Sự kiến tạo xã hội về thực tại: Khảo luận về Xã hội học Nhận Thức

by Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann, Trần Hữu Quang (Translator & Introducer)

Tập sách bao gồm ba phần, trong đó luận điểm then chốt của hai tác giả nằm trong phần 2 và phần 3. Ở phần nhập đề (Vấn đề của môn xã hội học nhận thức), hai tác giả đã điểm qua lịch sử hình thành môn xã hội học nhận thức để định vị cách hiểu và lối tiếp cận của mình, đặc biệt là để định nghĩa lại đối tượng của bộ môn này. Phần 1 (Những nền tảng của sự nhận thức trong đời sống thường nhật) đề cập tới những đặc trưng của đời sống thường nhật, cách lãnh hội của cá nhân đối với đời sống thường nhật, và kiến thức trong đời sống thường nhật, trong đó phương tiện quan trọng nhất để có được thứ “kiến thức đời thường” này chính là ngôn ngữ. Phần 2 (Xã hội xét như là thực tại khách quan) đề cập tới các nội dung của quá trình định chế hóa và của quá trình chính đáng hóa đối với các trật tự định chế; đây là phần mà hai tác giả trình bày “quan niệm căn bản” của mình “về các vấn đề của bộ môn xã hội học nhận thức”. Phần 3 (Xã hội xét như là thực tại chủ quan) bàn đến quá trình xã hội hóa, trong đó đặc biệt đi sâu vào những nội dung như tiến trình nội tâm hóa và tiến trình hình thành căn cước[7] của cá nhân; đây là phần mà hai tác giả “ứng dụng” quan niệm xã hội học nhận thức của mình “vào bình diện ý thức chủ quan, và từ đó xây dựng một chiếc cầu lý thuyết nối đến các vấn đề của ngành tâm lý học xã hội”. Phần kết luận (Xã hội học nhận thức và lý thuyết xã hội học) bàn về tầm quan trọng của môn xã hội học nhận thức đối với lý thuyết xã hội học xét một cách tổng quát.

Có một điểm hết sức mấu chốt mà độc giả cần lưu ý để tránh ngộ nhận về mối quan hệ lô-gíc giữa phần 2 với phần 3: “xã hội xét như là thực tại khách quan” (phần 2), và “xã hội xét như là thực tại chủ quan” (phần 3). Đây không phải là hai thực tại khác nhau, mà là hai mặt của cùng một thực tại, xét dưới hai góc nhìn khác nhau. Nhằm tìm hiểu đặc trưng của mối quan hệ giữa cá nhân với xã hội, hai tác giả đã đi theo một lối tiếp cận độc đáo xuất phát từ cả quan điểm của Durkheim lẫn quan điểm của Weber để có thể giải thích được “tính chất lưỡng diện của xã hội xét về mặt kiện tính khách quan và về mặt ý nghĩa chủ quan” (tr. 33)[8]. Trong lúc Durkheim chú trọng “mặt kiện tính khách quan” của xã hội (coi “các sự kiện xã hội như những đồ vật”), thì Weber nhấn mạnh đến “mặt ý nghĩa chủ quan” của hành động con người trong xã hội. Theo Berger và Luckmann, hai quan điểm này không hề đối lập nhau, mà chỉ là hai góc nhìn chú ý đến hai mặt khác nhau của thực tại xã hội. Từ đó, hai tác giả đặt ra câu hỏi nghiên cứu sau đâ “Làm thế nào mà những ý nghĩa chủ quan [...] có thể trở thành những kiện tính khách quan?”. Hay nói khác đi, “làm thế nào hoạt động của con người lại có thể sản xuất ra được một thế giới đồ vật?” (tr. 33, chỗ nhấn mạnh là do hai tác giả). Theo hai tác giả, đây không chỉ là câu hỏi của môn xã hội học nhận thức, mà cũng chính là “câu hỏi trung tâm của lý thuyết xã hội học” mà công trình này phải trả lời.

Một cách ngắn gọn, có thể nói rằng mục tiêu của toàn bộ công trình này của Berger và Luckmann là “truy tìm cách thức mà thực tại [xã hội] được kiến tạo nên” (tr. 33). Ở đây, chúng tôi thiết tưởng cần nói thêm về ý nghĩa của cái tựa của công trình này (“sự kiến tạo xã hội về thực tại” - the social construction of reality), và về cụm từ then chốt mà hai tác giả thường nhắc đi nhắc lại, đó là “được kiến tạo về mặt xã hội” (socially constructed)[9]. Sở dĩ hai ông nói rằng thực tại “được kiến tạo về mặt xã hội” chứ không nói “bởi xã hội” (by the society), đó là vì ba lý do sau đây, theo cách hiểu của chúng tôi. Trước hết, cụm từ này có nghĩa là thực tại luôn được kiến tạo bởi những nhóm xã hội nhất định, những cộng đồng hay tập thể nào đó, chứ không phải bởi toàn bộ xã hội nói chung; vả lại, nếu nói “bởi xã hội”, người nghe sẽ dễ bị rơi vào ngộ nhận cho rằng “xã hội” là một thực thể thuần nhất và biệt lập, nằm bên ngoài và bên trên con người cá nhân. Kế đến, nói rằng thực tại được kiến tạo “về mặt xã hội” thì có nghĩa là muốn nhấn mạnh đến khía cạnh hành động, khía cạnh tiến trình của sự kiến tạo, chứ không chỉ nói về kết quả của sự kiến tạo ấy. Và thứ ba, ý tưởng mấu chốt ở đây là sự kiến tạo ấy luôn luôn diễn ra trong sự tương giao xã hội giữa con người với nhau. Nhân tiện đây, chúng ta có thể lưu ý là trong toàn bộ công trình này, Berger và Luckmann họa hoằn lắm mới sử dụng cụm từ “bởi xã hội” (chỉ có một lần, “by society”, ở trang 100 trong bản gốc[10]), còn ngoài ra luôn nói “về mặt xã hội” (socially), chẳng hạ “được kiến tạo về mặt xã hội” (socially constructed), hoặc “được định đoạt về mặt xã hội” (socially determined). Lối nói này chắc hẳn bao hàm ý tưởng mà chúng tôi vừa nêu.[11]

Ở phần 2, khi nói đến “xã hội xét như là thực tại khách quan”, hai tác giả đã phân tích những nguồn gốc sinh thành (genesis) của các thành tố của thực tại này (như các định chế, các vai trò, truyền thống, v.v.) vốn xuất phát từ các tiến trình khách thể hóa của ý thức chủ quan của các cá nhân trong một thế giới liên chủ thể (nói cách khác, thực tại khách quan là sả...

Genres: Sociology, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Psychology, Theory, Anthropology, Academic

444 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Peter L. Berger was an internationally renowned sociologist, and the founder of Boston University's Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs. He was born in Vienna and came to the U.S. in his late teens. He had a master's degree and a doctorate from the New School for Social Research in New York. After two years in the United States Army, he taught at the University of Georgia and the University of North Carolina before going to the Hartford Seminary Foundation as an Assistant Professor in Social Ethics.

In 1992, Peter Berger was awarded the Manes Sperber Prize, presented by the Austrian government for significant contributions to culture. He was the author of many books, among them The Social Construction of Reality, The Homeless Mind, and Questions of Faith.

Reviews

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book will say that culture is reality and is created by our typifying the institutions and its agents that we have subjectively made into objective reality through reifying what we are socialized into believing through the facticity (thrownness) of our existential reality and we re-litigate our past selves through our current understanding, or in other words the authors unconvincingly argue we don’t exist in a Bayesian world and they will say that we have no prior expectations except for the stifling conforming norms of the prevailing ruling identity. There is also a strange mixture of some psychoanalysis with existential angst best explaining our social reality from the socialization process leading to our self identity that comes from outside of us not through ourselves and blaming our own behavior when we don’t fit exactly into the binary stifling conforming norm of the ‘they’.

Yes, that first sentence is somewhat cumbersomely constructed but I wanted to get that out of the way before I note that the authors clearly are influenced by Husserl’s book Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology and Heidegger’s Being and Time and the last of the phenomenologists Hans-Georg Gadamer in particular his book Truth and Method in which he will say “All understanding is interpretation. Being that can be understood is language", and there was a section within this book where the authors were talking about the psychological construction of knowledge through language composing their theory of the social construction of knowledge where it felt as if I was reading Gadamer.

There is a lot I didn’t like about this book. I’m going to have to illustrate by citing three different examples the authors appealed to. First example, A is a heterosexual male, B a lesbian female, and C a bisexual female and they are working together as a group. The author brought up this example twice to make their points. If Sartre’s Huis Clos (No Exit) doesn’t come to mind, then that’s only because you haven’t read it or seen the play and the author is similarly trying to show how we construct our social reality through the dialectic of our expectations foisted upon us by the thrownness into our world while forgetting that we just might be born a certain way and we are the way we are because we were born that way. The authors make the point that each A, B, and C are only playing a role by choice and are performing only according to societal expectations and are neglecting to realize that sometimes individuals are not by nature fitting into the preconceived category of a stifling conformity and the others expectations do not define who we truly are.

The second example I’ll cite is their somewhat obnoxious certainty that if a boy was raised by his smothering mother with an absent father and her three sisters and he became feminized further socialization through reeducation or psychoanalysis could fix him into the stifling conformity of the conforming privileged identity that defines truth through their consensus path of socially constructed reality of knowledge, that is culture is reality and must be obeyed. (Side note: If we were alive in 1933 -1945 Germany, should we accept the certainty of the NAZIs; or similarly today the certainty of MAGA hat (hate) wearing imbeciles if they become the super majority. I would hope not. Contrary to what the authors are saying, the society with its stifling conforming norms may not always be the functionally correct norm to follow because sometimes we have to see beyond the social construction of reality in order to preserve our own humanity).

The third and I promise last example, was their thought experiment of imagining an army made up of only homosexuals and how heterosexuals would be destructive to the cohesion of the fighting force. What rubbish and false framing in order to give the reverse logic for why gays should conform to the majority framing even when it would go against their nature because the authors clearly think that sexuality is a choice and that we all are interchangeable parts that need never rock the boat of normality. Elsewhere in the book they also spoke about how destructive non-conformist could be to society at large and seemed to advocate that square pegs needed to be pounded into round holes and better yet they should never pop their head up in the first place.

I like Husserl, Heidegger, and Gadamer probably as much as the next person or even more since they have written three of my all time favorite books, and their influence within this book overall is obvious probably to most readers even though they aren’t cited within the text. I don’t like the author’s overall points which seem to me to have taken the three philosophers to an absurd extremity, but overall I can say I would recommend this book for its laying out what they were trying to say in 1967 even with its foolish framing of the world while ignoring the importance of how sometimes people are just born that way and it’s not necessarily a problem that should be fixed except by those who force a binary (or digital) world view onto the world as the authors do. After all sometimes the world is not easily categorized into archetypes and the world just might be best considered continuous as with sexuality or a host of other dispositions which go into making a person their authentic self.

[Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Political thought since the Enlightenment has turned largely on an apparent opposition between society and the individual. From this has emerged a libertarian argument that society and social facts are actually meaningless notions. Philosophy has largely lost interest in the question with the advent of positivism, yet positivism is itself a contentious proposition.

The validity of the idea of “society” has been taken up in two books with maddeningly similar titles. The first, The Construction of Social Reality, looks at the status of a “social fact” from a philosophical perspective. This one, The Social Construction of Reality, looks at knowledge from a sociological point of view, noting that professional philosophers have now punted anything having to do with actual human beings to the human sciences.

Philosophers have broached narrow epistemological issues such as ideology or false consciousness. The authors here widen the concept of knowing as it relates to society. They propose that a proper sociology of knowledge must include the study of everything that passes for reality or knowledge in a society, regardless of whether it’s true or false. The value of understanding how canards, for example, get embedded into a culture is a task for such a sociology, with its promise of fruitful research topics.

A weakness mars the book's first thirty pages. The authors put quote marks around words and phrases being used in their ordinary context. This excess leads the reader to wonder if the authors have any idea what they're talking about or how stupid they sound. Compounding the impression is academic slang that aims words like “rootage” (for root), “ongoingly” and “eventuated” at general readers. Combined with minor grammar and noun/adjective errors, the book starts to give off a raw odor.

But I was rewarded for my persistence. The writing finally hits its stride, and the book makes many distinctive points. What we think we know, it claims, is shaped by our societies to an extent far beyond what one might expect; thought occurs in a social context, if for no other reason than that language itself is social in nature. Even the concept of self has a social component (as opposed to a psychological one).

Among other interesting points --

– Social order is not a product of the laws of nature; the natural law fallacy applies.
– The idea of collective identity is false. Individuals shape societies as much as societies shape individuals, and the process is a continuing flux.
– Philosophical positivism cannot be used to simply legislate away obvious problems involving human relations.
– It is psychology rather than sociology that tends to reify theories about humans, a point for libertarians to ponder. This reification is compounded by psychoanalytic claims of scientific fact.
– Social control stems from institutions, not individuals.
– Power in a society produces its own “reality,” and this definition of reality may even be enforced by the police.
– A totalitarian social structure is more characteristic of primitive societies than complex ones, regardless of ideologies.
– Society determines how long and in what manner an individual will live. Even sexuality and orgasm are experienced within a social frame.
– Intellectuals are marginal characters in all modern societies.

The authors argue for these points among many, but to recap them here gives readers an idea of the scope of the contents. Setting aside the opening pages, I can recommend to book to everyone.

[Ricky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this:

...I am conscious of the world as consisting of multiple realities. As I move from one reality to another, I experience the transition as a kind of shock. This shock is to be understood as caused by the shift in attentiveness that the transition entails. Waking up from a dream illustrates this shift most simply (p. 21).

This reminds me of a passage from Pedro Calderon de la Barca's Life is a Dream

Dreams are rough copies of the waking soul
Yet uncorrected of the higher Will,
So that men sometimes in their dreams confess
An unsuspected, or forgotten, self;
One must beware to check—ay, if one may,
Stifle ere born, such passion in ourselves
As makes, we see, such havoc with our sleep,
And ill reacts upon the waking day.

Sigesmund, III,1

To continue with Berger and Luckmann:

Among the multiple realities there is one that presents itself as the reality par excellence. This is the reality of everyday life.... The tension of consciousness is highest in everyday life, that is, the latter imposes itself upon consciousness in the most massive, urgent, and intense manner. It is impossible to ignore, difficult even to weaken its imperative presence (p. 21).

Unfortunately for those who have "taken the blue pill" as in...

What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

Morpheus, The Matrix

... reality is something agreed upon by yourself and other social actors.

At any rate, think of "The Social Construction of Reality" as a sort of pre-Matrix scholarly article that deals in a similar subject. No there are no machines using us as batteries creating an alternative reality for us -- we do it to ourselves along with others.

[Víctor Galán · Rating 4 out of 5]

La sociología ha sido tradicionalmente discriminada de alguno círculos científicos por su polémica concepción de integrar a los seres humanos en bases de comportamiento general, es decir, estudiar a los grupos humanos como conjuntos coherentes y similares, donde la individualidad y excentricidad de cada uno queda relegado a un segundo plano y de aceptar esta visión de comportamiento de manada.

No obstante, como ocurre en muchos casos con la filosofía también, esta clase de libros ha permitido contestar algunas grandes preguntas clásicas de la Humanidad que ha falta de respuesta clara derivada del método científico nos permite entender mejor por qué somos como somos. En este caso, este clásico ensayo intenta responder a una ambiciosa pregunta: ¿Por qué la realidad en la que vivimos es así y no de otra manera?

Berger y Luckmann llegan a la conclusión que todas las sociedades son productos artificiales creados en algún punto del pasado y cuyas modificaciones se han debido a la suma conjunta de las voluntades de grupos de poder, que han tenido tradicionalmente acceso a los grandes medios de comunicación y control social. El problema de este concepto es que los propios elementos de construcción de nuevas realidades son casi siempre inconscientes de la artificialidad de estos mismos procesos, esto es así debido a la llamada institucionalización, es decir, la concepción nata en la que somos criados y a través de la cual se legitiman toda clase de concepciones ideológicas, religiosas y culturales ya existentes. Estas concepciones las asumimos como verdaderas y ciertas de manera total y abarcan todo un espectro de pensamientos a cada cual más dispar: Desde la creencia ferviente en la democracia, el fascismo, etc., pasando por el pensamiento religioso tanto cristiano, budista o musulmán, hasta pensamientos de calado social como la xenofobia, la homofobia, el feminismo... Todos estos pensamientos nos pueden ser dados como ciertos por la educación recibida y las legitimamos en nuestra mente por falta de alternativa, lo que llamamos sentido común. Casi nadie pone en duda que la democracia sea el mejor sistema político pero pocos saben decir por qué, el patriotismo es defendido con orgullo por un sector amplio de la sociedad pero pocos saben entender cual es el trasfondo ideológico general que tiene este pensamiento. Del mismo modo aspectos como la violencia, la pedofilia o incluso las mentiras son rechazadas de facto en nuestra sociedad por ser consideradas tradicionalmente antinaturales, pero lo cierto es que dichos pensamientos son incluso construcciones mentales artificiales, que a través de un consenso común e influidas por esta institucionalización las damos por válidas, cuando desde un punto de vista biológico no necesariamente tiene que ser así.

Esta institucionalización se formaliza y logra su impacto a través del lenguaje y la dialéctica que se convierte en la verdadera herramienta de transformación del mundo, quien tiene la palabra tiene el poder.

A pesar de lo que alguno pueda pensar, vivir en una sociedad organizada y con reglas es imprescindible para el bienestar humano, saber que existe un protocolo de acción que le permita desligarse de pensar en exceso reduce el estrés y facilita la expresión del yo individual, objetivo último de la existencia humana. Un gobierno que haga sentir útiles y que de la sensación a sus ciudadanos de saber cual es su lugar en el mundo es un país correctamente institucionalizado. La institucionalización debe ser una herramienta que, bien utilizada, permita mejorar el estado emocional de todos los miembros de la sociedad y el primer paso es hacer conscientes a los mismos de la relatividad de las cosas y de la necesidad natural de obedecer principios sociales y normativos.

La institucionalización logra su máximo poder de reafirmación a través de la socialización diaria con otros sujetos, esta socialización se divide en dos tipos: Primaria, es decir, aquella en la cual el mundo que nos rodea cuando somos pequeños se nos vende como el único mundo existente, de tal manera que todos los elementos que aprendemos y adquirimos en la infancia quedan ligados a nuestra cosmovisión con una enorme fuerza psicológica y prácticamente irreversible.
Y la Secundaria que es la que se da cuando vamos creciendo y vamos incorporando nuevos conocimientos que pueden ir en consonancia o chocar con lo asimilado en la socialización Primaria. Durante este periodo la influencia de la socialización primaria sigue siendo enorme y basta muy pocos elementos que confirmen dicha postura para reafirmar al sujeto en su corpus de pensamiento inicial. Por ejemplo, si desde pequeños hemos crecido en un ambiente cristiano y creemos en Dios, es probable que cuando seamos adultos y adquiramos un mínimo de cultura lleguemos a la conclusión de que Dios o bien no existe, o si existe no es como nosotros queremos que sea, dado el caso es imposible obtener una respuesta en consonancia con nuestra creencia infantil. Esto provoca que durante nuestra vida adulta vivamos sin problema con la creencia de que Dios no existe, no obstante si en el curso de nuestra vida adulta nos ocurre algún suceso que pueda ser ambiguo con respecto a su naturaleza extraordinaria y casual o "divina", por la influencia de la socialización primaria tendremos a pensar que a lo mejor Dios sí existe y hemos estado confundidos todo este tiempo, poniendo en seria tela de juicio lo aprendido posteriormente sobre la imposibilidad de la existencia de un Dios.
Si por el contrario nosotros hemos aprendido desde pequeños que Dios no existe y no hay posibilidad alguna de que exista y este pensamiento nos lo han machacado desde pequeños día sí día también, cuando nos ocurra algún suceso ambiguo jamás se nos pasará por la cabeza que haya la más mínima posibilidad de un origen divino en dicho suceso, precisamente porque desde pequeños nos han hecho creer que eso es imposible.

Del mismo modo, cuando el sujeto es consciente de los procesos de socialización, comprende que nuestras sociedades tienden a clasificarnos en roles, dichos roles son muy variados y casi todos los conocemos. Algunos sujetos se aprovechan de esta consciencia y de manera manipuladora hacen uso de estos roles para obtener beneficios sociales, económicos, políticos, etc.

En cualquier caso, es imposible socializar por completo a un ser humano, dado que las sociedades, al ser productos que tienen un supuesto origen racional, inhiben, reprimen, parte de la naturaleza humana, dicha represión solo puede ser canalizada a través de un pragmatismo absoluto canalizado en el desgaste progresivo de las energías en las tareas cotidianas o hacia una normalización de los tipos de actividad visceralmente humanos, como la legalización del BDSM, las peleas de boxeo, etc. Mientras que los gobiernos encuentren la manera de controlar y gestionar dichos impulsos, podrán lograr poner a la ciudadanía de su lado y poder lograr el objetivo último de toda institucionalización: Aquella en la cual se trabaja para asegurar una identidad nacional X, una ilusión más o menos compleja que asegura la productividad de la sociedad para lograr el tan ansiado y abstracto Progreso.

Un libro estupendo e imprescindible.

[Griffin Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be a most excellent work -- in fact, I will be adding it to my 'favorites' because I liked it so much.

I discovered this work through a YouTube philosophy channel that I frequent (video linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UpSo...). I was intrigued, especially after I realized that this was one of the most influential works in sociology written in the 20th century.

Philosophers have often asked "What is real?," "Can we know ultimate reality?," or "What is reality made of?" This is not the scope of this work. Instead, the authors contribute to a relatively new field (at the time) of sociology called the "sociology of knowledge," which they say is "concerned with the analysis of the social construction of reality." So, they ask questions more along the lines of "how do the various social conventions that we consider 'real' and their habituations, institutionalizations, and legitimations affect what people 'know' in any given group (or subgroup)?" I feel they do an excellent job at addressing this question along with many others; I came away with many useful tools and will probably come back to study this work more closely in the future.

They conclude by saying:

"Man is biologically predestined to construct and to inhabit a world with others. This world becomes for him the dominant and definitive reality. Its limits are set by nature, but once constructed, this world acts back upon nature. In the dialectic between nature and the socially constructed world the human organism itself is transformed. In this same dialectic man produces reality and thereby produces himself."

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the first books that really opened my eyes to epistemology and the sociology of knowledge. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the social construction of knowledge and reality.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a myriad of sensory data hitting you all the time. Whether it be sounds, colors, feelings, emotions etc. Basically, things happen. And then you tag on either a word or an explanation. These words or explanations arise from the people around you.

But it is more than just your words and explanations. Your opinions, views, mentalities , and goals also stem from the people/ institutions that you interact with.
Where do these come from?

This ranges from the media, governments, schools, friends you find on the street. And perhaps you are starting to wonder why it is other cultures may not share your ideas, and styles of dress then this may be a fun book for you to read.

This book attempts to concisely explain, in theoretical terms, how our understanding of reality (what philosophers classically call : the world) arises from the social constructs that we are born into. Meaning: How it is that your specific society creates your personal understanding of reality.

Super cool stuff.

Recommended for everyone

[Rui Coelho · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good introduction to constructivist perspectives on the social. It anticipates some of Foucault's and Goffman's theories, among others. This work deserves way more recognition.

[Gale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann define reality as “a phenomenon that we recognize as having a being independent of our own volition.” However, it is evident that humans themselves create their own form of realities and eventually have extreme belief that their realities are actually real. Then, how objective can our reality be if we cannot avoid bias?

Society is a human product. “Man’s relationship to his environment is characterized by world-openness.” Humans are species who are moldable within the constraints of their biological being. They continuously alter any factors of the society for it to completely develop into their favor. It is not a wonder then that humans have created and produced society. Through this, society becomes an objective, enthroned and domineering reality which in turn makes the individuals eventually turn into the pawn of society. They themselves become the product of their own creation.

Society is an objective reality. The Social Construction of Reality is an orthodox text that discusses the individual identity structure, socialization and influence of social prowess. The text is based on the sociology of knowledge wherein there is a profound affiliation between human thought and the social framework within which it arises. Furthermore, it explains how knowledge – common sense, values, and social norms – is socially constituted thereby explicating constraints and extent of the society’s influence on an individual’s life. With this, the knowledge obtained and the ensuing social institutions forms an objective reality which makes it possible for a reality to exist separately of our subjectivity.

Man is a social product. Social institutions promote habitualization within the limitations of human life. It constructs a stable background wherein the life of the individual is routine. This in turn relieves the stress and frees the individual from making decisions for themselves. This is where the idea that man is a social product. The social institutions – created by humans – takes control and becomes the dogma of men themselves. Also, these social institutions provide the symbolic universes wherein the individual’s life is revolving around. The symbolic universes are a set of circumstances that endeavors in creating an institutionalized structure that is acceptable for humans. It gives the explanations for why things happen the way they do, why people act the way they do. We see the world as unchangeable, always constant. This is because from the moment we were born, we have been socialized to believe the limitations that the predetermined social institutions taught us. The socialization originated from our family, the church, friends, teachers, even the people we see fleetingly. It’s unbelievable how much the society can dictate and shape us into how we view the world. In other words, the society had us become institutionalized.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Berger's Social Construction of Reality is a thorough and concise expression of a lot of things I'd already learned or intuited about the topic. This is a nice thing to have, cementing a lot of thoughts in place and confirming that I had indeed understood the concepts accurately. And Berger's writing is nowhere near as impenetrable and arcane as I'd expected it would be. His style is a bit ornate, using unusual phrasings and word variants, but it's all straightforward enough to parse on a first pass. On the other hand, his examples are largely disappointing. Berger wrote this in the 1960's; a lot of its ideas were around even earlier.

I grew up in a world suffused with fiction exploring implications of Berger's thesis, from Borges and Philip K. Dick to Wade Davis and Barry Lopez. I've seen tons of explorations and examples of Berger's ideas by writers far more creative than him. It's no surprise his thought experiments fall a bit flat. But it's not just that they're boring or don't take ideas to interesting places; this isn't really the place for that. It's that they often are quite unhelpful at just explaining the ideas, or distract from his thesis in some way. His examples are colorful and memorable, from a love triangle between a lesbian, a gay man, and a bisexual, to a peasant who must integrate into his identity his role as a peasant “cringing before his lord” and as a husband beating his wife, to an island tribesman thrashing his insolent nephew. He often cites gender as an example, which, while it is a social construct, is certainly too complex and debated to be used as an introductory example from any point of view.

The other problem with Berger's examples is that many of them seem too naïve to believe in this day and age. Perhaps it is true that, at one point, people were so credulous and straightforward about their concepts of reality, but these days post-modernism and irony have suffused our culture so fundamentally that it raises eyebrows to speculate on individuals who take their own ideas about the world so seriously, who completely lack even the concept that other ways of doing things exist, on issues that are relatively apolitical. Berger does make mention of the fact that his decentralized, relativist ideas about culture and reality are a result of the proliferation of worldviews in our rapidly globalizing and industrializing world. The introduction of many worldviews that function side by side without serious friction or disfunction undermines the primacy of one's own worldview.

I had for some reason expected Berger to focus more on ontology, essentially to the application of sociology of knowledge to scientific realism. Instead, Berger essentially takes a provisional level of realism for granted. He assumes the existence of the world, including humans as biological entities with some fixed properties that distinguish them from other animals (the nexus between evolutionary biology and culture is super interesting and one I'm sure is becoming better-studied now, and by holding it as a constant Berger makes the biggest oversimplification of the book. Probably not a bad choice given his goals, though) and posits culture as a product of that interaction, unique to each society and sub-society. Culture then affects both humans and the world and the three have a complex mutual interaction ever since, one that is quite difficult to exactly decipher. The point is, Berger's question is not about the ontological status of reality, but rather about the formation, evolution, and maintenance of worldviews and identity groups.

Studying abroad in Tanzania, some of my anthropology major friends were complaining about how sociologists always say that “reality is socially constructed.” I believed this to be true at the time, so I asked what their alternative would be: “reality is culturally constructed.” Aside from being a really dumb petty disciplinary squabble, this distinction misses the point of Berger's idea. The book is an abstract, speculative theory about how cultures are created, and it constantly asserts that culture is an all-encompassing, subjectively experienced set of concepts and relationships synonymous with “reality” itself. Berger of course rarely uses the word “culture,” though subculture appears quite often, but it's impossible to mistake his meaning without stooping to willfully obtuse jargon quibbling.

For all its inadequacies, Social Construction of Reality is probably the best simple introduction to post-modernism I've come across yet. It focuses on the material, cultural underpinnings and consequences of what are often framed as philosophical debates and problems, driving home the contingency of our arguments and identities in historical and biographical circumstance. It emphasizes that reality is on every level created and maintained by repeated enactments by individuals. It also illustrates quite saliently the literal ubiquity of tropes and narratives in every facet of life. It would be fun to teach this book, pulling from the post-modern literary corpus for more interesting and well-executed examples. Definitely recommended for anyone looking to get a better understanding of post-modernism, relativism, or just a theoretical framework for how culture works.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book begins with the defining statement of its thesis (page 1): "The basic contentions of the argument of this book are implicit in its title, namely, that reality is socially constructed. . . ." The essence of this: our understanding of what is "real" is something that comes from our living in a social world. That social world is a major part of defining what "reality" is.

The book is not necessarily an easy read. But the authors' argument is important and the reader will be rewarded by "toughing it out." Even if one disagree with Berger and Luckmann, it is important to grapple with and address their arguments.

One of the major issues of the human condition is that we become convinced that we "know" reality" and reject other people's views of "reality"--when, in fact, as the authors argue, "reality is a construction of society." Much conflict, then, is a battle over constructions--and not a battle over objective reality.

Human nature's role? The book winds up with a telling comment here (page 183): "Man is biologically predestined to construct and to inhabit a world with others. This world becomes for him the dominant and definitive reality. Its limits are set by nature, but, once constructed, this world acts back upon nature. . . . In this same dialectic man produces reality and thereby produces himself."

This is an important work on how people come to understand the world around them and how that perception, in its turn, affects their behavior. Many readers will be uncomfortable with this argument, but it is an important issue to address. And this book is one of those key venues where such an interaction between readers and ideas can take place.

[Nati S · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book because I wanted to find out the extent to which certain notions, which we take for granted, are socially constructed. More specifically, I wanted to find out the extent to which gender was socially constructed.

If you think of psychology as the software of the mind, then sociology of knowledge would be the the foundations on which such software runs, i.e. the hardware. Sociology of knowledge attempts to answer questions that have to do with the way we view reality. Such questions are difficult because of their dialectical nature.

The word dialectical is critical when it comes to understanding the sociology of knowledge. The word refers to the logic of appearances and and of illusions. Put simply, if something is dialectic it means one can view it, even though it is the same thing, in different ways depending on the perspective one assumes.

The central dialectic in this book concerns with the relationship between objective and subjective reality. You see, on the one hand, the mind constructs reality through social means, and on the other, the society, where which the mind exists in, constructs the mind. This book discusses the details of such dialectic relationship, for example, the role of language when it comes to defining reality for an individual.

The first part 'Society as Objective Reality' was rather boring and I found myself struggling to go through it. But the second part 'Society as Subjective Reality' was rewarding and made my initial efforts worth it. I'm not sure if what the authors are saying is entirely true but I think they had a lot of good points.

[Gonzalo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Se nos presenta un ensayo que aborda por primera vez y de manera detallada una teoría sociológica del conocimiento.
A caballo entre un análisis empírico/historicista y un ensayo filosófico, los autores abordan con suma brillantez y claridad los conceptos básicos que constituyen la construcción social de la realidad.
Mediante un análisis dialecto de las facticidades básicas que constituyen la realidad, tales como los encuentros cara a cara entre individuos o el lenguaje como vehículo externo e interno al individuo para designar dicha realidad, los autores construyen los grandes pilares básicos sobre los que se sustentan el status quo social institucional (analizando a su vez las formas de legitimación y organización de dichas instituciones)
Por último, abordan el concepto subjetivo de realidad que crea el individuo para dar legitimidad a esa realidad objetiva que experimenta, y por tanto establecer la correlación entre ambas realidades como un proceso dialéctico que ubica constantemente al individuo como algo armónico al desarrollo de la construcción de la sociedad.

[Jan D · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was very interesting, but hard to read. I liked that it provided some very interesting, coherent ideas of what “reality” is for people and how it is “build”. For this, it introduces some key concepts like objectification, externalization, internalization and reification. Good for understanding the concepts was the use of examples.
Nevertheless, the language was very abstract and it seems that some basic knowledge in the terminology of marxism as well as A. Schütz’s phenomenology would have been useful. Furthermore, the book uses a lot of latin phrases. It might have been normal when the book was written, but today the liberal use of “ipso facto”, “Ergo sum” and “in actu” seems dated and makes it hard to read (for the non-latin speakers, at least)
I made extensive notes which speaks for the book.

[Lisajean · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the introduction, the authors say that they “have tried to make this book as readable as possible.” While I appreciated the effort, they weren’t entirely successful. This was a slog for me. It was moderately interesting/illuminating, and I’m glad I read it... but I’m also glad to be done with it.

[Kyaw Zayar Lwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

ဘာဂါက အရှိတရားဆိုတာ လူမှူတည်ဆောက်မှုပဲ လို့ဆိုတယ်။ဒါပေမယ့် အရှိတရားဆိုတာရဲ့ စစ်မှန်မှု၊ရှိမှုသဘောကို ဆန်းစစ်တာမျိုး မဟုတ်ဘူး။ဖီနိုမီနိုလော်ဂျီနည်းနဲ့ ကြည့်တာမျိုးပဲ။ကျွန်တော်တို့ စိတ်ထဲမှာ လက်ခံထားတဲ့ အရှိတရားကိုပဲ လေ့လာတာမျိုး။
အရှိတရားကို ဘယ်လို တည်ဆောက်သလဲဆိုတော့ နည်းလမ်း၃မျိုးနဲ့ တည်ဆောက်တယ်။
ပထမဆုံးကတော့ externalizationလုပ်တာဖြစ်တယ်။လူတွေဟာ အခြားသတ္တဝါတွေနဲ့မတူဘူး။ပတ်ဝန်းကျင်ကို ပြောင်းလဲဖန်တီးနိုင်တယ်။လူတွေနေထိုင်ရာလောကကို ယဉ်ကျေးမှုဓလေ့နဲ့ တည်ဆောက်တယ်။
ယဉ်ကျေးမှုဓလေ့ဟာ ကာလနဲ့ချီပီး တည်တယ်။
ပီးတော့ အနက်ဖန်တီးတယ်။
လူ့အဖွဲ့အစည်းနဲ့ တဦးချင်းကြား ချိတ်ဆက်ပေးတာက ယဉ်ကျေးမှုဓလေ့ပဲဖြစ်တယ်။
ယဉ်ကျေးမှုဓလေ့နှစ်မျိုးရှိတယ်။
Objective cultureဆိုတဲ့ တန်ဆာပလာတွေ၊နည်းပညာတွေနဲ့ဆိုင်တဲ့ ယဉ်ကျေးမှု။
ပီးတော့ significative cultureဖြစ်တယ်။
စိတ္တဇသဘောဆန်တာတွေကို ပြောလိုခြင်းဖြစ်တယ်။(အချစ်၊ဘာသာစကား၊နှုန်းစံတွေ)


လူတွေအနက်ပေးထားတဲ့ အရာတွေကို လေးမျိုးခွဲခြားတယ်။
ရုပ်ကြမ်းအချက်တွေဖြစ်တဲ့ တောင်တန်းတွေ၊ပင်လယ်တွေ စတာတွေ။
လူမှုအချက်တွေဖြစ်တဲ့ လူတွေဖန်တီးပြုလုပ်ထားတဲ့ ကုလားထိုင်တွေ၊အသုံးအဆောင်ပစ္စည်းစတာတွေ။
စနစ်ဖြစ်တည်ဖန်တီးထားတဲ့ အချက်တွေဖြစ်တဲ့ ငွေကြေး၊လက်ထပ်မှုစတာတွေ။
သင်္ကေတဆိုင်ရာအချက်တွေဖြစ်တဲ့ အချစ်၊လွတ်လပ်မှု စတာတွေဖြစ်တယ်။

လူတွေအပေါ် မှီခိုရမှု နဲ့ အနက်ရှိမှုဟာ အချိူးကျတယ်။
တောင်တန်းတွေဟာ လူတွေအပေါ်မှီခိုရမှု နည်းတော့ အနက်အရလည်း အဲဒီလောက် မများလှဘူး။
အချစ်၊လွတ်လပ်မှုစတာတွေဟာ လူတွေဖန်တီးထားတဲ့အရာတွေဖြစ်တာမို့ အနက်အရလည်း လူတွေနဲ့တူတူဖြစ်တည်နေတယ်။

အဲဒီတော့ လူတွေသတ်မှတ်ထားတဲ့အရာတွေကို ဓမ္မဓိဠာန်ကျကျတည်ရှိနေတဲ့အရာတွေလို့ ယူဆဖို့ဆို orderဆိုတဲ့ စနစ်တကျစီစဉ်ဖို့လိုတယ်။

Objectivation-အနက်တွေကို စစ်မှန်အောင် ဖန်တီးခြင်း

အရှိတရားဟာ လူတွေဖန်တီးထားတာဖြစ်ပေမယ့် တဦးတယောက်တည်းနဲ့ မဖြစ်တည်နိုင်ဘူး။
ဘုံလုပ်ဆောင်မှုသဘောဖြစ်တယ်။

Objectivationဆိုတာ နဂိုက မတည်ရှိတဲ့တစုံတရာဆိုတဲ့သိမှုဖန်တီးခြင်းဖြစ်တယ်။
အနက်တွေကို သိမှုဖန်တီးရာကနေ အချက်အလက်သဘောဖြစ်လာတယ်။

ယဉ်ကျေးမှုဓလေ့ကို ဖန်တီးရာမှာ နည်းလမ်း၄မျိုးကို အသုံးပြုတယ်။
Institutionalizationဆိုတဲ့ ပထမဆုံးနည်းကတော့ လုပ်ဆောင်မှုတွေဟာ အကျင့်သဘောဖြစ်လာတာမျိုးကို ဆိုလိုတယ်။အဲဒီကနေ အပြန်အလှန်သဘောအနေနဲ့ အမျိုးအမည်ကိုယ်စားပြုဆက်သွယ်မှုသဘောရတယ်။ဥပမာ-ဘဏ်ထဲကို ရောက်ရင် ဘဏ်က ဝန်ထမ်းကို မသိပေမယ့် ထိုသူကို ဘဏ်ဝန်ဆောင်မှုပေးသူဆိုတဲ့ သင်္ကေတကိုယ်စားပြုမှုလုပ်ပီး အမျိုးအမည်တခုအနေနဲ့ ဆက်သွယ်တယ်။

အဲဒီလိုအချက်အလက်တွေဟာ ကာလကြာလာတော့ ဆင့်ပွါးတည်မြဲလာတာကို historicityသဘောလို့ခေါ်တယ်။
ဆက်သွယ်သတ်မှတ်မှုအမျိုးအမည်တခုခုဟာ သမိုင်းသဘောကြာလေလေ ပိုပီးဓမ္မဓိဠာန်ကျတယ်လို့ ထင်မြင်ရလေလေပဲဖြစ်တယ်။

အဲဒီကနေ legitimationဆိုတဲ့ တရားဝင်လက်ခံမှုသဘောကို သွားတယ်။
ဘာလို့လည်းဆိုတော့ ရင်းမြစ်ကို မမှီလိုက်တဲ့ မျိုးဆက်တွေအတွက် အပြုအမူတခု၊ဓလေ့တခုကို အနက်ရှိအောင် ပြုလုပ်ရမယ့်အခါ ဇာတ်လမ်းတွေ(stories)ဖန��တီးရတော့တယ်။
တချို့အရာတွေက သိသာထင်ရှားတယ်။
ဥပမာ-မောင်နှမချင်း လက်မထပ်ရဆိုတာမျိုး။
ဒါပေမယ့် ထိုအရာကိုပဲ တရားဝင်လက်ခံမှုသဘောရစေချင်တဲ့အခါ သဘောတရားအရပြုလုပ်မှုတွေ လုပ်ရတယ်။မောင်နှမချင်း လက်ထပ်တာဟာ မျိုးရိုးဗီဇသဘောအရ ဆိုးဝါးတဲ့အကျိုးဆက်တွေရှိနိုင်တယ်ဆိုတာမျိုး။

ပီးတော့ symbolic universeဆိုတဲ့ ဖန်တီးတည်ဆောက်ထားတဲ့ လောကသဘောတွေနဲ့
တရားဝင်သဘောပြုလုပ်သေးတယ်���
အဆိုပါ လောကသဘောဟာ အရာဝတ္ထုတွေ၊ဖြစ်ရပ်တွေအားလုံးကို အနက်ရှိအောင် တည်ဆောက်ထားတာမျိုး။
ဥပမာအနေနဲ့ ဘာသာတရားတွေကို ပြလို့ရတယ်။
အရှိတရားကို တရားဝင်သဘောဖြစ်ချင်တဲ့အခါ ဘာသာတရားကို အသုံးပြုကြတယ်။
ဥပမာ-အသက်ကြီးသူကိုတွေ့တဲ့အခါ လက်အုပ်ချီတာမျိုးကို တရားဝင်သဘောဖြစ်စေချင်တဲ့အခါ ဘာသာတရားအရ ကြီးသူကို ရိုသေရမယ်ဆိုတဲ့အနက်ကို ပေးလိုက်တာမျိုး။
ဘာသာတရားအရ ကိုးကွယ်သမျှ ဘုရားရှင်တိုင်းဟာ အရာရာတိုင်းကို သိတော်မူတဲ့ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်တွေချည်းပဲ ဖြစ်တယ်။
အဲဒီအခါမှာ လောကမှာ ဖြစ်တည်၊ဖြစ်ပျက်နေတဲ့အရာရာတိုင်းကို ဘာသာတရားကိုအသုံးပြုပီး တရားဝင်သဘောဖန်တီးနိုင်တယ်။
နောက်တခုက disorder ဆိုတဲ့ ပုံမှန်မဖြစ်မှုတွေကို မကောင်းသောအရာအဖြစ် သတ်မှတ်နိုင်တယ်။
ပီးတော့ ပြုမူတဲ့အရာတွေကို မှန်ကန်တယ်ဆိုတဲ့ သဘောသတ်မှတ်နိုင်ဖို့ ဘာသာတရားကို အသုံးပြုနိုင်တယ်။


နောက်ဆုံးကတော့ ဘာသာစကားပဲဖြစ်တယ်။
ယဉ်ကျေးမှုဓလေ့တွေ၊အရှိတရားတွေကို ဘာသာစကားက တည်ဆောက်ပေးတယ်။
ကျွန်တော်တို့ရဲ့ ပုဂ္ဂလအနက်တွေအတွက် index(ရည်ညွှန်းမှု)အဖြစ် ဆောက်ရွက်ပေးတယ်။
အတိတ်နဲ့ အနာဂတ်သဘောဟာ ဘာသာစကားကြောင့်သာ တည်ရှိနိုင်တယ်။

နောက်ဆုံးကတော့ Interiorizationပဲဖြစ်တယ်။လူမှုသတ္တဝါအဖြစ် သွတ်သွင်းခြင်းမျိုးဖြစ်တယ်။socializationလို့ခေါ်တယ်။
ကနဦးအဆင့်မှာ တဦးချင်းဆီရဲ့ လောကကမ္ဘာ(home world)ကို တည်ဆောက်ပေးတယ်။
ယဉ်ကျေးမှုသိစိတ်(cultural instinct)ကို ဖြစ်စေတယ်။
လူမှုသတ်မှတ်မှုကို necessity(မရှိမဖြစ်သဘော)အဖြစ် ရှုမြင်စေတယ်။

ဒုတိယအဆင့်မှာတော့ တာဝန်ခွဲဝေခြင်း(division of labor)နဲ့ ပတ်သက်ပီး လောကကမ္ဘာတွေ ထပ်ခါတည်ဆောက်တယ်။
အခန်းကဏ္ဍသတ်မှတ်မှု(role specific)ကို မြင်စေတယ်။

ထိုဖြစ်စဉ် ၃ရပ်လုံးဟာ ဒိုင်ယာလက်တစ်သဘောအနေနဲ့ အဆင့်ဆင့်ပြောင်းလဲကာ ဖြစ်တည်နေတယ်။အချင်းချင်းမှီခိုနေတဲ့ ဖြစ်စဉ်တွေလည်း ဖြစ်တယ်။လူမှုသတ္တဝါအဖြစ် ပျိုးထောင်ခြင်းဟာ အဆုံးမရှိတဲ့သဘော၊အမြဲပြောင်းလဲသဘောဖြစ်တယ်။လူသားဟာ ဖန်တီးတီထွင်တတ်တဲ့သတ္တဝါဖြစ်တာမို့ လူမှုသဘောတွေဟာလည်း အမြဲပုံသေမရှိဘူး။
သတ်မှတ်ထားတဲ့လူမှုသတ္တဝါအဖြစ် သွတ်သွင်းဖို့ဆို တာဝန်ခွဲဝေမှုအနည်းဆုံးနဲ့ အသိပညာခွဲဝေမှု အနည်းဆုံးဖြစ်ဖို့လိုတယ်။

တည်ရှိနေတဲ့ အရှိတရားကို ခိုင်မြဲစေဖို့ဆို သံသယသဘောကို ဖယ်ထုတ်ထားခြင်းတွေ၊နေ့တဓူဝအဖြစ်သတ်မှတ်ခြင်းတွေ၊ကြုံတွေ့မှုဖြစ်စဉ်တွေ၊ကုထုံး(therapy)တွေ၊အနှုတ်သဘောသတ်မှတ်မှုတွေ(ဥပမာအားဖြင့် တည်ရှိနေတဲ့ဘာသာတရားတရပ်က အခြားဘာသာတွေကိုဆို အနှုတ်သဘောဆောင်တဲ့လုပ်ဆောင်မှုအဖြစ် သတ်မှတ်တာမျိုး)တွေနဲ့ ထိန်းသိမ်းထားတယ်။

[lizi]

Normálně bych k žádné hodnocení nepsala, ale hned první recenzentka tady na Goodreads tu knihu dle mého chápání vyložila úplně špatně a má vypnuté komentáře sakra himl hergot!!! hahaha No prostě když už jsem to přečetla…
Důležité je, že teda takhle recenzentka očividně vychází z filozofického prostředí, tudíž bere hodně věcí, co se v SKR řeší, jako nějaké hodnocení, které tam ale podle mě není. Připouštím, že autorům by asi dneska příklady s “lesbičkami” v milostných trojúhelnících a homosexuálními armádami ve starověkém Řecku neprošly, ale holt je to prostě už starší a autory to očividně nějak fascinovalo. LOL
Je otázkou, kde tedy Berger s Luckmann selhali, když celkem jednoduchý koncept nedokázali na 180 stránkách velmi hutného textu předat očividně sečtělému člověku, byť z jiné disciplíny. Jestli by náhodou neneslo ovoce občas něco zformulovat jednodušeji…
Basically hlavní myšlenka: Realita je společensky podmíněná. Tahle interpretace ovlivňuje jedince a jejich identity a oni zase nazpátek ovlivňují definici reality.
Taky vůbec není pravda, že by tvrdili, že “kultura je realita a tudíž se jí musíme podřídit", a že takové rigidní nastavení je funkční. Je rozdíl, kdy se popisuje funkce, a kdy se ta funkce nějak morálně obhajuje (i když teda chápu, že se sociology jako je Parsons se tahle hranice jaksi nedopatřením smazala). Nekonformní jedinci jsou skutečným ohrožením pro stávající paradigma ustavené kolem vnímání reality a proto jsou pro takovou společnost nebezpeční. Hodnocení, jestli je to dobře nebo špatně, tam určitě není a myslím si, že si ho tam recenzentka domýšlí. Naopak, Berger a Luckmann mapují, jak se tato paradigmata nejenže mohou, ale taky často mění, a jak k tomu dochází v systému, který je vymyšlený tak, aby sám sebe udržoval. Pasáž, která to diskutuje: “Tradiční definice reality brání společenským změnám. (…) mezi lidmi majícími zájem na udržení zavedeného mocenského systému a lidmi dohlížejícími na monopolní tradice udržující symbolický svět existuje těsný vztah.” (strana 122)
Recenzentka taky operuje s tím, “kým jsme ve skutečnosti". To sociologie moc neřeší a ani k tomu nemá prostředky. Hned, jak se někdo ohání “lidskou přirozeností", sociologové od toho většinou dávají ruce pryč. Příklad: Metody konverze sexuality často dosáhnou výsledku - studu a podřízení. Na sociologii není říct, jestli se jedinec vážně vnitřně změnil a “přeorientoval se", ale může v rámci sociologie vědění zkoumat, jakou sociální funkci taková terapie plní a jak účastníci realitu takové terapie vnímají. Užitečná pasáž: “Zdárně završená terapie znovu socializuje devianta do objektivní reality symbolického světa společnosti.(…) Terapie využívá pojmového aparátu k udržení všech členů společenství v hranicích daného symbolického světa.” (strana 114) Nutno poznamenat, že “objektivní realitou” autoři myslí to, co se aktérům zdá reálné a co je jako reálné označováno společností.

[nettie]

berger a luckmann řekli “žijeme len raz, práve tu a práve teraz.”

[Dominique]

$1.99 Kindle and Kobo sale, May 4, 2021.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty astonishing, both in the grand scope and fine detail of its theorizing about the dialectical process through which human beings make society and are made by the society they make.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best from my college years. Mind opening.

[Sunny · Rating 4 out of 5]

In places I thought this book was mind-blowingly good in that I totally 100% agreed with some of its references to culture and how our thought and language in particular goes about moulding the reality around us and, by repetition, the culture we begin to form both as individuals and then as amalgamations of these individual cultures. In other places I totally didn’t have a scooby dooby doo what the book was on about and found myself skipping and whizzing through it. Here are some of the interesting points the book raised: It spoke about the actions say of 2 married people that come together to form one co-mingled set of actions which eventually start to form a subculture in itself. This is well and good until the couple have children and so now they are dealing with potentially 4 different cultures. 1. The culture that the mother brings to the table. 2 the culture that the father brings to the table. 3. the amalgamated culture that they have co-created before the baby is born and then a 4th culture is created which is the most complex of them all which incorporates the way in which the mother expects the child to be bought up and, guess what, the father does the same. Both mother and father come to this stage in their lives with predefined modus operandi, after all, they were bought up in a certain way by their parents and they turned out fine individually so why should they not bring that child up in the way they recognise and remember they were bought up themselves? The individual's character precipitates from a process in which he is recognised by the world and those around him. Other's impressions of you go to form you but you are not formed as a result of those impressions alone. A screening takes place, a dialectic where you accept or reject the way that someone is towards you and that voiceover that we give not only to events that affect us but to other people’s opinions and actions towards us are fundamental to the way that we go about life in such a socially orientated environment. Our interpretation of others’ opinions and attitudes towards us is fundamental to our psyche and to the understanding of who we are as individuals living in masses.

[Filip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Připadá mi, že jsem u Sociální konstrukce reality strávil tak jedno mládí a kousek dospělosti k tomu. Pomalé a pečlivé čtení doprovázela tužka v ruce a štosy čistých papírů pro poznámky, tudíž se čas prodloužil donekonečna a nebudu lhát, občas jsem se už modlil, aby to skončilo. Jenže tenhle přístup šnečího tempa mi dopomohl si knížku užít a pochopit základní teoretické přístupy k tomu, jak naše společnost funguje. A že je to ve skutečnosti jedna velká snůška věcí, které mohly být úplně jinak.

Řeknu vám, že to, co jsem se dozvěděl, mi otevřelo oči. Najednou dokážu pojmenovat věci, o kterých všichni víme (jenom si je neuvědomujeme) a chápu konstrukty a principy tvořící realitu kolem nás. Čekal jsem milion odkazů, tisíce jmen a teorie, které neumím ani přečíst. Dočkal jsem se možná tak stovky poznámek pod čarou seřazené na konci knížky, ale jinak Berger své teze formuluje srozumitelně, někdy naprosto laicky, jasně a přímočaře; je dobrý vypravěč (pokud to můžu v případě nonfikce použít) a vše demonstruje na příkladech z reálného světa, což je v případě sociologie přínosné. Na závěr je nutno říct, že jsem se při čtení i trochu vyděsil – tahle knížka ukazuje realitu jako konstrukt, který se při větší snaze může zbořit a z objektivního světa se stane chaos. Neustálá přítomnost nástrojů, které chaos drží v rovině, je opět na bedrech těch stejných lidí, co jsou kolem nás.

Jo a taky je důležitá socializace. Nádherné čtivo v karanténě.

[Paige McLoughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Socially constructed knowledge is a lot what most people know about the world and it is secondhand and removed from immediate experience or of a different metaphysical order. I know Paris is the Capital of France even though I never have been there, I know the French revolution happened on July 14, 1789, even though I wasn't alive at the time and that the current year is 2021 ce or AD or whatever you want to call the present moment, I know atoms exist, I have seen Jupiter through my telescope and four Galilean satellites but I am told that we know it has 79 moons I haven't seen those and that exoplanets go around other stars haven't seen those either, I am pretty sure that this 8 dollars I have in my pocket are good for 2 liters of Diet Coke and Large bag of Doritos at the gas station at the bottom of the hill I live on. But why do an exchange of paper and metal discs work? such exchange alchemy is baffling from a certain perspective, and what determines how many diet cokes I can get? and what is two liters anyway? how is that determined? And there is a pandemic going caused by a virus and I understand by the Germ theory I learned in school I should wear a mask and social distance. All of this knowledge used in my everyday behavior right now is socially constructed by custom, study, and abstraction it is not immediate but it is intensely social even though we don't treat it as such. The world is weirder than you think it is. (less)

[S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was pretty tough. Good thing Berger and Luckmann are excellent guides through a very theoretical and thought provoking work.

Put simply, Berger and Luckmann posit that social reality is no more than a human construction. From the moment we wake up and begin to reorient with our surroundings (e.g. I am "Scott", I am a "student"), we engage in sense making procedures to make the social world seem "real" and "objective". This is not only an individual process: entire institutions exist to maintain an objectified reality. For example, Berger and Luckmann suggest therapy functions to bring deviants in line with specific values and behaviours, maintaining a societal sense of right, wrong, and normalcy.

This is hardcore social constructionism, but it's also social constructionism at its best. Good food for thought and theoretical framework for those interested in sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, or linguistics.

[Katy]

I'm reading this for a class at school (like all the other books on my currently-reading shelf) and it is painful. I don't fully understand it until we have discussed it in class but it is full of ideas that I've never come across before and that change the way I think about knowledge and reality. The language is definitely from the 1960's though, apparently the only people who think about such things are men.

Update:
Almost finished with the class (almost as painful as the book) and the more we discussed this in class and applied it to real-life, the more I understood it. But it still pissed me off whenever it said "Him" or "He" or "Men" while ignoring those of us women who actually have brains too. Misogynists!

[Andrew]

From what I understand, this is a central text of 20th Century sociology, and really the book that introduced social constructionism to the general public, which, of course, is one of the most abused and misunderstood and unfairly maligned and unreasonably exalted concepts of 20th Century thought in general.

And, for those of us who have come of intellectual age in an American scene permeated with social constructionism and its innumerable offshoots, it makes a lot of sense, in the same bluff way as the pragmatist texts of William James do.

[Ahmet Akın · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uluslararası İlişkiler alanında kaleme aldığım tezim için Sosyal İnşacılık kuramını kuramsal çerçeve olarak belirleyen birisi olarak; Sosyal bilimler açısından Sosyal İnşacılığın temel kavramları ile birlikte derinlemesine bir bilgi birikimi için okunması gereken bir eser olduğunu söyleyebilirim. Yalnızca siyasal düşünce açısından değil, psikolojik ve sosyolojik açıdan gerçekliğin nasıl inşa edildiğine dair bir anlamlandırma sunuyor kitap sizlere. Konu ile ilgilenenlere tavsiye edilir...

[Seth Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

While verbose and redundant at times, this is a fascinating look at how humans create the cultural structures that produce reality and identity. While it is easy to detect some cynicism at times regarding objective reality, the authors do a decent job of presenting the material--even if they occasionally make sweeping statements that may not be true.

[Libby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this back in my junior year of high school along with several others by the author, but my mind comes back to it again and again. It is both an insightful and a readable exploration of how society builds plausibility structures and colors our perception of reality.