Invitation to Sociology Essay

Peter L. Berger (1963, pp. 2324) 2 noted in his classic have Invitation to Sociology, The first wisdom of sociology is thisthings are not what they seem. Social reality, he said, has legion(predicate) layers of meaning, and a goal of sociology is to help us discover these multiple meanings. He continued, People who like to avoid shocking discoveriesshould stay away from sociology. As Berger was emphasizing, sociology helps us see through conventional rationalitys of how society works. He referred to this musical composition of sociology as the debunking motif. By looking for levels of reality different than those presumption in the official interpretations of society (p. 38), 3 Berger said, sociology looks beyond on-the-surface understandings of social reality and helps us recognize the value of alternative understandings. In this manner, sociology often challenges conventional understandings most social reality and social institutions. For example, suppose two people examine at a college dance. They are interested in getting to bash distributively other. What would be an on-the-surface understanding and description of their interaction over the nigh few proceedings? What do they say? If they are like a typical couple who just met, they will ask questions like, Whats your hear? Where are you from? What dorm do you live in? Whats your major? Now, such a description of their interaction is OK as far-off as it goes, but what is really going on here?Does any of the two people really care that much about the other persons answers to these questions? Isnt each one more bear on about how the other person is responding, both verbally and nonverbally, during this brief interaction? For example, is the other person paying attention and smiling? Isnt this kindly of understanding a more complete analysis of these few minutes of interaction than an understanding based solely on the answers to questions like, Whats your major? For the most complete unders tanding of this brief encounter, then, we must look beyond the rather superficial things the two people are telling each other to uncover the true meaning of what is going on. As some other example, consider the power structure in a city or state. To know who has the power to make decisions, we would probably consult a city or state charter or constitution that spells out the powers of the branches of government. This scripted document would indicate who makes decisions and has power, but what would it not talk about? To consecrate it another way, who or what else has power to influence the decisions elected officials make? plumping corporations? Labor unions? The media? Lobbying groups representing all sorts of interests? The city or state charter or constitution may indicate who has the power to make decisions, but this understanding would be limited unless one looks beyond these written documents to get a deeper, more complete understanding of how power really operates in the background knowledge being studied.