //option// instead that we chose to create? Would there be any circumstances under which there could possibly be no “society”?
 * Berger and Luckmann hold that it is the habitualization of actions, perpetuated over generations, that create the objective reality of institutions. However, their belief in the dialectic nature of the creation of social reality indicates a strong teleology of change. Do these two things conflict? Is an essential ingredient in change //time// or could there be external, environmental shocks that also provoke change (i.e. 9/11 and the security instituitons that have been created as a result)?
 * Institutions control actions. Berger and Luckmann organize this supposition into primary and secondary control, primary being an individual coming under the control of institutions, and secondary being when an individual is explicitly disciplined by and institution. Could these be re-organized into positive and negative institutional control?