Social Construction of Reality

1. Social Construction of Reality Nothing is real John Lennon

2. Introduction • Is seems strange that sociologists would suggest that reality is not just “out there” to be perceived, but that’s how they think. • Consider that we often “realize” that something is a problem after long periods where the problem is unrecognized.

3. An Example of Constructed Reality • Wife battering was long considered a husband’s prerogative. In fact the term “rule of thumb” originated in the English Common Law rule that a husband could beat his wife with a stick no wider that his thumb. • I wasn’t until the 1970s that women challenged this reality and created a new reality, and a new crime, domestic abuse.

4. A New Reality • Wife battering had existed for centuries, but only then did it become recognized as a problem. • Women challenged the reality of men’s abuse of women, redefined it and essentially created a new reality. • This sociological process can be used to understand the origins of all ideas and social reality.

5. Reality, like Tuna Salad, is a Human Creation • Berger and Luckmann created this idea in the book The Social Construction of Reality and introduced the ideas of Externalization, Internalization and Reification. • Externalizations are ideas about the world • The earth is the center of the universe • Internalization is the process by which others come to believe an externalization • Unless you believe the earth is the center of the universe you will be imprisoned • Reification is the process by which the origin of an idea is forgotten as a human creation

6. Health and Illness are Social Constructions • The thesis of the book Deviance and Medicalization is that crime has been redefined as sickness. • Conditions unknown at the birth of sociology and criminology are now considered major causes of deviance and crime. • Chapter 2 illustrates how this happened.

7. Reifications are Rooted in Social Power and the Forgotten Past • The core component of Berger and Luckmann’s idea is reification. • Powerful groups can force the less powerful to believe in a certain reality, for example, that some people are biologically inferior. • As time goes on society loses its collective understanding that there are other ways to conceptualize an issues, and it persists, and is reified http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-46,GGLG:en&q=reification

8. Power and Ideas • Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, and Chronicles 16:30 state that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." Psalm 104:5 says, "[the LORD] set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Ecclesiastes 1:5 states that "the sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises."

9. Galileo Challenges the Church • In 1610, Galileo published an account of his telescopic observations of the moons of Jupiter to argue in favor of the sun-centered, Copernican theory of the universe against the dominant earth-centered Ptolemaic and Aristotelian theories. • In 1612, opposition arose to the Sun-centered solar system which Galileo supported. In 1614, Galileo was denounced by the Roman Catholic Church and his ideas about the universe were judged dangerous and close to heresy. Galileo was order to neither to advocate nor teach Copernican astronomy. • By 1616 the attacks on Galileo had reached a head, and he went to Rome to try to persuade the Church authorities not to ban his ideas. In the end, Cardinal Bellarmine acting on directives from the Inquisition, delivered him an order not to "hold or defend" the idea that the Earth moves and the Sun stands still at the centre.

10. Galileo Pays for his Idea • Galileo was required to recant his ideas; the idea that the Sun is stationary was condemned as "formally heretical." Church officials said that "The proposition that the sun is in the center of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical; because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures", and the converse as to the Sun's not revolving around the Earth. • He was ordered imprisoned; the sentence was later commuted to house arrest. • His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial and not enforced, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future.

11. Power Power Power • As you can see ideas that challenge power or established morality are usually blocked from dissemination • This is a core idea about deviance – official definitions and definitions by cultural elites are protected while new ideas are forcefully rejected, often using violence.

12. Reifications • Ideas that are widely accepted are usually not subjected to rigorous scrutiny • The social origins of such ideas are forgotten and the idea becomes “common sense.” • When challenged, the supporters of these common sense ideas label the challengers as “crazy,” “out of the mainstream,” or “extremists”

13. Homosexuality is Normal • Consider the controversy about gay rights, the origins of homosexuality, and the idea that homosexuals should be allowed to adopt children, join the military, etc. • Here is one person’s ideas on homosexuality and the idea that it is normal http://www.spreadingsantorum.com/archives/cat_santorum_quotations.html

14. Social Science is a Reification • Social Science, the foundation of this course, is not immune to being a constructed reality. • The findings of social science are rooted in the values and interests that shape other ideas. • Just as views of deviance tell us a bit about the nature of society, so the theories and findings of social scientists tell us something about the profession and the interests that shape it.

15. Medicalization of Deviance • The trend toward medicalization is one attempt to find some consensus and objectivity in the study of deviance. • The political and moral implications of redefining deviance from badness, requiring punishment, to sickness, requiring treatment, are profound. • This course examines this process and the history of the medicalization movement.

16. Is there no universal truth in the sociology of deviance? • Yes; the universal truth is that human action, motivated by interests, economic, moral, behavioral, political, religious, and other interests, produces both deviant behavior and its social response