Social organisation

The book speculates about the origins of symbolic orders. Once upon a time most trades had their own knowledge and logic. As economic surplus allowed some to speculate freely, broader theories got established, which spanned more than the practical side of life:

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY - 2.2.3 - SOCIAL ORGANIZATION FOR UNIVERSE-MAINTENANCE

As more complex forms of knowledge emerge and an economic surplus is built up, experts devote themselves full-time to the subjects of their expertise, which, with the development of conceptual machineries, may become increasingly removed from the pragmatic necessities of everyday life.

The effect is that institutions can survive beyond their original rationale.

This means that institutions may persist even when, to an outside observer, they have lost their original functionality or practicality. One does certain things not because they work, but because they are right — right, that is, in terms of the ultimate definitions of reality promulgated by the universal experts.

It is important to understand that the products of these experts are (definitions of) reality.

I would venture that this reality, as it is explained and experienced by the legitimisers, has a reality accent and subjective affective layer to it as well.

Of course, practical theory, which is a direct necessity of practical life, is of relevance to practitioners. Universal theory has relevance to the legitimisers.

I picture all knowledge in Berger and Luckmann’s model as water drops on a surface. As we internalise it, we draw a finger through a series of them starting from the purely affectionate beginnings in childhood during primary socialisation. The water is drawn out, but as soon as a new poodle of water is connected, the affective part of knowledge is distributed over new knowledge. In this way, all knowledge contains traces of affection and reality accent.

The outcome is a situation where some will defend the lesser theories (the practitioners of that reality), and some will defend the abstract theory arching over many different theories (the experts on the universal truth).

The emergence of full-time personnel for universe-maintaining legitimation also brings with it occasions for social conflict. Some of this conflict is between experts and practitioners. The latter, for reasons that need not be belaboured, may come to resent the experts’ grandiose pretensions and the concrete social privileges that accompany them. What is likely to be particularly galling is the experts’ claim to know the ultimate significance of the practitioners’ activity better than the practitioners themselves. Such rebellions on the part of ‘laymen’ may lead to the emergence of rival definitions of reality and, eventually, to the appearance of new experts in charge of the new definitions.

Other fights can erupt between strands of experts.

This brings us to another, equally important, possibility of conflict — that between rival coteries of experts.

As two abstract theories represent a tougher choice as to their comparative truth, especially if merely based on material concerns, the proponents of each can be hard pressed to ensure their dominance.

In other words, definitions of reality may be enforced by the police. This, incidentally, need not mean that such definitions will remain less convincing than those accepted ‘voluntarily’. Power in society includes the power to determine decisive socialization processes and, therefore, the power to produce reality.

The only danger a reality (anything that exists independently of oneself) can face is to become non-objective. Language annihilating that objective self-existence will function like acid dissolving the hardened structures.

It may seem counterintuitive that the police can enforce a reality, but where is the contradiction? “Speaking against the monarch is treason, and of course there will be consequences” is a statement perfectly able to absorb any “what they did was unfair and not suitable for a king”… perhaps.

Now we essentially move to the logic of interest groups.

Different social groups will have different affinities with the competing theories and will, subsequently, become ‘carriers’ of the latter.

[…] a theory is ‘demonstrated’ to be pragmatically superior not by virtue of its intrinsic qualities, but by its applicability to the social interests of the group that has become its ‘carrier’.

The pressing and present reality is still central to these groups. But this reality has moved and changed with the groups that shape it through legitimation.

Monopolistic reality

The authors next examine one archetype of their theory: Societies in which only one reality prevails, usually because of a dominant group suppressing any organised alternative.

Such a monopoly means that a single symbolic tradition maintains the universe in question.

[…] The experts in the tradition are recognized as such by virtually all members of the society and have no effective competitors to deal with.

Bombastically they maintain that all primitive societies are of such a type.

To be in the society then implies acceptance of this tradition. The experts in the tradition are recognized as such by virtually all members of the society and have no effective competitors to deal with.

The key is, of course, whether a social group with a deviating, shared reality exists, not a single individual. Eyeing the village idiot down the street does not make anybody doubt the sanity of their society.

An interesting alternative to therapy (remapping a theory under one’s own language, turning it into a pathological aberration) and nihilation (rendering a theory incompatible with reality) happens when a pantheon of gods is merged into one’s own pantheon.

One interesting political debate comes up when they argue that Christianity in the Middle Ages could not be called an ideology. Ideology implies that more than one reality competes.

When a particular definition of reality comes to be attached to a concrete power interest, it may be called an ideology.

It should be stressed that this term has little utility if it is applied to the sort of monopolistic situation discussed above. It makes little sense, for example, to speak of Christianity as an ideology in the Middle Ages - even though it had obvious political uses for the ruling groups — for the simple reason that the Christian universe was ‘inhabited’ by everyone in medieval society, by the serfs just as much as by their lords.

That, they say, changed with the Industrial Revolution as the bourgeoisie utilised Christianity, while the working class no longer lived in that reality.

Pluralistic reality

Unlike monopolistic realities, which are rather homogenous in their universal theories across all classes, the groups in pluralistic societies share a common part, but many parallel realities exist in a somewhat harmonious relationship alongside each other.

This means that they have a shared core universe taken for granted as such, and different partial universes coexisting in a state of mutual accommodation.

This is still a society in balance, and all the groups do share a common denominator at the deepest level, but taken as a whole the society is of a heterogeneous nature.

But a transition from the monopolistic phase must also have taken place, and that piece of information will beg the question as to what happened? Is the common denominator of the society not a solid one after all?

The pluralistic situation goes with conditions of rapid social change, indeed pluralism itself is an accelerating factor precisely because it helps to undermine the change-resistant efficacy of the traditional definitions of reality.

Intellectuals

The intellectual for some reason posits a counter-reality all alone.

[…] the intellectual, whom we may define as an expert whose expertise is not wanted by the society at large.°? This implies a redefinition of knowledge […]

What is going on here? Usually a deviant individual does not have knowledge of society in such large amounts that they in any way can live in a parallel reality. But the intellectual can offer such a reformulated understanding of everything the existing symbolic order explains and orders.

He appears as the counter-expert in the business of defining reality. Like the ‘official’ expert, he has a design for society at large. But while the former’s design is in tune with the institutional programmes, serving as their theoretical legitimation, the intellectual’s exists in an institutional vacuum

This is the intellectual who stands alone without a “backing vocal”.

Another type is the more typical kind whose reality requires more than one person to maintain. Ideas must leave a person and come back via the externalisation-objectivation-internalisation triad before they come to us as objective reality.

The intellectual can garner around him a group of people who prefer the reality he lives in over the dominant reality. He functions as a legitimising expert in their little sub-society meeting the challenges of the dominant social order with similar tricks of the trade, such as nihilation (rendering the knowledge of the dominant society flaccid and illogical).

This is still the intellectual withdrawing from society, either alone or with a group. He benefits from the group in that more than one can participate in the maintenance of their reality. Together, their shared reality takes on the ever-so-important taken-for-grantedness that everybody seeks.

The revolutionary thrusts himself into society at large, but still maintains a group of people around him.

Just as the withdrawing intellectual needs others to assist him in maintaining his deviant definitions of reality as reality, so the revolutionary intellectual needs others to confirm his deviant conceptions. This requirement is much more basic than the obvious fact that no conspiracy can succeed without organization. The revolutionary intellectual must have others who maintain for him the reality (that is, the subjective plausibility in his own consciousness) of the revolutionary ideology.

Part three of the book will return to this idea about plausibility (actually, plausibility structures). What is relevant is that the group you are in lends plausibility to the reality shared with the group. You can even make the jump to another group if that will help you maintain a subjective story that you need.

After having proposed a number of analytical approaches to a number of situations, they test their ability with a large-scale sociological revolutionary: Marx.

Legitimation can both preserve and alter.

Definitions of reality have self-fulfilling potency.