The Social Construction of Reality : A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Peter L. Berger andThomas Luckmann
§29 Put differently, while it is comparatively difficult to impose rigid patterns on face-to-face interaction, even it is patterned from the beginning if it takes place within the routines of everyday life. The reality of everyday life contains typificatory schemes in terms of which others are apprehended and "dealt with" in face-to-face encounters. Thus I apprehend the other as "a man," "a European," "a buyer," "a jovial type," and so on.
§30 The social reality of everyday life is thus apprehended in a continuum of typifications, which are progressively anonymous as they are removed from the "here and now" of the face-to-face situation. At one pole of the continuum are those others with whom I frequently and intensively interact. At the other pole are highly anonymous abstractions, with by their very nature can never be available in face-to-face interaction. Social structure is the sum total of these typifications and of the recurrent patterns of interaction established by means of them. As such, social structure is an essential element of the reality of everyday life.
§30 The typificatory schemes entering into face-to-face situations are, of course, reciprocal. The otherís typifications are as susceptible to my interference as mine are to his. In other words, the two typificatory schemes enter into an ongoing "negotiation" in the face-to-face situation. In everyday life such "negotiation" is itself likely to be prearranged in a typical manner. Thus, most of the time, my encounters with others in everyday life are typical in a double sense -- I apprehend the other as a type and I interact with him in a situation that is itself typical.
§49 Social order is not part of the "nature of things," and it cannot be derived from the "laws of nature." Social order exists only as a product of human activity.
§50 All human activity is subject to habitualization. Any action that is repeated frequently becomes cast into a pattern, which can then be reproduced with an economy of effort and which, ipso facto, is apprehended by its performer as that pattern. Habitualization further implies that the action in question may be performed again in the future in the same manner and with the same economical effort. This is true of non-social as well as social activity.
§51 The question becomes how do institutions arise. Institutionalization occurs whenever there is a reciprocal typification of habitualized actions by types of actors. The typifications of habitualized actions that constitute institutions are always shared ones. They are available to all the members of the particular social group in question, and the institution itself typifies individual actors as well as individual actions. The situation posits that actions of type X will be performed by actors of type X.
§52 Institutions further imply historicity and control. Reciprocal typifications of actions are built up in the course of a shared history. Institutions also, by the very fact of their existence, control human conduct by setting up predefined patterns of conduce, which channel it in one direction as against the many other directions that would theoretically be possible.
§54 one may ask what gains accrue to the two individuals from this development [of reciprocal typification; roles]. The most important gain is that each will be able to predict the otherís actions. Concomitantly, the interaction of both becomes predictable. The "There he goes again" becomes a "There we go again." This relieves both individuals of a considerable amount of tension. They save time and effort. Their life together is now defined by a widening sphere of taken-for-granted routines. Many actions are now possible at a low level of attention.
§55 Let us push our paradigm on step further and imagine that A and B have children. The institutional worldis now passed on to others. In this process institutionalization perfects itself. The habitualizations and typifications undertaken in the common life of A and B, formations that until this point still had the quality of ad hoc conceptions of two individuals, now become historical institutions. This means that the institutions that have now been crystallized are experienced as existing over and beyond the individuals who "happen to" embody them at the moment. In other words, the institutions are now experienced as possessing a reality of their own, a reality that confronts the individual as an external and coercive fact. The objectivity of the institutional world "thickens" and "hardens," not only for the children, but for the parents as well. The "There we go again" now becomes "This is how these things are done."
§63 Only a small part of the totality of human experience is retained in consciousness. The experiences that are so retained become sedimented, that is, they congeal in recollection as recognizable and memorable entities. Unless such sedimentation took place the individual could not make sense of his biography. Intersubjective sedimentation also takes place when several individuals share a common biography. Intersubjective sedimentation can only by called truly social when it has been objectivated in a sign system of one kind or another, that is, when the possibility of reiterated objectification of the shared experiences arises.
§64 Normally, of course, the decisive sign system is linguistic. Language objectivates the shared experiences and makes them available to all within the linguistic community, thus becoming both the basis and the instrument of the collective stock of knowledge. Furthermore, language provides the means for objectifying new experiences, allowing their incorporation into the already existing stock of knowledge, and it is the most important means by which the objectivated and objectified sedimentations are transmitted in the tradition of the collectivity in question.
§65 The transmission of the meaning of an institution is based on the social recognition of that institution as a "permanent" solution to a "permanent" problem of the given collectivity. Therefore, potential actors of institutionalized actions must be systematically acquainted with these meanings. this necessitates some form of "educational" process.
§68 In principle, then, an action and its sense can be apprehended apart from individual performances of it and the variable subjective processes associated with them. Both self and other can be apprehended as performers of objective, generally known actions, which are recurrent and repeatable by any actor of the appropriate type. This has important consequences for self-experience. In the course of action there is an identification of the self with the objective sense of the action; the action that is going on determines, for that moment, the self-apprehension of the actor, and does so in the objective sense that has been socially ascribed to the action. In this way both acting self and acting others are apprehended not as unique individuals, but as types. By definition, these types are interchangeable.
§69 It can readily be seen that the construction of role typologies is a necessary correlate of the institutionalization of conduct. Institutions are embodied in individual experience by means of roles. The roles, objectified linguistically, are an essential ingredient of the objectively available world of any society. By playing roles, the individual participates in a social world. By internalizing these roles, the same world becomes subjectively real to him.
§70 The roles represent the institutional order. First, performance of the role represents itself. For instance, to engage in judging is to represent the role of judge. Second, the role represents an entire institutional nexus of conduct. The role of judge stands in relationship to other roles, the totality of which comprises the institution of law. The judge acts as the representative of this institution. Only through such representation in performed roles can the institution manifest itself in actual experience.
§75 It is possible to conceive of a society in which institutionalization is total. In such a society, all problems are common, all solutions to these problems are socially objectivated and all asocial actions are institutionalized. The institutional order embraces the totality of social life, which resembles the continuous performance of a complex, highly stylized liturgy. The opposite extreme would be a society in which there is only one common problem, and institutionalization occurs only with respect to actions concerned with this problem. In such a society there would be almost no common stock of knowledge.
§82 Reification is the apprehension of human phenomena as if they were things, that is, in non-human or possibly suprahuman terms. Another way of saying this is that reification is the apprehension of the products of human activity as if they were something else than human products -- such as facts of nature, results of cosmic laws, or manifestations of divine will.
§84 Roles may be reified in the same manner as institutions. The sector of self-consciousness that has been objectified in the role is then also apprehended as an inevitable fate, for which the individual may disclaim responsibility. The paradigmatic formula for this kind of reification is the statement "I have no choice in the matter, I have to act this way because of my position".
§86 The problem of legitimation inevitably arises when the objectivations of the (now historic) institutional order are to be transmitted to a new generation. At that point, as we have seen, the self-evident character of the institutions can no longer be maintained by means of the individualís own recollection and habitualization. In order to restore it there must be "explanations" and justifications of the salient elements of the institutional tradition. Legitimation is this process of "explaining" and justifying.