Peter L. Berger (1)
INVITATION TO SOCIOLOGY
A Humanistic Perspective
1. SOCIOLOGY AS AN INDIVIDUAL PASTIME
There are very few jokes about sociologists. This is frustrating for the sociologists, especially if
they compare themselves with their more favored second cousins, the psychologists, who have
pretty much taken over that sector of American humor that used to be occupied by clergymen. A
psychologist, introduced as such at a party, at once finds himself the object of considerable
attention and uncomfortable mirth. A sociologist in the same circumtance is likely to meet with no
more of a reaction than if he had been announced as an insurance salesman. He will have to win his
attention the hard way, just like everyone else. This is annoying and unfair, but it may also be
instructive. The dearth of jokes about sociologists indicates, of course, that they are not as much
part of the popuIar imagination as psychologists have become. But it probably also indicates that
there is a certain ambiguity in the images that people do have of them. It may thus be a good
starting point for our considerations to take a closer look at some of these images.
lf one asks undergraduate students why they are taking sociology as a major, one often gets the
reply, "because I like to work with people." If one then goes on to ask such students about their
occupational future, as they envisage it, one often hears that they intend to go into social work. Of
this more in a moment. Other answers are more vague and general, but all indicate that the student
in question would rather deal with peopIe than with things. Occupations mentioned in this
connection include personnel work, human relations in industry, public relations, advertising,
community planning or religious work of the unordained variety. The common assumption is that
in all these lines of endeavor
2
one might „do something for people," "help people," "do work that is useful for the community."
The image of the sociologist involved here could he described as a secularized version of the liberal
Protestant ministry, with the YMCA secretary perhaps furnishing the connecting link between
sacred and profane benevolence. Sociology is seen as an up-to-date variation on the classic
American theme of "uplift." The sociologist is understood as one professionally concerned with
edifying activities on behalf of individuals and of the community at large.
One of these days a great American novel will have to be written on the savage disappointment
this sort of motivation is bound to suffer in most of the occupations just mentioned. There is
moving pathos in the fate of these likers of people who go into personnel work and come up for
the first time against the human realities of a strike that they must fight on one side of the savagely
drawn bittle lines, or who go into public relations and discover just what it is that they are expected
to put over in what experts in the field have called "the engineering of consent," or who go into
community agencies to begin a brutal education in the politics of real estate speculation. But our
concern here is not with the despoiling of innocence. It is rather with a particular image of the
sociologist, an image that is inaccurate and misleading.
It is, of course, true that some Boy Scout types have become sociologists. It is also true that a
benevolent interest in people could be the biographical starting point for sociological studies. But it
is important to point out that a malevolent and misanthropic outlook could serve just as well.
Sociological insights are valuable to anyone concerned with action in society. But this action need
not be particulary humanitarian. Some American sociologists today are employed by govermental
agencies seeking to plan more livable communities for the nation. Other American sociologists are
employed by governmental agencies concerned with wiping communities of hostile nations off the
map, if and when the necessity
3
should arise. Whatever the moral implications of these respective activities may be, there is no
reason why interesting sociological studies could not be carried on in both. Similarly, criminology,
as a special field within sociology, has uncovered valuable information about processes of crime in
modern society. This information is equally valuable for those seeking to fight crime as it would be
for those interested in promoting it. The fact that more criminologists have been employed by the
police than by gangsters can be ascribed to the ethical bias of the criminologists themselves, the
public relations of the police and perhaps the lack of scientific sophistication of the gangsters. it
has nothing to do with the character of the information itself. In sum, "working with people" can
mean getting them out of slums or getting them into jail, selling them propaganda or robbing them
of their money (be it legally or illegally), making them produce better automobiles or making them
better bomber pilots. As an image of the sociologist, then, the phrase leaves something to be
desired, even though it may serve to describe at least the initial impulse as a result of which some
people turn to the study of sociology.
Some additional comments are called for in connection with a closely related image of the
sociologist as a sort of theoretician for social work.. This image is understandable in view of the
development of sociology in America. At least one of the roots of American sociology is to be
found in the worries of social workers confronted with the massive problems following in the
wake of the industrial revolution-the rapid growth of cities and of slums within them, mass
immigration, mass movements of people, the disruption of traditional ways of life and the resulting
disorientation of individuals caught in these processes. Much sociological research has been
spurred by this sort of concern. And so it is still quite customary for undergraduate students
planning to go into social work to major in sociology.
Actually, American social work has been far more influenced by psychology than by sociology
in the devel-
4
opment of its "theory." Very probably this fact is not unrelated to what was previously said about
the relative status of sociology and psychology in the popular irnagination. Social workers have
had to fight an uphill battle for a long time to be recognized as "professionals," and to get the
prestige, power and (not least) pay that such recognition entails. Looking around for a „
professional" model to emulate, they found that of the psychiatrist to be the most natural. And so
contemporary social workers receive their "clients" in an office, conduct fifty-minute "clinical
interviews" with them, record the interviews in quadruplicate and discuss them with a hierarchy of
"supervisors." Having adopted the outward paraphernalia of the psychiatrist, they naturally also
adopted his ideology. Thus contemporary American soeial-work "theory" consists very largely of
a somewhat bowdlerized version of psychoanalytic psychology, a sort of poor man's Freudianism
that serves to legitimate the social worker's claim to help people in a "scientifie" way. We are not
interested here in investigating the "scientifiec“ validity of this synthetic doctrine. Our point is that
not only does it have very little to do with sociology, but it is marked, indeed, by a singular
obtuseness with regard to social reality. The identification of sociclogy with social work in the
minds of many people is somewhat a phenomenon of "cultural lag," dating from the period when
as yet pre-"professional" social workers dealt with poverty rather than with libidinal frustration,
and did so without the benefit of a dictaphone.
But even if American social work had not jumped on the bandwagon of popular psychologism
the image of the sociologist as the social worker's theoretical mentor would be misleading. Social
work, whatever its theoretical rationalization, is a certain practice in society. Sociology is not a
practice, but an attempt to understand. Certainly this understanding may have use for the
practitioner. For that matter, we would contend that a more profound grasp of sociology would be
of great use to the social worker and that such grasp would obviate the necessity of his descending
into the mythological
5
depths of the "subconscious" to explain matters that are typically quite conscious, much more
simple and, indeed, social in nature. But there is nothing inherent in the sociological enterprise of
trying to understand society that necessarily leads to this practice, or to any other. Sociological
understanding can be recommended to social workers, but also to salesmen, nurses, evangelists
and politicians-in fact, to anyone whose goals involve the manipulation of men, for whatever
purpose and with whatever moral justification.
This conception of the sociological enterprise is implied in the classic statement by Max Weber,
one of the most important figures in the development of the field, to the effect that sociology is
"value-free." Since it will be necessary to retum to this a number of times later, it may be well to
explicate it a little further at this point. Certainly the statement does not mean that the sociologist
has or should have no values. In any case, it is just about impossible for a human being to exist
without any values at all, though, of course, there can be tremendous variation in the values one
may hold. The sociologist will normally have many values as a citizen, a private person, a member
of a religious group or as an adherent of some other association of people. But within the limits of
his activities as a sociologist there is one fundamental value only-that of scientific integrity. Even
there, of course, the sociologist, being human, will have to reckon with his convictions, emotions
and prejudices. But it is part of his intellectual training that he tries to understand and control these
as bias that ought to be eliminated, as far as possible, from his work. It goes without saying that
this is not always easy to do, but it is not impossible. The sociologist tries to see what is there. He
may have hopes or fears concerning what he may find. But he will try to see regardless of his
hopes or fears. It is thus an act of pure perception, as pure is humanly limited means allow, toward
which sociology strives.
An analogy may serve to clarify this a little more. In any political or military conflict it is of
advantage
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to capture the information used by the intelligence organs of the opposing side. But this is so only
because goad intelligence consists of information free of bias. If a spy does his reporting in terms
of the ideology and ambitions of his superiors, his reports are useless not only to the enemy, if the
latter should capture them, but also to the spys own side. It has been claimed that one of the
weaknesses of the espionage apparatus of totalitarian states is that spies report not what they find
but what their superiors want to hear. This, quite evidently, is bad espionage. The good spy
reports what is there. Others decide what should be done as a result of his information. The
sociologist is a spy in very much the same way. His job is to report as. accurately as he can about
a certain social terrain. Others, or he himself in a role other than that of sociologist, will have to
decide what moves ought to be made in that terrain. We would stress strongly that saying this does
not imply that the sociologist has no responsibility to ask about the goals of his employers or the
use to which they will put his work. But this asking is not sociological asking. It is asking the
same questions that any man ought to ask himself about his actions in society. Again, in the same
way, biological knowledge can be employed to heal or to kill. This does not mean that the biologist
is free of responsibility as to which use he serves. But when he asks himself about this
responsibility, he is not asking a biological question.
Another image of the sociologist, related to the two already discussed, is that of social reformer.
Again, this image bas historical roots, not only in America but also in Europe. Auguste Comte, the
early nineteenth-century French philosopher who invented the name of the discipline, thought of
sociology as the doctrine of progress, a secularized successor to theology as the mistress of the
sciences. The sociologist in this view plays the role of arbiter of all branches of knowledge for the
welfare of men. This notion, even when stripped of its more fantastic pretensions, died especially
hard in the development of French sociology. But it had its repercussions in
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America too, as when, in the early days of American sociology, some transatlantic disciples of
Comte seriously suggested in a memorandum to the president of Brown University that all the
departments of the latter should be reorganized under the department of sociology. Very few
sociologists today, and probably none in this country, would think of their role in this way. But
something of this conception survives when sociologists are expected to come up with blueprints
for reform on any number of social issues.
It is gratifying from certain value positions (including some of this writer's) that sociological
insights have served in a number of instances to improve the lot of groups of human beings by
uncovering morally shocking conditions or by clearing away collective illusions or by showing
that socially desired results could be obtained in more humane fashion. One might point, for
example, to some applications of sociological knowledge in the penological practice of Western
countries. Or one might cite the use made of sociological studies in the Supreme Court decision of
1954 on racial segregation in the public schools Or one could look at the applications of other
sociological studies to the humane planning of urban redevelopment. Certainly the sociologist who
is morally and politically sensitive will derive gratiflcation from such instances. But, once more, it
will be well to keep in mind that what is at issue here is not sociological understanding as such but
certain applications of this understanding. It is not difficult to see how the same understanding
could be applied with opposite intentions. Thus the sociological understanding of the dynamics of
racial prejudice can be applied effectively by those promoting intragroup hatred as well as by those
wanting to spread tolerance. And the sociological understanding of the nature of human solidarity
can be employed in the service of both totalitarian and democratic regimes. lt is sobering to realize
that the same processes that generate consensus can be manipulated by a social group worker in a
summer camp in the Adirondacks and by a Communist brainwasher in a
8
prisoner camp in China. One may readily grant that the sociologist can sometimes be called upon to
give advice when it comes to changing certain social conditions deemed undesirable. But the image
of the sociologist as social reformer suffers from the same confusion as the image of him as social
worker.
lf these images of the sociologist all have an element of „cultural lag“ about them, we can now
turn to some other images that are of more recent date and refer themselves to more recent
developments in the discipline. One such image is that of the sociologist as a gatherer of statistics
about human behavior. The sociologist is here seen essentially as an aide-de-camp to an IBM
machine. He goes out with a questionnaire, interviews people selected at random, then goes home,
enters his tabulations onto innumerable punch cards, which are then fed into a machine. In all of
this, of course, he is supported by a large staff and a very large budget. Included in this image is
the implication that the results of all this effort are picayune, a pedantic restatement of what
everybody knows anyway. As one observer remarked pithily, a sociologist is a fellow who spends
$ 100,000 to find his way to a house of ill repute.
This image of the sociologist has been strengthened in the public mind by the activities of many
agencies that might well be called parasociological, mainly agencies concerned with public opinion
and market trends. The pollster has become a well-known figure in American life, inopportuning
people about their views from foreign policy to toilet paper. Since the methods used in the pollster
business bear close resemblance to sociological research, the growth of this image of the
sociologist is understandable. The Kinsey studies of American sexual behavior have probably
greatly augmented the impact of this image. The fundamental sociological question, whether
concerned with premarital petting or with Republican votes or with the incidence of gang knifings,
is always presumed to be "how often?" or „how many?“ Incidentally the very few jokes current
about sociologists usually relate to this statistieal image
9
(which jokes had better be left to the imagination of the reader).
Now it must be admitted, albeit regretfully, that this image of the sociologist and his trade is not
altogether a product of fantasy. Beginning shortly after World War I, American sociology turned
rather resolutely away from theory to an intensive preoccupation with narrowly circumscribed
empirical studies. In connection with this turn, sociologists increasingly refined their research
techniques. Among these, very naturally, statistical techniques figured prominently. Since about
the mid-1940s there has been a revival of interest in sociologieal theory, and there are good
indications that this tendeney away from a narrow empiricism is continuing to gather momentum.
It remains true, however, that a goodly part of the sociological enterprise in this country continues
to consist of little studies of obscure fragments of social life, irrelevant to any broader theoretical
concern. One glance at the table of contents of the major sociological journals or at the list of
papers read at sociological conventions with confirm this statement.
The political and economic structure of American academic life encourages this pattern, and not
only in sociology. Colleges and universities are normally administered by very busy people with
little time or inclination to delve into the esoterica produced by their scholarly employees. Yet these
administrators are called upon to make decisions concerning the hiring and firing, promotion and
tenure of their faculty personnel. What criteria should they use in these decisions? They cannot be
expected to read what their professors write, having no time for such activities and, especially in
the more technical disciplines, lacking the necessary qualifications to judge the material. The
opinions of immediate colleagues of the professors in question are suspect a priori, the normal
academic institution being a jungle of bitter warfare between faculty factions, none of which can be
relied upon for an objective judgment of members of either his own or an opposing group. To ask
the views of
10
students would be even wore uncertain procedure. Thus the administrators are left with a number
of equality unsatisfactory options. They can go on the principle that the institution is one happy
family, in which every member advances steadily up the status ladder regardless of merit. This has
been tried often enough, but becomes ever more difficult in an age of competition for the favor of
the public and the funds of foundations. Another option is to rely on tlhe advice of one clique,
chosen on some more or less rational basis. This creates obvious political difficulties for the
administrator of a group chronically defensive about its independence. The third option, the one
most common today, is to fall back on the criterion of productivity as used in the business world.
Since it is very difficult indeed to judge the productivity of a scholar with whose field one is not
well acquainted, one must somehow try to find out how acceptable the scholar is to unprejudiced
colleagues in his field. It is then assumed that such acceptability can be deduced from the number
of books or articles that publishers or editors of professional publications are willing to accept
from the man in question. This forces scholars to concentrate on work that can easily and speedily
be converted into a respectable little article likely to be accepted for publication in a professional
journal. For sociologists this means some little empirical study of a narrowly confined topic. In
most instances such studies will require the application of statistical techniques. Since most
professional journals in the field are suspicious of articles that do not contain at least some
statistical material, this tendency is further strengthened. And so eager young sociologists stranded
somewhere in hinterland institutions, yearning for the richer pastures of the better universities,
supply us with a steady stream of little statistical studies of the dating habits of their students, the
political opinions of the surrounding natives or the class system of some hamlet within commuting
distance of their campus. lt might be added here that this system is not quite so terrible as it may
seem to the newcomer to the field, since its ritual require-
11
ments are well known to all concerned. As a result, the sensible person reads the sociological
journals mainly for the book reviews and the obituaries, and goes to sociological meetings only if
he is looking for a job or has other intrigues to carry on.
The prominence of statistical techniques in American sociology today has, then, certain ritual
functions that are readily understandable in view of the power system within which most
sociologists have to make a career. In fact, most sociologists have little more than a cookbook
knowledge of statistics, treating it with about the same mixture of awe, ignorance and timid
manipulation as a poor village priest would the mighty Latin cadences of Thomist theology. Once
one has realized these things, however, it should be clear that sociology ought not to be judged by
these aberrations. One then becomes, as it were, sociologically sophisticated about sociology, and
enabled to look beyond the outward signs to whatever inward grace may be hidden behind them.
Statistical data by themselves do not make sociology. They become sociology only when they
are sociologically interpreted, put within a theoretical frame of reference that is sociological.
Simple counting, or even correlating different items that one counts, is not sociology. There is
almost no sociology in the Kinsey reports. This does not mean that the data in these studies are not
true or that they cannot be relevant to sociological understanding. They are, taken by themselves,
raw materials that can be used in sociological interpretation. The interpretation, however, must be
broader than the data themselves. So the sociologist cannot arrest himself at the frequeney tables of
premarital petting or extramarital pederasty. These enumerations are meaningful to him only in
terms of their much broader implications for an understanding of institutions and values in our
society. To arrive at such understanding the sociologist will often have to apply statistieal
techniques, especially when he is dealing with the mass phenomena of modern social life. But
sociology consists of statistics as little as philology consists of conjugating irregular
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verbs or chemistry of making nasty smells in test tubes. Another image of the sociologist current
today and rather closely related to that of statistician is the one that sees him as a man mainly
concerned in developing a scientific methodology that he can then impose on human phenomena.
This image is frequently held by people in the humanities and presented as proof that sociology is
a form of intellectual barbarism. One part of this criticism of sociology by the littérateurs is
often a scathing commentary on the outlandish jargon in which much sociological writing is
couched. By contrast, of course, the one who makes these criticisms offers himself as a guardian
of the classical traditions of humane learning.
It would be quite possible to meet such criticism by an argument ad hominem. Intellectual
barbarism seems to be fairly evenly distributed in the main scholarly disciplines dealing with the
phenomenon "man." However, it is undignified to argue ad hominem, so we shall readfly admit
that, indeed, there is much that passes today under the heading of sociology that is justly caued
barbarian, if that word is intended to denote an ignorance of history and philosophy, narrow
expertise without wider horizons, a preoccupation with technical skills, and total insensitivity to
the uses of language. Once more, these elements can themselves be understood sociologically in
terms of certain characteristics of contemporary academic life. The competition for prestige and
jobs in fields rapidly becoming more and more complex forces specialization that all too frequentIy
leads to a depressing parochialism of interests. But it would again be inaccurate to identify
sociology with this much more pervasive intellectual trend.
Sociology has, from its beginnings, understood itself as a science. There has been much
controversy about the precise meaning of this self-definition. For instance, German sociologists
have emphasized the difference between the social and the natural sciences much more strongly
than their French or American colleagues. But the allegiance of sociologists to the scientific ethos
has
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meant everywhere a willingness to be bound by certain scientific canons of procedure. If the
sociologist remains faithful to his calling, his statements must be arrived at through the observation
of certain rules of evidence that allow others to check on or to repeat or to develop his findings
further. It is this scientific discipline that often supplies the motive for reading a sociological work
as against, say, a novel on the same topic that might describe matters in much more impressive and
convincing language. As sociologists tried to develop their scientific rules of evidence, they were
compelled to reflect upon methodological problems. This is why methodology is a necessary and
valid part of the sociological enterprise.
At the same time it is quite true that some sociologists, especially in America, have become so
preoccupied with methodological questions that they have ceased to be interested in society at all.
As a result, they have found out nothing of significance about any aspect of social life, since in
science as in love a concentration on technique is quite likely to lead to impotence. Much of this
fixation on methodology can be explained in terms of the urge of a relatively new discipline to find
acceptance on the academic scene. Since science is an almost sacred entity among Americans in
general and American academicians in particular, the desire to emulate the procedures of the older
natural sciences is very strong among the newcomers in the marketplace of erudition. Giving in to
this desire, the experimental psychologists, for instance, have succeeded to such an extent that
their studies have commonly nothing more to do with anything that human beings are or do. The
irony of this process lies in the fact that natural scientists themselves have been giving up the very
positivistic dogmatism that their emulators are still straining to adopt. But this is not our concern
here. Suffice it to say that sociologists have succeeded in avoiding some of the more grotesque
exaggerations of this "methodism," as compared with some fields close by. As they become more
secure in their academic status, it may be expected
14
that this methodological inferiority complex will diminish even further.
The charge that many sociologists write in a barbaric dialect must also be admitted with similar
reservations. Any scientifie discipline must develop a terminology. This is self-evident for a
discipline such as, say, nuclear physics that deals with matters unknown to most people and for
which no words exist in common speech. However, terminology is possibly even more important
for the social sciences, just because their subjcet matter is familiar and just beeause words do exist
to denote it. Because we are well acquainted with the social institutions that surround us, our
perception of them is imprecise and often erroneous. In very much the same way most of us will
have considerable difficulty giving an accurate description of our parents, husbands or wives,
children or close friends. Also, our language is often (and perhaps blessedly) vague and confusing
in its references to social reality. Take for an example the concept of class, a very important one in
sociology. There must be dozens of meanings that this term may have in common speech-income
brackets, races, ethnic groups, power cliques, intelligence ratings, and many others. lt is obvious
that the sociologist must have a precise, unambiguous definition of the concept if his work is to
proceed with any degree of scientific rigor. In view of these facts, one can understand that some
sociologists have been tempted to invent altogether new words to avoid the semantic traps of the
vernacular usage. We would contend, then, that some of these neologisms have been necessary.
We would also contend, however, that most sociology can be presented in intelflgible English with
but a little effort and that a good deal of contemporary "sociologese" ean be understood as a
self-conscious mystification. Here again, however, we are confronted with an intellectual
phenomenon that affects other fields as well. There may be a connection with the strong influence
of German academie life in a formative period in the development of American universities.
Scientific profundity was gauged by
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the ponderousness of scienfific language. If scientifie prose was unintelligible to any but the
narrow cirele of initiates to the field in question, this was ipso facto proof of its intellectual
respectability. Much American scholarly writing still reads like a translation from the German. This
is certainly regrettable. lt has little to do, however, with the legitimacy of the sociologieal enterprise
as such.
Finally, we would look at an image of the sociologist not so much in his professional role as in
his being, supposedly, a certain kind of person. This is the image of the sociologist as a detached,
sardonic observer, and a cold manipulator of men. Where this image prevails, it may represent an
ironic triumph of the sociologists own efforts to be accepted as a genuine seientist. The sociologist
here becomes the self-appointed superior man, standing off from the warm vitality of common
existence, finding his satisfactions not in living but in coolly appraising the lives of others, filing
them away in little categories, and thus presumably missing the real significance of what he is
observing. Further, there is the notion that, when he involves himself in social processes at all, the
sociologist does so as an uncommitted technician, putting his rnanipulative skills at the disposal of
the powers that be.
This last image is probably not very widely held. It is mainly held by people concerned for
political reasons with actual or possible misuses of sociology in modern societies. There is not
very much to say about this image by way of refutation. As a general portrait of the contemporary
sociologist it is certainly a gross distortion. lt fits very few individuals that anyone is likely to meet
in this country today. The problem of the political role of the social scientist is, nevertheless, a
very genuine one. For instance, the employment of sociologists by certain branches of industry
and government raises moral questions that ought to be faced more widely than they have been so
far. These are, however, moral questions that concern all men in positions of responsibility in
modern society. The image of the sociologist as an
16
observer without compassion and a manipulator without conscience need not detain us further
here. By and large, history produces very few Talleyrands. As for contemporary sociologists,
most of them would lack the emotional equipment for such a role, even if they should aspire to it in
moments of feverish fantasy.
How then are we to conceive of the sociologist? In discussing the various images of him that
abound in the popular mind we have already brought out certain elements that would have to go
into our conception. We can now put them together. In doing so, we shall construct what
sociologists themselves call an "ideal type." This means that what we delineate will not be found in
reality in its pure form. Instead, one will find approximations to it and deviations from it, in
varying degrees. Nor is it to be understood as an empirical average. We would not even claim that
all individuals who now call themselves sociologists will recocnize themselves without
reservations in our conception, nor would we dispute the right of those who do not so recognize
themselves to use the appellation. Our business is not excommunication. We would, however,
contend that our "ideal type" corresponds to the self-conception of most sociologists in the
mainstream of the discipline, both historically (at least in this century) and today.
The sociologist, then is someone concerned with understanding society in a disciplined way. The
nature of this discipline is scientific. This means that what the sociologist finds and says about the
social phenomena he studies occurs within a certain rather strictly defined frame of reference. One
of the main characteristies of this scientifie frame of reference is that operations are bound by
certain rules of evidence. As a scientist, the sociologist tries to be objective, to control his personal
preferences and prejudices, to perceive clearly rather than to judge normatively. This restraint, of
course, does not embrace the totality of the sociologist's existence as a human being, but is limited
to his operations qua sociologist. Nor does the sociologist claim that his frame of reference is the
only one within which society can be
17
looked at. For that matter, very few scientists in any field would claim today that one should look
at the world only scientifically. The botanist looking at a daffodil has no reason to dispute the right
of the poet to look at the same object in a very different manner. There are many ways of playing.
The point is not that one denies other people's games but that one is clear about the rules of one's
own. The game of the sociologist, then, uses seientific rules. As a result, the sociologist must be
clear in his own mind as to the meaning of these rules. That is, he must concern himself with
methodological questions. Methodology does not constitute his goal. The latter, let us recall once
more, is the attempt to understand society. Methodology helps in reaching this goal. In order to
understand society, or that segment of it that he is studying at the moment, the sociologist will use
a variety of means. Among these are statistical techniques. Statistics can be very useful in
answering certain sociological questions. But statistics does not constitute sociology. As a
scientist, the sociologist will have to be concerned with the exact significance of the terms he is
using. That is, he will have to be careful about terminology. This does not have to mean that he
must invent a new language of his own, but it does mean that he cannot naively use the language
of everyday discourse. Finally, the interest of the sociologist is primarily theoretical. That is, he is
interested in understanding for its own sake. He may be aware of or even concerned with the
practical applicability and consequences of his findings, but at that point he leaves the sociological
frame of reference as such and moves into realms of values, beliefs and ideas that he shares with
other men who are not sociologists.
We daresay that this conception of the sociologist would meet with very wide consensus within
the discipline today. But we would like to go a little bit further here and ask a somewhat more
personal (and therefore, no doubt, more controversial) question. We would like to ask not only
what it is that the sociologist is doing but also what it is that drives him to it. Or, to use the
18
phrase Max Weber used in a similar connection, we want to inquire a little into the nature of the
sociologist's demon. In doing so, we shall evoke an image that is not so much ideal-typical in the
above sense but more confessional in the sense of personal commitment. Again, we are not
interested in excommunicating anyone. The game of sociology goes on in a spacious playground.
We are just describing a little more closely those we would like to tempt to join our game.
We would say then that the sociologist (that is, the one we would really like to invite to our
game) is a person intensively, endlessly, shamelessly interested in the doings of men. His natural
habitat is all the human gathering places of the world, wherever men come together. The
sociologist may be interested in many other things. But his consuming interest remains in the
world of men, their institutions, their history, their passions. And since he is interested in men,
nothing that men do can be altogether tedious for him. He will naturally be interested in the events
that engage men's ultimate beliefs, their moments of tragedy and grandeur and ecstasy. But he will
also be fascinated by the commonplace, the everyday. He will know reverence, but this reverence
will not prevent him from wanting to see and to understand. He may sometimes feel revulsion or
contempt. But this also will not deter him from wanting to have his questions answered. The
sociologist, in his quest for understanding, moves through the world of men without respect for
the usual lines of demarcation. Nobility and degradation, power and obscurity, intelligence and
folly-these are equally interesting to him, however unequal they may be in his personal values or
tastes. Thus his questions may lead him to all possible levels of society, the best and the least
known places, the most respected and the most despised. And, if he is a good sociologist, he will
find himself in all these places because his own questions have so taken possession of him that he
has little choice but to seek for answers.
It would be possible to say the same things in a lower key. We could say that the sociologist, but
for the grace
19
of his academic title, is the man who must listen to gossip despite himself, who is tempted to look
through keyholes, to read other people's mail, to open closed cabinets. Before some otherwise
unoccupied psychologist sets out now to construct an aptitude test for sociologists on the basis of
sublimated voyeurism, let us quickly say that we are speaking merely by way of analogy. Perhaps
some little boys consumed with curiosity to watch their maiden aunts in the bathroom later
become. inveterate sociologists. This is quite uninteresting. What interests us is the curiosity that
grips any sociologist in front of a closed door behind which there are human voices. If he is a
good sociologist, he will want to open that door, to understand these voices. Behind each closed
door he will anticipate some new facet of human life not yet perceived and understood.
The sociologist will occupy himself with matters that others regard as too sacred or as too
distasteful for dispassionate investigation. He will find rewarding the company of priests or of
prostitutes, depending not on his personal preferenees but on the questions he happens to be
asking at the moment. He will also concern himself with matters that others may find much too
boring. Ile will be interested in the human interaction that goes with warfare or with great
intellectual discoveries, but also in the relations between people employed in a restaurant or
between a group of little girls playing with their dolls. His main focus of attention is not the
ultimate significance of what men do, but the action in itself, as another example of the infinite
richness of human conduct. So much for the image of our playmate.
In these journeys through the world of men the sociologist will inevitably encounter other
professional Peeping Toms. Sometimes these will resent his presence, feeling that he is poaching
on their preserves. In some places the sociologist will meet up with the economist, in others with
the political scientist, in yet others with the psychologist or the ethnologist. Yet chances are that the
questions that have brought him to these same
20
places are different from the ones that propelled his fellow-trespassers. The sociologist's questions
always remain essentially the same: "What are people doing with each other here?" "What are their
relationships to each other?" Mow are these relationships organized in institutions?" „What are the
collective ideas that move men and institutions?" In trying to answer these questions in specific
instances, the sociologist will, of course, have to deal with economic or political matters, but he
will do so in a way rather different from that of the economist or the political scientist. The scene
that he contemplates is the same human scene that these other scientists concern themselves with.
But the sociologist's angle of vision is different. When this is understood, it becomes clear that it
makes little sense to try to stake out a special enclave within which the sociologist will carry on
business in his own right. Like Wesley the sociologist will have to confess that his parish is the
world. But unlike some latter-day Wesleyans he will gladly share this parish with others. There is,
however, one traveler whose path the sociologist will cross more often than anyone else's on his
journeys. This is the historian. Indeed, as soon as the sociologist turns from the present to the
past, his preoccupations are very hard indeed to distinguish from those of the historian. However,
we shall leave this relationship to a later part of our considerations. Suffice it to say here that the
sociological journey will be much impoverished unless it is punctuated frequently by conversation
with that other particular traveler.
Any intellectual activity derives excitement from the moment it becomes a trail of discovery. In
some fields of learning this is the discovery of worlds previously unthought and unthinkable. This
is the excitement of the astronomer or of the nuclear physicist on the antipodal boundaries of the
realities that man is capable of conceiving. But it can also be the excitement of bacteriology or
geology, In a different way it can be the excitement of the linguist discovering new realms of
human expression or of the anthropologist exploring
21
human customs in faraway countries. In such discovery, when undertaken with passion, a
widening of awareness, sometimes a veritable transformation of consciousness, occurs. The
universe turns out to be much more wonder-full than one had ever dreamed. The excitement of
sociology is usually of a different sort. Sometimes, it is true, the sociologist penetrates into worlds
that had previously been quite unknown to him-for instance, the world of crime, or the world of
some bizarre religious sect, or the world fashioned by the exclusive concerns of some group such
as medical specialists or military leaders or advertising executives. However, much of the time the
sociologist moves in sectors of experience that are familiar to him and to most people in his
society. He investigates communities, institutions and activities that one can read about every day
in the newspapers. Yet there is another excitement of discovery beckoning in his investigations. It
is not the excitement of coming upon the totally unfamiliar, but rather the excitement of finding the
familiar becoming transformed in its meaning. The fascination of sociology lies in the fact that its
perspective makes us see in a new light the very world in which we have lived all our lives. This
also constitutes a transformation of consciousness. Moreover, this transformation is more relevant
existentially than that of many other intellectual disciplines, because it is more difficult to segregate
in some special compartment of the mind. The astronomer does not live in the remote galaxies, and
the nuclear physicist can, outside his laboratory, eat and laugh and marry and vote without
thinking about the insides of the atom. The geologist looks at rocks only at appropriate times, and
the linguist speaks English with his wife. The sociologist lives in society, on the job and off it. His
own life, inevitably, is part of his subject matter. Men being what they are, sociologists too
manage to segregate their professional insights from their everyday affairs. But it is a rather
difficult feat to perform in good faith.
The sociologist moves in the common world of men, close to what most of them would call real.
The cate-
22
gories he employs in his analyses are only refinements of the categories by which other men
live-power, class, status, race, ethnicity. As a result, there is a deceptive simplicity and
obviousness about some sociological investigations. One reads them, nods at the familiar scene,
remarks that one has heard all this before and don't people have better things to do than to waste
their time on truisms-until one is suddenly brought up against an insight that radically questions
everything one had previously assumed about this familiar scene. This is the point at which one
begins to sense the excitement of sociology.
Let us take a specific example. Imagine a sociology class in a Southern college where almost all
the students are white Southerners. Imagine a lecture on the subject of the racial system of the
South. The lecturer is talking here of matters that have been familiar to his students from the time
of their infancy. Indeed, it may be that they are much more familiar with the minutiae of this
system than he is. They are quite bored as a result. It seems to them that he is only using more
pretentious words to describe what they already know. Thus he may use the term "caste," one
commonly used now by American sociologists to describe the Southern racial system. But in
explaining the term he shifts to traditional Hindu society, to make it clearer. He then goes on to
analyze the magical beliefs inherent in caste tabus, the social dynamics of commensalism and
connubium, the economic interests concealed within the system, the way in which religious beliefs
relate to the tabus, the effects of the caste system upon the industrial development of the society
and vice versa-all in India. But suddenly India is not very far away at all. The lecture then goes
back to its Southern theme. The familiar now seems not quite so familiar any more. Questions are
raised that are new, perhaps raised angrily, but raised all the same. And at least some of the
students have begun to understand that there are functions involved in this business of race that
they have not read about in the newspapers (at least not those in their home-
23
towns) and that their parents have not told them-partly, at least, because neither the newspapers
nor the parents knew about them.
lt can be said that the first wisdom of sociology is this-things are not what they seem. This too is
a deceptively simple statement. lt ceases to be simple after a while. Social reality turns out to have
many layers of meaning. The discovery of each new layer changes the perception of the whole.
Anthropologists use the term "culture shock" to describe the impact of a totally new culture upon
a newcomer. In an extreme instance such shock will be experienced by the Western explorer who
is told, halfway through dinner, that he is eating the nice old lady he had been chatting with the
previous day-a shock with predictable physiological if not moral consequences. Most explorers no
longer encounter cannibalism in their travels today. However, the first encounters with polygamy
or with puberty rites or even with the way some nations drive their automobiles can be quite a
shock to an American visitor. With the shock may ge not only disapproval or disgust but a sense
of excitement that things can really be that different from what they are at home. To some extent,
at least, this is the excitement of any first travel abroad. The experience of sociological discovery
could be described as "culture shock" minus geographical displacement. In other words, the
sociologist travels at home-with shocking results. He is unlikely to find that he is eating a nice old
lady for dinner. But the discovery, for instance, that his own church has considerable money
invested in the missile industry or that a few blocks from his home there are people who engage in
cultic orgies may not be drastically different in emotional impact. Yet we would not want to imply
that sociological discoveries are always or even usually outrageous to moral sentiment. Not at all.
What they have in common with exploration in distant lands, however, is the sudden illumination
of new and unsuspected facets of human existence in society. This is the excite-
24
ment and, as we shall try to show later, the humanistic justification of sociology.
People who like to avoid shocking discoveries, who prefer to believe that society is just what
they were taught in Sunday School, who like the safety of the rules and the maxims of what Alfred
Schuetz has called the "world-taken-for-granted," should stay away from sociology. People who
feel no temptation before closed doors, who have no curiosity about human beings, who are
content to admire scenery without wondering about the people who live in those houses on the
other side of that river, should probably also stay away from sociology. They will find it
unpleasant or, at any rate, unrewarding. People who are interested in human beings only if they
can change, convert or reform them should also be warned, for they will find sociology much less
useful than they hoped. And people whose interest is mainly in their own conceptual constructions
will do just as well to turn to the study of little white mice. Sociology will be satisfying, in the long
run, only to those who can think of nothing more entrancing than to watch men and to understand
things human.
It may now be clear that we have, albeit deliberately, understated the case in the title of this
chapter. To be sure, sociology is an individual pastime in the sense that it interests some men and
bores others. Some like to observe human beings, others to experiment with mice. The world is
big enough to hold all kinds and there is no logical priority for one interest as against another. But
the word "pastime" is weak in describing what we mean. Sociology is more like a passion. The
sociological perspective is more like a demon that possesses one, that drives one compellingly,
again and again, to the questions that are its own. An introduction to sociology is, therefore, an
invitation to a very special kind of passion. No passion is without its dangers. The sociologist who
sells his wares should make sure that he clearly pronounces a caveat emptor quite early in the
transaction.
(1) Peter L. Berger. Invitation to Sociology. A Humanistic Perspective (1963). New York,
Anchor Books, Doubley & Company, Inc., S. 1-24.