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Humpty could certainly
teach Peter Mandelson a thing or two. Human beings have the unique
ability to make the absent present using language, and it is this
which Symbolic Interactionism concerns itself with. Ian Craib describes
it as characterising society as a conversation, and ethnomethodology
as characterising society as a conspiracy.
Using
Herbert Blumer, he identifies three assumptions that lie behind
SI, viz:
1. Human beings act towards things on the basis of the meaning that
the things have for them
2. These meanings are the product of social interaction in human
society
3. These meanings are modified and handled through an interpretive
process that is use by each individual in dealing with the signs
each encounters
Craib also asks
if Symbolic Interactionists are blind and stupid. Who on earth is
going to be surprised by the revelation that human beings produce
meaning through language, or engage in impression management? The
application of SI appears to be limited because it is so vague.
However, this vagueness is necessitated by the original approach
of the theory. It is easy to make very definite, but abstract, claims
about social structures. Indeed, the more abstract and synthetic
our claims the more definite they can be. Putting interaction at
the heart of their analysis of human behaviour moves the Symbolic
Interactionists out of describing society as a set of definitive
abstractions and into that of understanding society as a 'shapeless
agglomeration of fluid exchanges' (Paul Rock).
Doing so allows
us to get to grips with another fundamental of human existence,
to wit: human beings relate to the external world through language.
They, or rather we since sociologists can usually be considered
as human beings, also construct society through language. Describing
a person, a situation, or whatever, is not a neutral activity, but
goes into shaping that person, that situation. We are all familiar
with the power of language as manipulated by dictators, spin doctors,
newspapers, television etc. to remake society in the way that they
wish. What could be more definite and structural than that? This
also means that the way sociologists describe society feeds back
into the way ordinary people describe it. Hence our description
of society influences and changes the society we describe. So there
you go.
Adapted from
Modern Social Theory by Ian Craib
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