Thinking Sociologically PDF

Thinking Sociologically, Third Edition. Zygmunt Bauman and Tim May. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Introduction Crafting Sociological Lenses In this chapter we wish to examine the idea of thinking sociologically and its importance for understandin...

Thinking Sociologically, Third Edition. Zygmunt Bauman and Tim May. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Introduction Crafting Sociological Lenses In this chapter we wish to examine the idea of thinking sociologically and its importance for understanding ourselves, each other, and our relations to the social environments we inhabit. For this purpose we are going to situate the idea of sociology as a disciplined practice with its own set of questions and ways of approaching the study of society and social relations. Thinking Sociologically: The Distinction Sociology comprises both ways of framing the social world and methods for understanding and explanation. It has a considerable body of knowledge accumu- lated over the course of its history. Sociological reflections are evident in the writ- ings of philosophers and theologians over the course of two thousand years. The term was used in the earlier part of the nineteenth century and its development drew upon this extensive history for the purpose of studying social order and change. Now, books and journals in libraries represent the discipline as having a rich tradition of studies. They provide knowledge for the general reader, students, and those seeking to become professional sociologists; all of whom can then expand their understanding of the world in which we live. In the process we find systematic studies on such topics as: culture, economics, crime, organizations, sexuality, politics, identity, fashion, management, state, environment, media, youth, gerontology, health, housing, bio‐technology, and rural and urban life. Thus, soci- ology is a site of continuing activity seeking to understand new phenomena and to test established ideas against experiences and data. In the process, the form and content of the discipline evolves with societal transformations. To situate sociology there must be some distinguishing features of its practice in terms of setting questions and illuminating the social domain that are differ- ent from other disciplines. By discovering these differences we can characterize what it is to think sociologically. At this point we can think of related disciplines: for example, History, Anthropology, Political Science, Law, Social Policy, Psychology, Management and Organization Studies, Economics, Education, Criminology, Information Science, Journalism, Philosophy, Architecture, Social Policy, Archeology, Linguistics, Literature, and Geography. All of these are concerned with the human world: that is, the interactions between people and with the environments of which they are a part. So, what sets them apart and why do they justify different names? There is one simple answer: differences between these disciplines merely reflect divisions in the world that they investigate. It is human actions, or aspects of those, that differ from each other and disciplines take account of this fact. Each narrates its past and the peculiarity of its focus and constitutes its areas of inquiry. History is concerned with actions that took place in the past, whereas sociology concentrates on contemporary society. Anthropology examines human societies at different stages of development; political science focuses on actions and institutions relating to power, state, and government; economics deals with the allocation of scarce resources viewed in terms of persons acting “rationally” to maximize their individual utility, as well as the production and distribution of goods; law and criminology are interested in interpretation and application of the law and the norms that regulate human actions and how norms are articu- lated, made obligatory, enforced, and with what consequences. Yet, as soon as we begin to justify the boundaries between disciplines in this manner, the issue becomes problematic. After all, we are assuming that the human world itself reflects neat divisions which then become specialist branches of investigation. We now reach an important issue: like most beliefs which appear to be self‐ evident, they remain obvious insofar as we refrain from examining the assumptions that underpin them. We now have the idea that human interactions may be divided into certain categories which are then represented in clear disciplinary boundaries. A group of “experts” who are knowledgeable and trustworthy then claim exclusive rights to study aspects of the social and material worlds and furnish us with the results of their studies and reflections. However, from the point of view of our experi- ences, can we divide society into economics, geography, politics, history, or social policy? We do not live separately in the realms distinguished by political science or economics, nor do we move from sociology to anthropology when traveling from parts of the global North to the South, or from history to sociol- ogy when we grow a year older! If we are able to separate these domains of activity in our experiences and so categorize our actions in terms of the political at one moment and the economic at another, is it because we have been taught to make such distinctions in the first place? Therefore, what we know is not the world itself, but what we are doing in the world in terms of how our practices are informed by an image of that world. Our ways of knowing are frames we deploy to comprehend the world and those are forged in the relations between language and experience. Thus, there is no natural division of the human world that is reflected in different scholarly disci- plines. What we discover is a division of labor between the scholars who examine the world which is reinforced by disciplinary boundaries that enable practition- ers to know what belongs to their areas of expertise. In our quest to find the “difference that makes the difference,” how do the practices of these branches of study then differ from each other? There is a similarity in the ways in which they select their objects of study. After all, they all claim obedience to the same rules of conduct when dealing with their respective objects. All seek to collect relevant facts through methods of research and ensure that they are valid and then check and recheck those facts in order that the information about them is reliable. In addition, they all try to put the propositions they make about the facts in a form in which they can be clearly, unambiguously understood and tested against evidence. In so doing they seek to pre‐empt or eliminate tensions or contradictions between propositions in order that no two different propositions can be true at the same time. In short, they all try to live up to a particular ideal of systematic discipline and present their findings in a responsible manner. We can now say that there is no difference in how the task of the scholar and their trademarks – scholarly integrity and responsibility – is understood and practiced. Those claiming to be experts seem to deploy similar strategies to col- lect and to process their facts: they observe aspects of human actions, or employ historical evidence and seek to interpret them within modes of analysis that make sense of those actions. It seems, therefore, that our last hope of finding our difference is in the kinds of questions that motivate each discipline: that is, those that frame the points of view (cognitive perspectives) from which actions are observed, explored, described, understood, and explained by different disciplines. Take the frames that inform the work of economists. Consideration would turn to the relationship between the costs and benefits of human action. Human action can be viewed in terms of the management and allocation of scarce resources and how these may be utilized for maximum advantage. The interac- tions between people would be examined as aspects of the production and exchange of goods and services; all of which is regulated by market relations of supply and demand and the desire of actors to pursue their individual prefer- ences according to a model in which actions are subject to a prior rational calculation of means and ends. The findings would then be arranged into a math- ematical model of the process through which resources are created, obtained, and allocated. Political science, on the other hand, is more likely to be interested in those aspects of human actions that change, or are changed by, the actual or anticipated conduct of other actors in terms of power and influence. Actions can then be viewed in terms of the asymmetry between power and influence and so some people emerge with views modified more significantly than other parties to the interaction. In this way its findings can be organized around concepts like power, domination, the state, authority, and psephology (the study of voting behavior). The concerns of economics and political science are by no means alien to soci- ology. This is readily apparent from works within sociology that are written by scholars who may self‐identify as economists, historians, political scientists, anthropologists, geographers, or who work in management and organization studies. Nevertheless, sociology, like other branches of study, has its own cogni- tive perspectives which inform sets of questions for interrogating human actions, as well as its own principles of interpretation. From this point of view we can say that sociology is distinguished through viewing human actions as elements of wider figurations: that is, of a non‐random assembly of actors locked together in a web of mutual dependency (dependency being a state in which the probability that the action will be undertaken and the chance of its success change in relation to what other actors are, do, or may do). Sociologists ask what consequences this has for human actors, the relations into which we enter and the societies of which we are a part. In turn, this shapes the object of sociological inquiry and so figurations, webs of mutual dependence, reciprocal conditioning of action and expansion, or confinement of actors’ freedom are among the most prominent preoccupations of sociology. Individual actors come into the view of sociological study in terms of being members or partners in a network of interdependence. Sociology celebrates the individual, but the atomism, or social isolation that is assumed to exist between us that is embodied in the idea of individualism, is another matter; which is not to say that this may not be a symptom of social dislocation. Sociology is primarily concerned with a relational viewpoint: that is, we are born into and are members of a society which pre‐exists us. We are forged in those relations and our experi- ences are influenced by social structures and our ways of seeing by cultural frames of references. We are dependent upon others and our views of ourselves are mediated in those relations. The central questions of sociology thus become: how do the types of social relations and societies we inhabit relate to how we see ourselves and each other, construct our knowledge, view our environments, and with what consequences? It is these kinds of questions –components of the prac- tical realities that inform our everyday lives – that constitute what it is to think sociologically and which define the discipline as a relatively autonomous branch of the social sciences. Thinking sociologically encapsulates a relational way of understanding the world which also opens up the possibility for thinking about the world in different ways. Sociology and Common Sense Thinking sociologically has a particular relationship with what is often called “common sense.” Because of its subject matter, sociology and common sense are implicated in ways that have consequences for its standing and practice. It is precisely these relations that lead to it being relevant, insightful and, at times, contentious. The physical sciences, after all, do not appear to be concerned with spelling out their relationship to common sense. Whilst there are undoubtedly social components to the practices of the physical sciences – from the ways in which phenomena may be inferred, rather than observed by scientists, to what sort of science is funded and how the findings of science have implications for how we see ourselves and the world around us – there tends to be a separation of the immediate effects of the content of the knowledge from the social contexts in which it is produced. Boundaries thereby exist with a rich yet often disorganized, non‐systematic, sometimes inarticulate and ineffable knowledge referred to as common sense. Common sense appears to have nothing to say of the matters that preoccupy physicists or chemists. The subjects they deal with do not seem to fall within the daily experiences of people. Those without knowledge and skills do not normally consider themselves able to form opinions about such matters unless aided by the scientists who focus on the domain of the content of their research. After all, the objects explored by the physical sciences appear only under very special circumstances: for example, through observed effects in giant particle accelera- tors or the lenses of powerful microscopes. The scientists view or infer the phe- nomena, subject it to experimentation under certain conditions, and then justify their findings within a bounded community of inquirers. Being the owners of the experience, the process, analysis, and interpretations remain within their control. Results have to withstand the critical scrutiny of other scientists trained in the specialist area. Their resulting knowledge does not compete with common sense for the simple reason that there is no commonsensical point of view on their subject matter. Is the characterization of this separation as simple as the above implies? The production of scientific knowledge contains social factors which inform and shape its practice, while scientific findings can have social, political, and eco- nomic implications which, in any democratic society, are not for scientists to determine. Scientific and contextual, or indigenous knowledge, interact with one other: for example, how long people accumulate knowledge to maintain habitats for human survival in relation to plants and animals, or the increasing availability of medical information to the general population with which to question the expertise of medical doctors. We cannot, in other words, easily separate the means of scientific research from the ends to which it may be put, nor practical or local knowledge from scientific knowledge itself. How research is funded and by whom may have a bearing upon the results of that research with these inter- ests potentially distorting results. Public concerns over the quality of the food we eat, digital storage of our personnel usage of the Internet, the protection of the environments upon which we rely and live in, the role of genetic engineering, the patenting of genetic information are just a few of the matters that science alone cannot determine. These concern not just the bounded justifications for scientific knowledge within an expert group, but other forms of justification, as well as its application and consequences for our lives and futures. After all, we are talking about the control we have over our lives and the direction in which our societies are moving. Such matters are the raw materials for sociological investigation. All of us live in the company of other people and interact with each other. In the process we display an extraordinary amount of tacit knowledge that enables us to get on with the business of everyday life. Each of us is a skilled actor. Yet what we obtain and who we are depend on others. After all, most of us have lived through the agoniz- ing experience of a communication breakdown with partners, friends, and stran- gers and we experience varying degrees of social dislocation, ostracization, togetherness, and belonging. The subject matter of sociology is embedded in our everyday lives and without this fact we would be unable to conduct our lives in the company of others. Yet whilst deeply immersed in our routines, informed by a practical knowledge oriented to the social settings in which we interact, we may not systematically think about the meaning of what we have gone through or the reasons for its occurrence, nor compare our private experiences with the fate of others; with the exception, perhaps, of seeing private responses to public issues paraded for consumption on television and social media. Here, however, the privatization of social issues is often reinforced thereby relieving us of the burden of understanding the dynamics and consequences of social relations within what is seen as individual reactions, rather than more general cultural expressions. Sociological thinking takes us into a relational understanding. It sees the indi- vidual, but situated within a social milieu. As a mode of investigation, it will then ask questions such as: “how do our individual biographies intertwine with the history we share with other human beings?” Or, “how do our cultures shape what we see and do?” Sociologists themselves are part of that experience and so however hard they may try to stand aside from the objects of their study – life experiences as objects “out there” – they cannot break off completely from the knowledge that they seek to comprehend. Equally, however, this can be an advantage to the extent that they possess both an inside and outside view of the experiences they seek to comprehend through the methods of research that they deploy: from the extensive through general comparisons within and between societies, to intensive experiences of immersion in social groups to understand their dynamics. The result is a rich and insightful body of studies into the human condition whose basis of comprehension, seen from within the frames of prac- tical reason, ranges from the proximate to the distant. When it comes to studies of the human condition, sociology needs to understand the meanings that are attributed to human actions, artifacts, and environments before they commence their investigations with questionnaires, interviews, visual materials, or observations. Families, organizations, kinship networks, neighborhoods, cities and villages, nations and churches, and any other group- ings held together by regular human interaction have already been given mean- ing and significance by the actors involved. As a result, sociological phenomena are already endowed with meaning and so it is implicated in the realities that make up practical reason. With fluid borders between these forms of knowledge, their boundaries also move. As with the application of the genetic scientists’ findings and their implications for social life, the sovereignty of sociology over social knowledge is one of reflection, reinforcement, and even contestation. Whilst this is not peculiar to sociology and is of relevance to the social and physical sciences in general, we can consider the relations between sociology and common sense in the following ways. In the first place sociology subordinates itself to the rules of responsible communication according to its modes of justification: that is, accepted and institutionalized ways of constituting understanding and explanation based on evidence. This is an attribute of science among a common community of inquirers that distinguishes a discipline from other forms of knowledge and ways of justification. Sociologists are expected to take great care to distinguish between the statements corroborated by available evidence and those proposi- tions whose status is of provisional, untested ideas. The rules of responsible speech require that the procedures which have led to the resulting insights be open to scrutiny. Further, that it should relate to other works on the topic and engage with those in a manner that is argued to advance its understanding. In this way, credibility and applicability will be significantly enhanced. Indeed, the legitimacy of science is based in our belief that its practitioners have followed the rules of responsible speech whilst those scientists, in turn, can refer to the validity and reliability of the knowledge they produce according to the rigor of the production process. Second, there is the size of the field from which sociological thinking is drawn. For most of us, our terrain is our life‐worlds: that is, the things we do, the people we meet, the pursuits we follow, and the times and places in which we normally interact. We also find ourselves confronted with the experiences and viewpoints of others mediated through, for example, the Internet, television, newspapers, books, and social media. To this extent, the horizons of our experiences are broadened. However, this can be selective and reliant upon particular viewpoints which can be nothing more than the amplification of existing life‐worlds where differences can turn into objects of distrust and opprobrium, rather than under- standing. Thus, despite the rich and various conditions and experiences in the world, each is a particular point of view which may be partial and even preju- diced. These issues can be examined only if we bring together and compare expe- riences drawn from a multitude of life‐worlds: that is, a disciplined viewpoint on those points of view. Only then will the bounded realities of individual experi- ences be revealed, as will the complex network of dependencies and interconnec- tions in which they are entangled – a network which reaches far beyond the realm that may be accessed from the point of view of a singular biography. It is for this reason that the sociologists’ pursuit of this wider perspective makes a great difference – not only quantitatively, but also in the quality and the use of knowledge. Sociological knowledge has something important to offer that com- mon sense, for all its richness and insight cannot, by itself, provide. There is a third way in which these forms of knowledge differ: in the ways that each makes sense of human reality in terms of how they understand and explain events and circumstances. We know from our experiences that we are “the author” of our actions; we know that what we do is an effect of our intentions or feelings even though the outcomes may not be as we intended. We normally act to achieve a state of affairs whether, for example, in order to possess an object, to receive praise, or to prevent something we do not like or help a friend. Quite naturally, the way we think of our actions serves as a model for making sense of other actions. To this extent the only way we can make sense of the human world around us is to draw our tools of explanation solely from within our respective life‐worlds. We tend to perceive everything that happens in the world at large as an outcome of somebody’s intentional action. We look for the persons responsi- ble for what has occurred and once we have found them, we believe our inquiries to be complete. We assume that goodwill lies behind those events to which we are favorably predisposed and ill intentions lie behind those we dislike. In gen- eral, people find it difficult to accept that a situation was not an effect of the intended actions of an identifiable person. Those who speak in the name of reality within the public realm – politicians, journalists, market researchers, commercial advertisers – tune in to the above tendencies and speak of the “needs of the state” or the “demands of the economy.” This is said as if the state or economies were made to the measure of individual persons with specific needs and wants. Similarly, we read and hear of the com- plex problems of nations, states, and economic systems as the effects of the thoughts and deeds of a select group of individuals who can be named, pictured, and interviewed. Equally, governments and their spokespersons often relieve themselves of responsibility by referring to those things outside of their control, or speaking of what “the public demands” through the use of focus groups or opinion polls. Sociology stands in tension and sometimes opposition to the particularity of such views as if they can easily translate into believing they represent some gen- eral state of affairs. It does not take for granted ways of understanding as if they constituted some natural way of explaining events that may be simply separated from historical change, or the social location from which these utterances emerge. As it starts its survey from figurations (networks of dependencies) rather than from individual actors or single actions, it demonstrates that the common metaphor of the isolated, motivated individual as the key to understanding the human world – including our own, thoroughly personal and private, thoughts and deeds – is not an appropriate way to understand ourselves and others. To think sociologically is to seek to make sense of the human condition via an analysis of the manifold webs of human interdependency – those toughest of realities to which we refer in order to explain our motives and the effects of their activation. We should also note that the power of common sense has a twofold character. Whilst it enables us to navigate our ways through our worlds, it thereby depends on the self‐evident: that is, not to question its precepts and to be self‐confirming in practice. It may easily, therefore, rest upon the routine, habitual character of daily life that informs our common sense and is simultaneously informed by it. We need this in order to get on with our lives. When repeated often enough, things tend to become familiar and the familiar becomes self‐explanatory; it ena- bles us to navigate our ways through the world, presents no problems and so may arouse little curiosity. Questions are not asked if people are satisfied that “things are as they are” for reasons that are not open to scrutiny and, should they be questioned, resistance to such intrusion may easily follow. Fatalism may also play its role via the belief that one can do little to change the conditions in which we act, thereby relieving us of the burden of change. To this extent, familiarity, and inquisitiveness can be in tension. The familiar world has the power to confirm established beliefs leaving sociology viewed as an irritant whose credibility is then to be questioned. By examining the taken‐ for‐granted and the basis in which the life‐world is constituted and sustained, it has the potential to disturb comfortable certitudes whether it sees that world as a topic for its investigations or as a resource upon which to draw for its insights. With the daily ways of life and the social conditions in which they take place under examination, they emerge as one of the accomplished ways, but not neces- sarily the only way, of getting on in our lives and organizing relations between us. Here, however, routines and the ways in which we constitute understanding between us, have their place. After all, they enable us to do things without con- tinuously reflecting upon our actions, which could easily lead to uncertainty. Here, we may recall Kipling’s centipede, who walked effortlessly on all her hun- dred legs until a sycophantic courtier began to praise her exquisite memory. It was this memory that allowed her never to put down the eighty‐fifth leg before the thirty‐seventh, or the fifty‐second before the nineteenth. Having been made self‐conscious, the poor centipede was no longer able to walk. Equally, defamil- iarization has benefits. It opens up new and previously unsuspected possibilities of living one’s life with more self‐awareness, understanding of others, and com- prehension of our surroundings in terms of greater knowledge and, with that, perhaps more freedom and control. To those seeking to live their lives in a more conscious way through an under- standing of the environments, its effect upon ourselves, our actions, and how we live together and organize ourselves, thinking sociologically is a welcome guide. When addressing, illuminating, or challenging our shared knowledge, sociology prompts and encourages us to reassess our experience, to discover new possibilities, and to become in the end more open and less reconciled to the idea that learning about ourselves and each other has an end point, rather than being an exciting and dynamic process whose aim is to enhance an understand- ing of the human condition in the environments we inhabit. A distance from the realms of our particular experience cannot diminish the significance of socio- logical insight whose justifications cannot be based within the province of prac- tical reason alone. Thinking sociologically is a challenge whose process can render us more sensi- tive to and tolerant of difference and diversity. It sharpens our senses and opens our eyes to a relational horizon beyond our immediate experiences in order that we can explore and explain. Once we understand better how the apparently natu- ral, inevitable, immutable, eternal aspects of our lives have been brought into being through the exercise of human power and resources, it becomes a power in its own right that opens up a world of possibilities. It widens the scope and prac- tical effectiveness of our degrees of freedom and so has the potential to make us less subject to manipulation and even more resilient to times of oppression and control. As a mode of thinking it can enable us to become more effective social actors in seeing the connections between character, action, and context and how those things which, by their fixity, claim to be irresistible to change, are open to transformation. There is also that which lies beyond us as individuals and requires us to stand back and enter into the realm of analysis. Whilst situated in networks of social relations, our work can take us into an extensive terrain of investigation that deals with movements and changes within societies as a whole through the gen- eration and use of different forms of data. That is important, but not to the extent that matters of concern should then be dissipated in the exercise of dispassionate indifference. Sociology stands in praise of the individual, not individualism. To think sociologically means to understand more fully the values, hopes, desires, worries, and concerns of people. In this way, we may better recognize and respect different cultures and how people practice their lives according to particular val- ues. To this extent it also has the potential to promote solidarity between us: that is, solidarity grounded in mutual understanding and respect and in a joint resist- ance to suffering and a shared condemnation of the cruelties that are its causes. Going back to what we were saying about the fluidity of that which appears inflexible, sociological insight into the inner logic and meaning of forms of life other than our own may well prompt us to think again about the boundaries that have been drawn between ourselves and others. We perhaps have more in common with each other than those forces which seek to separate us. Ultimately, if this is achieved, the cause of freedom will be greatly enhanced through being elevated to the rank of common cause. To analyze and represent sociological findings can draw attention to the extent to which individual and collective freedoms are enabled and constrained. That has a destabilizing effect on existing power relations or what are called “social orders.” Charges of “political disloyalty,” or questions concerning its status as a discipline, are often made against sociology by corporations, governments, and power‐holders of the prevailing social order. This is very evident among those who seek to view reality in their name, or claim that an existing state of affairs is somehow natural. When we witness reactions of this type, it is often what has been revealed which is the subject of contention and sociology the means through which it has been brought into the public realm. It is here where its implications can be debated and actions decided upon, but this may also reveal the extent to which only certain voices are then heard. Sociology can be a powerful instrument in the hands of organizations and its ideas may be drawn upon not for the furtherance of freedom, but control. No discipline can prevent this happening, but it can bring attention to its presence and effects. There is no guarantee that thinking sociologically can dissolve and disempower the “tough realities” of life for that is to over‐extend its practices into realms of deliberation and action that are rightly beyond its remit. Quite simply, the power of understanding may be no match for the forces of coercion or those who mobilize people through the rhetoric of blame of particular populations which provides apparently easy solutions to feelings of estrangement induced by prevailing political and economic conditions. Without that understanding, how- ever, the collective management of shared life conditions would be diminished further. It is a way of thinking whose value is often cherished by those who can- not take it for granted and when it comes to those who can do so, it may easily be undervalued. Thinking Sociologically: The Content This book has been written with the aim of helping people to understand their experiences through and with others according to the above spirit. We seek to show how the apparently familiar can be interpreted in novel and different ways. Each chapter addresses issues that are part of our daily lives, or inform our lives, even if they may not be at the forefront of our everyday understandings. They concern ways of seeing and issues we routinely encounter, but may have little time or opportunity to reflect upon. Our aim is to prompt sociological thinking, not to “correct” knowledge. We seek to expand horizons of understanding, not to replace erroneous ideas of error with some unquestionable Truth. We hope to encourage a questioning attitude in which understanding others enables us bet- ter to understand ourselves with others in the world. To aid this process, we provide a section at the end of the book of studies which we have drawn upon to illuminate our journey, as well as those which will be helpful in continuing this path of sociological understanding.  The book is a sociological commentary on matters that directly inform our lives and experiences. It is divided into parts and chapters with that concern in mind. In this guide our narrative will not develop in a linear manner because there are some topics to which we shall return throughout the book. For instance, issues of social identity will appear in many different guises in the chapters, for this is how the effort of understanding works in practice. We will also consider care of the environment within which we live and how we are all dependent upon it for our futures and those who will come after us. After all, as we examine new topics, they will reveal new questions and so bring to light issues we had not previously considered. This, as we have said, is part of a process in which we gain better understandings – an exciting and rewarding task without end.