Peter Berger's "sociological problem" is not a
description of why things are wrong, but a description of the whole system,
what its preconditions are and by what means it maintains its unity. Example
problems: not divorce but marriage, not crime but law, not racism but racially
defined stratification, not revolution but government. That is, defining a
"problem" as a bad situation depends on your point of view, and what
is a problem for one social system is a desirable routine for another. The
sociologist must be able to observe the state of observation positions of
competing value systems.
Extremely, Durkheim (a French sociologist) argued that
the desires and intentions of an individual are completely irrelevant, and any
action is determined by social logic that every human being in society is under
his authority, and that often people act on that logic without knowing it at
all.
The sociologist, however, must often ignore the answers given
by social actors to his questions and seek hidden explanations from their
minds. An approach is called functionalism. The company is analyzed on the
basis of its operations as a system, operations that usually disappear or are
blocked by the agents within the system.
This is also expressed on a personal level - many people
believe in their own ideology (or propaganda), and the sociologist must
penetrate through what a person (or society) pretends to be and what he really
is - he must stand on the real (sometimes unpleasant) motives for action. The
sociologist fights for absolute justice, so this science immediately disappears
in totalitarian regimes.
Berger holds that traditional societies ascribe to their
members definite and fixed identities, while in modern society the identity is
not certain and is in a state of change (and also understanding different
identities is easier, due to familiarity with societies and other situations).
A situation is created in which a person does not know exactly what to expect,
what his status in society is and what his attitude and connections are to
other classes / people / officials. To some extent it is the crisis and shock
that has spawned the blossoming of sociology today - man today is willing to
convert views and ideologies, and is pre-empted into a state of greater
transparency to the social core than in the past. There is a growing awareness
of the relativity of each point of view and the non-existence of an absolute
truth. However, most conceptual systems (such as Communism or Catholicism)
provide a comprehensive explanation of a person's existence and world -
including the conceptual system he has abandoned. Each conceptual system also
provides tools for the struggle against its replacement by another system, and
sees itself as an absolute truth. Cosmopolitanism - Urbanization often brings
openness to the world, and sociological consciousness here is cosmopolitan.
Next parts of Berger's Invitation to Sociology:
Sociology as an Individual Pastime
Great books by Peter Berger and other invitations to sociology:
