Peter L. Berger

9     Peter L. Berger: Humanistic Sociology

Peter Berger introduced me to sociology. After two years of studying mathematics I read his Invitation to Sociology.[1] I was immediately fascinated by this original and lucid introduction. Three weeks later, I decided to become a sociologist. I am sure that his book has invited thousands of students to sociology.

Peter Berger lived in Austria during his childhood but after Hitler invaded his country he first moved to Israel and in 1946 migrated to the USA where he was granted citizenship. He studied in the USA and spent his whole academic career there. Though the work of this real icon of sociology always remained strongly rooted in a European scholarly tradition made up by Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and Alfred Schütz.

Characterizing Berger’s work is not easy because it shows many influences. He, preferred the label humanistic, because it features a great concern with problems of the human condition. The aim of sociology should be to generate knowledge that helps to ease human suffering.  

His most famous book is The Construction of Social Reality. This is a sociological masterpiece that he produced in close cooperation with Thomas Luckmann. This book describes how the construction of social reality is an on-going process of externalization, objectivation and internalization where society gets deeply ingrained in the individual and individuals become the carriers, producers, and reproducers of society. Socialization plays a very important role in the construction of social reality. Topics such as primary socialization and the issue of identity formation are delicate issue in modern times. Berger never joined the big male choir of cultural pessimists who love to sing about the doom and gloom of modernity. He added new perspectives to the sociological explanations of secularization and the social functions of traditional marriage. Peter Berger was no Marxist. His book, The Capitalist Revolution, presents a huge amount of data showing that in many respects capitalism or a system of market economy is to be preferred over a centrally planned economy. Capitalism creates more wealth, more social equality and more democratic freedom.

To my regret the Berger chapter has to end with a discussion of his article titled: Disinvitation to Sociology. Near the end of his career he had become extremely critical of mainstream sociology. He uttered harsh critiques about the triviality of much empirical research, and chastised cosmopolitan sociologists that remained quite parochial in the choice of their topics, perspectives and conclusions. He identified this and other tendencies as major reasons for the stagnation of sociology. 

9.1   Life and career

Peter Ludwig Berger was born on 17 March 1929 in Trieste, Italy’s most Austrian city, but was raised in Vienna. In his youth Hitler invaded his country. Although the Berger family was Lutheran, the Nazi’s classified them as Jews. Aware of the danger, they left Austria to seek refuge in Israel, but they did not settle there. In 1946 they migrated to the United States and Peter Berger started to study theology. After one year he changed to philosophy and social science. In 1949, he graduated from Wagner College with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He continued his studies at the New School for Social Research in New York City. This academic institution acted as a safe haven for illustrious foreign philosophers and social scientists that had fled Europe after Hitler seized power. One of his famous teachers was the phenomenologist Alfred Schütz.[2]

Peter Berger received his M.A. in 1950 and his doctorate degree in 1954. He went to Germany to work at the Evangelische Akademie in Bad Boll. From 1956 to 1958 he was assistant professor at the University of North Carolina. In 1958 he became associate professor at Hartford Theological Seminary. In 1963, he returned to the New School for Social Research. A few years later he was offered a professorship at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. Since 1981 Berger has been Professor of Sociology and Theology at Boston University. In 1985 he became the director of the Institute for the Study of Economic Culture. A few years ago this research organisation was transferred into the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs.

Peter Berger is married to Brigitte Berger, also a renowned sociologist. Like him, she has written several important books and is also a full professor. Together they published an introduction to sociology and other books.[3]

Berger has a great interest in the sociology of religion, which provided the topics for his first two books, The Noise of Solemn Assemblies and The Precarious Vision.[4] He passionately contended that the mainstream churches had failed to keep pace with social developments. They had done little more than legitimizing the existing political and social situation. Moreover, they lacked the religious sincerity and moral commitment required to confront the great social problems of modern society. At the time, these books had a great impact on the religious community of the US.[5] He would often return to this subject, careful not to treat it as some kind of religious marketing research, a type of research he abhorred. He labelled his own approach as methodological atheism. It featured a rational disposition and ascetic value-neutrality, as stipulated by Max Weber.

In the sixties, Peter Berger became very famous with the subsequent publication of three books. The first was the abovementioned Invitation to Sociology from 1963. Three years later he published The Social Construction of Reality, together with Thomas Luckmann. This bestseller was studied by a whole generation of students and is still in print today. The third one, The Sacred Canopy from 1967, also became very famous.[6] His fame rose considerably during the seventies, but started to dwindle in the eighties.

The Vietnam War raised his political awareness. This led in 1970 to the publication of Movement and Revolution. He wrote the first part: Between System and Horde: Personal Suggestions to a Reluctant Activist. Richard John Niehaus, his good friend and theological sparring partner, wrote the second part of this political pamphlet.[7] Together with his wife and Hansfried Kellner he aired his displeasure about modernity in The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness.[8] However, he was not completely satisfied with this book, because the political perspective was pushed into the background. Within a year he produced a new monograph Pyramids of Sacrifice.[9] Here, he clearly distanced himself from both the capitalist system and the communist system. At the time, he did not believe either system was proficient for solving the huge problems of developing countries.

In the eighties, Berger started to re-evaluate capitalism based on the study of a wide range of literature on the theory and practice of communism and capitalism and a thorough analysis of empirical data from various economic studies. Since then Berger no longer viewed capitalism and communism to be on a par. His findings drove him towards the conclusion that capitalism was much better equipped to solve important social problems than communism was. His former reservations were based on his observations of the negative effects of capitalism in Latin America. Now he had become greatly impressed by the positive developments of emerging capitalist countries in East Asia. In 1987, two years before the demise of communism in Europe, he presented his new insights in The Capitalist Revolution. The book contained a list of fifty propositions on affluence, equity, and freedom. Politically, he had moved towards the right, although he preferred to be labelled a ‘progressive conservative’.

In 1981, Peter Berger and Hansfried Kellner published Sociology Reinterpreted: An Essay on Method and Vocation. This sequel to Invitation to Sociology arose from their intention to redefine sociology in a concise and clear manner. They had noticed a significant change of climate in the field. Confusion was growing about presuppositions and procedures. Sociologists started to show a widespread and deepening dissatisfaction with their profession. The belief in the possibility of steering social developments and planning the world was quickly losing ground. Two World Wars, the holocaust, atomic bombs, economic crises, and ecological disasters had shattered Enlightenment optimism, while the tenacity of social problems such as poverty, racism, and crime did not help either. At the time, Berger and Kellner still believed in the potential strength of sociology and its power to render valuable insights in social structures and processes. With this essay they intended to revitalize sociology by revitalizing Max Weber’s interpretative approach and a return to the big questions put forward by the founding fathers of sociology: How is the modern world different? What are its essential structures? Where is it going? How did it get that way? These questions were crucial to Comte, Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Parsons, and many others. According to Berger and Kellner, sociology cannot ignore these questions without losing a core element of its intellectual substance.[10] In the nineties, however, Berger became even gloomier. Instead of a new sequel to his earlier invitation he now wrote a ‘disinvitation’. He repeated many of his former critical remarks about the state of the art of sociology, especially about its provincialism and triviality.[11]

His oeuvre counts more than twenty books and numerous scientific articles. Already during his active career a complete volume was published with critical discussions of his work. Because Berger was given the opportunity to respond to his critics, we are now in a good position to find out what he really thinks. The title of this anthology (Making sense of modern times) perfectly fits Berger’s oeuvre.[12] Just like all canonical sociologists he has made great efforts to interpret modern society.[13]

Peter Berger died in his home in Brookline, Massachusetts on the 27^th of June 2017.

9.2   Characterizing Peter Berger’s sociology

If you want to characterize Berger’s approach you have to begin with his strong affinity with the ‘soft’, non-quantitative side of sociology. In general, he does not have much faith in ‘hard’ variables such as birth rates or patterns of migration, but is far more interested in the significance attached to having a family or the subjective reasons for migration. But he does not stop here. Berger has always taken a great interest in the connections between social actions and the objective structures of society.

9.2.1 The input of existential phenomenology   

The necessity of this double focus is made crystal clear in The Social Construction of Reality. Theoretically, Berger owes much to Marx, Durkheim, and Weber. He is indebted to Marx for his contributions to the sociology of knowledge. From Durkheim Berger borrows the methodological rule that society should be studied as if it were an object. He agrees with Weber that subjective meanings attached to social actions are the subject matter of sociology. He does not see these as two conflicting perspectives, but as complementary positions, because social reality has a subjective as well as an objective side. As these two sides constantly influence each other, a ‘dialectical’ approach is needed. He also owes a lot to Alfred Schütz who was his teacher at the New School for Social Research. Both Berger and Schütz were strongly influenced by the work of Herbert Mead, the founder of symbolic interactionism, a theoretical approach closely linked to phenomenology.

The primary focus of the existential branch of phenomenology is individual freedom or the free will. The major tenet of this perspective is the intentionality of human actions. Consciousness is always directed at specific objects.[14] With this intentionality, phenomenology tries to bridge the gap between empiricism and intellectualism, between objectivism and subjectivism. Empiricists are convinced that human existence can only be understood by assuming that all things are separate, external to each other and causally related in such a way that each phenomenon is influenced by other objective phenomena. In this vision, there is no explanatory role for consciousness. On the other hand, philosophical idealists think that physical entities only become ‘real’ in our consciousness. They deny that the material world exists independently from our minds. Phenomenology attempts to connect these contrasting views. It argues that our consciousness is a consciousness of external objects. Obviously, the term external object has to be taken very broadly. We should not restrict ourselves to houses, rocks, and rivers, to people, plants, and animals. Also our own consciousness can be the object of our thinking.

Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, succinctly described the ubiquitous existence of the connection between consciousness and the reality of external objects. Perception is awareness of something. Desire, love, and hate always are directed at something or somebody. There is no such thing as a completely autonomous thought, a thought that is not related to something real. You are always thinking about something, remembering, fearing or fantasizing something. In short, you can only perceive, hear, feel, smell, or taste if there is something to perceive, hear, feel, smell, or taste. You can only think of something if there is something real to think about.

So, phenomenology is the doctrine of the intentionality of all subjects directed at really existing objects. This theory also assumes that consciousness will be corrected or sharpened in the interchange between subjects and objects.[15] The world of objects corrects our mind. You cannot run away from reality. Perceptions of the world will always enter your mind. They are imposed on us and often thrust deeply into our awareness. This is certainly true for the social world. However, this is not to say that we will perceive everything in all its detail, completely, and in a pure form. Far from it, but the objective world has a corrective potential that adjusts most misconceptions.

It is quite easy to accept the major tenets of phenomenology as long it is concerned with the perception of the physical world. This is different once we address the social world. Then the question arises what we perceive when we perceive aspects of the social domain. In that case, according to Schütz, we perceive a universe of social relations between individuals. That world of interpersonal relationships constitutes an objectively perceivable reality, a reality that already existed before we were born, long before we started to think about these relationships. In fact, one of these interpersonal relationships brought our biological parents together to create our person.

Berger subscribes to the close connection between subjectivity and the world of real objects, which he thinks is applicable to the perception of one’s own body and mind as well as to social institutions. A human being not only is a biological body, but that it also has a biological body. In reflection, individuals can situate themselves outside themselves and look at themselves in a critical and observant way. They can ask themselves difficult questions: Who am I? What motivates me? What turns me on? What frightens me and why? What am I doing? Why am I doing this?

People perceive their own selves as not identical to their biological existence. Their experience of themselves oscillates always between their whole being and their biological existence. A similar relationship exists for social facts or, if you prefer, social artefacts. They can only exist as a result of the social actions of individuals. As soon as they come alive, they start a life of their own that can be observed and analyzed by the individuals that have created them.

9.2.2 Humanistic sociology

The subtitle of Invitation to Sociology is A Humanistic Perspective. Human beings play a central role in Berger’s works. He has always shown a great compassion for the human condition, for the capabilities and limitations of human beings, with all their socially determined convictions and lifestyles. He is deeply aware of the fact that our knowledge is limited, and that our insights are biased by our social and cultural environment. It is important to realize this, because it prevents us from developing arrogant visions of the world, as it should be. For this reason, he is very sceptical about revolutionary policies and utopian plans. All these plans are based on insufficient knowledge about today’s world and an even greater ignorance about the future. Hence, we need to be very careful with any designs for the transformation for society, as the cure might be worse than the disease.

Modesty and prudence is advocated for other reasons too. Sociologists tend to analyze social phenomena from very different and even opposing perspectives and value systems.[16] The ideal social scientist should be interested in a broad spectrum of problems, issues, cultures and historical periods. Berger distrusts extreme specialization and the same is true for a fixation on methodological and technical aspects of research. In his view, data and statistical analysis can only turn into sociology if the outcomes are explained by a sociological theory. The tables in a research report become sociologically interesting only when they teach us something about social meanings, values, and institutions. Too much concentration on techniques is lethal for sociological imagination. This is not to say that Berger denies the usefulness of rigorous methods or correctly applied statistical analysis. On the contrary, they are essential for doing science. He only wants to emphasize that method and statistics merely provide the means for furthering social science. They are no end in themselves.

If we were to label Berger as a philosopher of science, we would call him a champion relativist. The realization that our knowledge is limited and also tainted by our culture turns him into a modest scientist and reluctant activist. Paradigmatically he feels at home in the realms of phenomenology and interpretative sociology, although he seriously attempts to bridge the gap between these approaches and a more objectivist and structuralist approach. His humanist disposition is manifested by a theoretical focus that has the human condition as its centre and circles around the idea that human beings incessantly are forced to construct and reproduce a social environment that continuously is influencing them. Undeniably, his political commitment is humanistic too. It is directed at a step-by-step approach to reduce human suffering. Because of the great risks for creating chaos, sorrow, and despair, he rigorously rejects revolutionary ideologies.

9.3   The social construction of reality

In all his studies Peter Berger emphasizes the constants of the human condition.[17] People can survive in almost any climate or area. Humans are very flexible and malleable. At birth, their organism is ‘unfinished’. Compared to other mammals, their instincts are underdeveloped. Hence, they have to develop alternatives for their limited instinctual make up. Humans can control their biological instincts, at least to a certain degree. Therefore, they are freer and less bound to their biological programme than animals. As a consequence, people face an ‘open world’. Alfred Schütz asserted that the social world has the potential to expand continuously. By necessity, it is an open world. Hence, it makes sense to contend that man constructs his own nature or, more simply, that man produces himself.[18] At least, to a certain degree, I would say.

9.3.1 The foundations of Knowledge in Everyday Life

Man produces himself, but not on his own. He cannot survive as a solitary individual. Our body is equipped for a rather stable social environment that protects us against extinction or an existence at a subhuman or animalistic level. Social processes must create what our biological nature does not provide. Humanity is acquired by the activity of making sense of reality; this is a never-ending process.[19]

We are condemned to make sense of everything, to make choices, and to take decisions. In the view of existentialists such as Sartre, our freedom to make choices and to take responsibility of the consequences is the quintessence of our existence. Berger agrees. Even when someone threatens to kill us if we do not obey him or her, we still have the liberty to decide how we will respond. We can always reject the demands of our oppressors, as the stoic Epictetus taught us two millennia ago, though it might mean that we will be killed. Fortunately, most of the time social coercion is far less extreme. According to Sartre and Berger, it is a form of ‘bad faith’ if we forego our own choice or completely give in to social pressure. Precisely, by ascribing our yielding fully to these pressures, we help to reproduce these impositions. This view reveals a consistent ethic: there always is a margin of freedom, but never presume complete freedom.

At day one, each individual is confronted with a socially constructed social reality, imposed on him from day one. On the other hand, each individual has its own genetic idiosyncrasies and potential structure of character, which can in turn be imposed on his social environment. This reciprocal interchange between society and the individual, with its continuous tension between individual freedom and social coercion, was already on the agenda in Invitation to Sociology. Chapter four of this book is titled ‘Man in Society’, followed by a chapter called ‘Society in Man’. A few years later this theme is further developed in The Social Construction of Reality.[20] In subsequent publications, Berger tries to maintain a theoretical balance between society’s power over its members and the capability of people to reconstruct society. Continuously, he emphasizes the essential man-made character of the social world.

In a way, The Social Construction of Reality is an academic treatise on the sociology of knowledge. The concept of knowledge has to be apprehended much more broadly than scientific knowledge, philosophical ideas or religious beliefs. According to Berger and Luckmann, it should encompass everything that passes as knowledge in society at large. It should also concern the practical, common sense knowledge of ordinary people, the familiar knowledge that they need to live their lives.[21] Society and social beings could not survive a single day without the commonplace insights that guide conduct in everyday life. Hence, the knowledge of ordinary people is a central topic for sociology.

Traditionally the philosophy of knowledge occupied itself with the ideas of philosophers, politicians, and high priests, categories that make a profession of creating ideas or transferring ideas to others. Often their ideas evolve into complete worldviews.[22] However, according to Berger and Luckmann, worldviews and scientific theories are not that important. Although each society has such systems of thought, they only form a small part of the whole set of collective ideas. Only a few people are professionally involved in this kind of knowledge. But all people, including scientists, base most of their actions on knowledge that is not supported by scientific tests. This common knowledge forms the foundation of meanings on which the whole construction of society rests. That is why the sociology of knowledge should focus on social reality, as ordinary people perceive it. Traditional sociology of knowledge is chiefly occupied with the notion that human thinking is determined by the social-historical context, with the exception of Mathematics and Physics. The Ancient Greek scholars already made sensible guesses about the social determinacy of worldviews, and French mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) asserted that what is truth on one side of the Pyreneans could be untrue on the other side. It was Karl Marx who stated the basic tenet of the sociology of knowledge most succinctly: “das Dasein bestimmt dass Bewustsein”.[23] This could be translated as ‘Existence determines consciousness.’ Being determines seeing.

9.3.2 Externalization – objectivation – internalization

Society has an objective and a subjective reality. Every sociological explanation should include both aspects. Both will get due attention if society is seen as a kind of dialectical process that encompasses three sub-processes: externalization, objectivation, and internalization.[24] Only when we understand the interconnectedness of these three movements, can we acquire an adequate, empirically based view on society.[25] These three processes do not constitute a dialectical process as described by Georg Friedrich Hegel. Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann use this notion of objectivation to describe the production and constant reproduction of society as an interchange between actions of individuals and the collective norms and values that emerge when they engage in social action. The third step involves the return from the collective or social objectivity, to the consciousness and subconsciousness of individuals.

Externalization refers to the need of humans to confront the world with their words and deeds. Social agents  show their feelings and intentions to other people. They have ‘to tell their story’ to friends and relatives, to colleagues and partners, and, when no one else is around, even to perfect strangers. These manifestations give rise to patterns of behaviour and social structures that acquire an objective character. The products of externalized behaviour, material as well as immaterial, acquire a type of transcendent reality that will be experienced as an objective fact external to the producers. As a consequence, these objectified structures start to have an impact on individuals.

Internalization is the process of consciously and unconsciously  re-appropriating the structures of the objective world. People transpose these objectivations to their own subjective values and meanings. It is a process of incorporation that involves learning to accept these objectivations and introjecting them as the most normal and sensible reality one can think of. Then no need is felt to question this reality. In general, people do not even feel the urge to criticize a social reality. They do not realize that it is socially constructed and it might just as well be different. This ‘self-evidence’ is the result of a socialization process that has been very successful in blinding people to the possibility of alternative social constructions and in making them believe that their life-world is the only sensible life-world.

Society is a human product, a consequence of the externalizations of all individuals. Through objectivation it becomes a sui generis and through internalization individuals become social beings.[26]

The social construction of reality is, as suggested by Hegel and Marx, a consequence of the constant need of human beings to externalize. Man is an expressive being. But there is one more human constant, the disposition to socialize, or what Simmel has called the need for ‘sociality’. A truly solitary existence from birth, assuming that this would somehow be possible, would imply an animalistic existence.

From the three components – externalization, objectivation, and internalization – the process of objectivation still is rather vague. How does objectivation arise from the social actions of individuals, how does a recognizable, observable, tangible, objectified social structure come about? The easiest answer is that each individual is born in an already structured world in which the majority presents or regards certain social phenomena as social facts or things that should be taken into consideration, taken care of, followed and kept alive such as traditions, norms, values, rules and regulations. Hence, social reality seems to the actor to be independent of the actor’s apprehension of it; it appears already objectified, pre-given.[27] Therefore, it imposes itself on the actor to such a degree that he no longer sees it as imposition. From day one infants learn to adjust to this apparently well-ordered social world. They have or do not see any alternative. Hence, they learn to imitate existing patterns of behaviour before they even could make sense of them. Thus the social order will be recreated continuously.[28] Habituation has the important psychological advantage that not every action involves reflection.

9.3.3 Institutionalization and the social construction of reality

As soon as individuals establish certain habits, institutionalization follows. From then on regular patterns, rules, and programs or ways of organizing are imposed on individuals by society.[29] At the macro-level big subsystems such as education, the economy, and the law are big and complex institutions catch the eye immediately. But there are many smaller and less complex institutions of social organization. Wherever habit formation takes place, institutions arise as soon as the group expects its members to conform to these newly created rules. This mutuality is very important. It is crucial that the majority of the group obeys the established group rules and follows its customs. Institutions are crystallized customs that have become law-like rules, prescribing specific types of behaviour for specific occasions. They ‘determine’ what has to be done in particular situations. For example, judges should sentence the guilty according to certain preset boundaries for a particular crime. Within this range they can take the circumstances of the felony and, if relevant, the social background and the psychological state of the accused into account. We expect lawyers to do their utmost for the defence of their clients so that they may be acquitted or may be sentenced with only a minimal sentence. On the other hand, we expect the prosecutor to present his case as strongly as possible, to present the court with all the necessary evidence and to plead for a maximum sentence.

Institutions have origins and generate effects. They have a history and imply social control. In general, they emerge gradually and not overnight, and once they are crystallized they start to control and canalize social behaviour. This element of control is most evident in social institutions with a legal basis, that establish, in turn, a complete subsystem of social control. When institutions lack such a formal legal basis, their power is derived from the ‘force of habit’, a force strong enough to influence people and to regulate their behaviour. Significant deviations from the standard patterns evoke critical reactions and might lead to severe sanctions.

Institutionalization processes carry out the social construction, the maintenance, and the reconstruction of social phenomena. But individuals have to sustain and legitimize this on a daily basis. That is why the human being, according to Berger, is not only a homo socius, but also, as conceptualized by Marx, a homo faber – a creator of the world and a cultivator of its culture. Society is a work in progress, a never-ending story, involving a continuous activity of world-constructing. All the time people are reproducing, renovating, repairing and re-establishing its features. As a result society acquires a thing-like quality. Here Berger pays tribute to Durkheim. The culture and structure of society remain real only in so far as they are confirmed and reconstituted in and by the social actions and relations of individuals.

Each institution depends on a language for the verbal presentation of all its inherent classifications, concepts, and prescriptions. It is the first institution encountered by a young child, who cannot invent his own language, at least not one that is understood by others. Only when he starts to use signs, sounds or words that can be recognized by adults, a meaningful communication will emerge.

Language is the most fundamental of all institutions because it gives meaning to the structures the perceived environment. Moreover, it helps to objectivate that reality. The continuous stream of experiences is crystallized, partitioned, and labelled into separate objects that all appear to have group names such as cats, trees and houses. With the help of language, relationships can be established. For instance, the young child might soon learn that the red cat lives in the white house next to the tall tree. Language makes the social world more real. It describes its relations and by doing so it gives social elements an extra dimension, underlining their status as real existing phenomena; it objectivates the rules that control social reality.

Also the does and don’ts of social behaviour are consistently specified by language. With the help of these linguistically fixed patterns we can easily learn the social rules and roles, including our own. Moreover, roles are institutions that also represent social institutions. The parent that punishes his or her child represents society – a society that judges his behaviour as deviant and undesirable. So, the role of the punishing parent represents the moral system of society.[30]

9.3.4 Main characteristics of institutions and the danger of reification

Institutions are recognizable by a few essential characteristics: externality, objectivity, social force, moral authority and historicity. An institution is something that exists outside the individual. It represents a ‘hard’ reality that can be distinguished from immaterial thoughts and feelings. For instance, one can have a rough encounter with the judicial system, with cultural traditions, or with group mores.

Institutions are real. They are visible. Their effects can be seen or felt,  directly or indirectly. Legislation has been debated in parliament or congress. It has been written down in law books, and been interpreted in real court cases and resulted in concrete penalties.  In time, all this will result in a clear interpretation of the law and a just punishment for the offender. In similar vein, the majority of speakers of a national language agree about its proper usage. Grammar and spelling are described in instructive books and dictionaries, including irregular verbs. Individuals cannot ignore the external and objective reality of institutions, or wish them away. People that need or want a job, but have written an application letter with some errors of spelling or grammar have little chance of being invited for an interview. Also people who arrive too late for the interview or not properly dressed will not get the job.

The acknowledgement of the objective and powerful character of institutions does not imply that they will never change. On the contrary, most institutions change continuously, albeit incrementally, because they are the product of meaningful actions of numerous individuals. Take language. New words or meanings flourish while other words become obsolete, depending on changes in the means of production, in value systems, in society or in the world.[31] In the legal domain, too, we see that new rules and regulations are introduced and other laws are changed or abolished. Nevertheless, most laws will remain unchanged for decades or even ages. In general, institutions are rather stable. Changes take place at a slow pace. Often, alterations are resisted or held up. The introduction or abolition of laws requires lengthy political procedures before they are accepted and put into practice. The same is true for major innovations in education.

This excursion brings us to the two last characteristics of institutions: moral authority and historicity. Those who do not obey the rules, run the risk of being sanctioned. The over-ambitious intellectual, with his misplaced jargon, will sooner or later learn that he does not quite fit in. The same is true for the migrant worker who, after many years of residence, still mixes up his second language. The non-middle class policeman, who tries to speak impeccable English, may make peculiar mistakes because of hypercorrection of grammatical rules. The cross he bears is imposed on him by the middle class, the people whose parents always use the legitimized, standard language.

Institutions that exist today have a history that dates from before we were born. Hence, individuals always are confronted with habits, rules, and customs that already existed before they were born. Numerous ancestors have imprinted specific meanings onto these institutions. Although these ancestors passed away long ago or even centuries ago, the institutions they have established are still very much alive.

9.3.5 Reification

To what extent are institutional orders objectivated as a non-human entities? This is a question of great theoretical interest. Reification (Verdinglichung) is the apprehension of socially created phenomena as if they were non-human things – like facts of nature or manifestations of divine will. Reification occurs when people forget their own authorship of the social world. The interaction between the human producer and his product is lost to consciousness. This happens when institutions that already existed long before we were born are seen as strange entities, alien products beyond control of ordinary people, for example ‘the government’, ‘capitalism’ or ‘the law’. But we should never forget that even ancient laws, customs and traditions might change or fade away. We must acknowledge that the social world, its rules and organizations, can be experienced as something outside ourselves. Therefore, always sociologists warn people against the fallacy of reification.[32]

Social scientists have discovered that reification is widespread, especially with children and people in pre-modern societies. Not long ago, marriage was reified as an imitation of the divine act of procreation, as a holy fulfilment of God’s law to fill the world with new generations, as the necessary consequence of biological or psychological forces, or, if you wish, as a functional imperative of the continuation of the social system. What all these reifications have in common is their obfuscation of marriage as an ongoing human institution. Nowadays, marriage has lost its aura of holy matrimony. Presently, it is simply seen as a personal choice of two people. In large parts of the world formal marriage is no longer required to legally establish a family or regulate the sexual drive of humans. Also social roles may be reified and apprehended as an inevitable fates. Individuals in specific roles often say: “I have no choice. As a mother, father, chairman, or headmaster I have to act this way.” In fact, they dehumanize both themselves and their role, forgetting that the set of role expectations is socially constructed and subject to change.[33]

= = = = = =

Berger does not believe that society fully determines human behaviour, or that individuals are moulded according to a pre-designed blueprint. I refer to the sections on his theory of socialization, although the intriguing question of where social influence stops and individual self-determination starts is not answered here. Like all other social theorists Berger cannot give even a rough indication of the proportion of human behaviour that can be accounted for by social determinants. For him, it suffices to emphasize that the individual is not completely moulded or controlled by social forces. There is room for each individual to act according to his own will and intentions; what is more, this is how he really interacts with his social environment. Society does not unilaterally impose its will on the individual. Evidently, the assumption that there is some playing field for individuals to express their autonomy is necessary to the idea of mutual interactions and a mutual influence between the objective and the subjective side of social reality. Without this elbowroom for individual manoeuvring, there is no ‘dialectic interaction’ between society and the individual. Without such reciprocity, individuals would just be the puppets on the strings of social forces, and society would always stay the same and never alter. It is obvious that this is not the case. So, we can argue by reductio ad absurdem that, to a certain extent at least, man has a free will.

9.3.6 The experience of everyday reality

Once it is established that the social world is the product of human actions, we can tackle the question what everyday reality looks like. Berger insists that at first the world appears to us as an unintelligible chaos. We are compelled to filter and cluster information in order to come to grips with that complexity. Specific symbols are attached, for example, to certain facts while simultaneously a host of others are ignored. We only use a dozen different words to distinguish all the colours of nature, for example, although eye specialists have found that it is theoretically possible for us to differentiate between more than six million colours or shades of colours.

A second basic tenet of Berger’s ideas is that everyday reality is overwhelming and tends to dominate everything. Building on the phenomenological work of Schütz he asserts that we construct a world that we share with others, a world that can be called everyday reality. Phenomenological sociologists investigate the many ways of digesting social reality, by dividing it into specific sectors and separate categories.

In everyday reality, a great importance is attached to the here and now. We perceive our immediate surroundings as very real. The same is true for whatever is happening now. We experience time as a phenomenon that irrevocably proceeds from the past to the future. Bygones are bygones; there is no ‘back to the future,’ no ‘replay function’ for the past. Whenever we turn to memories or speculate about the future, we are enclosed in the confinements of our minds, in our world of dreams and fantasies.

Thirdly, everyday reality is perceived in pragmatic terms. It is the world of labour, of production, a world where people are evaluated and classified on the basis of their useful contributions to society. This is seen as the real world. This world can claim our full attention, our full commitment. Here we have to accomplish our most important goals.

The fourth characteristic of everyday reality is the constant need for full alertness. We always have to be alert not to miss splendid opportunities that might come our way or for potential danger that may destroy our (social) life. This constant need to be awake at all time is essential for the daily reproduction of everyday reality.

The fifth characteristic is our disposition to ignore any doubts about everyday reality. Here we see a clear difference between our everyday reality and reality as perceived by scientists. It is a basic disposition of every scientist to cast doubt on every aspect of life and to research whether his doubt can be grounded on observational data or test results. Ordinary people would be very much annoyed if everything and everybody was doubted. A general lack of trust in people will reduce social participation, collective action and the economy.[34]

Finally, Berger believed that everyday reality is partitioned into small pieces. Every partition demands a partial commitment of all our skills and knowledge. The skills we use when driving a car are different from those we use when cooking. We constantly try to reduce the complexity of our world so that we can concentrate on the task at hand. This increases our effectiveness considerably. As a consequence, we live in an efficient world, an orderly world where most events take place in a routine fashion. It is a relatively safe world, a world we can trust. Only in very exceptional cases will the physical world take us off guard with unsuspected disasters, such as floods, earthquakes or avalanches. Only in exceptional cases will the social world confront us with deviating lifestyles, shocking opinions, riots, acts of terrorism, complete revolutions or even wars. In general, we know what to expect in our part of society. Its orderly and predictable character makes social life rather simple and easygoing for most of us. Because we all operate on the basis of a common set of meanings, we quite easily socialize with other people from the same society.[35]

[box]

Assumptions about everyday reality held by Alfred Schütz and Peter Berger

• We perceive everyday reality as an orderly and conveniently arranged whole, because we filter out chaos and reduce complexity
• We experience everyday reality as the all overpowering reality that we share with others
• We see the practical, concrete reality of work and production as the most essential reality
• We have to be alert all the time, because everyday reality is full of opportunities as well as risks
• We are inclined to ignore all doubts about everyday reality.
• We divide everyday reality into sectors. This helps us to concentrate on specific tasks. It makes reality more practical and behaviour more efficient.

[/box]

Box 9.1

9.4   Comic relief: a necessary interlude

One of Schütz’s major contributions to our understanding of everyday reality and human existence was his specific delineation of what people experience as reality and what as extraordinary. He was particularly interested in the relation between the reality of the ordinary, everyday life, which he called the paramount reality – Berger prefers to term them ‘sub-universes’ – and those islands within the latter, which he called ‘finite provinces of meaning’. The paramount reality is the reality which is most real to us. Sub-universes are experienced as the individual temporarily leaves the paramount reality of ordinary life. Examples of taking leave of ordinary life are dreaming, day-dreaming, experiencing sublime works of art, getting high from taking drugs, being overwhelmed by beautiful music, enjoying orgiastic sex, undergoing an intense religious experience, or seeing or hearing something so comic that one bursts into uncontrollable laughter. Though these examples all still are part of the wider reality of human existence, they can bring people into a trance, or generate a state of ecstasy, which is derived from the Greek ek-stasis, meaning standing outside. Moreover, they are set apart by a specific ‘cognitive style’ and one has to pass a psychological barrier or undergo a kind of shock to get back to ordinary reality.[36] Instead of the positive examples given here there are also bad experiences of the extra ordinary, such as finding yourself in a very bad dream, a terrible nightmare, or in a real terrifying situation such as a car crash, a bombardment, or being shot at by a sniper. All these are also forms of sub-universes that have their own logic, such as giving the highest priority to your own safety, ignoring the fact that your partner or child needs to be saved too. This has happened to people trying to free themselves from a crashed and burning plane. Adults may have lost control over their sphincter muscles and dirtied themselves like a baby as a consequence of an extreme angst for dying.

Berger has written an interesting book about laughter and the comic experience, one of the positive sub-universes of reality. His point is that laughter brings relief, relief from the tedious, serious and tragic sides of human existence. It acts like a counterforce against subordination. The stronger the sense of powerlessness, the greater the need to make jokes about the powers that be. The capacity to laugh and make jokes is a unique and a universal human talent. We may observe animals at play, but animals behaving comically or making fun of each other do not exist. Maybe because animals aren’t aware of the fact that they are mortal, they have less need for comic relief. They do not understand the whole concept of the comic, that is, the emergence or creation of situations that stand so far apart from the everyday events in life that people feel a strong impulse to laugh about it. Often this occurs when the high and mighty is unexpectedly put in a weak and vulnerable position or when traditional roles are reversed.

Berger ends his book Redeeming Laughter with a theology of the comic. Here he observes that all the monotheistic religions, the world religions stemming from Abraham, hardly ever mention laughter or the comic side of life.

9.5   Symbolic interactionism and socialization

When Berger introduced his theory, socialization was mainly described and explained from the perspective of social control. Primarily, socialization was seen as the imposition of social control, supported by a system of reward and punishment. At the time, sociologists were accused of an ‘over-socialized’ conception of man.[37] Berger does not deny that each individual is confronted with numerous attempts to control his behaviour. “Every individual is born into an objective social structure within which he encounters the significant others who are in charge of his socialization. These others are imposed upon them. Their definitions of his situation are posited for him as objective reality.”[38] From the moment of their birth, babies interact with their physical and social environment. Their social background will determine whether they will be nurtured with the bottle or breast-fed by their mother or a wet nurse. Certainly, it will determine the type and quality of their clothing and the frequency and sort of attention they will get from their parents.[39] In this way, newborn babies are in close contact with the macro-world of society as a whole. The prevailing views on child rearing will have an impact on their biological functioning. If mothers or other caregivers adhere to a rigid scheme of feeding times, the body will adjust and the infant will be hungry at the right time. With this impressive example, Peter and Brigitte Berger illustrated the impact of macro social forces on the micro world of families and newborn babies.[40]

9.5.1 Socialization and social determinism

A child is born and raised in a country with a vast array of customs, laws, rules, and regulations that it is expected to obey. The state has established an entire organization of professional controllers and supervisors: policemen and women, prosecutors, judges, and prisons wardens, to mention a few. And, last but not least, each household develops its own rules for maintaining a peaceful co-existence. Deprivation of love and affection is a very effective way to correct undesirable behaviour within this social micro-world. Yet, Berger is convinced that everybody has the means to escape from intolerable social pressure. In the first place, social control can never be total. Even in a police state it is impossible to control everybody at all time, day and night. Moreover, the rules can be changed, circumvented and manipulated. If people no longer want to remain loyal to the system, they can protest or move to other places. Hirschman summarized these options as exit, voice, and loyalty.[41] Merton mentioned the following options besides conformity: innovation, ritualism (or fake-conformity), retreat, and rebellion.[42]

People can try to discuss the legitimacy of the imposed rules and demand change or abolishment. Berger notes that processes of ideological critique have preceded every revolution. He considers the non-acknowledgement and the alternative definition of social norms as a potentially revolutionary action.[43] He has a keen eye for the possibility of a redefinition of norms and values. This, once more, shows that he does not see socialization as a one-purpose instrument for social control and society-maintenance. In his view it is also an instrument for individual development.

The fundamental processes of socialization are interaction, identification and internalization. This triad of processes is very similar to the one put forward by Durkheim, who used similar terms, though he mentioned cooperation instead of interaction. Individuals learn to recognize, accept, and appropriate the attitudes, norms and values from the socializing agents with whom they interact frequently. Through empathy they learn to identify with someone else’s role. Finally, through internalization, it becomes a part of their personality. Thus, socialization creates the basis for an understanding of the meaning of social events, for the apprehension of the world as a meaningful reality.[44] To a great extent, this involves learning to understand fellow-human beings. Socialization is the process of a child’s learning to become an active member of society. To a great extent, socialization is the imposition of social patterns on individual behaviour. It can be a very powerful process. This is all the more so, because young children have no idea of the possible alternative patterns of behaviour in other regions, countries, and classes. They will experience the culturally determined patterns of their upbringing as the normal and valid form of pedagogy. They simply take them for granted. Only much later, they learn that alternatives do exist; that other social groups have different customs and values. The stability and uniformity of the child rearing practices and other social patterns offer young children a solid basis for getting a grip on their social environment.[45]

Growing up also implies becoming a person with a well-established objective and subjective identity. These can be further developed, although society tries to keep people in their prescribed role and place. One can view socialization as a top-down process within which the child is stuffed with all kinds of rules and customs from society, supported by a process of social control that functions thanks to a rigid system of sanctions. One can also approach this from a more positive angle and see socialization as a prolonged process of initiation into the social world of adults.[46] Socialization enables children to prepare themselves for a world that is already out there and waiting for them, though it is not waiting for children but for civilized and well-trained grown-ups. Without socialization there simply is no social life. Socialization makes the world less strange, less chaotic and more meaningful. Gradually, the world becomes recognizable, reasonably safe, and self-evident. Thus we learn to participate in and contribute to this social world. Simultaneously, we also acquire a clear view on own social position and develop our social identity.

It should be emphasized that socialization is not a one-sided, top-down process. There is no such thing as a passive victim of socialization. Even the very young show a will and express disgust or their preferences. They may cry from day one and start to smile six weeks later. With these emotional expressions they can exert an influence on their parents, a potential that gets stronger as they grow older. They learn to predict how their parents will react to specific actions. When they start to talk, they can explicate their wishes and desires and they learn to reject, argue, and talk back effectively. Socialization, therefore, is not a case of a mechanistic determinism, but involves a long process of communicative interactions in which the ego has an active role too.

9.5.2 The legacy of Herbert Mead

Herbert Mead strongly influenced Berger’s theory of socialization. Mead’s work forms the basis for symbolic interactionism and deserves some closer attention here. In this approach a central role is attributed to the verbal and non-verbal interchange of symbols that represent specific intentions and meanings. Mead was a contemporary of Durkheim and Weber. He was a modest man, who lived a quiet and unobtrusive life from 1863 to 1931. But, according to the great American pedagogue John Dewey, he had “the most original mind in philosophy in America of the former generation.”[47] Mead was strongly influenced by the pragmatist William James, by his colleague Charles Horton Cooley and by his friend, John Dewey.

For contemporary scientists, who are continuously pressed to publish papers, articles, reports, and books, it is quite remarkable to learn that Mead hardly published anything during his lifetime. He had written a great deal, but never saw it fit for publication. His main ideas were published posthumously by some of his best students who had taken many notes from his lectures, titled Mind, Self and Society, as well as George Herbert Mead on Social Psychology.[48] As that title shows, psychology was to Mead more important than sociology. Yet symbolic interactionism is a very important current of sociological thought, even though some consider it too unsystematic and “an intentionally constructed vagueness”.[49] Zijderveld’s evaluation is much more positive, although he asserts that you will not find any systematic theory in Mead’s work.

[Inserted a box[

The theoretical starting point for Mead is that man is a thinker, someone able to reflect upon himself and others. He is conscious of himself as himself. In a manner of speaking human beings can observe their actions and evaluate them as if they were objectively evaluating a stranger. Other mammals do not have this capacity for critical self-reflection. Nobody assumes that mammals are capable of understanding their own feelings or the feelings of their rivals or enemies. According to Mead, this is the crucial difference between men and animals. This difference is enlarged by our capacity to handle symbols. A symbol is a sign with an agreed meaning for everyone involved in regular interaction processes. As a psychologist Mead was very much interested in thought and consciousness, and his sociological disposition made him realize that the emergence and further development of thought is closely connected to the interaction processes between people. He agreed with William James that human thought is developed by the search for the solution of all kinds of practical problems that arise from the co-existence of people. Thinking is like a discussion between two partners, an internal discussion with the ‘generalized other’ in our consciousness. Before we take a decision, we reflect on the most likely or entirely predictable reactions of significant others. We frequently experience such internal discussions, about for example a job application, changing places, ending friendships, including trivial decisions about what present to give a close colleague.

The precondition for the development of self-awareness is that we, in our daily contacts, learn what others think and how others tend to evaluate a situation. Mead has called this process role taking. Children as well as adults continuously try to understand everyone who is close, a process that presumably involves trying out various interpretations. Mostly, the other reacts according to our initial interpretation or expectations. If this is not the case, we evaluate the situation quickly and try other interpretations that make more sense, that is to say, that fit a more general frame of reference for the interpretation of human behaviour. As soon as children learn to talk- and maybe even before that – they can correct invalid interpretations of the actions of their parents, siblings, and others. They also learn to distinguish between gestures that support or contradict the verbal communication and learn to distil the ‘real’ message.

When discussing the process of socialization, Berger follows Mead’s theoretical concepts closely.[51] First, children learn about social roles from their mother or caretakers. They start to imitate these roles as they grow up, playing ‘mother’, for example when playing with other children. Soon they also learn to understand and imitate the roles of other people [around them.]. These are what Mead called the significant others. This then is generalized when the circle broadens and the child becomes familiar with the generalized other. At this stage, the new roles are no longer linked to concrete persons, but are like representations of larger groups or social categories, such as the typical, expected roles for men and women, specific age groups or professions. By mentally adopting the role of others, individuals also learn more about their own roles and social position. The interaction with other people helps us then to establish a well-organized and stable self-identity.

Analytically Mead divides this self-understanding in ‘I’ and ‘Me’. ‘Me’ encompasses the residue of everything that is internalized of the ‘Generalized Other’. It is the social component of the ‘Self’, the social component of identity. ‘I’ refers to the ‘essential’ individual component, to the authentic, expressive element that is not socially determined. The foundation of ‘I’ refers to the unique characteristics each individual is endowed with by birth. In Mead’s view both the ‘I’ and the ‘Me’ constitute human behaviour. Social action is the result of the internal communication between both components of the self. It is the result of a discourse about what the individual really would like to do and what his socially constructed inner voice, representing the ‘generalized other’, tells him to do or not to do. For Peter Berger, the attractiveness of this approach lies in this tension between both components. This proposition of an internal discussion with society counters the one-dimensional image of a completely socially determined perspective on socialization and social integration.

9.5.3 Primary socialization

Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, and Talcott Parsons sketched socialization as a many phased process. Each subsequent phase can only be reached through a painful emotional crisis.[52] Berger disagrees totally. In his view the process of role learning derives its strength from its ‘unconscious’ and easy-going character. Children are very flexible and adaptable. Moreover, like most people they simply want to belong and to be liked. They will share experiences with other people and develop reference groups that supply the models to which they can compare themselves and develop their social identity, an identity that suits the social roles they have to accomplish. At the same time, those reference groups present a particular philosophy about the meaning of life and the character of our society.

Berger stresses the importance of a strong emotional bonding with significant others for the realization of identification processes. Young children internalize society through identification with people who already have incorporated the dominant norms and values of society, and already behave in socially acceptable ways. Moreover, they identify with the people they love, like, or admire and so ‘understand’ the deeds of other people. They see that it makes sense, at least in the sense of ‘that is the way it ought to be’ or ‘it has always been that way’. The voices of significant others become inner voices and constitute a conscience. The net result is that socialized agents tend to stick to the rules of society. Consciously as well as subconsciously they will behave as people are supposed to behave. Thus, they tend to reproduce society with all its rules, customs and traditions.

Primary socialization ends when children break away from the small circle of the family, when they go to school, or become a member of sports clubs or other organization. Outside the parental home, they will encounter new significant others and a lot more less significant others. By then, primary socialization has laid a strong basis for further socialization, strong enough to take the shock of meeting people with strange and hitherto unfamiliar roles, views, and lifestyles. The primary life-world, the life-world that was internalized during primary socialization, was accepted uncritically and has provided the touchstone for assessing significant others. That is why primary socialization takes up a privileged position in the life-long process of socialization. Strong impulses are needed to effect a fundamental change in that basis of accepted role models, norms, and values. Thus, re-socialization into a quite different cultural setting, for example, will require more effort and might cause some tension. For this reason it is often assumed that children of migrants experience difficulties, as they have to juggle two different cultural environments. However, few studies show that these problems exist on a large scale. For instance, research demonstrates that migrant children attend primary school with as much if not more pleasure as indigenous children. Their self-image is not less positive than that of their indigenous classmates or peers.[53] This seems to support the view that young children are capable of a rather ‘effortless’ socialization, even under relatively complex circumstances, with even some striking differences between the home culture and the cultural climate at school. Apparently, they understand quickly that not all rules apply to all situations. Different situations are connected to different demands, rules and roles. As soon as they enter a familiar situation, they know what actions are expected or not. As highly flexible and intelligent beings they can immediately, within a split second, modulate their ‘improper’ actions as soon as a parent, teacher, or policeman unexpectedly arrives on the scene. Besides, the culture-clash paradigm seems to overlook the fact that many pedagogical values are the same for all cultures and ethnic groups. All parents want their children to be friendly, cooperative, ‘civilized’, good humoured, honest and so on. Thus, the cultural differences refer to only a small subset of norms, such as whether an adult should be looked at directly or whether it is more proper to avert one’s gaze when addressed. Both acts are in fact concerned with a shared underlying value: respect must be shown to one’s elders.

9.5.4 The development of our identity

At some points Berger seems to forget his main assertion that a process of dialectical interaction goes on between individuals and their social environment. He then writes that one’s social role is ascribed by society and that society determines, supports and alters someone’s social identity.[54] The ‘objective’ social identity that is imposed on us is acquired through processes of interaction with our socializing agents. These will influence our character and identity, though not in a completely arbitrary way. They react on our position, attitude and on how we present ourselves. We need other people to tell us who we are. Only when enough significant others have confirmed our own sense of identity, can we assume that these descriptions closely fit our perception of what we think is our real identity. In other cases we will reflect on the reasons why there is such a disturbing discrepancy between our own image of ourselves and what other people perceive. In some cases this could lead to an adjustment of our identity or self-image.

Identity is not something ‘given’ at birth or imposed on us by society, but bestowed in acts of social recognition. Cooley argued that someone’s self or identity grows from one’s interaction with others. Your self-awareness is a reflection of how others perceive you, aptly expressed in Cooley’s well-known metaphor of the self as a looking glass self. This notion is composed of three elements: the imagination of your appearance to the other person, the imagination of his or her judgment of that appearance, and some sort of self-feeling or self-evaluation resulting from those imaginings.[55]

Peter and Brigitte Berger agree with Cooley and Mead that one’s personal identity is a product of the interplay between external identification with and by others, and self-identification.[56] Someone who is co-operative and altruistic will acquire this aspect of his identity when colleagues or friends call him as such and when he evaluates his own behavioural patterns from this perspective. These dialectical processes between external identity and self-identity apply also to typical social identities such as male and female. The main characteristics of gender roles are not neatly distributed by biological sex. Both men and women can perform masculine and feminine roles. But in practice there is little room to manoeuvre between socially constructed roles. So-called masculine women or feminine men will receive critical comments. The tomboy might have enjoyed her rough play and outfit during childhood, but will receive increasing pressure to behave like a ‘real girl’ as soon as she becomes a teenager.

In Berger’s view socialization is successful when symmetry emerges between the socially constructed objective reality and a subjective reality. What is ‘real’ for society should also be ‘real’ for the individual. However, there will always be some difference between what people think of themselves and what other people think of them. Most people are inclined to evaluate themselves favourably. Moreover, other people can only observe you partly, at given moments. They will rarely get to know all aspects of your character. And, for that matter, will we ever completely understand ourselves?

Depending on the culture or spirit of the age, some of our innate talents and inclinations will be stimulated while others are suppressed. Our genetic make up supplies the framework, society can only help to develop or curtail the talents with which we are endowed. In addition, something spontaneous and uncontrollable that may unexpectedly manifest itself lurks in each individual. When this happens, social institutions will impose their power.[57] The result of socialization is the integration of children into a specific social group or society, but also entails the process of getting acquainted with oneself and simultaneously with society.

9.6   The overstated miseries of modernity

One of the most persistent themes among intellectuals since the end of the 19^th century is the belief that modern society is in a state of crisis or on the brink of collapse. Such thoughts gave a strong push to the development of sociology. Marx mentioned alienation; Durkheim feared anomie and Weber envisioned human beings constructing their own iron cage. The Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset set the tone with The Revolt of the Masses. In his view the emergence of modern masses would lead to great harm for mankind. Nations and civilizations might be destroyed. There had been mobs and masses before, but their subordinate position in society was uncontested. For Ortega y Gasset, the underlying crisis of modern society was caused by the fact that the masses had become assertive and self-conscious. They demanded a legal and political equality and a fair share of the wealth of nations. The peaceful herds of the past now threatened to turn into a stampede, thereby trampling the fragile fabric of civilization.[58]

9.6.1 The cultural pessimism of social critics

The social critics of the Frankfurter Schule – who will be discussed more fully in the chapter on Habermas – agreed that modern industrial society was ill. Erich Fromm, for example, maintained that modern society endangered our mental health, for capitalism created ‘false needs’ such as the materialistic drive to possess more and more. Like Fromm, many believed that modern society was repressive and would lead to further alienation. Arnold Gehlen took a more conservative stance and argued that modern society made people insecure because traditions had broken down and people were forced to choose from too many options. By erasing the traditional certainties of collective social existence, modern society enforces an individual, secluded and mental existence. With the shrinking of the collective conscience the individual mind is challenged ever more.

In the fifties and sixties the economy boomed in Western Europe and North America. Governments became less frugal and expanded the arrangements for social security and social assistance. The nation was protected against the economic and physical hazards of unemployment, illness, disability, old age and poverty. Nonetheless, a new wave of societal critique emerged. Berger believes that the intellectual elite are much more troubled by many aspects of modernization than the rest of the population. The intellectual elite observed the emergence of a mass culture that might even assimilate and corrupt the ‘high’ culture of the elite. In their view the Pied Pipers of advertising and entertainment vulgarize culture into a dull and tasteless mixture.

The fast expansion of secondary and tertiary education – another token of modernization – was not welcomed as a big step ahead, but interpreted as a lowering of educational standards. According to many pessimistic intellectuals it only increased the bureaucratization of fast growing schools and universities. Methods of teaching had become standardized and routine, while students were no longer challenged to develop a critical attitude and [to become] independent thinkers. The situation was not much better in primary education. With his smooth rhetoric and attractive style of writing, John Holt became one of the champion opponents of the existing didactic methods in primary schools, designed to train pupils to give meaningless answers to meaningless questions.[59] Reimer even declared that school was dead, whereas Ivan Illich advocated abolishing all schools and replacing them with networks of small groups of individuals interested in the same sorts of knowledge and skills, to be provided by specialists.[60]

At the same time, urbanization went on at full speed. In the USA numerous studies were published about the social problems in the big metropolitan areas. European studies revealed similar situations. Community life seemed to collapse under the pressure of poverty, labour migration and homelessness. This gave rise to many social problems. In inner cities the number of broken families soared, just as the number of homeless people and drug addicts. The rate of criminal offences reached disturbing levels. Once this bleak picture of derelict inner cities had become common knowledge, new studies showed that suburban life was far from idyllic. In these affluent districts no real community life had emerged. Social cohesion was weak and commitment with community affairs was very low. Divorce rates soared, producing more losers than winners. It is no wonder that psychological help became a booming business.

Many of these critical studies offered a description of a new type of individual, such as the mass man of José Ortega y Gasset, the one-dimensional man of Herbert Marcuse, the organization man of William Foot Whyte. Even if the labels are not very precise, the characteristics are clearly sketched. They contain a great deal of negative connotations: modern man is alienated, isolated, depersonalized and even de-humanized. Moreover, he is powerless, confined to the prison house of society, to the state or to the company he works for. His life is boring, empty and utterly meaningless. His only resort is the hedonistic world of make-believe provided by the entertainment industry, withholding real satisfaction or contentment. Most culture critics shared this negative view on modern society. The seedy sides of modernity were accepted by a small number as part of the deal to achieve progress in other domains, such as higher average incomes, higher levels of education, better medical care, better means of transportation, and, in many countries, more equality and liberty.[61]

During his entire academic career, Berger analyzed modernization, but his analyses differ substantially from the usual critiques. It is also striking that he picked up a number of so-called conservative issues, such as religion, marriage and the market economy, as we shall see in the following sections.

9.6.2 Religion and social order

Berger sees culture as the all-embracing, socially constructed world of subjectively and inter-subjectively experienced meanings. The social world acquires a certain amount of coherence and intelligence through the inter-subjective sharing of these meanings. This is how the world makes sense. This coherent reality replaces the plasticity of the social domain by seemingly stable and reliable structures. Society is a nomos-constructing enterprise.[62] Life would be unbearable without such a socially constructed nomos. For each individual this socially constructed order represents the clear and trustworthy side of life, where he can live and orient himself. The socially established nomos may thus be understood, perhaps in its most important aspect, as a shield against disintegration, chaos, and terror.[63] But every socially created nomos has to be defended and re-established, over and over again, against the threat of its destruction by anomic powers that are endemic to the human condition. Social order has to be maintained despite the frequent experience of suffering, evil and death. These anomic phenomena must not only be endured; they must also be explained in terms of the nomos of the society in question.[64] Such an explanation is called a theodicy or sociodicy – terms introduced to sociology by Max Weber. Such an explanation may be both complex and sophisticated’, simple and straightforward. The illiterate farmer who attributes the death of his child to the will of God makes use of a theodicy, just as the theologian who writes a treatise to demonstrate that the suffering of innocent children does not negate the conception of an all-good and all-powerful God.

Berger emphasizes that each individual is inclined to contribute to the organizing or order-creating power of society. This disposition places the life of each individual in an all-encompassing network of meanings. It renders meaning to life, including its painful aspects. The individual who internalizes these meanings in the right way acquires a kind of supernatural status. He can interpret his birth, life and finally his death in a way that transcends the unique position of these phenomena in his life. This becomes dramatically clear during certain rites de passage. The ritual changes the singular event into a typical event, just as the personal biography merges into an episode in the history of mankind. Individual existence will then be perceived as the fact of being born, of living a life, of suffering and finally of dying. It takes its course just like all our ancestors and just like all our descendents. If people can cope with this, than they transcend their own individuality and unique experiences and learn to situate themselves ‘correctly’ in reality, that is, correctly as defined by their society. The sheltering canopy of the socially constructed order can make the pain of living more bearable. It can make your angst of death less overwhelming.[65] With the help of faith people are more able to undergo the pains of life and death and to render these events with meaning. If faith is that powerful, it should be strong enough to counter the frequent attacks on religion, but Berger noticed of course the demise of religion in the modern world, in particular in Western Europe and pondered on the reasons.

9.6.3 The seed of secularization

Berger usually takes an original turn when searching for explanations and this is not different in the case of his attempt to understand the process of modern secularization. He defines secularization as the process of the successful escape, or withdrawal, of certain sections of society from the overpowering grip of religion. There is an objective as well as a subjective dimension to this process. In the western world, an objective divide has emerged between the church and the state. The church also has lost its power over education, philosophy, art and science. Until the Middle Ages, religion played a dominant role in all these domains. In our time, art and science are autonomous secularized fields that defy all influence of religion. Secularization also has a subjective side, in that most people in western countries nowadays lack a set of (traditional) religious interpretations.[66] Secularization is by no means universal. In Western Europe secularization has taken place on a large scale, but many Christian people in the US still attend church every Sunday or on Saturday night if that is more convenient. There also are successful movements of evangelization in the US and Latin America. Nonetheless, Christian mainstream communities have declined in many western countries whereas alternative religious sects and movements seem to enjoy a remarkable growth albeit on a much smaller scale.

Most explanations for the decline of western religions refer to the growth of capitalist economy, urbanization, the rapid spread of mass media and mass tourism, causing large numbers of people to experience other cultures and other religions. Moreover, atheistic social movements, in particular Marxism, have contributed to the exodus from the Catholic and Protestant Church. Berger does not deny the validity of these factors, but he wishes to look beyond these familiar accounts. It is axiomatic, to Berger that we need many explanatory factors to account for the huge impact of secularization. He is interested in the possibility that religion has produced its own seeds of secularization. Before him, Hegel and other western philosophers had proposed a causal relation between secularization and the emergence of the Protestant movement. In comparison to the ‘richness’ of the Roman Catholic universe, Protestantism is a very austere and dismantled religion. The iconoclastic fury of the 16^th century robbed many churches and cathedrals from their pomp and circumstance. The Protestant revolt implied a return to the pure essentials of religion at the cost of all the richness of religious forms and rituals of Catholicism. The Calvinists reduced the number of holy sacraments. A much simpler service was exchanged for the Holy Mass, the prayer for the souls of the dead was abrogated and saints were no longer worshipped. Protestantism stripped religion from the three most traditional and mightiest resources of holiness: mysteries, miracles and magic. Protestants do not believe in a world full of holy objects and holy forces. They will not kiss a cross, touch a statue in reverence, or kneel down to kiss the earth after arriving in the Holy Land. Their reality is polarized between a holy, supernatural God and a world full of sinful human beings.

Roman-Catholics have adhered to the role of mediators between themselves and the Holy, as with the holy sacraments of the church, the intercession of saints, the recurrent appearances of the supernatural through miracles. With Protestantism, however, people are thrown back on themselves and have to rely on their own strengths and weaknesses. In order to elevate the awesome Greatness of God, the world was stripped of godliness. The only connection between God and the people was the word of God, as it was laid down in the Bible. But this precisely made religion vulnerable. Modern science and rational thought had eroded the plausibility of God’s word, leading Nietzsche to his famous conclusion that: ‘God is dead’. Berger contented that “a heaven without angels lays open for the scrutinous investigation of astronomers and astronauts.” He concludes that Protestantism, with its radical sell-out of religious sacraments, ornaments, and rituals, unintentionally provided a great impetus for modern secularization.[67]

9.6.4 The modern attack on the nuclear family and marriage

Durkheim’s study Suicide from 1893 showed that marriage can offer protection against suicide. In his view, a marriage bond constitute a basic form of social integration that can help people to endure hard times, a hypothesis that is supported by recent studies showing that married people score higher on several indicators of wellbeing.[68] Nevertheless, traditional marriage has lost a great deal of its popularity. In many modern societies more than a third of all marriages end in divorce. No wonder that a lot of people are not even bothered with the official procedures of marriage and opt for less formalized forms of relationship, or even choose to remain single. Many explanations have been put forward to account for the decline of matrimony. Norms and values have changed, in particular values connected with sacred traditions, premarital sex and adultery, as part of a more liberal view on individual freedom in sexual affairs. Berger and other neo-conservatives also refer to the mixed blessings of the Welfare State, with Social assistance levelling the formidable financial barrier against the option of divorce. Nowadays, divorced mothers can rely on a minimal income thanks to social assistance for single parent families.

The decline of the traditional family inspired the couple Brigitte and Peter Berger to write a book with a provocative title: The War over the family. The book contains many references to the cultural war against the nuclear family. There are historical roots to this war. The Enlightenment problematized more than two centuries ago, the traditional family, consisting of a father, a mother and one or more children. The central goal of this philosophical and political movement was to free human beings from the shackles of tradition; the family being one of these. [However, t]he bourgeois family ethos survived the 19th century without many problems and positively flowered with the increased education of bourgeois values. It became the kernel for moral standards, especially in sexual matters. It also valued the welfare of children highly; supported the inculcation of values and attitudes conducive to economic success as well as civic peace; valued religious faith or at least the appearance of religious faith; and expressed an interest in the devotion to the ‘finer things’ of life, especially the arts.[69] Bourgeois women became the shock troops of the movement that sought to evangelize the lower classes with middle-class values. In America and England, Protestant ministers were an important ally in this missionary enterprise. According to the Berger’s, the origins of modern social work are to be found in this vast missionary enterprise of ladies and clerics to redeem the lower classes. Early socialists, particularly the Fabians in England, supported this operation. Despite their antagonism to bourgeois class dominance and their reservations about religion, the Fabians wanted the working class to profit from a sound education and enjoy the benefits of cultural refinement. Their project was not to abolish bourgeois family ethos, but to redistribute it.

So, until the 1950s, the middle-class family was perceived as a success story. The family became increasingly child-centred. Women were expected to find their life-goal at home, in the role of mother and the emotionally sensitive companion to their husbands. Yet, a growing number of husbands and wives failed to adjust to these roles. Many women in the new suburbs experienced a kind of social vacuum as soon as their husband left for work in the early morning and the children had been dispatched off to school. Besides, modern technology had alleviated many a household chore, education had taken over much of their pedagogical tasks, and urbanization had taken them away from their friends and relatives. Many wives, in particular better-educated wives, were frustrated by the lack of opportunities for further personal growth and self-realization.

This new radicalism of the sixties and seventies strongly affected the perspective on the family. Not deviations, but the norm itself was perceived as the real problem. Individuals were not maladjusted, society was ‘sick’. The well-known feminist Betty Friedan pejoratively spoke of ‘the cult of domesticity’ and of ‘repressiveness’. Most of the social and cultural movements of the sixties fed this anti-family mood. The radical social scientist Barrington Moore even suggested that we should give the family a decent burial. Others were prepared to bury this established institution without any decency, because they viewed the family as a nest of oppression and social pathology. It should be noted that, even when added up, all these radical movements were constituted in relatively small sectors of the upper-middle class. Their influence, though, was much amplified by the media. And, according to Berger and Berger, some of the radical ideas were put to political use by people who were not particularly radical in their own thinking, leading for example to a strong proliferation of Welfare State arrangements and an equally strong proliferation of the ‘helping professions’. From hindsight one can see the radical movements of the 1960s as a cultural revolution that prepared the ground for an institutional social transformation through legislation and public policy in the following decades.[70] 

Brigitte and Peter Berger address many topics in their book, such as the historical development of the bourgeois family. They also contribute to the debate on the value and future of traditional families. However, they pay little attention to important factors that might help to explain the steep rise in divorce rates or the postponement of marriage and parenthood, such as the effects of the introduction of better methods of birth control. Nor do they give due attention to the effects of the expansion of education. The strong increase in the enrolment of women in higher levels of secondary education and in higher education had an enormous effect on the postponement of marriage and motherhood. It prepared the ground for a greater autonomy of women and brought them to the same or a higher educational level as that of their prospective partners. Obviously, this had a great impact on the power balance between men and women. It led to a steep increase in the participation of (married) women in the labour market, and after a while, even women with young children. The Bergers did not address the multiplier effect of the growth of the divorce rate either. All traditional normative restrictions seemed to have lost their currency and with more single people around, also at the workplace, short or long-term sexual relations without the intention of getting married almost set the norm.

Instead of addressing these factors, Berger and Berger try to construct a reasonable defence for the traditional marriage and family. Since they formed a married couple themselves, it is clear that their discussion cannot be value-free. Their theoretical assumptions might be biased towards marriage and the family. The same could be true about the empirical data they selected and the way they interpreted them. They explicitly warn their readers for this danger, but promise to be as scientifically neutral as possible. On the other hand, they also warn the readers that most members from the anti-family camp also tend to be very biased in their opinions and arguments. Even those who have discovered the staying power of the family continue to stress its discontinuities and loss of functions and to prognosticate a variety of impending disasters.[71] Most analysts do not take into consideration that many divorced people remarry soon or neglect to acknowledge the negative effects of divorce for many [divorcees and their] children. The opponents of the traditional family persist in ignoring that a substantial majority of Western societies continue their attachment to the bourgeois, nuclear family, both in practice and as an ideal.

What are the basic assumptions of Berger and Berger on this issue? To begin with, they have no nostalgia for a reactionary and romanticized past. They do not advance a rosy picture from an idealized past to solve the rather problematic reality of the present. But neither do they find much hope in the various ‘alternatives’ suggested by so-called progressive thinkers. They assume that there was no perfect family in the past and that there will be no perfect type of family in the future. They do not share the Enlightenment faith in general progress, although they think that some progress has been made, for instance, with the abolition of slavery, the recognition of equal rights for women, or the huge reduction in infant mortality. But they warn us that these singular forms of progress can be lost again. Therefore, they must be continuously defended and institutionalized. They believe that the bourgeois family manifested a progress on human values over its predecessors and they further believe that these values continue to be valid even today. Besides, modern alternatives to marriage and the bourgeois family have been tried and tested, and do not really constitute a viable alternative.

9.6.5 Marriage and the construction of social reality

Berger and Kellner had already paid some attention to this topic in Marriage and the Construction of Reality.[72] That article started with the above-mentioned reference to the work of Durkheim: marriage as a defence against anomie. This Durkheimian idea sparked off their interest in the nomos-constituting power of marriage. In short, a marriage is the domain of building, maintaining, repairing and modifying a consistent reality that will be perceived as very meaningful. Marriage does not exist in a social vacuum. Through a long and extended socialization process, usually within the framework of a nuclear family, most people have learned to understand and accept their social environment and the social meaning of all that take place in it. This meaningful social order has to be reproduced everyday. Everyday we also want to get a convincing confirmation of our social identity, status, and position. This is crucial for all of us. The only way to receive this unequivocal confirmation is through the interaction with other individuals, in particular with sympathetic significant others. So, we all need regular contact with significant others who support us, especially when our self-image has been damaged by the actions of other people or by some of our less dignified or less successful actions.

The plausibility and stability of the world, as a socially defined world, depends on the strength and durability of relations with significant others, with whom all the ins and outs of this world can be discussed over and over again.[73] According to Berger and Kellner, a good marriage offers an excellent opportunity for such a stable relation. The close and continuous presence of a spouse reinforces the importance of this relation for the confirmation of social reality. Of course, if an unmarried couple has a similar intimate and trustworthy relation it will have the same integrative and stabilizing effect.

In their ideal-typical description of marriage, Berger and Kellner assert that marriage is a play in which two ‘strangers’ have decided to live together. In most cases the actors have prepared themselves for this play and have redefined their social position and social identity. Both partners have considered their new roles in advance, and have anticipated certain changes. Society has made the rules long ago and sets the stage, supported by a pervasive ideology concerning such salient themes as romantic love, the fulfilment of sexual needs, faithfulness and personal growth through frequent and close interactions with a partner and children.

Married couples, cohabiting couples and nuclear families are specific examples of a more general institution in modern societies: a private sphere that is separate from the public realms of politics or the economy. In modern society, individuals are unable to develop their real self in the public domain. There are too many restrictive norms, rules and laws. Besides, many individuals suffer from the idea that they are anonymous nobodies in the huge mass of people that surround them in work and leisure. The private domain offers a haven where their personal identity is reaffirmed and their self-worth and self-esteem regained, should this be necessary. In the small circle of the nuclear family everybody is somebody. Within the boundaries of this small, familiar and intimate sphere each individual has a real influence on the course of events, on social reality at micro level, which they have constructed together.

Not so long ago, married couples or nuclear families were deeply embedded in extended families or small local communities. Now, the family has turned into a privatized island. Simultaneously, marriage has lost some of its traditional functions while new functions have taken their place. Basically, the married couple does not constitute such a strong foundation for a durable relation. Firstly, the relation is based on the bond between two people who have been raised in different families and communities. They have not shared the first part of their lives, the part of their primary socialization. Secondly, they have to rely on the frequency and intensity of their interactions to confirm, reconstitute, and objectivate their loving relation. But modern society sets very high standards for a successful marriage or cohabitation. Hence, new partners tend to expect too much from each other. The new and much beloved partner has to become the most significant other of all significant others. From now on, the new couple expects to do most things together. This intensive sharing and co-operation can become stressful for one or for both partners. They have to learn to be much more considerate with each other. Society aids and abets by putting even more stress on both partners and expecting them to get the most out of their careers.

The strong commitment to the new partner may also lead to fewer contacts with other significant others, and less time for former hobbies and cherished pass-times. All this entails a redefinition of social roles and identities. Therefore, starting an intimate and close relationship with a new partner involves a break with former life. This rupture has to be repaired as soon as possible. The new nomos, based on the new partnership, which also has to withstand possible irritating influences of new ties with in-laws or friends, has to replace the old nomos. New partners are inclined to consider these problems as external, temporal and atypical, but by discussing the characters, habits and lifestyle of each other’s friends, they will redefine them and quite often this will lead to an estrangement or a final break with some of them.

A new enduring and intimate relationship means a new phase in the life-long process of socialization. This process is quite different from socialization in early childhood. Now both subjects are each other’s socializing agents. Both try to re-socialize the other into a good partner. Doing so, they have to discuss many aspects of each other’s actions, preferences, and tastes. During these interactions the new relationship is objectivated and crystallized. Moreover, both partners discover new aspects of their personal identities. Both will redefine their personal biography to make their past fit better with their current situation, and remodel it as a convincing preparation for this particular relationship. Many new lovers want to create the myth that they were born for each other. The main function of this social construction and reconstruction of reality is to establish a new stable identity.

9.7   Modern identities

Berger enjoyed tackling the problems of modern society and the identity of modern man. As we will see, he succeeds in posing new questions and suggesting new answers. In doing so, he always started from the sociology of knowledge he had developed earlier with Thomas Luckmann. In this approach, modern identity is constituted in dialogue with the development of modern society. Within this ‘dialectical relation’ individuals negotiate their objective identity with their significant others. These negotiations are not completely free, but take place within the boundaries set by society. Hence, individual identities also are social constructions.

Traditional societies seldom change. In the past, social mobility was almost non-existent. Sons followed the tracks of their fathers; daughters became mothers like their mothers before them. From early youth a clear connection existed between the objective identity imposed by society and one’s subjective identity. Modern times, in contrast, are much more dynamic. New jobs were created because of technological advances, whereas old skills became obsolete. So, there is a lot of social mobility, both horizontal and vertical. More than anybody else, Berger thinks about the social-psychological consequences of modernization and mobility. What will happen if the connection between objective and subjective identity becomes weaker? One of the problems of technological change and increasing rationalization is the strong proliferation of specialization. Specialists can discuss the intricacies of their work only with other specialists. A professional identity is thus constructed. Another reason for the weakening of social identities is the erosion of class differences. What is your class when you are a social climber? Will your lifestyle fit in with the lifestyle of the class you recently have entered or will it still remain most characteristics of the class of your parents? What happens to your subjective identity, your class identity, and your lifestyle, if because of the hazards of life you can no longer keep up with the Joneses?

According to Berger, the crises of identity are among the major manifestations of the perceived meaninglessness of modernity. True enough, not all categories are equally sensitive to such crises. Adolescents are more vulnerable than their elders, who are settled in society and tend to have a steady partner, a job and a home. Berger postulates that members of the higher social classes, in particular intellectuals, are much more vulnerable than members of the working classes, because the former have more latitude without the knowledge what to do with it. Precisely because they are used to analyze everything and to ponder all the pros and cons, the causes and possible consequences of every motive, plan or objective, they run the risk of becoming more insecure and depressed.

Does a clear divide between a public and a private sphere offer a solution for the problem of social identity? According to Berger, this will not help much since the private life too has become more diversified and fragmented. Moreover, radio and TV have introduced the whole world into our private lives. Many radio and TV-programs question our way of life and present a host of alternative worldviews, beliefs, opinions, traditions, and lifestyles. Berger agrees with Gehlen that also our private existence is getting de-institutionalized. Traditions of family life are undermined by the strong and variegated influences from outside. Although the modern, rationalized world has become more institutionalized, the private domain has become more de-institutionalized. As a result, individuals withdraw to their own world of dreams, hopes and fears. It is a flight forward towards a growing subjectivation of human existence, in search for a much-needed foothold to keep us going.

This process can be aptly illustrated with reference to the historical transformation of two ethical principles: sincerity and honour. In traditional Western societies, the quality of man was manifested in ‘sincerity’ – the openness and integrity with which one performed public roles. Nowadays, sincerity has been substituted for ‘authenticity’ – the expression of the true self. The contrast is very significant. Sincerity presupposes a symmetrical relation between self and society while authenticity implies a fundamental opposition between them. Whereas sincerity can be found within social roles, authenticity is a characteristic of the individual playing these roles. In a similar way ‘honour’ is a direct manifestation of status, and a source for equality and solidarity among peers. Honour also implies a certain standard for the interactions with superiors, peers, and others. But the concept has vanished and is displaced by dignity. Dignity presupposes a certain meaning behind or beyond imposed social roles and norms. In short, honour implies that identity in essence, or at least to a significant degree, is connected with social roles. In contrast, dignity refers to the fact that someone’s identity is independent from his or her social role and status. The emergence of values such as dignity and authenticity illustrates that the self-evident ties between individual and social identity have been severed.[74]

Berger does not stop here. In his view, subjectivation implies the obligation to think about everything we do and about who we are. This imposed self-reflection is a lonesome activity, shared with just a few others who similarly live a unique, individualized life. An ever-increasing number of people do not have a clue about where their life is heading. In a world without traditions and frequent changes it is difficult to plan ahead anyway. The self is vulnerable and dependent on the expectations of a multitude of reference groups. Our ideas about who we really are, are only real as long as they are confirmed by significant others. Because of the dynamics of a hectic modern society, many people undergo a mental crisis about their own social role and identity. So, for Berger, it is no wonder that the demand for professional help of psychologists and psychiatrists has soared.

9.8   The relationship between method and engagement[75]

Berger has devoted much energy to the ethical implications of sociological research. His view on this issue stems from his strong awareness of the limits of sociology. So far, this relatively young science has produced only a rather limited body of knowledge about a complex subject matter. Moreover, this knowledge about society is deeply embedded in the social context of its production. There are therefore no absolute truths in social science. The outcomes of research should be applied with great care when geared to far-reaching plans for changing society. Such planned changes will have great consequences for many, but social science cannot really provide the warranty that the proposed ‘improvements’ will materialize. Unforeseen, unintended, or negative consequences are to be expected. Should we then leave everything unchanged to avoid any risk? Berger did not think so and tried to find a safe alternative. His solution requires two types of action. The first is the improvement of the methodological basis of our knowledge and the second demands social scientists to be very prudent and modest whenever they endeavour in policy research. In general, immodest sociology is irresponsible sociology. This is particularly true for policy analysis.

9.8.1 Modesty as motto

A valid sociology requires a continuous alertness to the great diversity of meanings people attached to different events, and the consequences of these meanings for their actions. Whenever a sociologist wants to gain more insight in reality, he will have to listen attentively to the opinions, convictions and beliefs of his subjects. He must carefully consider all variations in relations and in patterns of behaviour. Therefore, he has to listen attentively and show a cognitive respect for all the peculiarities of individuals, human groups and their cultures. Such an awareness and attentiveness will discourage people from making ambitious plans to ‘educate and lift a people’ or to ‘make them conscious of their true needs’.

The common denominator of social reformers – from left to right – is their strong belief in their cause. They are deeply convinced that their truth gives them the right to convert other people to their own views and ways. They have little respect for the feelings, convictions, and traditions of ‘the other’. This reflects the typical arrogance of many political movements. In the most extreme cases, new intellectual ideas have been packaged into a revolutionary rhetoric and violent political practices that has cost the lives of millions. Hence, Berger rejected violent revolutions and fanatical drives for reform and conversion. He detested researchers who showed no respect for what other people believe and think, and instead imposed their own meanings upon others. Berger’s commitment is based on compassion:

    “The only political commitments worth making are those that seek to reduce the amount of human suffering in the world. Much of politics, of course, is too ordinary to evoke commitments of any depths. Most of the rest is crime, illusion or the self-indulgence of intellectuals.”[76]

9.8.2 The practical value of value-neutrality

In spite of the professional ideal of objectivity, the main impulse of positivists is the creation of instruments for improving society. Often they see themselves as members of an intellectual vanguard with such a clear vision that they believe that they can make valid judgments about the real interests of society. Berger assures his colleagues to be more modest and to aim at the purest possible observations of that reality. From this perspective the sincere sociologist attempts to be a good spy or scout, who accurately reports what he has seen. But others will have to decide what moves ought to be made in that terrain.[77]

Berger supports Weber in his view that social scientists should do their utmost to observe, describe, and explain reality disconnected from their own personal interests and preferences. This does not mean that one should not have personal interests, preferences, and priorities and should abstain from all efforts to work in these interests. But Berger wants social scientists to make a clear divide between their scientific work and their social or political activities in other domains of their existence. One should not mix one’s political interests with the interests and necessary rigor of scientific activities. Value-neutrality also implies that social scientists seriously reflect on the results of their professional work.

Following the trail of Weber and Schutz, Berger asserts that social scientists should base their concepts on the observations of everyday life. Concepts should be ‘meaning adequate’. That is, they should reflect everyday reality and be comprehensible for laymen too. The quest for causal social relations should be founded on the world of social meanings used by common people. Human beings live and act in this meaningful reality. According to Berger, a strongly developed cognitive respect for all people can ensure that sociological concepts and explanations remain vivid and meaningful, and prevent them from acquiring the arid characteristics of positivism and their deductive schemes. This suits his rejection of positivistic social engineering.[78]

The quest for a social science based on the Weberian criterion that theoretical concepts should be rooted in the meanings used by ordinary people leads to the awareness of the inevitable, exciting, and sometimes frustrating pluralism of social existence. Berger sees the plurality of the modern life-worlds as the most salient rupture with homogenous traditional societies. Modern man is a restless player in a great variety of roles. Social masks are changed with the same ease as we change clothes. A great diversity of social roles, cultural and historical circumstances and personal biographies generate quite different perspectives on the world. As long as cultures, social conditions, and worldviews differ, so will the claims for truth – another reason for social scientists to be prudent and modest.

The modest pretences of Weber’s interpretative approach seasoned all Berger’s scientific projects. This prudence could be interpreted as a form of conservatism fearful of any change and innovation. But it simply springs from a lack of belief in the maturity and decisiveness of sociology. This scepticism is fuelled by the insight that unintended consequences of social and political actions have given human history many ironic turns. Instead of taking a beeline towards a better world, history has often coursed to disaster. That is why the ideology of social progress is based on a false doctrine. Berger’s distrust in great social innovations is doubled as soon as attempts are made to impose these plans with great force. He is a conservative humanist, who accepts people as they are. He acknowledges the value of order, continuation, and triviality for social existence. He can only endorse political plans that show respect for human reality. Therefore, he strongly opposes utopians that will accommodate state policies to their subjective ideas about an ideal world, to their plans for progress and reform. Though Berger is not in favour of perpetuating the status quo, he certainly is an ardent opponent of ideologies that propagate any kind of revolution.[79]

The philosophy of science has stressed continuously that we can never be sure of any claim to truth. Thus, we are condemned to an eternal scepticism and are destined to scrutinize critically each proposed theory and all outcomes of scientific research. We must develop ‘the art of distrust’ as Nietzsche called it. We do not have to be disengaged fully from all political commitments, but should remain detached from all forms of political commitment based on ignoring our ignorance, on our lack of information about the many consequences of our plans. So, Berger does not advise us to remain completely passive, but urges us to prudently collect all the relevant information that we can, and be wary of unintended consequences and the perverse effects of political actions. His humanitarian compassion dictates a sober ethic of responsibility and keeps him far from the addictive intoxication of an ethic of ultimate goals.

Interpretative sociology certainly does not exclude the utility of political praxis. On the contrary, it encourages us to acknowledge the vulnerability of all established social regulations, institutions and customs. The relentless attempts to interrogate received wisdoms, to modify extreme convictions, this continuous scepticism, are a form of revolution too, designed to safeguard the boundaries of a process of change that is both responsible and compassionate.

9.9   The capitalist revolution

In Pyramids of Sacrifice (1974), Berger did not choose between communism and capitalism. However, thirteen years later he wrote The Capitalist Revolution, where communism is definitely rejected.[80] Marx had taught that capitalism is a conservative force, interested in blocking the evolution of history. Berger tries to show that capitalism is no conservative force at all, but on the contrary, a catalyst of modernization. He argues that every society that has become capitalistic has changed in many ways. There is more wealth and there tends to be more democratic freedom and cultural diversity.

With this book, Berger intended to develop a coherent social theory of capitalism, based on empirical facts. Such a theory did not exist yet. Even Marx, seen by Berger as one of the most important social scientists, did not meet the standards of social science. Das Kapital is a mixture of scientific facts and unscientific prophecies. According to Berger, the non-Marxist attempts to create such a theory had stranded. He refers to the attempts of Weber, Schumpeter, and Hayek, who were, like anybody else, limited by our little knowledge of society and social processes. Therefore, also Berger does not pretend that his book will be the final answer. However, he put his reputation at stake by presenting fifty refutable hypotheses about the growth of the economy and the development of social equality and political liberty in capitalist countries.

Industrial capitalism has succeeded in creating the biggest economic production ever. No other system has been able to equal this. The tandem of capitalism and technological development provide the best condition for economic growth. Berger acknowledges that the transition from a pre-capitalistic economy to a capitalistic economy may create a temporary setback in economic production and a temporary increase in inequality. But he contends that once the dust has settled, inequality will level out and economic growth will emerge. After a while, there will be a stable level of inequality, owing to technological changes and demographic factors. Berger is convinced that governments can help to redistribute incomes, but only to a certain level. Too much equality in incomes will negatively affect economic growth, and so affect the standard of living of the entire population.

In capitalist countries all traditional forms of social stratification will fade away. The ongoing process of industrialization is the main cause of the significant amount of social mobility we can witness in all advanced industrial societies. This economic system always has a great interest in getting the right person in the right place. Hence, educational credentials and experience are more important than social background. Therefore, capitalist societies are more open than other types of society.

Berger contends that capitalism is a necessary but not sufficient condition for democracy. In the case of the state increasingly exerting more influence on the economic system, a point can be reached where democracy cannot function any longer. In contrast, as soon as a state with a communist system gives more leeway to the market-economy, it can shift towards a more democratic system. When capitalism succeeds in generating economic growth, and when large parts of the population can profit from this growth, then this will most certainly lead to pressure for more democracy.

In his discussion of the relationship between capitalism and an individualized culture Berger is a true heir of Max Weber. He starts with the statement that the origins of western individualism date back to a period long before the rise of capitalism. This proto-individualism has smoothed the way for the individualism of capitalistic entrepreneurs. The bourgeois culture of western societies, in particular Protestant societies, has engendered a human type strongly characterized by individual autonomy. In turn, capitalism forms a necessary condition for the survival of individual autonomy. Certain aspects of western bourgeois-culture, in particular its activism, its urge for rational innovations and self-control, constitute necessary requirements for a successful capitalist development. Besides, capitalism requires specific institutions such as the nuclear family and religion to counter balance the negative aspects of individual autonomy.

Since his former writings about the social problems of the Third World, his negative view on the applicability of the capitalist experiment in those countries had shifted 180 degrees. Now, he concludes that the integration of Third World countries in the capitalistic world system will have positive effects on the economy, as many economic studies show. Surprisingly, the inequality in incomes decreased in those countries that opted for the capitalist route. Third World countries that follow the socialist model show less economic growth.

Berger was particularly influenced by his observations of the economic development in five Pacific countries in Asia. In those countries several capitalistic hypotheses were corroborated and anti-capitalistic hypotheses were refuted. In these countries too, there was a strong increase in productivity, as well as a quick rise in the standard of living. Moreover, these countries became more open. In contrast to the history of Europe, the introduction of capitalism in these Asian countries did not lead to a temporary increase in income inequality. Inequality diminished immediately, but stabilized at a lower level after a few years. The experience of these five countries demonstrated that underdeveloped countries could profit from a transition to capitalism. Their dependency on the capitalist world system did not hamper their economic growth.

The Asiatic experiment also offers a refutation for the hypothesis that a market economy cannot succeed when there is a high level of state intervention in economic affairs. The culture of these countries was characterized by a set of core values that strongly resembled those of western bourgeois culture: activism, a disposition for rational innovations, and self-discipline. Obviously, there are cultural differences too. Some typical Asiatic values help boost economic growth, despite a much weaker emphasis on individualism than in Europe or America.

Berger points at more than one factor that accounts for the rise of capitalism, but he focuses in particular on cultural factors such as individualism, innovativeness, and self-restraint, the very values that were endorsed and stimulated by Protestantism. He locates the main consequences of capitalism in the following domains: economic (higher productivity, higher standard of living), social (less inequality), political (democratization), and a cultural domain (increase of individual autonomy).

Berger presents more arguments against the presumed favourable developments (economic, political, and social) of state socialism, but we need not recapitulate all these arguments. The weaknesses, drawbacks, and shortcomings of the communist experiment have become obvious to everyone. The conspicuous collapse of communism was a necessary eye-opener that exposed a very strong myth that had bewildered millions of people all over the world. The myth of a splendid future for the working class and the proletariat had made itself immune to scientific critique. All forms of critique were dismissed as bourgeois, reactionary, revisionist, or fascist. Capitalism, on the other hand, lacks such a comforting myth. From experience, everybody knows that capitalism produces both winners and losers. In a capitalist system, no promise is made for a heaven on earth, but its surplus value can be proved in empirical comparisons with communist countries.[81]

Three cheers for capitalism? Berger rejects such a triumphant attitude. He contends that The Capitalist Revolution is not a pro-capitalistic book. Not even the comparatively favourable empirical data should be interpreted in that way. Each evaluation of a political or economic system depends on the criteria we choose for this evaluation. If one does not attach much value to economic growth, individualism, or democracy, then one will not be in the least impressed by the empirical facts and the hypotheses mentioned in Berger’s book. Nevertheless, Berger thinks he has done all that could be expected of a good social scientist, that is, collecting a set of hypotheses that can boast the best available scientific support. He is convinced that his hypotheses have a low chance of being refuted by new research or new practical applications. Therefore, all politicians that want to address an urgent social problem, for example, poverty in Third World countries or poverty in inner-city ghetto’s, have no other alternative than to base their actions on the best available research, although even this will always be insufficient and not completely reliable. Alas, the urgency of many problems is so strong, that politicians cannot wait until all the necessary research is done, properly discussed and neatly translated into adequate policy measures. It seems to be in the nature of politics that most decisions are made on the basis of non-scientific arguments.  

9.10  Berger’s disinvitation to sociology

It will be clear that Berger antagonized many progressive sociologists, placing himself effectively outside mainstream sociology. More and more colleagues disregarded his work, which had the regrettable effect that he decided to distance himself from the field. In 1992, he published a farewell essay with the resentful title Disinvitation to Sociology[82] What had gone wrong? Does he really mean to warn potential students against studying sociology? In principle, he still backs the sociology he described and promoted in Invitation to Sociology. The main reason for his frustration is that many contemporary sociologists seem to practice a type of sociology that differed too much from the science that he loved in the sixties.

After realizing that it is impossible to practice an absolutely value neutral social science, many sociologists decided that a left-wing or Marxist perspective might as well be made explicit.

Also he observed and regretted was the increasing divide between theoretical studies and empirical research.

He points at several cases where modern sociologists clearly failed. One such case is the explanation of secularization. For a long time, contemporary sociologists assumed that religion was an irrational affair that would not survive the progress of modern science and technology. They were convinced that modernization would lead to a total secularization of the world. American and European sociologists wrongfully ignored the revival of evangelical movements or too hastily dismissed these movements as superficial and second rate. To Peter Berger, the rise of the new evangelical movement, the vote for Jimmy Carter as president of the USA, a very devote Christian, and the noisy appearance of a ‘moral majority’ disproved the thesis of secularization. And also the rise of fundamentalism in many Moslem countries disproved the tenets of modernists. Berger emphasizes that social scientists, most of whom are secularized intellectuals, missed the all too obvious signs of their times. The enlightened framework of modern sociology made them ill prepared to recognize the vitality of religious needs and creeds.

Why do sociologists overlook so many important tendencies in society? Berger has thought of some explanations. Firstly, secularized intellectuals appear to be blindfolded as far as religion is concerned. Believing that religion is a thing of the past, they tend to close their minds for counter-information or try to make it fit their beloved perspective. Thus, they do not feel the need to adapt their political philosophy and worldview.

Another reason is the parochialism of intellectuals. They think that they are real cosmopolitans, but they only interact with people of kindred spirit at meetings, conferences and seminars. They read international magazines, keep up with international politics and international trends in art, are members of international professional associations and visit international conferences but, at a second glance, all this takes places within a rather narrow intellectual framework. The world of western progressive artists and intellectuals is their congregation. Berger accuses them of ignoring or overlooking the rest of the world, let alone analyze it seriously. And if they see it, they only see it through the badly focused lenses of their peers.

Berger observed that many leftwing social scientists and journalists supported the Soviet-regime far too long, long after they could have noticed that the drawbacks of real existing socialism were much greater than its positive sides. And when this stance no longer was tenable, they went on a search for ‘true’ socialism, because, in their eyes, anything was better than the capitalistic system they were part off. Berger diagnoses that their intellect was biased to the left, premised on an uncritically following of the Marxist doctrine that the course of history would irreversibly lead to the downfall of capitalism. It is quite telling that many social scientists spoke of late-capitalism, whereas nobody ever spoke of late-communism before or after 1989. After the sudden demise of the communist system in Middle and Eastern Europe, which came as a great surprise most of us, including western Kremlin watchers and soviet-specialists, left-wing intellectuals were in a state of cognitive anomie. The demise of communism caused a severe blow to left-wing ideology. Berger is not sure, however, whether social scientists will be permanently cured from ideological inclinations. In his view, new candidates already have arrived at the scene such as feminism, anti-racism, and multiculturalism.[83]

Clearly Berger’s goal here is to get even with his opponents. But this does not mean that he cannot not be right in many respects. What does he see as the great mistakes of sociology in the last quarter of the 19^th century? He points at four symptoms that already have been mentioned before:

• parochialism or provincialism,
• triviality,
• rationalism, and
• ideology.

Berger believes that sociologists should hold fast to a really cosmopolitan attitude. We should keep ourselves posted about the main aspects of modernization in our world. Modernization is a complex process that has many faces. Therefore, we need a comparative approach. We must study the course of events in many countries, regions and cultures. Berger contends that if we want to understand the western world, we should study eastern countries like China, India, Iran or Japan. Events in the Northern and the Southern Hemisphere should be compared, just as majority and minority groups. Thus our perspective will be sharpened.

Trivial research can be avoided by abandoning the wish to quantify everything. Of course, many research questions can and should be answered with the help of quantitative methods. But, Berger hastens to add; there also are many interesting research questions that demand a qualitative approach. If the quantitative method would be prescribed for all research issues, a host of trivial outcomes can be expected. This would easily lead to sharp restrictions in the type of questions to be investigated. However, also qualitative studies can easily deteriorate into trivial enterprises. Often they do not dig any deeper than the level of amateur forms of village journalism, with the verbatim presentation of numerous quotations from interviews in lieu of a thorough sociological analysis. Of course, to be fair, we should keep in mind that both methods could lead to interesting new discoveries as well as to trivial outcomes.

Berger also opposes those sociologists who base their work on the assumption of rationally acting individuals. Pareto had pointed out that most human actions are not logical. And in the sixties, C. Wright Mills offered a similar critique and spoke about the uninspiring deed of mainstream functional sociology.[84] The result was that whole generations of young sociologists went looking for an alternative and plunged head-on into an ideological delirium with strong Marxist overtones. They occupied themselves with the fashionable great issues of sociology, such as the vast shortcomings of capitalism, the suppression of the labour class, or the exploitation of the Third World by capitalistic imperialism. In Berger’s view, they did not find good answers to their questions.[85] 

So, the question remains whether the social sciences can be salvaged. To Berger the only thing that sociology has to offer is the sociological perspective. This perspective focuses on the total interdependence of man and society, on the dependence of contemporary social processes on the recent and even not so recent, past. It considers that many social factors, structures and processes are intertwined in complex ways. Such a complex perspective is thwarted by parochialism and by ideologically biased worldviews accepting far too eagerly any singular, one-dimensional explanation for social events, but also suffers from the avalanche of trivial studies that only register simple facts without further analysis. At the end of the day, Berger has only one serious plan: the establishment of a school for the academic elite that takes care of the best students and the best research. Let us hope that sociology can be salvaged by a less elitist plan or development. There is no reason to doubt that new charismatic and creative social scientists will emerge that will put sociology back on track again with new perspectives, insights, theories and concepts. Though Peter Berger had become wary of inviting students to sociology, a new generation of great innovators will succeed in inviting new generations of students. New generations of students might also find inspiration in reading some of the exiting books of Peter Berger, author of an impressive oeuvre that deserves to be read and reread.  

= = = = =

This is a revision and update of my chapter on Peter Berger as published in Icons of Sociology. Published in 2007 by Boom Academic, Amsterdam. (Date: 14-5-2026: Words: 20891)

= = = = =

Notes

[1] P.L. Berger (1963). Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective. Doubleday.

[2] Schütz earned his living as a financial specialist at the Wall Street Stock Exchange, gave evening classes and at night wrote lucid essays.

[3] P. Berger & B. Berger 91972): Sociology. New York: Basic Books.

[4] P.L. Berger (1961): The Noise of Solemn Assemblies. Garden City New York, Doubleday. P.L. Berger (1961): The Precarious Vision. Garden City New York, Doubleday.

[5]…                          Davison Hunter, o. c.

[6] P. Berger (1967): The Sacred Canopy. Garden City (N.Y.), Doubleday.

[7] P. Berger & R.J. Niehaus (1970): Movement and Revolution. Garden City (N.Y.), Doubleday.

[8] P. Berger, B. Berger & H. Kellner (1973). The Homeless Mind: Modernity and Consciousness. Random House, New York.

[9] P. Berger (1973): Pyramids of Sacrifice. Garden City (N.Y.), Doubleday.

[10] P. Berger & H. Kellner (1982): Sociology Reinterpreted: An Essay on Method and Vocation (pp. 7-15). Hammondsworth: Penguin Books.

[11] P. Berger (1992): Sociology: Disinvitation? Society: 30(1).

[12] J.D. Hunter & S.C. Ainlay (Eds.) (1986): Making Sense of Modern Time: Peter L. Berger and the Vision of Interpretative Sociology. London: Routledge Kegan Paul.

[13] Peter Berger (1977): Facing up to Modernity. New York: Basic Books.

[14] The Social Construction of Reality, o. c., p. 20

[15] S.C. Ainlay: The encounter with phenomenology. In: Peter L. Berger and the Vision of Interpretative Sociology, o. c., p. 37.

[16] Invitation to Sociology, 1963; o. c., p 55

[17] His anthropological presuppositions are strongly influenced by Marx, Plessner, and Gehlen. See P.L. Berger & T. Luckmann (1966): The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (p.17). New York: Doubleday & Comp.

[18] S.C. Ainlay: o. c.

[19] P. Berger cited by Peter Ainlay, o. c., p. 35.

[20] In 1986, twenty years after publication, Berger still fully endorses the content of this book. Of all the books he has written together with a co-author, this is the one he least feels inclined to change parts of, and Berger knows that Luckmann feels the same way. Peter L. Berger (1986). Epilogue (p. 222). In J.D. Hunter & S.C. Ainlay (Ed.): Making Sense of Modern Times. RKP: London and New York.

[21] P.L. Berger & T. Luckmann (1966): The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (p.14-15). New York: Doubleday & Comp.

[22] M. Scheler introduced the term Wissenssoziologie.

[23] Berger and Luckmann note that the sociology of knowledge derives two key concepts from Marx. The one is ideology or a system of thought that serves as a weapon in the struggle for economic and political power. The other is false consciousness, which refers to ways of thinking that are alienated from the real social being.

[24] P.L. Berger & T.Luckmann (1966): The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (p.129). New York: Doubleday & Comp.

[25] P. Berger (1967): The Sacred Canopy. o. c.  (p. 4).

[26] Berger borrows the terms externalization and objectivation from the work of Hegel (Entausserung and Versachlichung). They should be conceived as Marx has applied them to collective phenomena. The concept of internalization is derived from the work of G. H. Mead. See The Sacred Canopy, footnote 3, p 188.

[27] G. Ritzer (1981): Toward an Integrated Sociological paradigm (p.199). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

[28] Berger & Luckmann: o.c. Part II, Chapter 1.

[29] Berger en Berger, o. c., p. 66

[30] Berger en Berger, o. c., pp. 68-69

[31] For instance, feminists demand that chairperson and spokesperson replace terms such as chairman and spokesman.

[32] Berger, (1965): p. 200

[33] Berger & Luckmann: o. c., pp 89-91

[34] R. Putnam (1992): Making democracy work: civic traditions in modern Italy. New York: Princeton University Press.

[35] R. Wuthnow: Religion as Sacred Canopy. In: Making sense of the Modern World, o. c.

[36] P. Berger (1997): Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience (p.7-8). New York: Walter de Gruyter.

[37] D. Wrong (1976): The oversocialized conception of man in modern sociology. In L. Coser and B. Rosenberg (eds): Sociological Theory (4^th edn). New York: Mac Millan. Pp. 104-112

[38] P. Berger: Invitation to Sociology, o. c., p. 131

[39] Berger & Berger: o. c., pp. 46-47; Berger & Berger also refer to the comparative study of Beatrice Whiting (Ed.) (1963): Six cultures – studies in child rearing practices. New York.

[40] Idem

[41] Hirschman: Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970): Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States. Cambridge M.A.: Harvard University Press.

[42] R.K. Merton (1957, 1965): Social Structure and Anomie. In: Social Theory and social structure (revised and enlarged edition). New York: The Free Press.

[43] Berger: Invitation to sociology. o. c. , p 139

[44] The Social Construction of Reality, p 130

[45] For instance, children of mothers who are addicted to hard drugs, and who, therefore, cannot structure their own life, are severely retarded in their mental and social development.

[46] Berger, 1963, o. c., p 104; 1972, o. c., p.53.

[47] Lewis A. Coser (1971). Masters of Sociological Thought (p. 333). New York: Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich.

[48] G.H. Mead (1934/1959): Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Other books of Mead that are reconstructed after his death: The Philosophy of the Present (1932); Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century (1936) and The Philosophy of the Act (1938).

[49] The quotation is from Paul Rock. Quoted by Ian Craib in his Modern Social Theory: From Parsons to Habermas, p 71. For a more positive evaluation see: A. C. Zijderveld (1974): George Herbert Mead, in: Hoofdfiguren van de sociologie, deel 1. Utrecht: Spectrum.

[50] I.Craib, o. c. p 73

[51] P. Berger: Invitation to Sociology, p 104

[52] T. Parsons (1948): Social Structure and the development of Society: Freud’s contribution to the integration of Psychology and Sociology. Psychiatry, 21, 321-340. E.H. Erikson (1963): Childhood and Society. New York: W.W. Norton.

[53] M.J. de Jong (1987). Herkomst, Kennis en Kansen. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.

[54] Invitation to Sociology: o. c.

[55] C.H. Cooley (1964): Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Schocken. Quoted by Lewis A. Coser: Masters of Sociological Thought, o. c., p. 306

[56] Berger & Berger: 1972, p 62.

[57] 1972, o. c., p 61-62.

[58] J. Ortega y Gasset: The Revolt of the Masses (1932). New York: Norton.

[59] J. Holt (1967, 1983): How children learn. Hammondsworth: Middlesex. Penguin.

[60] I. Illich (1971): Deschooling Society. New York: Harper & Row; Christopher Lash (1978): The Culture of Narcissism. New York: Norton; E. Reimer (1971): School is Dead. Hammondsworth. Middlesex: Penguin.

[61] Hunter Davison, o. c.

[62] Berger ‘indirectly’ derives his notion of a nomos from Durkheim, by choosing the opposite of his notion of anomy. See footnote 23 on page 189 of The Sacred Canopy.

[63] The Sacred Canopy, o. c. p. 23

[64] Idem, p. 53.

[65] Idem, pp. 53-54.

[66] Idem, p. 107-108.

[67] The Sacred Canopy, p. 109-112. Berger delves deeper into Ancient History, by asserting that the elements of this Protestant Puritanism were already present in the old books of the bible, where monotheism was a central issue. God or the gods and the people did not form part of a collective universe, but Yahweh existed outside of this cosmos. He had created the whole cosmos, including mankind. This implies a great distance between Yahweh and the people.

[68] Robert H. Coombs (1991): Marital status and Personal Well-Being: A Literature Review. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 40, 97-102.

[69] B. Berger & P.L. Berger (1983). The War over the Family (pp. 6-7). New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday.

[70] Berger & Berger, pp. 16-17.

[71] Idem, p 140.

[72] First chapter in: Facing up to Modernity: Excursions in Society, Politics and Religion (1977). New York: Basic Books.

[73] Berger & Kellner: o. c., p. 7.

[74] Davison Hunter, o. c., p. 92-93.

[75] O’Leary (1986): The Place of Politics. In: Making sense of modernity. London: Routledge, Kegan Paul. Pp. 179-196.

[76] P. Berger, 1970a, p. 13.

[77] P. Berger, 1963, p. 6.

[78] J.P. O’Leary, o. c. p. 181.

[79] P. Berger, 1970a, p. 23.

[80] P.L. Berger (1987). The Capitalist Revolution; Fifty Propositions about prosperity, Equality, and Liberty. Aldershot: Wildwood House.

[81] The increasing damage to our natural environment is often mentioned as another drawback of economic growth. This is indeed a great problem that Berger does not address. However, he could have riposted the modern antagonists of capitalism that industrial production in communist countries has caused much more damage to the ecological system than in the west. Moreover, the ecological movement is flourishing in the democratic countries and has already won many important victories against polluting industries.

[82] P. Berger (1992). Sociology: A Disinvitation? Society, 30(1), 12-18.

[83] In my view also postmodernism offered a resort for many disoriented Marxists.

[84] C. Wright Mills (1959): The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.

[85] I suppose that one of the main reasons was that their theoretical model was too simple. Basically there were always only two parties involved: a powerful oppressor and a completely powerless victim.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.