One of the most deeply held and longstanding convictions within mainstream sociology has been that social phenomena can only be explained with reference to social causes and, thus, any recourse to biological or psychological explanation is inherently erroneous (Moscovici, 1993). This position has become increasingly entrenched to the extent that, at times, sociologists have appeared to undermine the very notion of human beings as biological organisms. A central contention of this paper is that, in line with a growing contemporary unease with some of the more extreme claims of our constructionist orthodoxy, the current ’psycho’ and ’bio-phobia’ is both unrealistic and misguided (Ellis, 1996: Maryanski, 1994: Moscovici, 1993). What follows is an exploration of the way in which our current understanding of key questions in sociology, in this instance the perennial question of the roots of social order, might be advanced by transcending out traditional explanatory framework.
Descriptors: Social Order, Social Construction, Cognition, Emotion, Ontological Security.
Virtually all accounts of human activity within the social sciences refer in some manner to the way in which we classify and perceive reality through organised pattern of concepts (Schutz, 1970, Jenkins, 2000). Thus, despite their emergence from a variety of theoretical traditions within social science, gestalts, schema, ideal types, typifications, frames, sub-universes, structures (in Giddens’ usage) and habitus can all, at a fundamental level, be viewed as relating to similar forms of classification. Each implies a mental model or models that affords us a means of categorising, anticipating, ordering and interpreting our experiences. Furthermore, the connection, and the source of this underlying consistency between these traditions, can be seen to derive from the common influence of Kantian philosophy.
The existence of mental concepts that impose order on our experiences, as revealed by Kant, now appears obvious to most social scientists (Kant, translated by Kemp Smith and Caygill [1787], 2003). We cannot negotiate social life, following its structures, norms and values, other than by maintaining a lexicon of relevant information. This, in turn, implies a central role for human memory in the structuring of social life. Erase one individual’s memory and they are no longer social beings: if all individuals’ memories were erased, by means of some neurological catastrophe, then society would cease to exist in any meaningful form beyond a collection of residual artifacts. Thus, the sociological perspective that views society as existing beyond the individual only holds in a metaphorical or philosophical sense or, perhaps ironically, if we are basing our assumptions from the standpoint of a single individual.
If we accept that human memory and cognition are crucial to the application and transmission of social knowledge then the way in which we accumulate, store, organise, and use information presents us with questions that are crucial to understanding the underlying process of social life. Principally, are we simply empty vessels that are programmed by society and who respond to external experiences in a socially determined manner i.e. is the human mind, as some theorists suggest, more or less infinitely plastic? Or, are we as complex, self-conscious, emotional and biological beings, endowed with a species specific cognitive/emotional architecture that shapes the way in which we gather, store, use information, and act upon the world?
The answer to these questions is fundamental to the way in which we understand social life and, as a consequence, to the way in which we do sociology. If the former is correct then we need not trouble ourselves further. Sociologists can safely view human beings as conduits of meaning shaped by their environment; as mere carriers and reproducers of externally existing frameworks of meaning. If this is so, all social life and social action can be fully understood with reference to the external conditions of action. However, if the latter is a more accurate description of what human beings are, then such simplistic accounts of the individual’s relationship to society are immediately called into question. Specifically, if there is anything innate and consistent about the way in which our minds work; in the way in which we accumulate, store and retrieve our memories, in the interplay between the environment and the constraints imposed by our cognitive and emotional capacities, then all bets are off. We must take account of the possibility that what we observe in social life is, to some extent, shaped by the particularities and limitations of what we are capable of being and doing.
The above would seem a self evident proposition within biology and psychology, that the worlds we create and maintain are at the very least constrained by the possibilities and propensities of our mental and, by implication, our biological capacities. Yet, within the sociological discipline great efforts have been expended to downplay or expunge the role of psychology and biology in understanding social life. Any attempt to breach the ’Durkheimian rule’ by explaining the existence of a social fact in anything other than social terms is pilloried with charges of psychologism, essentialism and reductionism (Moscovici 1993).
There must be no claim in the social sciences that suggests that innate human thought processes, or even worse, that our biology influences or sets limits on our thinking, emotions and behaviour (Ehrenreich & McIntosh, 1997). Tabula Rasa and social constructionist accounts of individual and society have become sacrosanct to the extent that anti-biologism has been described as a form of ’new-creationism’ in the social sciences (1997).
This mainstream sociological position is, thus, infused with a vigorous cultural determinism, defended by various forms of exceptionalism that seek to undermine or explain away any cross-cultural consistencies or universals of human action, and/or social structure, that might suggest a significant biological influence on social behaviour (Konner, 1991).
Benton (1984), as an early voice amongst growing contemporary movement that is now challenging this position, describes anti-biologism as a ’formative influence’ of academic sociologists. He also describes the various factors that, in addition to merely a desire to maintain disciplinary boundaries, have instigated and supported sociology’s longstanding bio-phobia.
As Benton suggests, the rejection of biology has been heavily influenced by the perceived historical misapplication of biological data within the social sciences and, in particular, its associations with conservative ideologies and political agendas (Benton, 1984). Moreover, sociologists’ mistrust of the biological has also been shaped by the associated determinism and the perceived methodological and analytical shortcomings of the chief biological incursion into the discipline, principally in the form of Wilson’s Sociobiology. However, as Benton argues, it is not biology in itself that supports distasteful ideology, or indeed that attracts poor scientific practice, but the nature of the philosophies and the degree of skill that inform its use.
In support of this argument Benton rightly points out that liberal and left-leaning perspectives also rely on a largely unacknowledged notion of human beings as sharing some innate characteristics, the recognition of which is essential to any rational challenge to maltreatment or inequity (Benton, 1984). Thus, if the more extreme social constructionist conceptions of humanity were upheld, then all human beings would be ideally suited to the conditions into which they were socialised, and, hence, there would be no moral or rational grounds for complaint. It is perhaps, paradoxically, only through recognising and understanding the implications of our limitations that real social progress can be pursued. As Marx observed, with respect to the inhuman and alienating aspects of some forms of work, our ‘species being’ places firm limitations on the conditions which human beings can tolerate and in which they can realise their potential (Marx, [1844], 1964).
There are a number of other factors that may also inhibit sociologists’ desire to engage with the biological. If we concede that there are rules governing the way in which we relate to our environment and to each other, then we are faced with the task of having to engage with complex and difficult bodies of knowledge that could previously have been safely ignored. Furthermore, any concession to an aplastic model of the individual necessitates a revision of current orthodoxy; that all human action is a cultural product and is, therefore, infinitely malleable. In short, we may be presented with ’social facts’ that are inconvenient, or even unpleasant, and which cannot be as easily remedied as social constructionist’s might envisage.
Nonetheless, I would argue that if the discipline is to build on its existing strengths, rather then presenting detractors with the straw target of an increasingly untenable radical constructionism, we must be prepared to confront the notion that the world is as it is and not necessarily as we would like it.
In qualification, it must be noted that the inherent properties of individuals I refer to below are shared by all human beings regardless of class, ethnicity or gender. I would argue that is our ’species being’ as a whole that shapes the underlying fundamental dimensions of our engagement with the world.
It is my contention that by radically revising our view of ’homo sociologicus’, and therefore the individual’s relationship to the social, we can achieve a much deeper understanding of social processes and key sociological concepts. In this paper I intend to apply just such a perspective to re-consider the relationship between individual subjectivity and the social order as a ‘test case’ for re-evaluating our constructionist orthodoxy. I would argue that, adequate satisfactory explanation and understanding is only possible by reaching beyond our self-induced myopia.
The specific contention here is that, social order is not of itself a property of social systems that constrains individual action. Rather, the production and reproduction of social order is an imperative of our human bio-psychological inheritance that is mobilised in response to the social and environmental complexities with which we are confronted.
Prior to discussing the key elements of this process, it is important to note that the argument set out below has a number of implications for the way in which we understand the operation of power in society, and as such raises some important and complex questions. However, such a discussion goes beyond the remit of this particular paper and, thus, I do not intend to engage with these issues in any depth here. These matters will be addressed in a subsequent piece. Nonetheless, some of the key propositions regarding the way in which power relates to my overall argument are briefly and provisionally sketched out towards the end of this piece.
The problem of order is arguably the central question that has bedevilled the sociological discipline since its inception. The attempt to find a definitive solution to the Hobbesian ’nightmare’, that unfettered, self-interested individual action would necessarily produce anarchy, was a persistent pre-occupation for most social thinkers prior to the founding fathers and beyond (Misztal, 1996). To provide any more than a brief summation of this interminable debate would be impossible and, to a great extent, superfluous to the purposes of this piece, as the terms of the debate have been extensively discussed to the point of being familiar to all but the most errant sociology student.
The familiar argument runs that the Weberian (action) tradition has tended to view order as the unintended consequence of self-interested action being mediated by; (a) compulsion to conform in relation to dominant groups and authorities and; (b) to an extent by shared values. By contrast, the Durkheimian (structural) tradition rejects self-interested action as a route to order, in favour of a shared normative consensus, transmitted intra-generationally through socialisation into a collective consciousness that constrains individual action (Scott, 1995). While the Durkheimian tradition is considered to have provided a more plausible account of how order might be maintained, the deterministic implications of this solution raised the charge that Durkheim’s theory could not simultaneously account for social change.
The perceived failure to resolve this impasse in a thoroughly convincing manner, since the unravelling of Talcott Parsons (1937: 1951) seminal attempted synthesis, has led to continuing theoretical fragmentation within the sociological discipline.
However, more recent attempts to re-synthesise the action/structure divide, notably by Bourdieu and Giddens, have gone some way in providing social models that can account for both order and, to some extent, reflexivity and change.
Bourdieu attempts to transcend the traditional dichotomy within sociology by focussing on social practice, as an ongoing process where there is a constant interaction between action and structure. Thus, while individual action is purposeful, reflexive and intentional, structures shape the context, orientations and choices available to actors. The constraint of social actors occurs through the internalisation of a particular ’habitus’ which, itself, is a reflection of the social structural position and resources available to the actor (Harker et. al, 1990). Through habitus, Bourdieu attempts to conceptualise both the dialectical nature of action/structure while also attempting to engage with power and inequality.
Habitus ’includes a person’s own knowledge and understanding of the world, which makes a separate contribution to the reality of that world. Thus, that person’s knowledge has a genuine constitutive power and is not a reflection of the “real” world’ (Bourdieu, 1984: 167).
This description of habitus appears to suggest a subjective account of the social world in line with interpretivist approaches.
However, Bourdieu’s model, while allowing for reflexive subjectivity tends to privilege the constraints that external structures place on that subjectivity, as habitus is ’the product of the embodiment of the immanent regularities and tendencies of the world’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992: 138). In fact, according to some critics, Bourdieu’s emphasis on external constraint has led to the charge that his theory, despite claims to the contrary, is deterministic. Alexander, for example, suggests that habitus ’turns out to be ÃÂ like a trojan horse for determinism’ (Alexander, 1995: 136).
The argument is that if choices are shaped by habitus, and habitus is largely determined by internalised structure, then choice is illusory. I would suggest that Alexander’s criticism might be a little overstated and tends to detract from the recognition of limited reflexivity within Bourdieu’s thesis. Nonetheless, the continuities, consistencies and regularities of social life, which are central to Bourdieu’s vision of society, are properties of structure which are transmitted through subjective agency. Social order, then, emerges from its own regularities. Thus, in line with the long held sociological orthodoxy the inherently disorderly tendencies of reflexive individual action are conceptualised as being constrained and ordered by forces external to the individual.
When we turn to Giddens’ vision of society, and his approach to the problem of order, it can be argued that he provides a first step towards conceptualising an internal psychological mechanism underlying social order.
Giddens’ approach departs from Bourdieu’s synthesis in an outright rejection of any ’objectivist’ conception of social structures that operate to determine action (Scott, 1995). His conception of social structure draws on Schutz’s phenomenology, on Goffman, Berger & Luckmann’s social constructionism and on Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology. Giddens characterises structures as being constituted of ’...sets of rules and resources that individual actors draw upon in the practices that reproduce social systems’ (1995: 203). Thus, actors employ the social ’grammar’ appropriate to their culture, learned through socialisation and experience, and apply it, in conjunction with the resources at their disposal, appropriate to the social situations in which they find themselves. Rules and resources employed in this manner are not deterministic, but are applied reflexively by knowledgeable actors, albeit that actors’ awareness may be limited to the specifics of their activities at any given time. Thus, the outcome of action is not totally predictable.
Giddens’ conceptualisation of structures can best be understood as mental sets or frames, adopting Goffman’s terminology, while there are obvious parallels with Bourdieu’s concepts of ’habitus’. Structures form the cognitive element that shape action, as evidenced through ongoing practice, in highly similar vein to Berger and Luckmann’s ’practical consciousness’. Social systems, which are defined as distinctive from structured practices, are presented as being produced by the unintended consequences of interaction, while the regular features of systems appear as ’embedded’ practice (Giddens, 1984).
Craib, despite harbouring a number of reservations, concedes that Giddens has entered explicitly into a discussion of the psychological processes that underlie social life in a more open manner than has been customary within sociology (Craib, 1998). In doing this he has extended the debate regarding the complex relationship between individual and society. However, in qualification. it can been suggested that much of what he argues is already implicit within a range of sociological theories and remains underdeveloped in Giddens’ own work
Drawing, particularly on R.D. Laing’s concept of ontological security, and on neo-Freudian psychoanalysis, Giddens goes some way to recognising the importance of the relationship between universals of human psychology and the regularities which maintain a sense of social order. Like Bourdieu and many other theorists, he recognises the prevalence of the recursive, and the routine in everyday life. However, Giddens’ denial of determinism leads him to seek an alternative explanation for these regularities. Where Bourdieu turns to structural determinism as the habitualising force, Giddens, to some extent, invokes the psychological characteristics of actors.
Giddens’ employment of Laing’s concept commences from a fairly simple proposition. Laing suggested that human beings have a need for a basic level of psychological security based on their perception that they have a consistent sense of self, and a secure relationship to their own physical presence and their wider environment (Laing, 1965). The key notion here is that both self and world are stable, predictable and consistent with past experience, beliefs and knowledge. The critical point is that threats to ontological security emerge from any perception of threat and, importantly, challenges to the belief that one’s assessment of the nature of the world and its contents are sound. Thus, the development and maintenance of ontological security is necessarily bound up with the way in which we, individually and collectively, sustain our sense of order.
Giddens refers to the way in which we organise our experience as ’bracketing’ (1991). He suggests, in sound neo-Freudian terms, that this occurs as we attempt to screen off the anxiety-invoking incursion of chaos, which is an ever-present threat to the integrity of the self. Here, I would suggest, the overall thrust of Giddens analysis is correct to an extent. However, I would also argue that the particular emphasis within his understanding misconceives the actual nature of the process.
Giddens’ appears to focus on defence, rejection and exclusion when discussing the mindset that is protected by the common sense consistency of everyday routine. Thus, ontological security is described as constituting ’ (a) protective cocoon (which) is essentially a sense of ’unreality’ rather than a firm conviction of security: it is a bracketing, on the level of practice, of possible events which could threaten the bodily or psychological integrity of the agent’ (Giddens, 1991: 40).
When the various strands of Giddens’ argument are drawn together a fairly simple set of relationships is identified. What he actually tells us is that we carry an organised set of rules and resources in our heads - (structure or frame?) - which guides our actions - (practice)- and that the outcome of this process leads us to instil and maintain regularities in our practices- (system). Also, as a consequence, current regularities in our experience are likely to persist as they provide an obvious resource for the reproduction of consistency. All of this is supported and motivated by the fact that we feel anxiety due to a limited tolerance to ambiguity, inconsistency and change dependent on the defence mechanisms we have developed in early socialisation. Ontological security, in Giddens account, becomes a cloak of blind faith that we wear to shut out the uncertainties that threaten to engulf us (1991).
However, as Craib has argued, such a narrow conceptualisation reduces both the characteristics of the concept and its implications (Craib, 1998).
The existence of something like a sense of ontological security seems straightforward and unproblematic given the necessity that there be some goal that motivates us to safely negotiate the environments in which we find ourselves. It also seems logical in terms of our personal survival that we have a relatively clear and unambiguous map of our environment, the nature of its contents, and our relationship to what is encountered within this context. In short, we must have these capacities to enable us to distinguish the dangerous aspects of our environments from the benign. However, in considering Giddens’ description of ontological security as being maintained by a screening out of risk from consciousness, such a response would be inherently dangerous and maladaptive, as it would involve averting attention from potential threat. Thus, the sense of invulnerability he proposes would be liable to get us eaten if invoked in proximity to predators (Giddens, 1991).
A more plausible way of understanding this process suggests simply that we consciously attend to the most relevant stimuli, in line with past learning, presented to us at any given time. Immediately irrelevant information is simply not attended to, rather than being pro-actively screened off. Conversely, novel stimuli are evaluated and assimilated into a framework or mental map 1 of our relevant vicinity. 2
In trying to gain a fuller understanding of social order I wish to reconsider Giddens’s explanation, by adopting a distinctly different starting point. To begin with, however, I intend to approach this via a brief discussion of the significance of another work, by Erving Goffman, that Giddens himself has drawn upon.
Curiously, despite his avowed preference for social explanation, one of the most coherent sociological perspectives on the underlying foundations of social order can be found in Goffman’s discussion of normalcy and alarms (Goffman, 1971).
Individuals, whether in human or animal form, exhibit two basic modes of activity. They go about their business grazing, gazing, mothering, digesting, building, resting, playing, placidly attending to easily managed matters at hand. Or, fully mobilised, a fury of intent, alarmed, they get ready to attack or to stalk or to flee. Physiology itself is patterned to coincide with this duality.
The individual mediates between these two tendencies with a very pretty capacity for dissociated vigilance. Smells, sounds, sights, touches, pressures---in various combinations, depending on the species---provide a running reading of the situation, a constant monitoring of what surrounds. But by a wonder of adaptation these readings can be done out of the furthest corner of whatsoever is serving for an eye, leaving the individual free to focus his main attention on the non-emergencies around himÃÂ When the world immediately around the individual portends nothing out of the ordinary, when the world appears to allow him to continue his routines (being indifferent to his designs and neither a major help nor a major hindrance), we can say that he will sense that appearances are ’natural’ or ’normal.’ For the individual normal appearances mean that it is safe and sound to continue on with the activity at hand with only peripheral attention given to checking up on the stability of the environment (Goffman, 1971: 238, 239).
In the above passage Goffman outlines his understanding of the basis of our responses to the natural and, by implication, social world. For Goffman, our sense of security derives from a relative perception, and assumption, of normalcy with respect to our surroundings, in that nothing unexpected or dangerous is likely to occur. As Goffman puts it ’the individual not only anticipates uneventfulness but also feels that he has a moral right to count on it ’ (Goffman, 1971: 240). What Goffman is discussing here can undoubtedly be equated with Giddens’ discussion of ontological security and practical consciousness. In fact, I would argue that, Goffman appears to provide a clearer account of the same processes. However, and contrary to Giddens’ interpretation of his work, there is less of a sense of Freudian repression, or of a protective ‘unreality’, in Goffman’s account (Giddens, 1991: Goffman, 1971). Thus, for Goffman, something akin to ontological security appears as the default state of all organisms who consider that they are not in peril (1971). Furthermore, the central assumptions of Goffman’s version now appear to be supported by advances in brain theory (LeDoux, 1996).
In pursuing these questions I hope to suggest that these advances in identifying the manner in which we acquire and maintain our knowledge of the world open up new avenues for conceptualising the basis of social order.
’Civilisation advances by extending the number of important operations we can perform without thinking.’ (Alfred North Whitehead)
Levi-Strauss, drawing on a long line of thinking, imagined a symbiotic relationship between social structures and the universal structure of the human brain (Levi-Strauss, 1962). While this aspect of Levi-Strauss’ work, for reasons discussed at the beginning of this piece, has perhaps received less attention than it might have within the social sciences, in retrospect, it may prove to be one of his most important insights. Unfortunately, scientific understanding of our neurobiology, at a time when Levi-Strauss might have explored this line of thinking more fully, was less sophisticated than it is now. More recently, advances in biology and neuroscience, despite ongoing and occasionally heated debate, are now uncovering complex and reciprocal connections between brain and society (Dawkins, 1989: LeDoux, 1996: Lewontin et al., 1985: Pinker, 2002: Rose, 1998). What has emerged, thus far, offers opportunities for a fuller understanding of the way in which human brains confront the wider environment that, as I argue below, can be applied to provide further clues to the persistence of social order.
A useful way of approaching this is to begin by tracing the evolution (this term is used advisedly) of cognitive and emotional development through maturation.
A human infant’s ability to come to terms with the world develops in a symbiotic relationship with structural changes in the brain (Edelman, 1992). Initially, infants are creatures of instinct, responding to involuntary sensations such as hunger, comfort, discomfort etc. Our ability to differentiate aspects of our environment and guide our attention regarding the relevance and nature of what we encounter is highly restricted. Our innate emotional displays are simplistic, and are invoked in response to whatever we are experiencing at a given instant (Ekman & Davidson, 1994).
As infants develop, and attachment to primary caregivers takes place, cues from the parenting figure (facial, vocal etc.) are adopted to guide the infants emotional states and responses to stimuli. Thus, the parenting figure leads the way in the appraisal of the external world and becomes the mediator of the infant’s internal states of arousal (Siegel, 1999 as cited in Rolfe, 2000). These experiences begin the process of socialisation at an implicit level, where emotional memory of parental attitudes may be recorded and may be retrieved as emotional states in similar circumstances later, despite the fact that the origins of the emotion are not clear (LeDoux, 1996). Through this process the child begins to develop a cognitive/ emotional map of its environment, where objects encountered are classified according to their perceived properties and accorded an emotional valence.
Throughout the second year fundamental social, behavioural and neurobiological events conspire to propel the child towards becoming a fully functioning social being.
As the child’s motor abilities increase there is greater interaction with the immediate environment and greater independence from the primary caregiver (Garnham & Oakhill, 1994). Initially, the increasingly differentiated world the child inhabits relates only to what is within the focus of her perception at any given time. However, gradually the child gains the ability to understand that objects, including other people, are both separate from the child and continue to exist when they are gone from sight. Out of sight is no longer out of mind. Notably, one of the central features of these developments is the forming of an internalised self-category as the central object in the child’s symbolic inventory. Initially, as Mead and Cooley pointed out, the responses and information provided by caregivers and other significant figures in early life provide the resources for the child’s construction of a self-concept 3 . Furthermore, in many ways it can be considered that the self is based on the most fundamental elements of discrimination i.e. the ’me/not me’ distinction, from which all other categorisations follow. While I will return to this later, the following discussion of habituation also lends insight into Richard Jenkins observation that the aspects of personal identity gained earliest in life are the most durable and resistant to later revision (Jenkins, 1996).
With an increasingly sophisticated perception of its own distinctiveness the internal structuring of the child’s world becomes more complex and more precise. Through this process young infants, by the end of their second year, are involved in an exponential expansion of their symbolic capacities.
While there is some conjecture regarding whether working memory expands in infancy, there is no doubt that its capacity remains too limited to accommodate the complexity of even young children’s experiences and environments. At the outset it is important to take on board the fact that the way in which we simplify and organise our experience is a consequence of some fairly simple rules which are fundamental to our mental processes.
Human cognition is parsimonious, in that our working memory is restricted to holding a very limited range of cognitions at any one time. We must classify and generalise due to our inability to process large quantities of diverse information simultaneously; we are thus ’cognitive misers’ (Spears, et al. 1997: 3). Contemporary approaches to thinking and reasoning, such as the ’mental models’ approach proposed by Johnson-Laird, tend to support these key assumptions (Johnson-Laird, 1983). Furthermore, this aspect of our mental capacities, as will be discussed, is immensely important, in that understanding its consequences is crucial to understanding a broad range of social phenomena.
Working memory, located in the pre-frontal cortex, is now considered by many neurobiologists to be the principal site of consciousness (LeDoux, 1996). It is within this limited space that higher symbolic thinking takes place and where objects, situations and their relationship to each other and past experiences are subjected to the highest level of evaluation and appraisal. Working memory appears to form the top of a hierarchy of structures, providing a co-ordinating executive function. However, the limited capacity of working memory can only be devoted to issues of key relevance at any given time, whilst more mundane or routine matters are dealt with elsewhere. A fundamental principle here is that the executive governs and deals with major decisions while instinctual responses and well-practiced routines are managed by subordinate structures.
The decision as to what is attended to by working memory is initially appraised in conjunction with the emotions. The function of emotion being principally to guide our attention to the most important stimuli presenting itself to us at any given time and to assist the formulation of advantageous responses. It has been shown that experiences, activities, objects and situations which are new to us generate a greater degree of emotional arousal than familiar objects and situations, with the exception of those already categorised as ’dangerous’ (Shaffer, 1996). This is because new stimuli must be evaluated in terms of their potential threat or advantage to us, and how we might understand and accommodate to them in future (Garnham & Oakhill, 1994). In this way all stimuli are evaluated, defined and accorded an emotional valence depending on our initial experience of them, with respect to whether we should regard them positively or negatively in future (Damasio 1994, as cited in Rolfe, 2000). Reflecting the contribution of rational choice theory, and its roots in classical behaviourism, objects and situations which are positively tagged are valued, embraced and pursued whilst those with negative attributes require control or avoidance.
According to LeDoux, this process takes place through an interaction in the brain between three principal structures, the pre-frontal cortex (working memory), the hypocampus (at the hub of explicit memory processing) and the amygdala (containing the fear system and the encoding of implicit, emotional memory) (LeDoux, 1996).
In order for us to assimilate the interpretations that we apply to our experiences we need to reconcile them with what we already know. This arises due to the evident difficulties posed by inconsistency. If our feelings of safety are dependent on our knowledge of the world and our relationship to what is within it, then any new information that challenges that knowledge is likely experienced as a potential threat. This occurs as conflicting information automatically entails that the reliability of the map that we have acquired through social learning, or at least portions of it, are called into question. As such, we cannot rely on the expectations that are guided by that knowledge. Inconsistencies, therefore, dependent on their magnitude and their relationship to core beliefs and values, are liable to evoke the emotional alarm response described above. The extent of our intolerance to its absence is consistent with Festinger’s analysis of cognitive dissonance, and also clearly parallels Mary Douglas’s consideration of ambiguity and anomaly (Festinger, 1957: Douglas, 1966).
Given our limited tolerance to ambiguity and inconsistency it seems reasonable to assume that we are also emotionally motivated to reach some form of agreement with others regarding the world that confronts us. Following from this, it is easy to appreciate that people’s willingness to conform, their tendency to impose their definitions on others, and even their withdrawal and rejection of others, can all be viewed as strategies for sustaining the integrity of their normal worldview. To some extent social life can be viewed as a contested terrain where the need for cognitive consistency produces some form of consensus at the core, as individuals actively conspire to reduce the discrepancies between their inner and outer worlds. Thus, there is motivation for significant difference to be concealed, excluded to the margins, or rejected by social groups.
From this perspective socialisation becomes a means of transmitting a core of shared definitions of objects, responses and orientations, together with the emotional valences that reflect their relative significance and characteristics. Thus, what we acquire is an internal map of our world, with the self object as the central feature, as defined in interaction with past generations, other people and our own experience. The map provides a means of anticipating our experiences, orienting our conduct and understanding those we encounter. It orders the world for us, distinguishing the relevant from the irrelevant, the dangerous from the benign; the sacred from the profane. Our motivation to form and maintain this inventory of the world is driven by our emotions, which propel us towards making sense of or experiences as a means of seeking order and security. This is where Goffman’s ’frames’ fit together to form cognitive structures akin to Berger and Luckmann’s ’lifeworld’, while the innate need for cognitive consistency within these structures been extensively verified by social psychologists 4 (Goffman,1971: Berger & Luckmann, 1966: Aronson, 1995). It must be noted, however, sociological accounts of the construction and maintenance of the lifeworld tends to privilege its cognitive aspects and diminish the role of emotional and psychobiological factors (Berger & Luckmann, 1966).
Nonetheless, Berger and Luckmann, amongst their many notable insights, have also identified that the knowledge of the lifeworld is most extensively experience and enacted at the level of ’practical consciousness’. This accords with the notion that social order is located in the recursive and routine aspects of everyday life.
As suggested earlier, the limitations of working memory entail that it can only accommodate a very small amount of simultaneous processing and storage. This entails that much of our map is stored elsewhere. This occurs as we habituate to what we encounter in a manner that dispenses with the requirement to give more than cursory attention to familiar experiences, thoughts, ideas and situations (Damasio, 1994 as cited in Rolfe, 2000). Once we have reached a decision regarding the properties of an object, or the optimal response in a given situation, we use this to guide future encounters with the same, or indeed similar, types of stimuli. Given that this way of thinking and responding is supported by experience and by others, it becomes ever more deeply engrained and more resistant to change. The more often we think about or respond to something in the same manner, the stronger the physical connections in the brain become and the more likely we will respond similarly in future. Gradually these responses become more and more automatic, provoking less emotional arousal and attention from working memory (LeDoux, 1996). In much the same way as we learn to co-ordinate our motor activities, our learned responses to familiar objects and situations become increasingly automatic and further from conscious awareness. As with walking, learning to drive a car, or playing a musical instrument we also monitor our social activities at the edges of consciousness only becoming fully aware of this activity when something goes wrong (Goffman, 1971). The limited capacity of the executive is then freed for new challenges and more pressing processing tasks. I would argue that this process, rather than Freudian repression, splitting etc., routinises our experiences and, as new encounters are defined and assimilated, is what provides an ordering in our everyday activities.
In light of the above, it may be that the greater aspect of what we recognise as social order is rooted in the interaction between external experience and the developmental logic of our cognitive/emotional architecture. Leading from this, the notion that social order is maintained through practical consciousness is given weight by the consideration that what is habituated at the core of an individual’s map is likely to be the shared values of a social group. This occurs as definitions which have been arrived at in concert with others, which are generally supported and not subject to constant revision or challenge, are those which are sustained for sufficient duration to be habituated into the unreflexive levels of consciousness. Following from this a major aspect of the persistence and durability of social order can be understood. Firstly, what has previously been habituated and institutionalised, due to its taken for granted status, becomes primary material for future habituation by succeeding generations. Secondly, the more something is practised or thought about in a specific way, the more engrained it is likely to become.
Gerald Edelman’s seminal work has shed light on the way in which this process operates at the neural level (1992). Edelman suggests that the newborn brain contains a mass of connections that have the potential to be activated and strengthened. Activities, and by implication ideas and beliefs, that are rewarded and/or deemed significant, lead to the strengthening of associated neural connections. Conversely, unrewarded and insignificant action leads to the demise of potential circuits or the decay of redundant ones. This image presents us with a brain that has some ’hard-wiring’, but that is, nonetheless, capable of continuous morphological adaptation and evolution in response to experiences, in a process Edelman describes as a form of ’Neural Darwinism’ (1992).
From this, we can begin to view the brain as an extended and continually evolving network of neural connections. This network can be viewed as a chorus of interconnected structures, connecting areas of higher level processing and motor functions with those devoted to the engrained memories and recursive practices associated with the institutions, relationships and experiences encountered by their owners. In such a view the structure of society and social relationships, as they present themselves to each individual, is reflected in the neural topography of the brain.
However, rather than this being a one-way process whereby the external determines the internal, as Mary Douglas and others of the Durkheimian tradition have proposed, the brain itself develops in a dialectical process between the internal and external. Thus, the socialised brain is the product of the interaction between the fixed universal tendencies that guide its own development and the social constructed particularities that emerge from what is encountered.
Summarising the arguments thus far a picture of the relationship between our neurobiology and social order begins to take shape. It would appear that we are driven to form an inner model of our world, reflected in the neural structure of the brain, which is in itself shaped by the structure of that brain and by the imperatives of its emotional arousal system. This is adaptive, in that to do otherwise would entail that we could never assess or anticipate the nature of our situation, the consequences of our actions or, crucially, when we were in danger. This map of our social world is also sustained and extended by the fact that the emotional arousal that motivates its construction is engaged when we encounter information that is either new, or is inconsistent with the existing model. Thus, one of the central functions of our emotional system is to signal that something is different from our expectations. In responding to these emotional prompts we must both assimilate new information and adapt to that held by other people we encounter. Furthermore, to reduce the effort and potential discomfort of novel encounters we are likely to engage with those who share our worldview and also to avoid unnecessary challenges to the map 5 . Where such challenges cannot be avoided we have the option to retreat, to impose our worldview on others, or to accept a revision of our own classifications.
All of this is compounded by the fact that the limitations of our higher levels of consciousness entail a restricted capacity to both monitor our immediate circumstances and re-evaluate our existing knowledge. Thus, once we have decided on a particular definition of something we tend to rely on the practised responses we have delegated to the furthest reaches of awareness to guide our activities. It also follows, that these aspects of social life, due to their recurrent, uncontentious and unreflexive practice, are likely to be durable and persistent over time. Given the principle of cognitive parsimony, and the engrained nature of our routines, the resilience of our social practices and institutions can be understood in terms of their providing a ready made and widely accepted template for structuring our experience. Thus, it is in this recursive and routine, habituated strata of thought and action that social order resides.
All of the above may appear both neat and plausible. However, as with most very neat solutions there appears to be an obvious problem i.e. how do we understand conflict and change?
Iain Craib identified this same ’utopian’ problem in Giddens’ discussion of ontological security (Craib, 1998). From what has been outlined above, given our emotional drive to recognise and neutralise difference, the plausible outcome would be an irresistible movement towards assimilation and, eventually, homogeneity. It would be in all parties’ interests, in meeting the emotional imperative of alarm reduction, to seek a co-ordination of their cognitive/emotional maps. Life would be likely to gravitate towards an unchanging pattern of uncontested, habituated routine. There would be little potential or motivation for transgression. Also, the description of society as a contested terrain, which I referred to earlier and which accords with much of our experience, would represent a transitory situation as society progressed to fuller social integration.
This is very much the way in which it was conceptualised in the Durkheimian tradition. We end up with a subjective, psychological account of the Durkheimian’ collective consciousness, with a corresponding problem in accounting for social change. However, given what is evident within society, at least in modern Western societies, how do we reconcile the above with the obvious fact that, while much of social life is indeed comprised of uneventful routine, there is also persistent division, conflict and change. To make sense, the emotional drive towards integration I have described must be met by a countervailing force towards fragmentation.
The difficulty inherent in pointing towards a reconciliation of this problem is undoubtedly one of the major challenges which continues to confront the sociological discipline. Many recent accounts tend to present syntheses suggesting that the relationship between order and disorder is relatively unproblematic. However, most tend to rely on a partial synthesis comprising of a theorisation of one side of the equation (stabilising propensities), together with a description of the other (fragmentary trends). This, as I have suggested earlier, is applicable, to some extent, to both Giddens’ and Bourdieu’s models. While Bourdieu’s argument tends to rest on a Durkheimian model, Giddens’ account, on deeper analysis, ends on a contradiction. Giddens’ structuration theory, when discussing the macro processes in society tends to present structure as the stabilising force and individual reflexivity as the engine of change. However, his microanalysis of ontological security presents an individual whose raison d’être is conformity. This highlights a major difficulty in all social theory. While it is relatively easy to formulate a description of society that takes account of potentially divergent phenomena, it is difficult to theorise order and disorder within the same compatible explanatory model.
For the very reasons cited above, I do not suggest that the following discussion is in any way a conclusive solution to these problems. However, certain possibilities for understanding the fragmentary tendencies in social life appear to be compatible with the consensus model I have described so far, albeit that they raise some paradoxes.
As outlined above, human brain physiology leads people to construct consistent internal models of the worlds they inhabit as a means of anticipating and, thus, preparing for its possibilities. However, the way in which we encode these conceptual frameworks is as relevant to understanding the persistence of diversity as it is to comprehending the construction of order. While, we have an emotionally problematic relationship to difference, when we assimilate an object, concept or situation we do not integrate it into an amorphous whole, as the process of identification necessitates that distinctiveness is maintained. In fact, the very knowing of something, as suggested earlier, depends on us identifying its similarities and differences from other objects etc. and, then defining its properties. Thus, the clarity of the map is to a great extent dependent on clear boundaries being maintained between categories, in order that the properties of what it holds and their relationships to each other, i.e. their meaning, can be clearly identified. It appears that our ontological security may be as bound up with the construction and maintenance of differences which are familiar as it is in coming to terms with those which are unknown. Thus, chaos and homogeneity may be equally threatening as both threaten an absence of meaning. This may seem simultaneously tortuous and commonsensical, however, I will argue that several important implications follow from this.
What I have described above has crucial implications for the way in which we understand identity and social relationships. When we understand that the same means of classification is applied to human relations it would appear that several tensions emerge whose implications might indicate both the necessity for order and its fragility.
It can be suggested that our individual identities are inexorably bound together with the map we have internalised, in that the latter is constituted from the full range of our attitudes, values and concepts, including the self-concept. Given that this is the case, and in light of the earlier discussion, it would be reasonable to assume that we would wish to associate with those whose identity/map was very similar to our own. This would reduce the likelihood of the potential for alarm and would tend to affirm our identity and worldview, providing grounds for mutual understanding and the security of believing that one could anticipate other’s actions. Indeed, these are important considerations when forming friendships and affiliations with others, as it appears that generally opposites do not attract (Argyle, 1967). Thus, all other things being equal, we are likely to trust and form friendships with those who appear similar to ourselves. Also, for fairly evident reasons, proximity also plays a role in relationship formation. Apart from the obvious fact that we have more opportunity to engage with those in regular close proximity, the fact that we come to know more about those with whom we must regularly interact also leads to the belief that we can anticipate their actions. This does not however, exclude or detract from the importance of similarity in relationships. We are still likely to become more closely associated with those who share our views, whilst remaining more distant and distrustful of those who overtly challenge our deepest convictions or sensibilities.
When we meet those who may be potential friends, trust and affiliation is often facilitated and reinforced by a form of attunement, whereby speech rhythms and body postures become unconsciously synchronised. This appears to enhance feelings of trust without our awareness. It is also likely that, over time, areas of common ground will become more engrained amongst those engaged in regular interaction. This is likely to occur as shared perspectives are more likely to be reinforced through approval. Conversely, views that the parties consider inviolate, and which are liable to be conflicting, will be downplayed or hidden if the relationship is to continue.
Indeed, Ray Pahl, suggests that very good friends ’ÃÂ are bound together, becoming, as it were, each other, as they recognise each other’s moral excellence. Each can be said to provide a mirror in which the other may see himself ’ (Pahl, 2000: 22). This statement obviously evokes Cooley’s ’looking glass self’, while reinforcing the idea that the greatest confirmation of identity is likely to be forthcoming from those who share that identity. Once more, this would tend to imply that human beings emotional well being would be best served by greater homogeneity.
It is here, however, that the paradox referred to earlier comes into play, lending insights into one possible strand of countervailing schismatic forces, operating in opposition to the integrating forces described above. Given what has been discussed above regarding the relationship between clearly defined boundaries and meaningful identity, too much similarity would be likely to threaten the integrity of the self-concept. In such conditions our ontological security would be threatened due to our inability to clearly define the boundaries and relationship between the self and others. Smith, in his discussion of the Japanese self, provides an evocative quotation from Japanese writer Yamakawa Masao illustrating the potential consequences of a surfeit of conformity and homogeneity (Smith, 1983). It concerns a young man who, ’so depersonalised that he begins to doubt his own independent existence, carries a stick of dynamite around in his briefcase in order to remind himself of the possibility of having some impact on his surroundings’ (Masao, 1976: 298 as cited in Smith, 1983: 70) 6 .
From the above, it is plausible to assume that we have need to retain some distinguishing features from others as a means of protecting self-identity. While we like people to be like us, we also like to feel we are unique 7 .
This type of potentially contradictory aspect of the self has been recognised within psychology and is now gaining attention from sociologists, although its ramifications for understanding social processes have been largely overlooked (Kagitcibasi,1996). In a recent article on cultural identity Andre Jansomm of Gothenburg University refers to work by Lichtenstein (1977) in stating that ’In order to establish a balanced self, the individual has to experience both a sense of autonomous existence (through individuation), and a sense of belonging in the social world (through integration)ÃÂ all people, theoretically, live under the threat of losing their identity; either through a return to a level of symbiotic phase (total integration), or through social isolation (total separation).
In considering much of what has been said thus far a broad range of intriguing issues can be considered in a fresh light. From the above, it becomes plausible that ontological security is not solely dependent on some straightforward normative consensus, where this is habituated into unreflexive routine, as has been the general view within sociology. Rather, it appears that we may be driven by our emotions to walk a tightrope between two polarities in our social relations, while being careful to avoid straying too far in either direction. This may be due to the fact that if we pursue or display uniqueness too overtly we are perpetually in danger of challenging others’ maps to the extent of raising alarm and being sanctioned. This would exactly accord with Goffman’s analysis of stigma (Goffman, 1963). Alternatively, if we become too conformist we risk being overlooked, threatening our own uniqueness while also, in extreme cases, potentially challenging others’ sense of individual identity. In sum, we must be similar enough to each other to avoid triggering a danger signal, but not so similar that we cannot distinguish ourselves from each other.
This latter point is highly interesting, with respect to the discussion at the beginning of this section, in that it points towards a complementary role for emotional arousal in relation to the management of autonomy as well as integration. While we seek out others who are similar we also require them to invoke a certain amount of emotional arousal i.e. they must be different enough to engage our attention and, thus, our interest; but not so much as to raise the alarm. If we consider that the self as an internal object is constructed by means of an internal/external dialectic of identification, as is assumed in the argument thus far, then both other people’s indifference and a surfeit of monotonous routine would threaten the self (Jenkins, 1996). Homogeneity would produce a lack of arousal such that we could not identify the distinctions between self and others, or retain a clear conception of the contours of our worlds. From this perspective chaos and homogeneity would be equally threatening. This would account for the inconsistency in Giddens understanding of ontological security, where he equates it with routine and consistency yet suggests that too much routine ’is not psychologically rewarding’ (Giddens, 1991). Also, I would suggest that this contributes to an underlying process that motivates the seeking of distinction, notably identified by Bourdieu (1984).
What has been discussed so far would account for many of the paradoxical aspects of modern society where we are attracted by the enigmatic and the individualistic, dismissive and even suspicious of extreme conformity, yet fearful of deviance. We wish to be individuals, who interact with other individuals, but with full membership of a social group which can readily account for the parameters of its own diversity. Thus, our ontological security may be dependent on others affirming a worldview with limited flexibility whilst respecting and confirming our uniqueness within mutually acceptable limits. In this instance, ontological security may be best understood as a state of balanced emotional arousal, rather than simply an absence of over-arousal 8 . In achieving a balance we are mediating between two competing forces motivated by a singular psychosocial process, which propel us towards integration but which also requires us to sustain a degree of fragmentation. This implies that social order and social change are bound up with this singular dialectical process where each step towards integration is accompanied by another to sustain separation.
Furthermore, while this is highly speculative, I would argue that the mediating activity motivated by these underlying processes may be the real source of the ’homeostatic’ properties that Parsons attributed to social systems (Parsons, 1951) 9 .
Several factors emerge from the above argument which problematise but, at the same time, can begin to take account of some of the apparent contradictions and dilemmas encountered by one-sided approaches. As I have previously suggested, while this type of model of the self may not account for many of the difficulties associated with the action/structure debate within the discipline, they certainly point towards a potential solutionp. Within this model we can identify the underlying roots of both order and change in the unintended consequences of the search for balance between two dichotomous trajectories of action, but which can be understood within the logic of a singular process.
As suggested above, much of what has been discussed has implications for our understanding of power. However, for the reasons already indicated, I do not intend to explore this issue in great detail here. I would, nonetheless, like to offer some preliminary thoughts regarding the way in which power might be understood in relation to the above.
Briefly, the motivation to attain power, and to resist it, is likely to emerge from the underlying drive to generate and sustain socio-structural conditions that support ontological security. As argued above, beyond the necessities of our physical survival, we are all driven to seek out conditions where the world and our place in it meets our expectations and allows us to sustain a workable balance between security and distinctiveness. However, as our current experience overwhelmingly demonstrates, we encounter great difficulty in sustaining this precarious balance within a context where we can also reach a reasonable reconciliation of our various worldviews (social maps).
We are far from producing a world where we have attained the secure and equitable distribution of social and economic resources that supports stable identities and confident lives, or where we have been able to reconcile our various worldviews, customs and traditions to reach a reasonable level of mutuality, coherence and understanding. Thus, we confront a range of potential insecurities with respect to the socio-economic arrangements we find ourselves in, while the others we encounter often invoke our fear of the unknown, the unfamiliar and, thus, the unpredictable.
On this latter point, beyond purely economic competition, much of our current intolerance and distrust of others can be understood in terms of historically diverse trajectories of cultural development and may, eventually, be assuaged by our underlying motivation to secure stability and consensus. However, our continuing tendency towards factionalism and discrimination can also be understood in terms of our parallel need to retain our distinctiveness, as this may place limits on the extent to which we can tolerate inclusivity and the erosion of the boundaries that separate us. This might explain one of the paradoxical aspects of globalization whereby its homogenizing forces appear to be producing a countervailing tendency towards (g)localization (Robertson, 1992).
Beset by all of these insecurities, and in our efforts to resolve them, we engage in various levels of conflict and competition, from the life threatening to polite one-upmanship, as we attempt to define the situation in our own image and fulfil our own economic and identity needs. This contest to ‘set social structure’ is largely pursued, from the micro to the macro level, through a combination of ideological and coercive power i.e. through influence and force (Foucault, 1979: 1980: Habermas, 1986: Mann, 1986: Lukes, 1974). The acquisition of material resources, for their part, while often gained through the application of hegemonic and/or coercive power, offer a modicum of independence and security in uncertain conditions, while further enhancing the capacity for distinction as well as domination and control over social circumstances.
On a final point, the ability to impose and sustain particular socio-structural arrangements for sufficient time that they come to be internalised by the major part of a community or populace, enhances their resilience while impeding potential resistance. This is likely to occur as many of those whose various needs are thwarted by particular arrangements may remain torn between a fraught desire for resistance and change and a fundamental psychological and emotional reliance on the predictability and continuity of the normal world into which they’ve been socialised. Thus, while the winners establish and maintain the circumstances they desire, the losers are left with the options of withdrawing, cynically and fatalistically accepting their lot, or engaging in anxious and self-estranging conformity in a world that appears beyond their capacity to change.
Alexander J. (1995) Fin-de-Siècle Social Theory: Relativism, Reduction and the Problem of Reason. Verso, London.
Argyle, M. (1967) The Psychology of Interpersonal Behaviour, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Aronson, E. (1995) The Social Animal, Freeman, USA.
Balint, M. (1959) Thrills and Regressions, International Universities Press, New York.
Baudrillard, J. (1988) Selected Writings, Polity Press, Oxford.
Benton, T. (1984) Biological Ideas and Their Cultural Uses, in S.C. Brown ed., Objectivity and Cultural Divergence: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture Series: 17 Supplement to Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Berger, P., and Luckmann, T. (1966) The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Penguin, Harmondsworth
Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. (Translated by Richard Nice), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Bourdieu, P. & Wacquant, L. (1992.) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Cohen, S. & Taylor, L. (1992) Escape Attempts: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Everyday Life, Routledge, London.
Craib, I. (1998) Experiencing Identity, Sage, London.
Dawkins, R. (1989) The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Douglas, M. (1966) Purity and Danger: an Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, Routledge, London/New York.
Edelman, G. (1992), Bright Air, Brilliant Fire, Basic Books, New York.
Ekman, P. & Davidson, R. (1994) The Nature of Emotion: Fundamental Questions, Oxford University Press, New York.
Elias, N. (1978 [1939]) The Civilising Process, Blackwell, Oxford.
Ellis, L. (1996) A Discipline in Peril: Sociology’s Future Hinges on Curing Its Biophobia, American Sociologist, 27, pp. 21-41.
Ehrenreich, B. & McIntosh, J. (1997) The New Creationism: Biology Under Attack , The Nation, June 9.
Festinger, L.A. (1957) A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Foucault, M. (1979) Discipline & Punish, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Foucault, M. (1980) Power/Knowledge, Harvester, Brighton.
Garnham, A. & Oakhill, J. (1994) Thinking and Reasoning, Blackwell, Oxford.
Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Goffman, E. (1963) Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Goffman, E. (1971) Relations in Public, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Habermas, J. (1986) ‘Hannah Arendt’s Communications Concept of Power’ in Lukes, S. (ed.) Power, Blackwell, Oxford.
Harker, R. K., Mahar, C. and Wilkes, C. Eds (1990). An Introduction to the Work of Pierre Bourdieu, Macmillan, London.
Jenkins, R. (1996) Social Identity, Routledge, London.
Jenkins, R. (2000) Categorization: Identity, Social Process and Epistemology, Current Sociology, vol. 48 no. 3, pp. 7-25.
Johnson-Laird, P.N. (1983) Mental Models: Towards a Cognitive Science of Language Inference and Consciousness, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Kagitcibasi, C. (1996) The Autonomous-Relational Self: A New Synthesis, European, (180-186)
Kant, I. ([1787], 2003) (transl. by Kemp Smith, N. & Caygill, H.) The Critique of Pure Reason, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Konner, M. (1991) Human Nature and Culture: Biology and the Residue of Uniqueness, in James J. Sheehan and Morton Sosna, eds., The Boundaries of Humanity: Humans, Animals, Machines, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Laing, R. D. (1965). The Divided Self: an existential study in sanity and madness. Penguin, Harmondsworth
LeDoux, J. (1998) The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life, Simon & Schuster, New York.
Levi-Strauss, C. (1962) The Savage Mind (La Pensée Sauvage), Weidenfield and Nicolson, London.
Lichtenstein, H (1977) The Dilemma of Human Identity, Jason Aronson, New York.
Lukes, S. (ed.) (1986) Power, Blackwell, Oxford.
Mann, M. (1986) The Sources of Social Power, Vol. 1 Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Marx, K. (1964) The Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, International Publishers, New York.
Maryanski, A. (1994) The Pursuit of Human Nature in Sociobiology and Evolutionary Sociology, Sociological Perspectives, vol. 37 no. 3, pp. 375-389.
Misztal, B. (1996) Trust In Modern Societies, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Moscovici, S (1993) The Invention of Society, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Pahl, R. (2000) On Friendship, Polity Press, Oxford.
Parsons, T. (1937) The Structure of Social Action, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Parsons, T. (1951) The Social System, Free Press, New York.
Pinker, S. (2002). The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Viking, Penguin, New York.
Robertson, R. (1992) Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture, Sage, London.
Rolfe, W. (2000) Rethinking Feelings: Integrating the Biology of Emotion with Redecision Therapy. Journal of Redecision Therapy 2 (1), 13-31.
Rose, S. (ed.) (1998) From Brains to Consciousness, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Scott, J. (1995) Sociological Theory, Edward Elgar, England.
Schutz, A. (1970) The Phenomenology of the Social World, Heinemann, London.
Shaffer, D. (1996) Developmental Psychology, Brooks/Cole, USA.
Smith, R. J. (1983) Japanese Society: Tradition, Self and The Social Order, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Spears, R. & Haslam, S.A. (1997). Stereotyping and the burden of cognitive load. In: Spears, R., Oakes, P.J., Ellemers, N., & Haslam, S.A. (Eds.). The social psychology of stereotyping and group life. Blackwell, Oxford.
Whitehead, A.N. (1911) An Introduction to Mathematics, Williams & Norgate, London.
Young, R. (1970) Mind, Brain and Adaptation in the Nineteenth Century: Cerebral Localization and Its Biological Context from Gall to Ferrier (History of Neuroscience), Oxford University Press, Oxford.
1. Borges’ ’map story’ neatly describes the way in which we construct a shared internal (socially constructed) model of our world (Baudrillard, 1988).
2. Jacob von Uexküll’s notion of the Umwelt, which Goffman employs, identifies a psycho-spatial region that is monitored for potential risk etc. (Goffman, 1971). Ontological security is supported when the conditions within this region meet our expectations, and appear benign and unexceptional. The area beyond the Umwelt is considered irrelevant and is not attended to.
3. In qualification, work on early inter-subjectivity conducted by Colwyn Trevarthen since 1977 now suggests that human infants may be born with a basic sense of their own distinctiveness ’pre-wired’ into the central nervous system (Trevarthen, 1994b).
4. Richard Dawkins, in his discussion of ’memes’, provides a highly useful and coherent evolutionary account of the way in which we might understand the development and transmission of the classifications that constitute the lifeworld (Dawkins, 1989).
5. The phenomenon of ’civil inattention’, and the increasing self-control and the desire for privacy described by Elias in The Civilising Process can be clearly understood with reference to this model (1939). In fact the very emergence of the civilising tendency may be viewed as a consequence of the need to reduce exposure to complexity in highly populous situations, such as that encountered with the onset of urbanisation. The rigid social norms of Japanese society can also be understood with reference to the fact that the Japanese have historically lived in such conditions of high population density.
6. Cohen & Taylor have described the way in which individuals regularly strive to avoid the depersonalising and boring aspects of routines in bureaucratic settings (1992).
7. From a sceptical perspective it may be argued that fragmentation and conflict can be viewed more straightforwardly as consequences of competition for scarce resources. However, I would argue that, beyond the acquisition of the means of survival, competition for resources can be viewed as a feature of the pursuit of both distinction and security.
8. The notion that there are likely to be individual differences regarding the conditions that elicit an optimal state of arousal is suggested by Balint’s identification of ocnophilic (clinging, insecure tendencies) and philobatic (confident or even thrill-seeking) tendencies (Balint, 1959).
9. This model is further complicated by the fact that there may be a further source of fragmentation as an unintended consequence of the need to produce order. Thus, where individuals and groups seek to make sense of the world, and organise their experience and activity, they do so through categorisation that is, in itself, a further source of differentiation. This is what Giddens appears to be getting at when he tells us that ’modernity fragments’ but does not explain why this is the case (Giddens, 1991).
Theory & Science