Sociology and the self: between freedom and constraint

THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE SELF: THE SOUP-SPILLING KID • SELF, the

modern thinking and acting individual, cannot come to being without the input and
influence of society making a strong case for the interrelated and inextricable
links between the two.
• George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) identified the Self as the product of the
individual's interaction with others in society that occurs in the process of
socialization.
• So how does society engender a complete and functional Self?
EVOLUTION OF THE SELF FROM BEING, AT FIRST, FRAGMENTED AND
THEN LATER, COMPLETE
• First rudimentary terms that map out the key figures in our social world – the
members of our immediate family, our significant others.
. An important element in how a person gains a rudimentary and yet incomplete
Self is to learn how other people regard him or her.
• It is only through the standpoint of one's significant others, they add, that a child
first achieves a sense of rudimentary identity.
• It is therefore through the basic social unit of society or the family
that a young person is enabled and equipped to achieve its full potential at the
onset.
FORMATION OF A FRAGMENTED INCOMPLETE SELF • Maria realizes that
not only her sister disapproving of soup-spilling but that belief is apparently also
shared by other members of her immediate family, her significant others. She
also comes to the conclusion that the other customers in the restaurant including
the waiters were also in disapproval of her act.
• Maria has come to the awareness that "one does not spill soup” in general.
• Generalized other – simple shift in consciousness that actually
elevates our identity and self-regard to a complex level of awareness that now
includes within our personal vista not just our significant others, included for our
consideration is what Mead refers to as the "generalized other"
• Generalized other is indicated by the term "one" as a nonspecific but mass noun
commanding all of us not to spill soup.
• Who therefore is the voice exhorting us to follow his general commandment
against soup-spilling? Isn't it no one else but the loud booming voice of Society?
• This allegory of the soup-spilling Maria is actually the sociological narrative of
how individuals achieve complete Selves according to the re-interpretation of
Berger and Luckmann of Mead's pioneering ideas.
• We begin to have an idea of who we are as we put ourselves in the shoes of our
loved ones.
• However, we only become completely human once we have properly inculcated
the views and expectations of society-atlarge as voiced by the generalized other
in our heads.
• We only become wholly human if we are able to see ourselves from the vantage
point of society's expectations.
• We only become bonafide members of society with socially acceptable Selves if
we already know the rules and norms of society which goes beyond just the
knowledge that one does not spill soup.
• It is also paradoxical situation here: we are given skills and the consciousness,
the desire, to be truly free but in the same breathe also restricted from attaining
such full and unmitigated freedoms in favor societal norms and rules
MODERNITY AND THE SELF: THE LUMAD ASTRONAUT • Has the Self always
been mired in this paradoxical situation of being empowered and yet restricted?
Has there always been a modern and self-aware Self across history whose
freedoms are constantly mitigated by society?
• Sociologists share in their analysis is the belief that
transformations in the economy of society have given birth to the modern
individual's autonomous and independent practices.
• Collective consciousness – the totality of beliefs and sentiments common to
average citizens of the same society
• Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft societies referring to the intrinsic differences
between rural and urban societies.
• We are born into specific social epochs (period, time) whose
characteristics either enable us towards certain desired ends or severely restrict
us from going beyond established limitations.
• We are indeed free, but only within the confines of predetermined borders.
• Structure – overarching sociological structure where individuals navigate their
limited freedoms
• Collective effervescence - kind of social spirit borne out of people's interactions
in society. The social nature of life exerts considerable influence on individuals by
empowering them on the one hand, but also impinging on their choices and
limiting their potentials, on the other.
• Death through one's own hand may be the most private and willful act a person
can do. The most private act of suicide, according to Durkheim, is more than the
willful choice of individuals. Rather, it is an indication of a society's health.
• The existence of social inequality is the strongest case for the
power and influence of structure over individuals.
• Compare two young individuals: one born into a first world setting with middle
class parents, while the other, a Lumad child from rural Mindanao whose
education is periodically interrupted by evacuations due to the militarization of
their communities.
• Which of the two will have greater chances of achieving their dreams? Who will
have more obstacles blocking his or her way?
• The case of the Lumad aspiring to be an astronaut is an example of how social
structures define our life-chances.
• The Sociological Imagination brought attention to the structural
limits of individual life-chances.
• Individuals that occupy the same social position and have the
same socially-determined traits shall have the same lifechances.
• Sociological imagination promotes this quality of mind that
looks into the relationship of "biography, history, and of their intersections within
society"
• Useful in the practice of the sociological imagination was the differentiation of
personal troubles from social issues
• Troubles - have to do with problems that concern only people and circumstance
within one's immediate milieu (environment, setting) and whose resolution can
also be found within this limited realm
• Issues – pertain to shared realities with a greater number of people within a
larger social and historical milieu.
THE SELF AS A SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED AND IMPRISONED ONION
• Self remains the basic unit of society upon whom the larger
structures of society rely on to make them functioning and real.
• Goffman likens everyday social reality as the site of a performance
akin to what takes place on a theatrical stage.
• Everyday life can now be dissected according to parts of a theater where there
is a setting, script, and actors.
• We put our best foot forward in our dealings with people in everyday life and this
constant pretentious performance is accessible to others through our front stage
even as we hide and suppress our real selves in the back stage.
• Goffman is often quoted to have said that the Self is an onion, all layers and no
core.
• Constant social pressure to perform and a social audience where we don layers
of masks one after the other.
• Another metaphor is Self as a coat hanger.
• It only achieves true form and function when a coat is placed on it. Remove all
the masks or the coat from the coat hanger, then it is only emptiness at the core.
Foucault
• Looks at the constitution of the modern Self and society through the
prism of the modern penal system particularly in his work Discipline and Punish:
the Birth of the Prison System.
• It serves more as a symbolic representation of the power of the
State and society, a physical reminder of its power to take away freedoms when
its laws are violated.
• Panopticon - architectural element plays an important surveilling
function. The inmates believe that they are being watched because of the
presence of the tower and its one-way windows even if no guard is actually
inside.
• That feeling of always being watched or that nagging voice inside our heads that
exhort commands and edicts indicate the presence of the panopticon beyond the
prison into the most mundane and commonplace of locations in modern life, that
is in each of our minds erected there stealthily by society through the process of
socialization.
• Self achieves completion when it has finally internalized society's mores and
expectations.
• One only becomes wholly human once the panoptic power of society has been
properly imbibed and planted in your mind.
BEYOND THE SELF: PRACTICING FREEDOM AMID CONSTRAINT • We
complete the process of achieving Selves once we are taught the rules that
govern the social order.
• We are imbued with potential as well as social skills at the start of our journey
but always with the caveat that we follow society's established rules.
• Choices that we make in life as practices of freedom, are actually
contextually determined by larger historical forces that evolve independently from
human will.
• We do not choose the circumstance of our birth and the
differentiated struggles we face confronting the social structures.
• The sociological imagination actually encourages us to have a sensitivity for the
impact of these socio-historical forces in our personal lives, an understanding of
how our biographies intersect with history so that we will not lose our bearings
navigating social life.
• Sociology has been rightly insisting on the dialectical relationship between Self
and Society.
• Only by understanding the circumstances of our "unfreedom"
that we share with others, will we be able to begin the magnificent task of
transforming society for the freedom not just of our individual Selves but also of
one and all.
Sociology - the study of the development, structure, and functioning of human
society. 1 2 Rudimentary – undeveloped 3 4 5 Inculcated – instill, implant, fix in 6
Bonafide – genuine, real 7 8 Intrinsic – belonging naturally, essential 9 Collective
effervescence (CE) is a sociological concept introduced by Émile Durkheim.
According to Durkheim, a community or society may at times come together and
simultaneously communicate the same thought and participate in the same
action. 10 11 Understanding and being able to exercise the sociological
imagination helps us understand the relationship between the individual and
society. Mills focuses on the distinction of personal troubles and public issues 12
Personal troubles occur on individual level (limited by the scope of one's
biography), while public issues transcend the individual and are collective
interests or values felt to be threatened. Man is a social and an historical actor
who must be understood, if at all, in close and intricate interplay with social and
historical structures. (The Social Imagination, 1959) Take unemployment for
example. One can become unemployed because some factors on individual level:
lack of skills, low self-esteem, personal decision, lazyness, etc. It's a personal
problem if only one person being unemployed among millions of individuals within
a nation. But it can be a public issue if let's say 25% of a nation's population is
being unemployed. 13 14 15 16 Mores – traditions, way of life 17 18 19