Society as a Human Product

Society as a Human Product

by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann

Berger, P & Luckmann, T (1966) The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise its the Socialogy of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books, pp 51-55, 59-61.

What it's about?

This extract looks at how society is built and the complex relationship we as human beings have with both society itself and the rules and implications that must be accepted to maintain social control.

The extract explains that without social control there would be no difference between the behaviour of human beings and the behaviour of animals. Social control is needed to prevent chaos.

"Social order is not part of the "nature of things", and it cannot be derived from the "laws of nature". Social order exists only as a product of human activity." (Berger, P & Luckmann, T: 1966)

The extract goes on to argue that the activity of human beings has been habitualized. Human beings are training themselves to behave a certain way, perform certain tasks and so forth without even being consciously aware of it. By following the social constructs of society and maintaining social order, human beings are inadvertently habitualizing their behaviour.

"Habitualization further implies that the action in question may be performed again in the future in the same manner and with the same economical effort. This is true of non-social as well as of social activity. Even the solitary individual on the proverbial desert island habitualizes his activity." (Berger, P & Luckmann, T: 1966)

A particularly interesting part of the extract came towards the end when Berger and Luckmann discussed the habitualization of human behaviour and it's affect on children. At a young age children are very accepting of the rules of society. They don't question them, they simply believe that 'that's just the way things are'. They follow the rules and social implications laid down for them by their parents or those bringing them up.

"For the children, the parentally transmitted world is not fully transparent. Since they had no part in shaping it, it confronts them as a given reality that, like nature, is opaque in places as least." (Berger, P & Luckmann, T: 1966)

How this relates to my project?

This extract was initially quite difficult to grasp. The sociological content was quite complex, however, I do feel that it has raised some interesting points.

I really liked the part about the children and how they simply accept that society works in a certain way as they can't see an alternative. I think, this is quite similar to the role of stereotypes. I think that society's view on stereotypes is very similar to the child's view of society. The majority of people see pictures or hear stories enhancing the stereotype of homelessness but as they haven't done anything to develop their understanding around this group of people, they can't see an alternative to the stereotype. This point is key to my film. I want the audience to watch my film and recognise that they use stereotypes to view and understand homeless people a certain way because they haven't ever thought about the alternative and are concerned that if this stereotype is wrong, their understanding of the social World around them will be turned on it's head. This links back to the initial point made in the extract, that humans depend on social control as without it there would be chaos.

Although the extract doesn't mention stereotyping, I think it is one of the key tools for maintaining social control.

How can these ideas help me develop my film?

In my film, the support worker has his role within society completely reversed through the interview with the homeless man. He loses his grip on reality. I have said that I would like to use shadow puppets or experiment with shadows as a way of showing the audience the confusion and turmoil going on in his head. Following this reading, I would like to explore the idea that without stereotypes there could be chaos. I will look up images of 'chaos' and possibly news stories describing situations where 'social chaos' has broken out to find some inspiration for the type of imagery I could create in these sequences.