PENGUIN BOOKS
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
PeterL. Berger is Professor of Sociology at Boston University and Director
of the Institute for the Study of Economic Culture. He has previously
been Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University, New Jersey, and in
the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New
York. He is the author of many books including Invitation to Sociology,
Pyramids of Saa!fice, Facing up to Modernity, The Heretical Imperative and
The Capitalist Revolution, and is co-author (with Hansfried Kellner) of
Sociology Reinterpreted and (with Brigitte Berger) of Sociology: A Biographical
Approach and The War over the Family.
Thomas.Luckmann is at present Professor of Sociology at the University
of Constance, German. Previously he taught at the University of Frankfurt,
at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New
York, and was fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioural
Sciences in Stanford. He has published widely, and his titles include The
Invisible Religion, The Sociology of Language, Life-IMJrld and Social Realities
and The Structures of the Life-!MJrld (with Alfred Schiitz). He is editor of
Phenomenology and Sociology and The Changing Face of Religion (with James
A. Beckford).
Peter L. Berger
and Thomas Luckmann
The Social Construction
of Reality
A Treatise in the Sociology
of Knowledge
Penguin Books
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 STZ. England
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd. 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario. Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Private Bag 102902. NSMC, Auckland. New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth. Middlesex. England
First published in the USA 1966
Published in Great Britain by Allen Lane
The Penguin Press 1967
Published in Penguin University Books 1971
Reprinted in Peregrine Books 1979
Reprinted in Pelican Books 1984
Reprinted in Penguin Books 1991
10 9 8 7 6
Copyright © Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, 1966
All rights reserved
Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St lves plc
Set in Monotype Plantin
Except in the United States of America. this book is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
Contents
PREFACE 7
INTRODUCTION · The Problem of the Sociology
of Knowledge I I
ONE · THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE
IN EVERYDAY LIFE 3I
1. The Reality of Everyday Life 33
2. Social Interaction in Everyday Life 43
3· Language and Knowledge in Everyday Life 49
TWO · SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY 63
1. Institutionalization 65
Organism and Activity 65
Origins of Institutionalization 70
Sedimentation and Tradition 85
Roles 89
Scope and Modes of Institutionalization 97
2. Legitimation 1IO
Origins of Symbolic Universes I 10
Conceptual Machineries of Universe-Maintenance 122
Social Organizationfor Universe-Maintenance 134
CONTENTS
THREE • SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY 147
1. Internalization of Reality 149
Primary Socialization 149
Secondary Socialization 157
Maintenance and Transformation of
Subjective Reality 166
2. Internalization and Social Structure, 183
3· Theories about Identity 194
4· Organism and Identity 201
CONCLUSION • The Sociology of Knowledge and
Sociological Theory 205
NOTES 213
INDEXES • Subject Index 237
Name Index for Introduction and Notes 247
Preface
The present volume is intended as a systematic, theoretical
treatise in the sociology of knowledge. It is not intended,
therefore, to give a historical survey of the development of
this discipline, or to engage in exegesis of various figures in
this or other developments in sociological theory, or even to
show how a synthesis may be achieved between several of
these figures and developments. Nor is there any polemic
intent here. Critical comments on other theoretical positions
have been introduced (not in the text, but in the
Notes) only where they may serve to clarify the present argu­
ment.
The core of the argument will be found in Sections Two and
Three('Society as ObjectiveReality' and 'Society as Subjective
Reality'), the former containing our basic understanding of
the problems of the sociology of knowledge, the latter applying
this understanding to the level of subjective consciousness and
thereby building a theoretical bridge to the problems of social
psychology. Section One contains what might best be described
as philosophical prolegomena to the core argument, in terms
of a phenomenological analysis of the reality of everyday life
('The Foundations of Knowledge in Everyday Life'). The
reader interested only in the sociological argument proper
may be tempted to skip this, but he should be warned that
certain key concepts employed throughout the argument are
defined in Section One.
Although our interest is not historical, we have felt obliged
to explain why and in what way our conception of the sociologyof
knowledge differs from what has hitherto been generally
understood by this discipline. This we do in the Introduction.
At the end, we make some concluding remarks to indicate what
we consider to be the 'pay-of£' of the present enterprise
7
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
for sociological theory generally and for certain areas of
empirical research.
The logic of our argument makes a certain measure of
repetitiveness inevitable. Thus some problems are viewed within
phenomenological brackets in Section One, taken up again
in Section Two with these brackets removed and with an interest
in their empirical genesis, and then taken up once more in
Section Three on the level of subjective consciousness. We
have tried to make this book as readable as possible, but not in
violation of its inner logic, and we hope that the reader will
understand the reasons for those repetitions that could not be
avoided.
Ibn ul-'Arabi, the great Islamic mystic, exclaims in one of
his poems- 'Deliver us, oh Allah, from the sea of names!' We
have often repeated this exclamation in our own readings in
sociological theory. We have, in consequence, decided to
eliminate all names from our actual argument. The latter can
now be read as one continuous presentation of our own position,
without the constant intrusion of such observations as
'Durkheim says this', 'Weber says that', 'We agree here with
Durkheim but not with Weber', 'We think that Durkheim has
been misinterpreted on this point', and so forth. That our
position has not sprung up ex nihilo is obvious on each page,
but we want it to be judged on its own merits, not in terms of
its exegetical or synthesizing aspects. We have, therefore,
placed all references in the Notes, as well as (though always
briefly) any arguments we have with the sources to which we
are indebted. This has necessitated a sizeable apparatus of
notes. This is not to pay obeisance to the rituals of Wissenschaftlichkeit,
but rather to be faithful to the demands of
historical gratitude.
The project of which this book is the realization was first
concocted in the summer of 1962, in the course of some
leisurely conversations at the foot of and (occasionally) on top
of the Alps of western Austria. The first plan for the book was
drawn up early in 1963. At that time it was envisaged as an
enterprise involving one other sociologist and two philosophers.
The other participants were obliged for various biographical
reasons to withdraw from active involvement in the
project, but we wish to acknowledge with great appreciation
8
PREFACE
the continuing critical comments of Hansfried Kellner (currently
at the U�versity of Frankfurt) and Stanley Pullberg
(currently at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes).
How much we owe to the late Alfred Schutz will become
clear in various parts of the following treatise. However, we
would like to acknowledge here the influence of Schutz's
teaching and writing on our thinking. Our understanding of
Weber has profited immensely from the teaching of Carl
Mayer (Graduate Faculty, New School for Social Research),
as that of Durkheim and his school has from the interpretations
of Albert Salomon (also of the Graduate Faculty).
Lu:kman�,_ recollec�ng many fruitful conversations during a
penod of JOint teaching at Hobart College and on other occa­
sio
_
ns, _wishes to express his appreciation of the thinking of
Fnednch Tenbruck (now at the University of Frankfurt).
Berger would
_
�ike to thank Kurt Wolff (Brandeis University)
and Anton ZIJderveld (University of Leiden) for their continuing
critical interest in the progress of the ideas embodied
in this work.
It is customary in projects of this sort to acknowledge
various intangible contributions of wives, children and other
private associates of more doubtful legal standing. If only to
contravene this custom, we have been tempted to dedicate
this book to a certainJodler of Brand(Vorarlberg. However, we
wish to thank Brigitte Berger (Hunter College) and Benita
�uckmann (University of Freiburg), not for any scientifically
Irrelevant performances of private roles, but for their critical
observations as social scientists and for their steadfast refusal
to be easily impressed.
Peter L. Berger
GRADUATE FACULTY
NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH
NEW YORK
Thomas Luckmann
UNIVERSITY OF FRANKFURT
Introduction
The Problem of the Sociology of Knowledge
The basic contentions of the argument of this book are implicit
in its title and sub-title, namely, that reality is socially
constructed and that the sociology of knowledge must analyse
the process in which this occurs. The key terms in these contentions
are 'reality' and 'knowledge', terms that are not only
current in everyday speech, but that have behind them a long
history of philosophical inquiry. We need not enter here into
a discussion of the semantic intricacies of either the everyday
or the philosophical usage of these terms. It will be enough,
for our purposes, to define 'reality' as a quality appertaining to
phenomena that we recognize as having a being independent
of our own volition (we cannot 'wish them away'), and to
define 'knowledge' as the certainty that phenomena are real
and that they possess specific characteristics. It is in this
(admittedly simplistic) sense that the terms have relevance
both to the man in the street and to the philosopher. The man
in the street inhabits a world that is 'real' to him, albeit in
different degrees, and he 'knows', with different degrees of
confidence, that this world possesses such and such characteristics.
The philosopher, of course, will raise questions about
the ultimate status of both this 'reality' and this 'knowledge'.
What is real? How is one to know? These are among the most
ancient questions not only of philosophical inquiry proper,
but of human thought as such. Precisely for this reason the
intrusion of the sociologist into this time-honoured intellectual
territory is likely to raise the eyebrows of the man in the street
and even more likely to enrage the philosopher. It is, therefore,
important that we clarify at the beginning the sense in which
we use these terms in the context of sociology, and that we
immediately disclaim any pretension to the effect that sociology
has an answer to these ancient philosophical preoccupations.
13
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OP REALITY
Ifwe were going to be meticulous in the ensuing argument,
we would put quotation marks around the two aforementioned
terms every time we used them, but this would be stylistically
awkward. To speak of quotation marks, however, may give a
clue to the peculiar manner in which these terms appear in a
sociological context. One could say that the sociological
understanding of'reality' and'knowledge' falls somewhere in
the middle between that of the man in the street and that of
the philosopher. The man .in the street does not ordinarily
trouble himself about what is'real' to him and about what he
'knows' unless he is stopped short by some sort of problem.
He takes his 'reality' and his.'knowledge' for granted. The
sociologist cannot do this, if only because of his systematic
awareness of the fact that men in the street take quite different
'realities' for granted as between one society and another. The
sociologist is forced by the very logic of his discipline to ask, if
nothing else, whether the difference between the two'realities'
may not be understood in relation to various differences between
the two societies. The philosopher, on the other hand,
is professionally obligated to take nothing for granted, and to
obtain maximal clarity as to the ultimate status of what the
man in the street believes to be'reality' and'knowledge'. Put
differently, the philosopher is driven to decide where the
quotation marks are in order and where they may safely be
omitted, that is, to diffe:entiate between valid and invalid
assertions about the world. This the sociologist cannot possibly
do. Logically, if not stylistically, he is stuck with the
quotation marks.
For example, the man in the street may believe that he possesses'freedom
of the will' and that he istherefore'responsible'
for his actions, at the same time denying this 'freedom' and
this 'responsibility' to infants and lunatics. The philosopher,
by whatever methods, will inquire into the ontological and
epistemological status of these conceptions. Is manfree? What
is responsibility? Where are the limits of responsibility? HOfJJ can
one knor.o these things? And so on. Needless to say, the sociologist
is in no position to supply answers to these questions.
What he can and must do, however, is to ask how it is that the
notion of 'freedom' has come to be taken for granted in one
society and not in another, how its 'reality' is maintained in
INTRODUCTION
the one socie'r and how, ev� m�r� interestingly, this'reality'
may once agam be lost to an mdiVIdual or to an entire collec­
tivity.
. Socio�o�
.
cal �terc:st in questions of'reality' and'knowledge'
IS thus 1Illtially JUStified by the fact of their social relativity.
What is 'real' to a Tibetan monk may not be 'real' to an
A:merican businessman. The 'knowledge' of the criminal
differs from the 'knowledge' of the criminologist. It follows
th�t specific
.
agglo�erations of 'reality' and 'knowledge' per�
to specific
.
soctal contexts, and that these relationships
will have to be mcluded in an adequate sociological analysis of
these co�texts. !he need for a'sociology of knowledge' is thus
already g�ven Wlth the observable differences between societies
in terms o�what is taken for granted as'knowledge' in them.
B�yond this, however, a discipline calling itself by this name
will have to concern itself with the general ways by which
'realities' are taken as 'known' in human societies. In other
W?rds, a 'so�o�ogy of knowledge' will have to deal not only
Wlth the empmcal variety of 'knowledge' in human societies
but also with the processes by which any body of'knowledge
!
comes to be socially established as 'reality'.
It is our contention, then, that the sociology of knowledge
m�t concern itself with whatever passes for'knowledge' in a
soCiety, regardless of the ultimate validity or invalidity (by
whatever criteria) of such 'knowledge'. And in so far as all
human'knowledge' is developed, transmitted and maintained
in social situations, the sociology of knowledge must seek to
understand the processes by which this is done in such a way
that a taken-for-granted'reality' congeals for the man in the
street. In other words, we contend that the sociology of knowledge
is concerned with the analysis of the social construction of
reality.
This understanding of the proper field of the sociology of
knowledge differs from what has generally been meant by this
discipline since it was first so called some forty years ago.
Before we begin our actual argument, therefore, it will be
useful to look briefly at the previous development of the discipline
and to explicate in what way, and why, we have felt it
necessary to deviate from it.
The term 'sociology of knowledge' (Wissenssoziologie) was
IS
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
coined by Max Scheler.1 The time was the 1920s, the place
was Germany, and Scheler was a philosopher. These three
facts are quite important for an understanding of the genesis
and further development of the new discipline. The sociology
of knowledge originated in a particular situation of German
intellectual history and in a philosophical context. Whiie the
new discipline was subsequently introduced into the sociological
context proper, particularly in the English-speaking
world, it continued to be marked by the problems of the
particular intellectual situation from which it arose. As a result
tl:e sociology of knowledge remained a peripheral concern
among sociologists at large, who did not share the particular
problems that troubled German thinkers in the 1920s. This
was especially true of American sociologists, who have in the
main looked upon the discipline as a marginal speciality with a
persistent European flavour. More importantly, however, the
continuing linkage of the sociology of knowledge with its
original constellation of problems has been a theoretical
weakness even where there has been an interest in the discipline.
To wit, the sociology of knowledge has been looked
upon, by its protagonists and by the more or less indifferent
sociological public at large, as a sort of sociological gloss on
the history of ideas. This has resulted in considerable myopia
regarding the potential theoretical significance of the sociology
of knowledge.
There have been different definitions of the nature and
scope of the sociology of knowledge. Indeed, it might almost
be said that the history of the sub-discipline thus far has been
the history of its various definitions. Nevertheless, there has
been general agreement to the effect that the sociology of
knowledge is concerned with the relationship between human
thought and the social context within which it arises. It may
thus be said that the sociology of knowledge constitutes the
sociological focus of a much more general problem, that of the
existential determination (Seinsgebundenheit) of thought as
such. Although here the social factor is concentrated upon,
the theoretical difficulties are similar to those that have arisen
when other factors (such as the historical, the psychological or
the biological) have been proposed as determinative of human
thought. In all these cases the general problem has been the
J6
INTRODUCTION
extent to which thought reflects or is independent of the
proposed determinative factors.
It is likely that the prominence of the general problem in
recent German philosophy has its roots in the vast accumulation
of historical scholarship that was one of the greatest
intellectual fruits of the nineteenth century in Germany. In a
way unparalleled in any other period of intellectual history the
past, with all its amazing variety of forms of thought, was
'made present' to the contemporary mind through the efforts
of scientific historical scholarship. It is hard to dispute the
claim of German scholarship to the primary position in this
enterprise. It should, consequently, not surprise us that the
theoretical problem thrown up by the latter should be most
sharply sensed in Germany. This problem can be described as
the vertigo of relativity. The epistemological dimension of the
problem is obvious. On the empirical level it led to the concern
to investigate as painstakingly as possible the concrete relationships
between thought and its historical sitmitions. If this
interpretation is correct, the sociology of knowledge takes up a
problem originally posited by historical scholarship - in a
narrower focus, to be sure, but with an interest in essentially
the same questions.2
Neither the general problem nor its narrower focus is new.
An awareness of the social foundations of values and world
views can be found in antiquity. At least as far back as the
Enlightenment- this awareness crystallized into a major theme
of modern Western thought. It would thus be possible to make
a good case for-a number of'genealogies' for the central problem
of the sociology of knowledge.3 It may even be said that
the problem is contained in nuce in Pascal's famous statement
that what is truth on one side of the Pyrenees is error on the
other.4 Yet the immediate intellectual antecedents of the
sociology of knowledge are three developments in nineteenthcentury
German thought - the Marxian, the Nietzschean, and
the historicist.
It is from Marx that the sociology of knowledge derived its
root proposition- that man's consciousness is determined by
his social being.s To be sure, there has been much debate as to
just what kind of determination Marx had in mind. It is safe
to say that much of the great 'struggle with Marx' that charac-
17
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION 01' ..tEALITY
terized not only the beginnings of the sociology of knowledge
but the 'classical age' of sociology in general (particularly as
manifested in the works of Weber, Durkheim and Pareto)
was really a struggle with a faulty interpretation of Marx by
latter-day Marxists. This proposition gains plausibility when
we reflect that it was only in 1932 that the very important
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 were rediscovered
and only after the Second World War that the full
implications of this rediscovery could be worked out in Marx
research. Be this as it may, the sociology of knowledge inherited
from Marx not only the sharpest formulation of its
central problem but also some of its key concepts, among
which should be mentioned particularly the concepts of
'ideology' (ideas serving as weapons for social interests) and
'false consciousness' (thought that is alienated from the real
social being of the thinker).
The sociology of knowledge has been particularly fascinated
by Marx's twin concepts of 'substructure/superstructure'
(UnterbaufUeberbau). It is here particularly that controversy
has raged about the correct interpretation of Marx's own
thought. Later Marxism has tended to identify the 'substructure'
with economic structure tout court, of which the
'superstructure' was then supposed to be a direct 'reflection'
(thus, Lenin, for instance). It is quite clear now that this misrepresents
Marx's thought, as the essentially mechanistic
rather than dialectical character of this kind of economic determinism
should make one suspect. What concerned Marx was
that human thought is founded in human activity ('labour', in
the widest sense of the word) and in the social relations
brought about by this activity. 'Substructure' and 'superstructure'
are best understood if one views them as, respectively,
human activity and the world produced by that
activity.• In any case, the fundamental 'sub/superstructure'
scheme has been taken over in various forms by the sociology
of knowledge, beginning with Scheler, always with an understanding
that there is some sort of relationship between
thought and an 'underlying' reality other than thought. The
fascination of the scheme prevailed despite the fact that much
of the sociology of knowledge was explicitly formulated in
opposition to Marxism and that di1fcrent positions have been
18
INTRODUCTION
taken within it regarding the natureof the relationship between
the two components of the scheme.
Nietzschean ideas were less explicitly continued in the
sociology of knowledge, but they belong very much to its
general intellectual background and to the 'mood' within
which it arose. Nietzsche's anti-idealism, despite the differences
in content not unlike Marx's in form, added additional
perspectives on human thought as an instrument in the
struggle for survival and power.7 Nietzsche developed his own
theory of 'false consciousness' in his analyses of the social
significance of deception and self-deception, and of illusion as
a necessary condition of life. Nietzsche's concept of 'resentment'
as a generative factor for certain types of human thought
was taken over directly by Scheler. Most generally, though, one
can say that the sociology of knowledge represents a specific
application of what Nietzsche aptly called the 'art of mistrust'.8
Historicism, especially as expressed in the work of Wilhelm
Dilthey, immediately preceded the sociology of knowledge.•
The dominant theme here was an overwhelming sense of the
relativity of all perspectives on human events, that is, of the
inevitable historicity of human thought. The historicist insistence
that no historical situation could be understood except
in its own terms could readily be translated into an emphasis
on the social situation of thought. Certain historicist concepts,
such as 'situational determination' (Standortsgebundenheit) and
'seat in life' (Sitz im Leben) could be directly translated as
referring to the 'social location' of thought. More generally,
the historicist heritage of the sociology of knowledge predisposed
the latter towards a strong interest in history and the
employment of an essentially historical method - a fact,
incidentally, that also made for its marginality in the milieu of
American sociology.
Scheler's interest in the sociology of knowledge, and in
sociological questions generally, was essentially a passing
episode during his philosophical career.10 His final aim was the
establishment of a philosophical anthropology that would
transcend the relativity of specific historically and socially
located viewpoints. The sociology of knowledge was to serve
as an instrument towards this aim, its main purpose being the
clearing away of the difficulties raised by relativism so that the
19
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
real philosophical task could proceed. Scheler's sociology of
knowledge is, in a very real sense, ancilla philosophiae, and of a
very specific philosophy to boot.
In line with this orientation, Scheler's sociology of knowledge
is essentially a negative method. Scheler argued that the
relationship between 'ideal factors' (ldealfakroren) and 'real
factors' (Realfaktoren), terms that are clearly reminiscent of
the Marxian 'sub/superstructure' scheme, was merely a
regulative one. That is, the 'real factors' regulate the conditions
under which certain 'ideal factors' can appear in history,
but cannot affect the content of the latter. In other words,
society determines the presence. (Dasein) but not the nature
(Sosein) of ideas. The sociology of knowledge, then, is the
procedure by which the socio-historical selection of ideational
contents is to be studied, it being understood that the contents
themselves are independent of socio-historical causation and
thus inaccessible to sociological analysis. If one may describe
Scheler's method graphically, it is to throw a sizeable sop to
the dragon of relativity, but only so as to enter the castle of
ontological certitude better.
Within this intentionally (and inevitably) modest framework
Scheler analysed in considerable detail the manner in
which human knowledge is ordered by society. He emphasized
that human knowledge is given in society as an a priori to
individual experience, providing the latter with its order of
meaning. This order, although it is relative to a particular
socio-historical situation, appears to the individual as the
natural way of looking at the world. Scheler called this the
'relative-natural world view' (relativnaturliche Weltanschauung)
of a society, a concept that may still be regarded as central for
the sociology of knowledge.
Following Scheler's 'invention' of the sociology of knowledge,
there was extensive debate in Germany concerning the
validity, scope and applicability of the new discipline.11 Out of
this debate emerged one formulation that marked the transposition
of the sociology of knowledge into a more narrowly
sociological context. The same formulation was the one in
which the sociology of knowledge arrived in the Englishspeaking
world. This is the formulation by Karl Mannheim.12
It is safe to say when sociologists today think of the sociology
INTRODUCTION
of knowledge, pro or con, they usually do so in terms of Mannheim's
formulation of it. In American sociology this is readily
intelligible if one reflects on the accessibility in English of
virtually the whole of Mannheim's work (some of which,
indeed, was written in English, during the period Mannheim
was teaching in England after the advent of Nazism in Germany,
or was brought out in revised English versions), while
Scheler's work in the sociology of knowledge has remained
untranslated to date. Apart from this 'diffusion' factor, Mannheim's
work is less burdened with philosophical 'baggage'
than Scheler's. This is especially true of Mannheim's later
writings and can be seen if one compares the English version
of his main work, Ideology and Utopia, with its German
original. Mannheim thus became the more 'congenial' figure
for sociologists, even those critical of or not very interested in
his approach.
Mannheim's understanding of the sociology of knowledge
was much more far-reaching than Scheler's, possibly because
the confrontation with Marxism was more prominent in his
work. Society was here seen as determining not only the
appearance but also the content of human ideation, with the
exception of mathematics and at least parts of the natural
sciences. The sociology of knowledge thus became a positive
method for the study of almost any facet of human thought.
Significantly, Mannheim's key concern was with the
phenomenon of ideology. He distinguished between the particular,
the total and the general concepts of ideology - ideology
as constituting only a segment of an opponent's thought;
ideology as constituting the whole of an opponent's thought
(similar to Marx's 'false consciousness'); and (here, as Mannheim
thought, going beyond Marx) ideology as characteristic
not only of an opponent's but of one's own thought as well.
With the general concept of ideology the level of the sociology
of knowledge is reached - the understanding that no human
thought (with only the aforementioned exceptions) is immune
to the ideologizing influences of its social context. By
this expansion of the theory of ideology Mannheim sought to
abstract its central problem from the context of political usage,
and to treat it as a general problem of epistemology and
historical sociology.
21
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OP REALITY
Although Mannheim did not share Scheler's ontological
ambitions, he too was uncomfortable with the pan-ideologism
into which his thinking seemed to lead him. He coined the
term 'relationism' (in contradistinction to 'relativism') to denote
the epistemological perspective of his sociology of knowledge
- not a capitulation of thought before the socio-historical
relativities, but a sober recognition that knowledgemust always
be knowledge from a certain position. The influence of Dilthey
is probably of great importance at this point in Mannheim's
thought - the problem of Marxism is solved by the tools of
historicism. Be this as it may, Mannheim believed that ideologizing
influences, while they could not be eradicated completely,
could be mitigated by the systematic analysis of as
many as possible of the varying socially grounded positions.
In other words, the object of thought becomes progressively
clearer with this accumulation of different perspectives on it.
This is to be the task of the sociology of knowledge, which thus
is to become an important aid in the quest of any correct
understanding of human events.
Mannheim believed that different social groups vary greatly
in their capacity thus to transcend their own narrow position.
He placed his major hope in the 'socially unattached intelligentsia'
(freischroebende Intelli'genz, a term derived from Alfred
Weber), a sort of interstitial stratum that he believed to be
relatively free of class interests. Mannheim also stressed the
power of 'utopian' thought, which (like ideology) produces a
distorted image of social reality, but which (unlike ideology)
has the dynamism to transform that reality into its image
of it.
Needless to say, the above remarks can in no way do justice
to either Scheler's or Mannheim's conception of the sociology
of knowledge. This is not our intention here. We have merely
indicated some key features of the two conceptions, which
have been aptly called, respectively, the 'moderate' and
'radical' conceptions of the sociology of knowledge.13 What is
remarkable is that the subsequent development of the sociology
of knowledge has, to a large extent, consisted of critiques
and modifications of these two conceptions. As we have already
pointed out, Mannheim's formulation of the sociology
of knowledge has continued to set the terms of reference for
INTRODUCTION
the discipline in a definitive manner, particularly in Englishspeaking
sociology.
·The most important American sociologist to have paid
serious attention to the sociology of knowledge has been
Robert Merton.14 His discussion of the discipline, which
covers two chapters of his major work, has served as a useful
introduction to the field for such American sociologists as have
been interested in it. Merton constructed a paradigm for the
sociology of knowledge, restating its major themes in a compressed
and coherent form. This construction is interesting
because it seeks to integrate the approach of the sociology of
knowledge with that of structural-functional theory. Merton's
own concepts of 'manifest' and 'latent' functions are applied
to the sphere of ideation, the distinction being made between
the intended, conscious functions of ideas, and the unintended,
unconscious ones. While Merton concentrated on the work of
Mannheim, who was for him the sociologist of knowledge par
exceUence, he stressed the significance of the Durkheim school
and of the work of Pitirim Sorokin. It is interesting that
Merton apparently failed to see the relevance to the sociology
of knowledge of certain important developments in American
social psychology, such as reference-group theory, which he
4iscusses in a different part of the same work.
Talcott Parsons has also commented on the sociology of
knowledge.16 This comment, however, is limited mainly to a
critique of Mannheim and does not seek an integration of the
discipline within Parsons's own theoretical system. In the
latter, to be sure, the 'problem of the role of ideas' is analysed
at length, but in a frame of reference quite different from that
of either Scheler's or Mannheim's sociology of knowledge.141
We would, therefore, venture to say that neither Merton nor
Parsons has gone in any decisive way beyond the sociology of
knowledge as formulated by Mannheim. The same can be
said of their critics. To mention only the most vocal one,
C. Wright Mills dealt with the sociology of knowledge in his
earlier writing, but in an expositional manner and without
contributing to its theoretical development.17
An interesting effort to integrate the sociology of knowledge
with a nco-positivist approach to sociology in general is that of
Theodor Geiger, who had a great influence on Scandinavian
23
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
sociology after his emigration from Germany.l8 Geiger returned
to a narrower concept of ideology as socially distorted
thought and maintained the possibility of overcoming ideology
by careful adherence to scientific canons of procedure. The
neo-positivist approach to ideological analysis has more recently
been continued in German-speaking sociology in the
work of Ernst Topitsch, who has emphasiZed the ideological
roots of various philosophical positions.19 In so far as the
sociological analysis of ideologies constitutes an important
part of the sociology of knowledge as defined by Mannheim,
there has been a good deal of interest in it in both European
and American sociology since the Second World War.20
Probably the most far-reaching attemp� to go beyond Mannheim
in the construction of a comprehensive sociology of
knowledge is that of Werner Stark, another emigre continental
scholar who has taught in England and the United States.21
Stark goes furthest in leaving behind Mannheim's focus on
the problem of ideology. The task of the sociology of knowledge
is not to be the debunking or uncovering of socially
produced distortions, but the systematic study of the social
conditions of knowledge as such. Put simply, the central
problem is the sociology of truth, not the sociology of error.
Despite his distinctive approach, Stark is probably closer to
Scheler than to Mannheim in his understanding of the
relationship between ideas and their social context.
Again, it is obvious that we have not tried to give an adequate
historical overview of the history of the sociology of
knowledge. Furthermore, we have so far ignored developments
that might theoretically be relevant to the sociology of
knowledge but that have not been so considered by their own
protagonists. In other words, we have limited ourselves to developments
that,so to speak, sailed under the banner 'sociology
of knowledge' (considering the theory of ideology to be a part
of the latter). This has made one fact very clear. Apart from the
epistemological concern of some sociologists ofknowledge, the
empirical focus of attention has been almost exclusively on the
sphere of ideas, that is, of theoretical thought. This is also true
of Stark, who sub-tided his major work on the sociology of
knowledge 'An Essay in Aid of a Deeper Understanding of the
History of Ideas'. In other words, the interest of the sociology
INTRODUCTION
of knowledge has been on epistemological questions on the
theoretical level, on questions of intellectual history on the
empirical level.
We would emphasize that we have no reservations whatsoever
about the validity and importance of these two sets of
questions. However, we regard it as unfortunate that this
particular constellation has dominated the sociology of knowledge
so far. We would argue that, as a result, the full theoretical
significance of the sociology of knowledge has been
obscured.
To include epistemological questions concerning the validity
of sociological knowledge in the sociology of knowledge is
somewhat like trying to push a bus in which one is riding. To
be sure, the sociology of knowledge, like all empirical disciplines
that accumulate evidence concerning the relativity and
determination of human thought, leads towards epistemological
questions concerning sociology itself as well as any
other scientific body of knowledge. As we have remarked before,
in this the sociology of knowledge plays a part similar to
history, psychology and biology, to mention only the three
most important empirical disciplines that have caused trouble
for epistemology. The logical structure of this trouble is
bas�call� the same
.
in all cases: How can I be sure, say, of my
soaolog�cal analysts of American middle-class mores in view of
the fact that the categories I use for this analysis are conditioned
by historically relative forms of thought, that I myself
and everything I think is determined by my genes and by my
ingrown hostility to my fellowmen, and that, to cap it all, I
am myself a member of the American middle class?
Far be it from us to brush aside such questions. All we
would contend here is that these questions are not themselves
part of the empirical discipline of sociology. They properly
belong to the methodology of the social sciences, an enterprise
that belongs to philosophy and is by definition other than
sociology, which is indeed an object of its inquiries. The sociology
of knowledge, along with the other epistemological
troublemakers among the empirical sciences, will 'feed' problems
to this methodological inquiry. It cannot solve these
problems within its own proper frame of reference.
We therefore exclude from the sociology of knowledge the
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
epistemological and methodological problems that bothered
both of its major originators. By virtue of this exclusion we
are setting ourselves apart from both Scheler's and Mannhc:im's
conception of the discipline, and from the later sociologists
of knowledge (notably those with a nco-positivist
orientation) who shared the conception in this respect.
Throughout the present work we have firmly bracketed any
epistemological or methodological questions about the validity
of sociological analysis, in the sociology of knowledge itself or
in any other area. We consider the sociology of knowledge to
be part of the empirical discipline of sociology. Our purpose
here is, of course, a theoretical one. But our theorizing refers
to the empirical discipline in its concrete problems, not to the
philosophical investigation of the foundations of the empirical
discipline. In sum, our enterprise is one of sociological theory,
not of the methodology of sociology. Only in one section of our
treatise (the one immediately following this introduction) do
we go beyond sociological theory proper, but this is done for
reasons that have little to do with epistemology, as will be
explained at the time.
We must also, however, redefine the task of the sociology of
knowledge on the empirical level, that is, as theory geared �o
the empirical discipline of sociology. As we have seen, on �
level the sociology of knowledge has been concerned Wlth
intellectUal history, in the sense of the history of ideas. Again,
we would stress that this is, indeed, a very important focus of
sociological inquiry. Furthermore, in contrast with our exclusion
of the epistemological/methodological problem, we concede
that this focus belongs with the sociology of knowledge.
We would argue, however, that the problem of'ideas', including
the special problem of ideology, constitutes only part of
the larger problem of the sociology of knowledge, and not a
centralpart at that.
Th4 sociology of knorDW,e must concern itselfwith erJerything
t1uztpasses for 'knorDW,e' in society. As soon as one states this,
onerealizes that the focus on intellectUal history is ill-chosen,
or rather, is ill-chosen if it becomes the central focus of the
sociology of knowledge. Theoretical thought, 'ideas', Weltanscluzattgen
are not that important in society. Although every
society contains these phenomena, they are only part of the
INTRODUCTION
sum of what passes for'knowledge'. Only a very limited group
of people in any society engages in theorizing, in the business
of 'ideas', and the construction of Weltanscluluungen. But
everyone in society participates in its'knowledge' in one way
or another. Put differently, only a few are concerned with the
theoretical interpretation of the world, but everybody lives in
a world of some sort. Not only is the focus on theoretical
thought unduly restrictive for the sociology of knowledge, it is
also unsatisfactory because even this part of socially available
'knowledge' cannot be fully understood if it is not placed in
the framework of a more general analysis of 'knowledge'.
To exaggerate the importance of theoretical thought in
society and history is a natural failing of theorizers. It is then
all the more necessary to correct this intellectualistic misapprehension.
The theoretical formulations of reality, whether
they be scientific or philosophical or even mythological, do not
exhaust what is'real' for the members of a society. Since this
is so, the sociology of knowledge must first of all concern itself
with what people'know' as'reality' in their everyday, non- or
pre-theoretical lives. In other words, common-sense 'knowledge'
rather than 'ideas' must be the central focus for the
sociology of knowledge. It is precisely this 'knowledge' that
constitutes the fabric of meanings without which no society
could exist.
The sociology of knowledge, therefore, must concern itself
with the social construction of reality. The analysis of the
theoretical articulation of this reality will certainly continue to
be a part of this concern, but not the most important part. It
will be clear that, despite the exclusion of the epistemological/
methodological problem, what we are suggesting here is a
far-reaching redefinition of the scope of the sociology of
knowledge, much wider than what has hitherto been understood
as this discipline.
The question arises as to what theoretical ingredients ought
to be added to the sociology of knowledge to permit its redefinition
in the above sense. We owe the fundamental insight
into the necessity for this redefinition to Alfred Schutz.
Throughout his work, both as philosopher and as sociologist,
Schutz concentrated on the structure of the common-sense
world of everyday life. Although he himselfdid not elaborate
27
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
a sociology of knowledge, he clearly saw what this discipline
would have to focus on:
All typifications of common-sense thinking are themselves integral
elements of the concrete historical socio-cultural Lebensr.oelt
within which they prevail as taken for granted and· as socially
approved. Their structure determines among other things the
social distribution of knowledge and its relativity and relevance to
the concrete social environment of a concrete group in a concrete
historical situation. Here are the legitimate problems of relativism,
historicism, and of the so-called sociology of knO'Wledge.22'
And again:
Knowledge is socially distributed and the mechanism of this distribution
can be made the subject matter of a sociological discipline.
True, we have a so-called sociology of knowledge. Yet, with very
few exceptions, the discipline thus misnamed has approached the
problem of the social distribution of knowledge merely from the
angle of the ideological foundation of truth in its dependence upon
social and, especially, economic conditions, or from that of the
social implications of education, or that of the social role of the
man of knowledge. Not sociologists but economists and philosophers
have studied some of the many other theoretical aspects of
the problem.23
While we would not give the central place to the social
distribution of knowledge that Schutz implies here, we agree
with his criticism of 'the discipline thus misnamed' and have
derived from him our basic notion of the manner in which the
task of the sociology of knowledge must be redefined. In the
following considerations we are heavily dependent on Schutz
in the prolegomena concerning the foundations of knowledge
in everyday life and gready indebted to his work in various
important places of our main argument thereafter.
Our anthropological presuppositions are strongly influenced
by Marx, especially his early writings, and by the anthropological
implications drawn from human biology by Helmuth
Plessner, Arnold Gehlen and others. Our view of the nature of
social reality is gready indebted to Durkheim and his school in
French sociology, though we have modified the Durkheimian
th�ry of society by the introduction of a dialectical perspec-
INTRODUCTION
tive derived from Marx and an emphasis on the constitution
of social reality through subjective meanings derived from
Weber.24 Our social-psychological presuppositions, especially
important for the analysis of the internalization of social reality,
are gready influenced by George Herbert Mead and some
developments of his work by the so-called symbolic-interactionist
school of American sociology.25 We shall indicate in
the footnotes how these various ingredients are used in our
theoretical formation. We fully realize, of course, that in this
use we are not and cannot be faithful to the original intentions
of these several streams of social theory themselves. But, as
we have already stated, our purpose here is not exegetical, nor
even synthesis for the sake of synthesis. We are fully aware
that, in various places, we do violence to certain thinkers by
integrating their thought into a theoretical formation that
some of them might have found quite alien. We would say in
justification that historical gratitude is not in itself a scientific
virtue. We may cite here some remarks by Talcott Parsons
(about whose theory we have serious misgivings, but whose
integrative intention we fully share):
The primary aim of the study is not to determine and state in
summary form what these writers said or believed about the subjects
they wrote about. Nor is it to inquire directly with reference
to each proposition of their 'theories' whether what they have said
is tenable in the light of present sociological and related knowledge.
... It is a study in social theory, not theories. Its interest is not in
the separate and discrete propositions to be found in the works of
these men, but in a single body of systematic theoretical reason­
ing.2G
Our purpose, indeed, is to engage in 'systematic theoretical
reasoning'.
It will already be evident that our redefinition of its nature
and scope would move the sociology of knowledge from the
periphery to the very centre of sociological theory. We may
assure the reader that we have no vested interest in the label
'sociology of knowledge'. It is rather our understanding of
sociological theory that led us to the sociology of knowledge
and guided the manner in which we were to redefine its problems
and tasks. We can best describe the path along which we
29
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
set out by reference to two of the most famous and most
infiuential 'marching orders' for sociology.
One was given by Durkheim in The Rules of Sociological
Method, the other by Weber in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft.
Durkheim tells us : 'The first and most fundamental rule is :
Consider social facts as things.'17 And Weber observes : 'Both
for sociology in the present sense, and for history, the object
of cognition is the subjective meaning-complex of action.'28
These two statements are not contradictory. Society does indeed
possess objective facticity. And society is indeed built up
by activity that expresses subjective meaning. And, incidentally,
Durkheim knew the latter, just as Weber knew the
former. It is precisely the dual character ofsociety in terms of
objective facticity and subjective meaning that makes its
'reality sui generis', to use another key term of Durkheim's.
The central question for sociological theory can then be put as
follows : How is it possible that subjective meanings become
objective facticities? Or, in terms appropriate to the aforementioned
theOretical positions : How is it possible that
human activity (Handeln) should produce a world of things
(chases)? In other words, an adequate understanding of the
'reality sui generis' of society requires an inquiry into the
manner in which this reality is constructed. This inquiry, we
maintain, is the task of the sociology of knowledge.
30
Part One
The Foundations of
Knowledge in Everyday Life
I . The Reality of Everyday Life
Since our purpose in this treatise is a sociological analysis of
the reality of everyday life, more precisely, ofknowledge that
guides conduct in everyday life, and we are only tangentially
interested in how this reality may appear in various theoretical
perspectives to intellectuals, we must begin by a clarification
of that reality as it is available to the common sense of the
ordinary members of society. How that common sense reality
may be influenced by the theoretical constructions of intellectuals
and other merchants of ideas is a further question. Ours
is thus an enterprise that, although theoretical in character, is
geared to the understanding of a reality that forms the subject
matter of the empirical science ofsociology, that is, the world
of everyday life.
It should be evident, then, that our purpose is not to engage
in philosophy. All the same, if the reality ofeveryday life is to
be understood, account must be taken ofits intrinsic chararter
before we can proceed with sociological analysis proper.
Everyday life presents itself as a reality interpreted by men
and subjectively meaningful to them as a coherent world. As
sociologists we take this reality as the object of our analyses.
Within the frame of reference of sociology as an empirical
science it is possible to take this reality as given, to take as data
particular phenomena arising within it, without further inquiring
about the foundations of this reality, which is a
philosophical task. However, given the particular purpose of
the present treatise, we cannot completely by-pass the philosophical
problem. The world ofeveryday life is not only taken
for granted as reality by the ordinary members of society in
the subjectively meaningful conduct oftheir lives. It is a world
that originates in their thoughts and actions, and is maintained
as real by these. Before turning to our main task we must,
33
THE SoCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
therefore, ·attempt to clarify the foundations of knowledge in
everyday life, to wit, the objectivations of subjective processes
(and meanings) by which the intersubjective common-sense
world is constructed.
For the purpose at hand, this is a preliminary task, and we
can do no more than sketch the main features of what we
believe to be an adequate solution to the philosophical problem-adequate,
let us hasten to add, only in the sense that it
can serve as a starting point for sociological analysis. The
considerations immediately following are, therefore, of the
nature of philosophical prolegomena and, in themselves, presociological.
The method we consider best suited to clarify the
foundations of knowledge in everyday life is that of phenomenological
analysis, a purely descriptive method and, as such,
'empirical' but not 'scientific' - as we understand the nature
of the empirical sciences.1
The phenomenological analysis of everyday life, or rather
ofthe subjective experi�nce ofeveryday life, refrains from any
causal or genetic hypotheses, as well as from assertions about
the ontological status of the phenomena analysed. It is important
to remember this. C-:mmon sense contains innumerable
pre- and quasi-scientific interpretations about everyday
reality, which it takes for granted. If we are to describe the
reality ofcommon sense we must refer to these interpretations,
just as we must take account ofits taken-for-granted character
- but we do so within phenomenological brackets.
Consciousness is always intentional; it always intends or is
directed towards objects. We can never apprehend some
putative substratum of consciousness as such, only consciousness
of something or other. This is so regardless of whether
the object of consciousness is experienced as belonging to an
external physical world or apprehended as an element of an
inward subjective reality. Whether I (the first person singular,
here as in the following illustrations, standing for ordinary
self-consciousness in everyday life) am viewing the panorama
of New York City or whether I become conscious of an inner
anxiety, the processes ofconsciousness involved are intentional
in both instances. The point need not be belaboured that the
consciousness of the Empire State Building differs from the
awareness of anxiety. A detailed phenomenological analysis
34
THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE IN EVERYDAY LIFE
would uncover the various layers of experience, and the
different structures of meaning involved in, say, being bitten
by a dog, remembering having been bitten by a dog, having a
phobia about all dogs, and so forth. What interests us here is
the common intentional character of all consciousness.
Different objects present themselves to consciousness as
constituents of different spheres of reality. I recognize the
fellowmen I must deal with in the course of everyday life as
pertaining to a reality quite different from the disembodied
figures that appear in my dreams. The two sets of objects
introduce quite different tensions into my consciousness and I
am attentive to them in quite different ways. My consciousness,
then, is capable of moving through different spheres of
reality. Put differently, I am conscious of the world as consisting
of multiple realities. As I move from one reality to
another, I experience the transition as a kind of shock. This
shock is to be understood as caused by the shift in attentiveness
that the transition entails. Waking up from a dream
illustrates this shift most simply.
Among th� multiple realities there is one that presents itself
as the reality par excellence. This is the reality ofeveryday life.
Its privileged position entitles it to the designation of paramount
reality. The tension of consciousness is highest in
everyday life, that is, the latter imposes itself upon consciousness
in the most massive, urgent and intense manner. It is
impossible to ignore, difficult even to weaken in its imperative
.presence. Consequently, it forces me to be attentive to it in
the fullest way. I experience everyday life in the state of being
wide-awake. This wide-awake state of existing in and apprehending
the reality ofeveryday life is taken by me to be normal
and self-evident, that is, it constitutes my natural attitude.
I apprehend the reality ofeveryday life as an ordered reality.
Its phenomena are prearranged in patterns that seem to be
independent of my apprehension of them and that impose
themselves upon the latter. The reality of everyday life
appears already objectified, that is, constituted by an order of
objects that have been designated as objects before my appearance
on the scene. The language used in everyday life continuously
provides me with the necessary objectifications and
posits the order within which these make sense and within
3S
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
which everyday life has meaning for me. I live in a place that
is geographically designated; I employ tools, from canopeners
to sports cars, which are designated in the technical
vocabulary of my society; I live within a web of human
relationships, from my chess club to the United States of
America, which are also ordered by means of vocabulary. In
this manner language marks the coordinates of my life in
society and fills that life with meaningful objects.
The reality ofeveryday life is organized around the 'here' of
my body and the 'now' of my present. This 'here and now' is
the focus of my attention to the reality of everyday life. What
is 'here and now' presented to me in everyday life is the
realissimum of my consciousness. The reality of everyday life
is not, however, exhausted by these immediate presences, but
embraces phenomena that are not present 'here and now'.
This means that I experience everyday life in terms of differing
degrees of closeness and remoteness, both spatially and
temporally. Closest to me is the zone of everyday life that is
directly accessible to my bodily manipulation. This zone contains
the world within my reach, the world in which I act so as
to modify its reality, or the world in which I work. In this
world of working my consciousness is dominated by the
pragmatic motive, that is, my attention to this world is mainly
determined by what I am doing, have done or plan to do in it.
In this way it is my world par excellence. I know, of course,
that the reality of everyday life contains zones that are not
accessible to me in thi$ manner. But either I have no pragmatic
interest in these zones or my interest in them is indirect in so
far as they may be, potentially, manipulative zones for me.
Typically, my interest in the far zones is less intense and certainly
less urgent. I am intensely interested in the cluster of
objects involved in my daily occupation - say, the world ofthe
garage, if I am a mechanic. I am interested, though less
directly, in what goes on in the testing laboratories of the
automobile industry in Detroit - I am unlikely ever to be in
one of these laboratories, but the work done there will eventually
affect my everyday life. I may also be interested in what
goes on at Cape Kennedy or in outer space, but this interest is
a matter of private, 'leisure-time' choice rather than an urgent
necessity of my everyday life.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE IN EVERYDAY LIFE
The reality of everyday life further presents itself to me as
an intersubjective world, a worldthat I sharewithothers. This
intersubjectivity sharply differentiates everyday life from
other realities ofwhich I am conscious. I am alone in the world
of my dreams, but I know that the world of everyday life is as
real to others as it is to myself. Indeed, I cannot exist in everyday
life without continually interacting and communicating
with others. I know that my natural attitude to this world
corresponds to the natural attitude of others, that they also
comprehendthe objectifications by whichthis world is ordered,
that they also organize this world around the 'here and now'
of their being in it and have projects for working in it. I also
know, of course, that the others have a perspective on this
common world that is not identical with mine. My 'here' is
their 'there'. My 'now' does not fully overlap with theirs. My
projects differ from and may even condict with theirs. All the
.same, I know that I live with them in a common world. Most
importantly, I know that there is an ongoing correspondence
between my meanings and their meanings in this world, that
we share a common sense about its reality. The natural attitude
is the attitude of common-sense consciousness precisely because
it refers to a world that is common to many men.
Common-sense knowledge is the knowledge I share with
others in the normal, self-evident routines of everyday life.
The reality of everyday life is taken for granted as reality. It
does not require additional verification over and beyond its
simple presence. It is simply there, as self-evident and compelling
facticity. I know that it is real. While I am capable of
engaging in doubt about its reality, I am obliged to suspend
such doubt as I routinely exist in everyday life. This suspension
of doubt is so firm that to abandon it, as I might want to
do, say, in theoretical or religious contemplation, I have to
make an extreme transition. The world of everyday life proclaims
itself and, when I want to challenge the proclamation,
I must engage iti a deliberate, by no means easy effort. The
transition from the natural attitude to the theoretical attitude
of the philosopher or scientist illustrates this point. But not
all aspects of this reality are equally unproblematic. Everyday
life is divided into sectors that are apprehended routinely, and
others that present me with problems of one kind or another.
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
Suppose that I am an automobile mechanic who is highly
knowledgeable about all American-made cars. Everything
that pertains to the latter is a routine, unproblematic facet of
my everyday life. But one day someone appears in the garage
and asks me to repair his Volkswagen. I am now compelled to
enter the problematic world offoreign-made cars. I may do so
reluctandy or with professional curiosity, but in either case I
am now faced with problems that I nave not yet routinized. At
the same time, of course, I do not leave the reality ofeveryday
life. Indeed, the latter becomes enriched as I begin to incorporate
into it the knowledge and skills required for the repair
offoreign-made cars. The reality ofeveryday life encompasses
both kinds of sectors, as long as what appears as a problem
does not pertain to a different reality altogether (say, the reality
oftheoretical physics, or ofnightmares). As long as the routines
of everyday life continue without interruption they are apprehended
as unproblematic.
But even the unproblematic sector of everyday reality is so
only until further notice, that is, until its continuity is interrupted
by the appearance of a problem. When this happens,
the reality of everyday life seeks to integrate the problematic
sector into what is already unproblematic. Common-sense
knowledge contains a variety of instructions as to how this is
to be done. For instance, the others with whom I work are
unproblematic to me as long as they perform their familiar,
taken-for-granted routines - say, typing away at desks next to
mine in my office. They become problematic if they interrupt
these routines - say, huddling together in a comer and talking
in whispers. As I inquire about the meaning of this unusual
activity, there is a variety of possibilities that my COmmonsense
knowledge is capable of reintegrating into the unproblematic
routines of everyday life : they may be consulting on
how to fix a broken typewriter, or one of them may have some
urgent instructions from the boss, and so on. On the other
hand, I may find that they are discussing a union directive to
go on strike, something as yet outside my experience but still
well within the range of problems with which my commonsense
knowledge can deal. It will deal with it, though, as a
problem, rather than simply reintegrating it into the unproblematic
sector ofeveryday life. If, however, I come to the
THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE IN EVERYDAY LIFE
conclusion that my colleagues have gone collectively mad, the
problem that presents itself is of yet another kind. I am now
faced with a problem that transcends the boundaries of the
reality of everyday life and points to an altogether different
reali�. In
.
dee�, my conclusion that my colleagues have gone
mad unplies tpso facto that they have gone off into a world
that is no longer the common world of everyday life.
Compared to the reality of everyday life, other realities
appear as finite provinces of meaning, enclaves within the
paramount r�ty marked by circumscribed meanings and
mod.es ofex�enence. The paramount reality envelops them on
all s1des, as 1t were, and consciousness always returns to the
paramount reality as from an excursion. This is evident from
the illustrations already given, as in the reality of dreams or
that of theoretical thought. Similar 'commutations' take place
between the world ofeveryday life and the world ofplay both
the playing ofchildren and, even more sharply, ofadul�. The
theatre provides an excellent illustration of such playing on
the part of adults. The transition between realities is marked
by the rising and falling ofthe curtain. As the curtain rises the.
'
'
,
s�tor 1s transported to another world', with its own
meanmgs and an order that may or may not have much to do
with the order of everyday life. As the curtain falls, the spectator
're�s to reality', that is, to the paramount reality of
everyday life by comparison with which the reality presented
o?
.
the stage now appears tenuous and ephemeral, however
�Vld the prese�qation may have been a few moments pre­
VIOus
.
l�. Aesthett� an�reli�ous experience is rich in producing
translt�ons of this kind, masmuch as art and religion are
endeiDlc producers of finite provinces of meaning.
All finite provinces of meaning are characterized by a turning
away of attention from the reality of everyday life. While
there are, ofcourse, shifts in attention within everyday life, the
shift to a finite province ofmeaning is of a much more radical
kind. A radical change takes place in the tension of consciousness.
In the context ofreligious experience this has been apdy
called 'leaping'. It is important to stress, however, that the
reality ofeverydaylife retains its paramount status even as such
'leaps' take place. Ifnothing else, language makes sure of this.
The common language available to me for the objectification
39
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
of my experiences is grounded in everyday life and
.
keeps
pointing back to it even as I employ it to interpret expenences
in finite provinces of meaning. Typically, therefore, I 'distort'
the reality of the latter as soon as I begin to use the common
language in interpreting them, that is, I 'translate' the noneveryday
experiences back into the paramount reality of
everyday life. This may be readily seen in terms ofdreams, but
is also typical of those trying to report about theoretical,
aesthetic or religious worlds of meaning. The theoretical
physicist tells us that his concept of space cannot be conve�ed
linguistically, just as the artist does with regard to the mearung
of his creations and the mystic with regard to his encounters
with the divine. Yet all these - dreamer, physicist, artist and
mystic - also live in the reality of everyday life. Indeed, one of
their important problems is to interpret the coexistence of
this reality with the reality enclaves into which they have
ventured.
The world of everyday life is structured both spatially and
temporally. The spatial structure is quite peripheral to our
present considerations. Suffice it to point out that it, �oo, has a
social dimension by virtue of the fact that my marupulatory
zone intersects with that of others. More important for our
present purpose is the temporal structure of ev�ryday life.
Temporality is an intrinsic property of consciousness. T�e
stream of consciousness is always ordered temporally. It IS
possible to differentiate between different levels �f �s te�porality
as it is intrasubjectively available. Every mdivtdual ts
conscious ofan inner flow of time, which in turn is founded on
the physiological rhythms of the organism though it is not
identical with these. It would greatly exceed the scope of these
prolegomena to enter into a detailed analysis of these levels of
intrasubjective temporality. As we have indicated, however,
intersubjectivity in everyday life also has a temporal dimension.
The world of everyday life has its own standard time,
which is intersubjectively available. This standard time may be
understood as the intersection between cosinic time and its
socially established calendar, based on the temporal sequences
of nature, and inner time, in its aforementioned differentiations.
There can never be full simultaneity between these
various levels of temporality, as the experience of waiting
THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE IN EVERYDAY LIFE
indicates most clearly. Both my organism and my society
impose upon me, and upon my inner time, certain sequences
of events that involve waiting. I may want to take part in a
sports event, but I must wait for my bruised knee to heal. Or
again, I must wait until certain papers are processed so that
my qualification for the event may be officially established. It
may readily be seen that the temporal structure of everyday
life is exceedingly complex, because the different levels of
empirically present temporality must be ongoingly correlated.
The temporal structure of everyday life confronts me as a
facticity with which I must reckon, that is, with which I must
try to synchronize my own projects. I encounter time in everyday
reality as continuous and finite. All my existence in this
world is continuously ordered by its time, is indeed enveloped
by it. My own life is an episode in the externally factitious
stream of time. It was there before I was born and it will be
there after I die. The knowledge of my inevitable death makes
this time finite for me. I have only a certain amount of time
available for the realization of my projects, and the knowledge
ofthis affe
.
cts my attitude to these projects. Also, since I do not
want to die, this knowledge injects an underlying anxiety into
my projects. Thus I cannot endlessly repeat my participation
in sports events. I know that I am getting older. It may even
be that this is the last occasion on which I have the chance to
participate. My waiting will be anxious to the degree in which
the finitude of time impinges upon the project.
The same temporal structure, as has already been indicated,
is coercive. I cannot reverse at will the sequences imposed by
it - 'first things first' is an essential element of my knowledge
ofeveryday life. Thus I cannot take a certain exainination before
I have passed through certain educational programmes, I
cannot practise my profession before I have taken this exainination,
and so on. Also, the same temporal structure provides
the historicity that deterinines my situation in the world of
everyday life. I was born on a certain date, entered school on
another, started working as a professional on another, and so
on. These dates, however, are all 'located' within a much
more comprehensive history, and this 'location' decisively
shapes my situation. Thus I was born in the year of the great
bank crash in which my father lost his wealth, I entered
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
school just before the revolution, I began to work just after
the Great War broke out, and so forth. The temporal structure
ofeveryday life not only imposes prearranged sequences upon
the 'agenda' of any single day but also imposes itselfupon my
biography as a whole. Within the coordinates set by this
temporalstructure I apprehend both daily 'agenda' and overall
biography. Clock and calendar ensure that, indeed, I am a
'man of my time'. Only within this temporal structure does
everyday life retain for me its accent of reality. Thus in cases
where I may be 'disoriented' for one reason or another (say, I
have been in an automobile accident in which I was knocked
unconscious), I feel an almost instinctive urge to 'reorient'
myself within the temporal structure of everyday life. I look
at my watch and try to recall what day it is. By these acts alone
I re-enter the reality of everyday life.
2. Social Interaction in Everyday Life
The reality of everyday life is shared with others. But how are
these others themselves experienced in everyday life? Again,
it is possible to differentiate between several modes of such
experience.
The most important experience of others takes place in the
face-to-face situation, which is the prototypical case of social
interaction. All other cases are derivatives of it.
In the face-to-face situation the other is appresented to me
in a vivid present shared by both of us. I know that in the
same vivid present I am appresented to him. My and his
'here and now' continuously impinge on each other as lonr as
the face-to-face situation continues. As a result, there is a
continuous interchange of my expressivity and his. I see him
smile, then react to my frown by stopping the smile, then
smiling again as I smile, and so on. Every expression of mine
is oriented towards him, and vice versa, and this continuous
reciprocity of expressive acts is simultaneously available to
both of us. This means that, in the face-to-face situation, the
other's subjectivity is available to me through a maximum of
symptoms. To be sure, I may misinterpret some of these
symptoms. I may think that the other is smiling while in fact
he is smirking. Nevertheless, no other form of social relating
can reproduce the plenitude of symptoms of subjectivity
present in the face-to-face situation. Only here is the other's
subjectivity emphatically 'close'. All other forms of relating to
the other are, in varying degrees, 'remote'.
In the face-to-face situation the other is fully real. This
reality is part ofthe overallreality ofeveryday life, and as such
massive and compelling. To be sure, another may be real to
me without my having encountered him face to face - by
reputation, say, or by having corresponded with him. Never-
43
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
theless, he becomes real to me in the fullest sense ofthe word
only when I meet him face to face. Indeed, it may be argued
that the other in the face-to-face situation is more real to me
than I myself. Of course I 'know myself better' than I can
ever know him. My subjectivity is accessible to me in a way
his can never be, no matter how 'close' our relationship. My
past is available to me in memory in a fullness with which I
can never reconstruct his,howevermuch he may tell meabout
it. But this 'better knowledge' ofmyselfrequires reflection. It
is not immediately appresented to me. The other, however, is
so appresented in the face-to-face situation. 'What he is',
therefore, is ongoingly available to me. This availability is
continuous and prereflective. On the otherhand, 'What I am'
is not so available. To make it available requires that I stop,
arrest the continuous spontaneity ofmy experience, and deliberately
turn my attention back upon myself. What is more,
such reflection about myself is typically occasioned by the
attitude towards me that the other exhibits. It is typically a
'mirror' response to attitudes ofthe other.
It follows that relations with others in the face-to-face
situation are highly flexible. Put negatively, it is comparatively
difficult to impose rigidpatterns upon face-to-faceinteraction.
Whatever patterns are introduced will be continuously modified
through the exceedinglyvariegatedand subtleinterchange
ofsubjective meanings that goes on. For instance, I may view
the other as someone inherently unfriendly to me and act
towardshim withinapatternof'unfriendlyrelations' asunderstood
by me. In the face-to-face situation, however, the other
may confront me with attitudes and acts that contradict this
pattern, perhaps up to a point where I am led to abandon the
pattern as inapplicable and to view him as friendly. In other
words, the pattern cannot sustain the massive evidence ofthe
other's subjectivity that is available to me in the face-to-face
situation. By contrast, it is much easier for me to ignore such
evidence as long as I do not encounter the other face to face.
Even in such a relatively 'close' relation as maybe maintained
by correspondence I can more successfully dismiss the other's
protestations of friendship as not actually representing his
subjectiveattitude to me, simply because in correspondence I
lackthe immediate, continuous and massively real presence of
44
THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE IN EVERYDAY LIFE
his expressivity. It is, to be sure, possible for me t? mi�interpret
the other's meanings even in the face-to-face sttuation, as
it is possible for him 'hypocritically' to hide his meanings. All
the same, both misinterpretation and 'hypocrisy' are more
difficult to sustain in face-to-face interaction than in less
'close' forms ofsocial relations.
On the other hand, I apprehendtheother by means oftypificatory
schemes even in the face-to-face situation, althou�h
these schemes are more 'vulnerable' to his interference than m
'remoter' forms of interaction. Put differently, while it is
comparatively difficult to impose rigid pattern� o� fa�e-
.
to-face
interaction, even it is patterned from the begmrung if 1t t�es
place within the routines ofeveryday life. (We can leave astde
for later consideration cases ofinteraction between complete
strangers who have no common background ofeveryday lif�.)
The reality of everyday life contains typificatory schemes m
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. All
these
'
typifications ongoingly affect my interaction withhim as,
say, I decide to show him a good time on the to_wn bef?re
trying to sell him my product. Our face-to-face mteracuon
will be patterned by these typifications as long as they do not
become problematic through interference on his part. Thus he
may come up with evidence that, alth�ugh 'a man', ·� European'
and 'a buyer', he is also a self-nghteous morahs�, and
that what appeared first as jovialityis actually
_
an express10n ?f
contemptfor Americans in general and A�encan salesmen �
particular. Atthispoint,ofcourse,my typtficatory_scheme w�ll
have to be modified, and the evening planned differently m
accordance with this modification. Unless thus challenged,
though,thetypifications will hold until furthernotice and will
determine my actions in the situation.
The typificatory schemes entering into face-to-face situations
are, ofcourse, reciprocal. The other alsoapprehends me
• • • A · ' ' alesman' 'anin a typified way - as a man , an mencan , � s
.
,
ingratiating fellow', and so on. The o�er's typific�ttons are as
susceptible to my interference as mme are �o his. In o�er
words, the two typificatory sc�em� enter mto an �ngomg
'negotiation' intheface-to-face sttuation. Ineverydaylifesuch
45
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
'negotiation' is itself likely to be prearranged in a typical
manner - as in the typical bargaining process between buyers
and salesmen. 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.
The typifications of social interaction become progressively
anonymous the further away they are from the face-to-face
situation. Every typification, of course, entails incipient
anonymity. If I typify my friend Henry as a member of
category X (say, as an Englishman), I ipso facto interpret at
least certain aspects of his conduct as resulting from this
typification - for instance, his tastes in food are typical of
Englishmen, as are his manners, certain of his emotional reactions,
and so on. This implies, though, that these characteristics
and actions of my friend Henry appertain to anyone in the
category of Englishman, that is, I apprehend these aspects of
his being in anonymous terms. Nevertheless, as long as my
friend Henry is available in the plenitude of expressivity of the
face-to-face situation, he will constantly break through my
type of anonymous Englishman and manifest himself as a
unique and therefore atypical individual - to wit, as my friend
Henry. The anonymity ofthe type is obviously less susceptible
to this kind of individualization when face-to-face interaction
is a matter of the past (my friend Henry, the Englishman,
whom I knew when I was a college student), or is of a superficial
and transient kind (the Englishman with whom I have a
brief conversation on a train), or has never taken place (my
business competitors in England).
An important aspect of the experience of others in everyday
life is thus the directness or indirectness of such experience.
At any given time it is possible to distinguish between consociates
with whom I interact in face-to-face situations and
others who are mere contemporaries, of whom I have only
more or less detailed recollections, or of whom I know merely
by hearsay. In face-to-face situations I have direct evidence of
my fellowman, of his actions, his attributes, and so on. Not so
in the case of contemporaries - of them I have more or less
reliable knowledge. Furthermore, I must take account of my
fellowmen in face-to-face situations, while I may, but need
THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE IN EVERYDAY LIFE
not, turn my thoughts to mere contemporaries. Anonymity
increases as I go from the former to the latter, because the
anonymity ofthe typifications by means of which I apprehend
fellowmen in face-to-face situations is constantly 'filled in' by
the multiplicity of vivid symptoms referring to a concrete
human being.
This, of course, is not the whole story. There are obvious
differences in my experiences ofmere contemporaries. Some I
have experienced again and again in face-to-face situations and
expect to meet again regularly (my friend Henry); others I
recollect as concrete human beings from a past meeting (the
blonde I passed on the street), but the meeting was briefand,
most likely, will not be repeated. Still others I know of as
concrete human beings, but I can apprehend them only by
means of more or less anonymous intersecting typifications
(my British business competitors, the Queen of England).
Among the latter one could again distinguish between likely
partners in face-to-face situations (my British business competitors),
and potential but unlikely partners (the Queen of
England).
The degree of anonymity characterizing the experience of
others in everyday life depends, however, upon another factor
too. I see the newspaper vendor on the street comer as regularly
as I see my wife. But he is less important to me and I am
not on intimate terms with him. He may remain relatively
anonymous to me. The degree of interest and the degree of
intimacy may combine to increase or decrease anonymity of
experience. They may also influence it independently. I can be
on fairly intimate terms with a number of the fellow-members
of a tennis club and on very formal terms with my boss. Yet
the former, while by no means completely anonymous, may
merge into 'that bunch at the courts' while the latter stands
out as a unique individual. And finally, anonymitymay become
near-total with certain typifications that are not intended
ever to become individualized - such as the 'typical reader of
The Times'. Finally, the 'scope' of the typification - and thereby
its anonymity - can be further increased by speaking of
'British public opinion'.
The social reality of everyday life is thus apprehended
in a continuum of typifications, which are progressively
47
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
anonymous as they are removed from the 'here and now' ofthe
face-to-face situation. At one pole of the continuum are those
others with whom I frequently and intensively interact in
face-to-face situations - my 'inner circle', as it were. At the
other pole are highly anonymous abstractions, which 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.
One further point ought to be made here, though we cannot
elaborate it. My relations with others are not limited to consociates
and contemporaries. I also relate to predecessors and
successors, to those others who have preceded and will follow
me in the encompassing history of my society. Except for
those who are past consociates (my dear friend Henry), I relate
to my predecessors through highly anonymous typifications 'my
immigrant great-grandparents', and even more, 'the
Founding Fathers'. My successors, for understandable
reasons, are typified in an even more anonymous manner 'my
children's children', or 'future generations'. These typifications
are substantively empty projections, almost completely
devoid of individualized content, whereas the typifications of
predecessors have at least some such content, albeit of a
highly mythical sort. The anonymity of both these sets of
typifications, however, does not prevent their entering as
elements into the reality of everyday life, sometimes in a very
decisive way. Mter all, I may sacrifice my life in loyalty to the
Founding Fathers - or, for that matter, on behalf of future
generations.
3· Language and Knowledge in Everyday Life
Human expressivity is capable of objectivation, that is, it
manifests itselfin products of human activity that are available
both to their producers and to other men as elements of a
common world. Such objectivations serve as more or less
enduringindices ofthe subjective processes oftheir producers,
allowing their availability to extend beyond the face-to-face
situation in which they can be directly apprehended. For
intance, a subjective attitude of anger is directly expressed in
the face-to-face situation by a variety of bodily indices - facial
mien, general stance of the body, specific movements of arms
and feet, and so on. These indices are continuously available
in the face-to-face situation, which is precisely why it affords
me the optimal situation for gaining access to another's subjectivity.
The same indices are incapable of surviving beyond
the vivid present ofthe face-to-face situation. Anger, however,
can be objectivated by means of a weapon. Say, I have had an
altercation with another man, who has given me ample expressive
evidence of his anger against me. That night I wake up
with a knife embedded in the wall above my bed. The knife qua
object expresses my adversary'sanger. It affords me access to his
subjectivity even though I was sleeping when he threw it and
never saw him because he fled after his near-hit. Indeed, if I
leave the object where it is, I can look at it again the following
morning, and again it expresses to me the anger of the man
who threw it. What is more, other men can come and look at
it and arrive at the same conclusion. In other words, the knife
in my wall has become an objectively available constituent of
the reality I share with my adversary and with other men.
Presumably, this knife was not produced for the exclusive
purpose of being thrown at me. But it expresses a subjective
intention of violence, whether motivated by anger or by
49
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
utilitarian considerations, such as killing for food. The weapon
qua object in the real world continues to express a general
intention to commit violence that is recognizable by anyone
who knows what a weapon is. The weapon, then, is both a
human product and an objectivation of human subjectivity.
The reality of everyday life is not only filled with objectivations
; it is only possible because of them. I am constantly
surrounded by objects that 'proclaim' the subjective intentions
of my fellowmen, although I may sometimes have difficulty
being quite sure just what it is that a particular object is
'proclaiming', especially if it was produced by men whom I
have not known well or at all in face-to-face situations. Every
ethnologist or archaeologist will readily testify to such difficulties,
but the very fact that he can overcome them and reconstruct
from an artifact the subjective intentions of men whose
society may have been extinct for millennia is eloquent proof
of the enduring power of human objectivations.
A special but crucially important case of objectivation is
signification, that is, the human production of signs. A sign
may be distinguished from other objectivations by its explicit
intention to serve as an index of subjective meanings. To be
sure, all objectivations are susceptible of utilization as signs,
even though they were not originally produced with this
intention. For instance, a weapon may have been originally
produced for the purpose of hunting animals, but may then
(say, in ceremonial usage) become a sign for aggressiveness
and violence in general. But there are certain objectivations
originally and explicitly intended to serve as signs. For instance,
instead of throwing a knife at me (an act that was presumably
intended to kill me, but that might conceivably have been
intended merely to signify this possibility), my adversary
could have painted a black X-mark on my door, a sign, let us
assume, that we are now officially in a state of enmity. Such a
sign, which has no purpose beyond indicating the subjective
meaning of the one who made it, is also objectively available
in the common reality he and I share with other men. I recognize
its meaning, as do other men, and indeed it is available to
its producer as an objective 'reminder' ofhis original intention
in making it. It will be clear from the above that there is a good
deal offluidity between the instrumental and the significatory
so
THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE IN EVERYDAY LIFE
uses of certain objectivations. The special case of magic, in
which there is a very interesting merging of these two uses,
need not concern us here.
Signs are clustered in a number of systems. Thus there are
systems of gesticulatory signs, ofpatterned bodily movements,
of various sets of material artifacts, and so on. Signs and sign
systems are objectivations in the sense of being objectively
available beyond the expression of subjective intentions 'here
and now'. This 'detachability' from the immediate expressions
ofsubjectivity also pertains to signs that require the mediating
presence of the body. Thus perfonning a dance that signifies
aggressive intent is an altogether different thing from snarling
or clenching fists in an outburst of anger. The latter acts express
my subjectivity 'here and now', while the former can be
quite detached from this subjectivity - I may not be angry or
aggressive at all at this point but merely taking part in the
dance because I am paid to do so on behalf of someone else
who is angry. In other words, the dance can be detached from
the subjectivity of the dancer in a way in which the snarling
cannot from the snarler. Both dancing and snarling are manifestations
of bodily expressivity, but only the former has the
character of an objectively available sign. Signs and sign
systems are all characterized by 'detachability', but they can
be differentiated in terms of the degree to which they may be
detached from face-to-face situations. Thus a dance is evidently
less detached than a material artifact signifying the
same subjective meaning.
Language, which may be defined here as a system of vocal
signs, is the most important sign system of human society. Its
foundation is, of course, in the intrinsic capacity of the human
organism for vocal expressivity, but we can begin to speak of
language only when vocal expressions have become capable of
detachment from the immediate 'here and now' of subjective
states. It is not yet language if I snarl, grunt, howl or hiss,
although these vocal expressions are capable of becoming
linguistic in so far as they are integrated into an objectively
available sign system. The common objectivations ofeveryday
life are maintained primarily by linguistic signification.
Everyday life is, above all, life with and by means of the
language I share with my fellowmen. An understanding of
51
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
language is thus essential for any understanding of the reality
of everyday life.
Language has its origins in the face-to-face situation, but
can be readily detached from it. This is not only because I can
shout in the dark or across a distance, speak on the telephone
or via the radio, or convey linguistic signification by means of
writing (the latter constituting, as it were, a sign system of the
second degree). The detachment of language lies much more
basically in its capacity to communicate meanings that are not
direct expressions of subjectivity 'here and now'. It shares
this capacity with other sign systems, but its immense variety
and complexity make it much more readily detachable from
the face-to-face situation than any other (for example, a
system of gesticulations). I can speak about innumerable
matters that are not present at all in the face··to-face situation,
including matters I never have and never will experience
directly. In this way, language is capable of becoming the
objective repository of vast accumulations of meaning and
experience, which it can then preserve in time and transmit to
following generations.
In the face-to-face situation language possesses an inherent
quality of reciprocity that distinguishes it from any other sign
system. The ongoing production ofvocal signs in conversation
can be sensitively synchronized with the ongoing subjective
intentions of the conversants. I speak as I think; so does my
partner in the conversation. Both of us hear what each says at
virtually the same instant, which makes possible a continuous,
synchronized, reciprocal access to our two subjectivities, an
intersubjective closeness in the face-to-face situation that no
other sign system can duplicate. What is more, I hear myself
as I speak; my own subjective meanings are made objectively
and continuously available to me and ipsofacto become 'more
real• to me. Another way ofputting this is to recall the previous
point about my 'better knowledge• of the other as against my
knowledge of myself in the face-to-face situation. This apparently
paradoxical fact has been previously explained by the
massive, continuous and prereflective availability ofthe other•s
being in the face-to-face situation, as against the requirement
of reflection for the availability of my own. Now, however, as
I objectivate my own being by means of language, my own
THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE IN EVERYDAY LIFE
being becomes massively and continuously available to myself
at the same time that it is so available to him, and I can
spontaneously respond to it without the 'interruption• of
deliberate reflection. It can, therefore, be said that language
makes 'more real' my subjectivity not only to my conversation
partner but also to myself. This capacity of language to crystallize
and stabilize for me my own subjectivity is retained
(albeit with modifications) as language is detached from the
face-to-face situation. This very important characteristic of
language is well caught in the saying that men must talk about
themselves until they know themselves.
Language originates in and has its primary reference to
everyday life; it refers above all to the reality I experience in
wide-awake consciousness, which is dominated by the pragmatic
motive (that is, the cluster of meanings directly pertaining
to present or future actions) and which I share with others
in a taken-for-granted manner. Although language can also be
employed to refer to other realities, which will be discussed
further in a moment, it even then retains its rootage in the
common-sense reality of everyday life. As a sign system, language
has the quality of objectivity. I encounter language as a
facticity external to myselfand it is coercive in its effect on me.
Language forces me into its patterns. I cannot use the rules of
German syntax when I speak English; I cannot use words
invented by my three-year-old son if I want to communicate
outside the famijy ; I must take into account prevailing
standards of proper speech for various occasions, even if I
would prefer my private 'improper• ones. Language provides
me with a ready-made possibility for the ongoing objectification
of my unfolding experience. Put differently, language is
pliantly expansive so as to allow me to objectify a great variety
of experiences coming my way in the course of my life. Language
also typifies experiences, allowing me to subsume them
under broad categories in terms of which they have meaning
not only to myself but also to my fellowmen. As it typifies, it
also anonymizes experiences, for the typified experience can,
in principle, be duplicated by anyone falling into the category
in question. For instance, I have a quarrel with my mother-inlaw.
This concrete and subjectively unique experience is
typified linguistically under the category of 'mother-in-law
53
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
trouble'. In this typification it makes sense to myself, to others,
and, presumably, to my mother-in-law. The same typification,
however, entails anonymity. Not only I but anyone (more
accurately, anyone in the category of son-in-law) can have
'mother-in-law troubles'. In this way, my biographical experiences
are ongoingly subsumed under general orders of meaning
that are both objectively and subjectively real.
Because of its capacity to transcend the 'here and now',
language bridges different zones within the reality of everyday
life and integrates them into a meaningful whole. The transcendences
have spatial, temporal and social dimensions.
Through language I can transcend the gap between my
manipulatory zone and that of the other; I can synchronize
my biographical time sequence with his; and I can converse
with him about individuals and collectivities with whom we
are not at present in face-to-face interaction. As a result of
these transcendences language is capable of 'making present' a
variety of objects that are spatially, temporally and socially
absent from the 'here and now'. Ipsofacto a vast accumulation
of experiences and meanings can become objectified in the
'here and now'. Put simply, through language an entire world
can be actualized at any moment. This transcending and
integrating power of language is retained when I am not
actually conversing with another. Through linguistic objectification,
even when 'talking to myself' in solitary thought, an
entire world can be appresented to me at any moment. As far
as social relations are concerned, language 'makes present' for
me not only fellowmen who are physically absent at the
moment, but fellowmen in the remembered or reconstructed
past, as well as fellowmen projected as imaginary figures into
the future. All these 'presences' can be highly meaningful, of
course, in the ongoing reality of everyday life.
Moreover, language is capable of transcending the reality of
everyday life altogether. It can refer to experiences pertaining
to finite provinces ofmeaning, and it can span discrete spheres
of reality. For instance, I can interpret 'the meaning' of a
dream by integrating it linguistically within the order of
everyday life. Such integration transposes the discrete reality
of the dream into the reality of everyday life by making it an
enclave within the latter. The dream is now meaningful in
54
THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE IN EVERYDAY LIFE
terms ofthe reality of everyday life rather than ofits own discrete
reality. Enclaves produced by such transposition belong,
in a sense, to both spheres of reality. They are 'located' in one
reality, but 'refer' to another.
Any significative theme that thus spans spheres of reality
may be defined as a symbol, and the linguistic mode by which
such transcendence is achieved may be called symbolic language.
On the level of symbolism, then, linguistic signification
attains the maximum detachment from the 'here and now' of
everyday life, and language soars into regions that are not only
defacto but a priori unavailable to everyday experience. Lan,guage
now constructs immense edifices of symbolic representations
that appear to tower over the reality of everyday life like
gigantic presences from another world. Religion, philosophy,
art, and science are the historically most important symbol
systems of this kind. To name these is already to say that,
despite the maximal detachment from everyday experience
that the construction of these systems requires, they can be of
very great importance indeed for the reality of everyday life.
Language is capable not only of constructing symbols that are
highly abstracted from everyday experience, but also of
'bringing back' these symbols and appresenting them as objectively
real elements in everyday life. In this manner, symbolism
and symbolic language become essential constituents of the
reality ofeveryday life and ofthe common-sense apprehension
ofthis reality. I live in a world ofsigns and symbols every day.
Language builds up semantic fields or zones of meaning
that are linguistically circumscribed. Vocabulary, grammar
and syntax are geared to the organization of these semantic
fields. Thus language builds up classification schemes to
differentiate objects by 'gender' (a quite different matter from
sex, of course) or by number; forms to make statements of
action as against statements of being ; modes of indicating
degrees of social intimacy, and so on. For example, in languages
that distinguish intimate and formal discourse by
means of pronouns (such as tu and vous in French, or du and
Sie in German) this distinction marks the coordinates of a
semantic field that could be called the zone of intimacy. Here
lies the world of tutoiement or of Bruderschaft, with a rich
collection of meanings that are continually available to me for
ss
�
- - __!HEj)�CIAL CoNSTRtJ<�_TION oF REALITY
the ordering of my social experience. Such a semantic field, of
course, also exists for the English speaker, though it is more
circumscribed linguistically. Or, to take another example, the
sum of linguistic objectifications pertaining to my occupation
constitutes another semantic field, which meaningfully orders
all the routine events I encounter in my daily work. Within the
semantic fields thus built up it is possible for both biographical
and historical experience to be objectified, retained and accumulated.
The accumulation, of course, is selective, with the
semantic fields determining what will be retained and what
'forgotten' of the total experience of both the individual and
the society. By virtue of this accumulation a social stock of
knowledge is constituted, which is transmitted from generation
to generation and which is available to the individual in
everyday life. I live in the common-sense world of everyday
life equipped with specific bodies of knowledge. What is more,
I know that others share at least part of this knowledge, and
they know that I know this. My interaction with others in
everyday life is, therefore, constantly affected by our common
participation in the available social stock of knowledge.
The social stock of knowledge includes knowledge of my
situation and its limits. For instance, I know that I am poor
and that, therefore, I cannot expect to live in a fashionable
suburb. This knowledge is, of course, shared both by those
who are poor themselves and those who are in a more privileged
situation. Participation in the social stock of knowledge
thus permits the 'location' of individuals in society and the
'handling' of them in the appropriate manner. This is not
possible for o?e who does not participate in this knowledge,
such as a foreigner, who may not recognize me as poor at all,
perhaps because the criteria of poverty are quite different in
his society - how can I be poor, when I wear shoes and do not
seem to be hungry?
Since everyday life is dominated by the pragmatic motive
recipe knowledge,' that is, knowledge limited to pragmati�
competence in routine performances, occupies a prominent
place in the social stock of knowledge. For example, I use the
telephone every day for specific pragmatic purposes of my
own. I know how to do this. I also know what to do if my
telephone fails to function - which does not mean that I know
THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE IN EVERYDAY LIFE
how to repair it, but that I know whom to call on for assis�ance.
My knowledge of the telephone also includes broader mformation
on the system of telephonic communication - for
instance I know that some people have unlisted numbers, that
under s�ecial circumstances I can get a simultaneous hook�up
with two long-distance parties, that I must figure on the time
difference if I want to call up somebody in Hong Kong, and so
forth. All of this telephonic lore is recipe knowledge since it
does not concern anything except what I have to know for my
present and possible future pragmatic I?urpos�. I am not
interested in why the telephone works this way, m the enormous
body of scientific and engineering knowl�dge that
makes it possible to construct telephones. Nor am I mterest�d
in uses of the telephone that lie outside my purposes, say m
combination with short-wave radio for the purpose of marine
communication. Similarly, I have recipe knowledge of the
workings of human relationships. For example, I know what
I must do to apply for a passport. All I am interested in is
getting the passport at the end ofa certain w
.
ai�g period. I �o
not care, and do not know, how my application ts processed m
government offices, by whom and after what steps approval is
given, who puts which stamp in the docum�nt. I am not making
a study of government bureaucracy
.
- I JUSt w�t to go on
a vacation abroad. My interest in the hidden workings of the
passport-getting procedure will be �oused only if I fail to get
my passport in the end. At that pomt, very much as I call on
a telephone-repair expert after my telephone has broken
down I call on an expert in passport-getting - a lawyer, say,
or m; Congressman, or the American <:ivil Liberties Union.
Mutatis mutandis, a large part ofthe sooal stoc� ofknowledge
consists of recipes for the mastery of routine pr
.
oblems.
Typically, I have little interest in going beyond this pragmatically
necessary knowledge as long as the problems can
indeed be mastered thereby.
The social stock of knowledge differentiates reality by
degrees offamiliarity. It provides complex and
.
de�led inf?rmation
concerning those sectors of everyday life wtth which
I must frequently deal. It provides much more general and
imprecise information on re�oter sect�rs. Th�s my knowledge
of my own occupation and Its world IS very rtch and specific,
51
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
while I have only very sketchy knowledge ofthe occupational
w�rlds of �thers. Th� social stock of knowledge further supplie�
me With the typificatory schemes required for the major
routmes of everyday life, not only the typifications of others
that have been discussed before, but typifications of all sorts
of events and experiences, both social and natural. Thus I live
in a world ofrelatives, fellow-workers and recognizable public
functionaries. In this world, consequently, I experience
family gatherings, professional meetings and encounters with
the traffic police. The natural 'backdrop' ofthese events is also
typified within the stock ofknowledge. My world is structured
in terms of routines applying in good or bad weather, in the
hay-fever season and in situations when a speck of dirt gets
caught under my eyelid. 'I know what to do' with regard to
all these others and all these events within my everyday life.
By presenting itself to me as an integrated whole the social
stock of knowledge also provides me with the means to integrate
discrete elements of my own knowledge. In other words,
'what everybody knows' has its own logic, and the same logic
can be applied to order various things that I know. For
example, I know that my friend Henry is an Englishman, and
I know that he is always very punctual in keeping appointments.
Since 'everybody knows' that punctuality is an
English trait, I can now integrate these two elements of my
knowledge of Henry into a typification that is meaningful in
terms of the social stock ofknowledge.
The validity of my knowledge of everyday life is taken for
granted by myself and by others until further notice, that is,
until a problem arises that cannot be solved in terms of it. As
long as my knowledge works satisfactorily, I am generally
ready to suspend doubts about it. In certain attitudes detached
from everyday reality - telling a joke, at the theatre or in
church, or engaging in philosophical speculation - I may
perhaps doubt elements of it. But these doubts are 'not to be
taken seriously'. For instance, as a businessman I know that it
pays to be inconsiderate of others. I may laugh at a joke in
which this maxim leads to failure, I may be moved by an
actor or a preacher extolling the virtues of consideration and
I may concede in a philosophical mood that all social relations
should be governed by the Golden Rule. Having laughed,
ss
THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE IN EVERYDAY LIFE
having been moved and having philosophized, I return to the
'serious' world of business, once more recognize the logic of
its maxims, and act acCQrdingly. Only when my maxims fail
'to deliver the goods' in the world to which they are intended
to apply are they likely to become problematic to me 'in
earnest'.
Although the social stock of knowledge appresents the
everyday world in an integrated manner, differentiated according
to zones offamiliarity and remoteness, it leaves the totality
of that world opaque. Put differently, the reality of everyday
life always appears as a zone of lucidity behind which there is
a background of darkness. As some zones of reality are illuminated,
others are adumbrated. I cannot know everything
there is to know about this reality. Even if, for instance, I am
a seemingly all-powerful despot in my family, and know this,
I cannot know all the factors that go into the continuing success
of my despotism. I know that my orders are always
obeyed, but I cannot be sure ofall the steps and all the motives
that lie between the issuance and the execution of my orders.
There are always things that go on 'behind my back'. This is
true a fortiori when social relationships more complex than
those of the family are involved - and explains, incidentally,
why despots are endemically nervous. . My knowledge of
everyday life has the quality of an instrument that cuts a path
through a forest and, as it does so, projects a narrow cone of
light on what lies just ahead and immediately around; on all
sides of the path there continues to be darkness. This image
pertains even more, of course, to the multiple realities in
which everyday life is continually transcended. This latter
statement can be paraphrased, poetically if not exhaustively,
by saying that the reality of everyday life is overcast by the
penumbras of our dreams.
My knowledge of everyday life is structured in terms of
relevances. Some of these are determined by immediate pragmatic
interests of mine, others by my general situation in
society. It is irrelevant to me how my wife goes about cooking
my favourite goulash as long as it turns out the way I like it.
It is irrelevant to me that the stock ofa company is falling, if I
do not own such stock ; or that Catholics are modernizing
their doctrine, if I am an atheist ; or that it is now possible to
59
THE SociAL CoNSTRUCTION oP REALITY
fly non-stop to Africa, if I do not want to go there. However,
my relevance structures intersect with the relevance structures
of others at many points, as a result of which we have 'interesting'
things to say to each other. An important element ofmy
knowledge of everyday life is the knowledge of the relevance
structures of others. Thus I 'know better' than to tell my
doctor about my investment problems, my lawyer about my
ulcer pains, or my accountant ahout my quest for religious
truth. The basic relevance structures referring to everyday
life are presented to me ready-made by the social stock of
knowledge itself. I know that 'woman talk' is irrelevant to me
as a man, that 'idle speculation' is irrelevant to me as a man of
action, and so forth. Finally, the social stock of knowledge as
a whole has its own relevance structure. Thus, in terms of the
stock of knowledge objectivated in American society, it is irrelevant
to study the movements ofthe stars to predict the stock
market, but it is relevant to study an individual's slips of the
tongue to find out about his sex life, and so on. Conversely, in
other societies, astrology may be highly relevant for economics,
speech analysis quite irrelevant for erotic curiosity, and
so on.
One final point should be made here about the social distribution
of knowledge. I encounter knowledge in everyday life
as socially distributed, that is, as possessed differently by
different individuals and types of individuals. I do not share
my knowledge equally with all my fellowmen, and there may
be some knowledge that I share with no one. I share my professional
expertise with colleagues, but not with my family,
and I may share with nobody my knowledge ofhow to cheat at
cards. The social distribution ofknowledge ofcertain elements
of everyday reality can become highly complex and even confusing
to the outsider. I not only do not possess the knowledge
supposedly required to cure me of a physical ailment, I may
even lack the knowledge ofwhich one of a bewildering variety
of medical specialists claims jurisdiction over what ails me. In
such cases, I require not only the advice of experts, but the
prior advice of experts on experts. The social distribution of
knowledge thus begins with the simple fact that I do not know
everything known to my fellowmen, and vice versa, and culminates
in exceedingly complex and esoteric systems of
6o
THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE IN EVERYDAY LIFE
expertise. Knowledge of how the socially available stock of
knowledge is distributed, at least in outline, is an important
element of that same stock of knowledge. In everyday life I
know, at least roughly, what I can hide from whom, whom I
can turn to for information on what I do not know, and
generally which types ofindividuals may be expected to have
which types ofknowledge.
61
Part Two
Society as
Objective Reality
1 . Institutionalization
Organism and Activity
Man occupies a peculiar position in the animal kingdom.1
Unlike the other higher mammals, he has no species-specific
environment,2 no environment firmly structured by his own
instinctual organization. There is no man-world in the sense
that one may speak of a dog-world or a horse-world. Despite
an area ofindividual learning and accumulation, the individual
dog or the individual horse has a largely fixed relationship to
its environment, which it shares with all other members ofits
respective species. One obvious implication ofthis is that dogs
and horses, as compared with man, are much more restricted
to a specific geographical distribution. The specificity of
these animals' environment, however, is much more than a
geographical delimitation. It refers to the biologically fixed
character of their relationship to the environment, even if
geographical variation is introduced. In this sense, all nonhuman
animals, as species and as individuals, live in closed
worlds whose structures are predetermined by the biological
equipment of the several animal species.
By contrast, man's relationship to his environment is characterized
by world-openness.3 Not only has man succeeded in
establishing himself over the greater part ofthe earth's surface,
his relationship to the surrounding environment is everywhere
very imperfectly structured by his own biological constitution.
The latter, to be sure, permits man to engage in different activities.
But the fact that he continued to live a nomadic existence
in one place and turned to agriculture in another cannot
be explained in terms of biological processes. This does not
mean, of course, that there are no biologically determined
limitations to man's relations with his environment; his
species-specific sensory and motor equipment imposes obvious
limitations onhis range ofpossibilities. The peculiarity ofman's
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
biological constitution lies rather in its instinctual component.
Man's instinctual organization may be described as underdeveloped,
compared with that of the other higher mammals.
Man does have drives, of course. But these drives are highly
unspecialized and undirected. This means that the human
organism is capable of applying its constitutionally given
equipment to a very wide and, in addition, constantly variable
and varying range of activities. This peculiarity of the human
organism is grounded in its ontogenetic development.' Indeed,
if one looks at the matter in terms of organismic development,
it is possible to say that the foetal period in the human being
extends through about the first year after birth.5 Important
organismic developments, which in the animal are completed
in the mother's body, take place in the human infant after its
separation from the womb. At this time, however, the human
infant is not only in the outside world, but interrelating with
it in a number of complex ways.
The human organism is thus still developing biologically
while already standing in a relationship to its environment. In
other words, the process of becoming man takes place in an
interrelationship with an environment. This statement gains
significance if one reflects that this environment is both a
natural and a human one. That is, the developing human being
not only interrelates with a particular natural environment,
but with a specific cultural and social order, which is mediated
to him by the significant others who have charge ofhim.6 Not
only is the survival of the human infant dependent upon certain
social arrangements, the direction of his organismic
development is socially determined. From the moment of
birth, man's organismic development, and indeed a large part
of his biological being as such, are subjected to continuing
socially determined interference.
Despite the obvious physiological limits to the range ofpossible
and different ways of becoming man in this double
environmentalinterrelationship,thehuman organism manifests
an immense plasticity in its response to the environmental
forces at work on it. This is particularly clear when cine observes
the flexibility of man's biological constitution as it is
subjected to a variety ofsocio-cultural determinations. It is an
ethnological commonplace thatthewaysofbecoming and being
66
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
human are as numerous as man's cultures. Humanness is
socio-culturally variable. In other words, there is no human
nature in the sense of a biologically fixed substratum determining
the variability of socio-cultural formations. There is
only human nature in the sense of anthropological constants
(for example, world-openness and plasticity of instinctual
structure) that delimit and permit man's socio-cultural forinations.
But the specific shape into which this humanness is
moulded is determined by those socio-cultural formations and
is relative to their numerous variations. While it is possible to
say that man has a nature, it is more significant to say that
man constructs his own nature, or more simply, that man
produces himself.7
The plasticity of the human organism and its susceptibility
to socially determined interference is best illustrated by the
ethnological evidence concerning sexuality.8 While man possesses
sexual drives that are comparable to those of the other
higher mammals, human sexuality is characterized by a very
high degree of pliability. It is not only relatively independent
of temporal rhythms, it is pliable both in the objects towards
which it may be directed and in its modalities of expression.
Ethnological evidence shows that, in sexual matters, man is
capable of almost anything. One may stimulate one's sexual
imagination to a pitch of feverish lust, but it is unlikely that
one can conjure up any image that will not correspond to what
in some other culture is an established norm, or at least an
occurrence to be taken in stride. If the term 'normality' is to
refer either to what is anthropologically fundamental or to
what is culturally universal, then neither it nor its antonym
can be meaningfully applied to the varying forms of human
sexuality. At the same time, of course, human sexuality is
directed, sometimes rigidly structured, in every particular
culture. Every culture has a distinctive sexual configuration,
with its own specialized patterns ofsexual conduct and its own
'anthropological' assumptions in the sexual area. The empirical
relativity of these configurations, their immense variety and
luxurious inventiveness, indicate that they are the product of
man's own socio-cultural formations rather than of a biologically
fixed human nature.9
The period during which the human organism develops
THE SociAL CoNSTRUCTION OF REALITY
towards its completion in interrelationship with its environment
is also the period during which the human selfis formed.
The formation of the self, then, must also be understood in
relation to both the ongoing organismic development and the
social process in which the natural .and the human environment
are mediated through the significant others.10 The
genetic presuppositions for the self are, of course, given at
birth. But the self, as it is experienced later as a subjectively
and objectively recognizable identity, is not. The same social
processes that determine the completion of the organism produce
the self in its particular, culturally relative form. The
character of the self as a social product is not limited to the
particular configuration the individual identifies as himself
(for instance, as 'a man', in the particular way in which this
identity is defined and formed in the culture in question), but
to the comprehensive psychological equipment that serves as
an appendage to the particular configuration (for instance,
'manly' emotions, attitudes and even somatic reactions). It
goes without saying, then, that the organism and, even more,
the self cannot be adequately understood apart from the
particular social context in which they were shaped.
The common development of the human organism and the
human self in a socially determined environment is related to
the peculiarly human relationship between organism and self.
This relationship is an eccentric one.11 On the one hand, man
is a body, in the same way that this may be said of every other
animal organism. On the other hand, man has a body. That is,
man experiences himself as an entity that is not identical with
his body, but that, on the contrary, has that body at its disposal.
In other words, man's experience of himself always
hovers in a balance between being and having a body, a
balance that must be redressed again and again. This eccentricity
of man's experience of his own body has certain consequences
for the analysis of human activity as conduct in the
material environment and as externalization of subjective
meanings. An adequate understanding of any human phenomenonwillhaveto
take both theseaspectsintoconsideration,for
reasons that are grounded in fundamental anthropologicalfacts.
It should be clear from the foregoing that the statement that
man produces himselfin no way implies some sort of Prome-
68
SociETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
thean vision ofthe solitary individual.12 Man's self-production
is always, and of necessity, a social enterprise. Men together
produce a human environment, with the totality of its sociocultural
and psychological formations. None of these formations
may be understood as products of man's biological
constitution, which, as indicated, provides only the outer
limits for human productive activity. Just as it is impossible
for man to develop as man in isolation, so it is impossible for
man in isolation to produce a human environment. Solitary
human being is being on the animal level (which, of course,
man shares with other animals). As soon as one observes
phenomena that are specifically human, one enters the realm
of the social. Man's specific humanity and his sociality are
inextricably intertwined. Homo sapiens is always, and in the
same measure, homo sociusP .
The human organism lacks the necessary biological means
to provide stability for human conduct. Human existence, if it
were thrown back on its organismic resources by themselves,
would be existence in some sort of chaos. Such chaos is, however,
empirically unavailable, even though one may theoretically
conceive of it. Empirically, human existence takes
place in a context of order, direction, stability. The question
then arises : From what does the empirically existing stability
of human order derive? An answer may be given on two levels.
One may first point to the obvious fact that a given social
order precedes any individual organismic development. That
is, world-openness, while intrinsic to man's biological makeup,
is always pre-empted by social order. One may say that the
biologically intrinsic world-openness of human existence is
always, and indeed must be, transformed by social order into
a relative world-closedness. While this reclosure can never
approximate the closedness ofanimal existence, ifonly because
of its humanly produced and thus 'artificial' character, it is
nevertheless capable, most of the time, of providing direction
and stability for the greater part of human conduct. The
question may then be pushed to another level. One may ask
in what manner social order itself arises.
The most general answer to this question is that social order
is a human product, or, more precisely, an ongoing human
production. It is produced by man in the course ofhis ongoing
69
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
externalization. Social orderis not biologicallygiven orderived
from any biological data in its empirical manifestations. Social
order, needless to add, is also not given in man's natural
�nvironm�n�, thoug� particular features of this may be factors
�n deter�g certam fea�es of a social order (for example,
Its economic or technological arrangements). Social order is
not part of the 'nature of things', and it cannot be derived
from the 'law
� �fnature'.14 Social order exists only as a product
of�um� actiVIty. No other ontological status may be ascribed
to 1t Without hopelessly obfuscating its empirical manifestations.
Bo� � its g�nesis
.
(social order is the result of past
human a
.
ctivity) and It
�
eXIstence in any instant oftime (social
order eXIsts only and ID so far as human activity continues to
produce it) it is a human product.
While the social products of human externalization have a
ch�acter suigeneris as against both their organismic and their
envrronmental context, it is important to stress that externali�a�on
as s
.
uch i
.
s an anthropological necessity.15 Human being
IS tmposs1�le ID a close� sphere of quiescent interiority.
H�an bemg must ongomgly externalize itself in activity.
Thi
�
anthropological necessity is grounded in man's biological
eqwp�e?t.11 Th
.
e inherent instability of the human organism
makes It tmperative that man him�elf provide a stable environment
for his conduct. Man himself must specialize and direct
his dri��· These biological facts serve as a necessary presupposition
for the production ofsocial order. In other words
although no existing social order can be derived from bio�
logical data, the necessity for social order as such stems from
man's biological equipment.
.
To ?Dderstand the causes, other than those posited by the
btologt�al
.
constants, for the emergence, maintenance and
transmission of a social order one must undertake an analysis
that eventuates in a theory of institutionalization.
On"gins of Institutionalization
All �uman activity is subject to habitualization. Any action
that ts repeated frequently becomes cast into a pattern, which
70
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
can then be reproduced with an economy ofeffort 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 of social activity. Even the solitary individual on the
proverbial desert island habitualizes his activity. When he
wakes up in the morning andresumeshis attempts to construct
a canoe out ofmatchsticks, he may mumble to himself, 'There
I go again', as he starts on step one of an operating procedure
consisting of, say, ten steps. In other words, even solitary
man has at least the company of his operating procedures.
Habitualized actions, of course, retain their meaningful
character for the individual although the meanings involved
become embedded as routines in his general stock of knowledge,
taken for granted by him and at hand for his projects
into the future.17 Habitualization carries with it the important
psychological gain that choices are narrowed. While in theory
there may be a hundred ways to go about the project of
building a canoe out of matchsticks, habitualization narrows
these down to one. This frees the individual from the burden
of 'all those decisions', providing a psychological relief that
has its basis in man's undirected instinctual structure. Habitualization
provides the direction and the specialization of
activity that is lacking in man's biological equipment, thus
relieving the accumulation of tensions that result from undirected
drives.18 And by providing a stable background in
which human activity may proceed with a minimum of
decision-making most of the time, it frees energy for such
decisions as may be necessary on certain occasions. In other
words, the background of habitualized activity opens up a
foreground for deliberation and innovation.19
In terms ofthe meanings bestowed bymanuponhisactivity,
hab!tualization makes it unnecessary for each situation to be
defined anew, step by step.20 A large variety of situations may
be subsumed under its predefinitions. The activity to be
undertaken in these situations can then be anticipated. Even
alternatives of conduct can be assigned standard weights.
These processes of habitualization precede any institutionalization,
indeed can be made to apply to a hypothetical
71
THE SoCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
solitary individual detached from any social interaction. The
fact that even such a solitary individual, assuming that he has
been formed as a self (as we would have to assume in the case
of our matchstick�canoe builder), will habitualize his activity
in accordance with biographical experience ofa world ofsocial
institutions preceding his solitude need not concern us at the
moment. Empirically, the more important part of the habitu�
alization of human activity is coextensive with the latter's
institutionalization. The question then becomes how do
institutions arise.
Institutionalization occurs whenever there is a reciprocal
typification of habitualized actions by types of actors. Put
differently, any such typification is an institution.21 What must
be stressed is the reciprocity of institutional typifications and
the typicality of not only the actions but also the actors in
institutions. The typifications of habitualized actions that
constitute institutions are always shared ones. They are avail�
able to all members of the particular social group in question,
and the institution itself typifies individual actors as well as
individual actions. The institution posits that actions of type
X will be performed by actors of type X. For example, the
institution of the law posits that heads shall be chopped off in
specific ways under specific circumstances, and that specific
types of individuals shall do the chopping (executioners, say,
or members of an impure caste, or virgins under a certain age,
or those who have been designated by an oracle).
Institutions further imply historicity and control. Recipro�
cal typifications ofactions are built up in the course ofa shared
history. They cannot be created instantaneously. Institutions
always have a history, of which they are the products. It is
impossible to understand an institution adequately without an
understanding of the historical process in which it was produced.
Institutions also, by the very fact of their existence,
control human conduct by setting up predefined patterns of
conduct, which channel it in one direction as against the many
other directions that would theoretically be possible. It is
important to stress that this controlling character is inherent
in institutionalization as such, prior to or apart from any
mechanisms of sanctions specifically set up to support an institution.
These mechanisms (the sum -<>f which constitute
72
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
what is generally called a system ofsocial control) do, ofcourse,
exist in many institutions and in all the agglomerations of
institutions that we call societies. Their controlling efficacy,
however, is of a secondary or supplementary kind. As we shall
see again later, the primary social control is given in the existence
of an institution as such. To say that a segment of
human activity has been institutionalized is already to say
that this segment of human activity has been subsumed under
social control. Additional control mechanisms are required
only in so far as the processes of institutionalization are less
than completely successful. Thus, for instance, the law may
provide that anyone who breaks the incest taboo will have his
head chopped off. This provision may be necessary because
there have been cases when individuals offended against the
taboo. It is unlikely that this sanction will have to be invoked
cqntinuously (unless the institution delineate� by the incest
taboo is itself in the course of disintegration, a special case
that we need not elaborate here). It makes little ::.ense, therefore,
to say that human sexuality is socially controlled by
beheading certain individuals. Rather, human sexuality is
socially controlled by its institutionalization in the course of
the particular history in question. One may add, of course,
that the incest taboo itself is nothing but the negative side of
an assemblage of typifications, which define in the first place
which sexual conduct is incestuous and which is not.
In actual experience institutions generally manifest themselves
in collectivities containing considerable numbers of
people. It is theoretically important, however, to emphasize
that the institutionalizing process of reciprocal typification
would occur even if two individuals began to interact de novo.
Institutionalization is incipient in every social situation continuing
in time. Let us assume that two persons from entirely
different social worlds begin to interact. By saying 'persons'
we presuppose that the two individuals have formed selves,
something that could, of course, have occurred only in a social
process. We are thus for the moment excluding the cases of
Adam and Eve, or of two 'feral' children meeting in a clearing
of a primeval jungle. But we are assuming that the two individuals
arrive at their meeting place from social worlds that have
been historically produced in segregation from each other, and
73
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION; OF REALITY
that the interaction therefore takes place in a situation that has
not been institutionally defined for either of the participants.
It may be possible to imagine a Man Friday joining our
matchstick-canoe builder on his desert island, and to imagine
the former as a Papuan and the latter as an American. In that
case, however, it is likely that the American will have read
.
or
at least have heard about the story ofRobinson Crusoe, whtch
will introduce a measure of predefinition of the situation at
least for him. Let us, then, simply call our two persons A and
B.
As A and B interact, in whate,ver manner, typifications will
. be produced quite quickly. A watches B perform. He attributes
motives to B's actions and, seeing the actions recur,
typifies the motives as recurrent. As B goes on perform_ing, A
is soon able to say to himself, 'Aha, there he goes agam.' At
the same time, A may assume that B is doing the same thing
with regard to him. From the begin�ng, both A and !J
assume this reciprocity of typification. In the course of thetr
interaction these typifications will be expressed in specific
patterns of conduct. That is, A and B will begin to play roles
vis-a-vis each other. This will occur even if each continues to
perform actions different from those of the other. The possibility
of taking the role of the other will appear with regard to
the same actions performed by both. That is, A will inwardly
appropriate B's reiterated roles and m�ke the� the mo?e
.
ls for
his own role-playing. For example, B s role m the act1v1ty of
preparing food is not only typified as such by A, but �nters as
a constitutive element into A's own food-preparauon role.
Thus a collection of reciprocally typified actions will emerge,
habitualized for each in roles, some ofwhich will be performed
separately and some in common.22 While this reciprocal typification
is not yet institutionalization (since, there only bemg
two individuals, there is no possibility of a typology of actors),
it is clear that institutionalization is already present in nucleo.
At this stage one may ask what gains accrue to the two individuals
from this development. The most important gain is
that each will be able to predict the other's actions. Concomitantly,
the interaction of both becomes predicta_bl
,
e. T�e
'There he goes again' becomes a 'There we go agam . '!_'his
relieves both individuals of a considerable amount of tens10n.
74
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
They save! time and effort, not only in whatever external tasks
they might be engaged in separately or jointly, but in terms of
their respective psychological economies. Their life together
is now defined by a widening sphere of taken-for-granted
routines. Many actions are possible on a low level of attention.
Each. action of one is no longer a source of astonishment and
potential danger to the other. Instead, much of what goes on
takes on the triviality of what, to both, will be everyday life.
This means that the two individuals are constructing a background,
in the sense discussed before, which will serve to
stabilize both their separate actions and their interaction. The
construction of this background of routine in tum makes
possible a division of labour bet)¥een them, opening the way
for innovations, which demand a higher level ofattention. The
division of labour and the innovations will lead to new habitualizations,
further widening the background common to
both individuals. In other words, a social world will be in
process of construction, containing within it the roots of an
expanding institutional order.
Generally, all actions repeated once or more tend to be
habitualized to some degree, just as all actions observed by
another necessarily involve some typification on his part.
However, for the kind of reciprocal typification just described
to occur there must be a continuing social situation in which
the habitualized actions of two or more individuals interlock.
Which actions are likely to be reciprocally typified in this
manner?
The general answer is, those actions that are relevant to both
A and B within their common situation. The areas likely to be
relevant in this way will, ofcourse, vary in different situations.
Some will be those facing A and B in terms of their previous
biographies, others may be the result of the natural, pre-social
circumstances of the situation. What will in all cases have to
be habitualized is the comm-unication process between A and
B. Labour, sexuality and territoriality are other likely foci of
typification and habitualization. In these various areas the
situation ofA and B is paradigmatic ofthe institutionalization
occurring in larger societies.
Let us push our paradigm one step further and imagine that
A and B have children. At this point the situation changes
75
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
qualitatively. The appearance of a third party changes the
character of the ongoing social interaction between A and B,
and it will change even further as additional individuals continue
to be added.23 The institutional world, which existed in
statu nascendi in the original situation of A and B, is 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. With the acquisition of historicity,
these formations also acquire another crucial quality, or,
more accurately, perfect a quality that was incipient as soon as
A and B began the reciprocal typification of their conduct :
this quality is objectivity. This means that the institutions
that have now been crystallized (for instance, the institution
of paternity as it is encountered by the children) 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 oftheir
own, a reality that confronts the individual as an external and
coercive fact.24
As long as the nascent institutions are constructed and maintained
only in the interaction of A and B, their objectivity
remains tenuous, easily changeable, almost playful, even while
they attain a measure of objectivity by the mere fact of their
formation. To put this a little differently, the routinized
background of A's and B's activity remains fairly accessible to
deliberate intervention by A and B. Although the routines,
once established, carry within them a tendency to persist, the
possibility of changing them or even abolishing them remains
at hand in consciousness. A and B alone are responsible for
having constructed this world. A and B remain capable of
changing or abolishing it. What is more, since they themselves
have shaped this world in the course of a shared biography
which they can remember, the world thus shaped appears
fully transparent to them. They understand the world that
they themselves have made. All this changes in the process of
transmission to the new generation. The objectivity of the
institutional world 'thickens' and 'hardens', not only for the
children, but (by a mirror effect) for the parents as well. The
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
'There we go again' now becomes 'This is how these things
are done'. A world so regarded attains a firmness in consciousness
; it becomes real in an ever more massive way and it
can no longer be changed so readily. For the children,
especially in the early phase of their socialization into it, it
becomes the world. For the parents, it loses its playful quality
and becomes 'serious'. For the children, the parentally transmitted
world is not fully transparent. Since they had no part
in shaping it, it confronts them as a given reality that, like
nature, is opaque in places at least.
Only at this point does it become possible to speak ofa social
world at all, in the sense of a comprehensive and given reality
confronting the individual in a !Danner analogous to the reality
of the natural world. Only in this way, as an objective world,
can the social formations be transmitted to a new generation.
In the early phases of socialization the child is quite incapable
of distinguishing between the objectivity of natural phenomena
and the objectivity of the social formations.25 To take
the most important item of socialization, language appears to
the child as inherent in the nature of things, and he cannot
grasp the notion of its conventionality. A thing is what it is
called, and it could not be called anything else. All institutions
appear in the same way, as given, unalterable and self-evident.
Even in our empirically unlikely example of parents having
constructed an institutional world de novo, the objectivity of
this world would be increased for them by the socialization of
their children, because the objectivity experienced by the
children would reflect back upon their own experience of this
world. Empirically, of course, the institutional world transmitted
by most parents already has the character of historical
and objective reality. The process of transmission simply
strengthens the parents' sense of reality, if only because, to
put it crudely, if one says, 'This is how these things are done',
often enough one believes it oneself.26
An institutional world, then, is experienced as an objective
reality. It has a history that antedates the individual's birth
and is not accessible to his biographical recollection. It was
there before he was born, and it will be there after his death.
This history itself, as the tradition of the existing institutions,
has the character of objectivity. The individual's biography is
77
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
apprehended as an episode located within the objective history
of the society. The institutions, as historical and objective
facticities, confront the individual as undeniable facts. The
institutions are there, external to him, persistent in their
reality, whether he likes it or not. He cannot wish them away.
They resist his attempts to change or evade them. They have
coercive power over him, both in themselves, by the sheer
force of their facticity, and through the control mechanisms
that are usually attached to the most important of them. The
objective reality of institutions is not diminished if the individual
does not understand their purpose or their mode ofoperation.
He may experience large sectors of the social world as
incomprehensible, perhaps oppressive in their opaqueness,
but real none the less. Since institutionsexistas external reality,
the individual cannot understand them by introspection. He
must 'go out' and learn about them, just as he must to learn
about nature. This remains true even though the social world,
as a humanly produced reality, is potentially understandable
in a way not possible in the case of the natural world.27
It is important to keep in mind that the objectivity of the
institutional world, however massive it may appear to the
individual, is a humanly produced, constructed objectivity.
The process by which the externalized products of human
activity attain the character of objectivity is objectivation.28
The institutional world is objectivated human activity, and so
is every single institution. In other words, despite the objectivity
that marks the social world in human experience, it does
not thereby acquire an ontological status apart from the
human activity that produced it. The paradox that man is
capable of producing a world that he then experiences as
something other than a human product will concern us later
on. At the moment, it is important to emphasize that the
relationship between man, the producer, and the social world,
his product, is and remains a dialectical one. That is, man (not,
of course, in isolation but in his collectivities) and his social
world interact with each other. The product acts back upon
the producer. Externalization and objectivation are moments
in a continuing dialectical process. The third moment in this
process, which is internalization (by which the objectivated
social world is retrojected into consciousness in the course of
SociETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
socialization), will occupy us in considerable detail later on. It
is already possible, however, to see the fundamental relationship
of these three dialectical moments in social reality. Each
of them corresponds to an essential characterization of the
social world. Society is a human product. Society is an objective
reality. Man is a socialproduct. It may also already be evident
that an analysis of the social world that leaves out any one of
these three moments will be distortive.29 One may further add
that only with the transmission of the social world to a new
generation (that is, internalization as effectuated in socialization)
does the fundamental social dialectic appear in its totality.
To repeat, only with the appearance of a new generation can
one properly speak of a social world.
At the same point, the institutional world requires legitimation,
that is, ways by which it can be 'explained' and justified.
This is not because it appears less real. As we have seen,
the reality of the social world gains in massivity in the course
of its transmission. This reality, however, is a historical one,
which comes to the new generation as a tradition rather than
as a biographical memory. In our paradigmatic example, A
and B, the original creators of the social world, can always
reconstruct the circumstances under which their world and
any part of it was established. That is, they can arrive at the
meaning of an institution by exercising their powers of recollection.
A's and B's children are in an altogether different
situation. Their knowledge of the institutional history is by
way of 'hearsay'. The original meaning of the institutions is
inaccessible to them in terms of memory. It, therefore, becomes
necessary to interpret this meaning to them in various
legitimating formulas. These will have to be consistent and
comprehensive in terms of the institutional order, if they are
to carry conviction to the new generation. The same story, so
to speak, must be told to all the children. It follows that the
expanding institutional order develops a corresponding canopy
of legitimations, stretching over it a protective cover of both
cognitive and normative interpretation. These legitimations
are learned by the new generation during the same process
that socializes them into the institutional order. This, again,
will occupy us in greater detail further on.
The development of specific mechanisms of social controls
79
THE SoCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
also becomes necessary with the historicization and objectivation
of institutions. Deviance from the institutionally 'programmed'
courses of action becomes likely once the institutions
have become realities divorced from their original
relevance in the concrete social processes from which they
arose. To put this more simply, it is more likely that one will
deviate from programmes set up for one by others than from
programmes that one has helped establish oneself. The new
generation posits a problem of compliance, and its socialization
into the institutional order requires the establishment of
sanctions. The institutions must and do claim authority over
the individual, independently of the subjective meanings he
may attach to any particular situation. The priority of the
institutional definitions of situations must be consistently
maintained over individual temptations at redefinition. The
children must be 'taught to behave' and, once taught, must be
'kept in line'. So, of course, must the adults. The more conduct
is institutionalized, the more predictable and thus the
more controlled it becomes. If socialization into the institutions
has been effective, outright coercive measures can be
applied economically and selectively. Most of the time, conduct
will occur 'spontaneously' within the institutionally set
channels. The more, on the level ofmeaning, conduct is taken
for granted, the more possible alternatives to the institutional
'programmes' will recede, and the more predictable and controlled
conduct will be.
In principle, institutionalization may take place in any area
of collectively relevant conduct. In actual fact, sets of institutionalization
processes take place concurrently. There is no a
pr-iori reason for assuming that these processes will necessarily
'hang together' functionally, let alone as a logically consistent
system. To return once more to our paradigmatic example,
slightly changing the fictitious situation, let us assume this
time, not a buddingfamilyofparents and children, but apiquant
triangle of a male A, a bisexual female B, and a Lesbian C.
We need not belabour the point that the sexual relevances of
these three individuals will not coincide. Relevance A-B is
not shared by C. The habitualizations engendered as a result
of relevance A-B need bear no relationship to those engendered
by relevances B-C and C-A. There is, after all, no
So
SociETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
reason why two processes oferotic habitualization, one heterosexual
and one Lesbian, cannot take place side by side without
functionally integrating with each other or with a third habitualization
based on a shared interest in, say, the growing of
flowers (or whatever other enterprise might be jointly relevant
to an active heterosexual male and an active Lesbian). In
other words, three processes of habitualization or incipient
institutionalization may occur without their being functionally
or logically integrated as social phenomena. The same reasoning
holds if A, B and C are posited as collectivities rather than
individuals, regardless of what content their relevances might
have. Also, functional or logical integration cannot be assumed
a priori when habitualization or institutionalization processes
are limited to the same individuals or collectivities, rather than
to the discrete ones assumed in our example.
Nevertheless, the empirical fact remains that institutions do
tend to 'hang together'. If this phenomenon is not to be taken
for granted, it must be explained. How can this be done? First,
one may argue that some relevances will be common to all
members of a collectivity. On the other hand, many areas of
conduct will be relevant only to certain types. The latter involves
an incipient differentiation, at least in the way in which
these types are assigned some relatively stable meaning. This
assignment may be based on pre-social differences, such as sex,
or on differences brought about in the course of social interaction
such as those engendered by the division of labour.
For e�ample, only women may be concerned with fertility
magic and only hunters may engage in cave painting. Or, only
the old men may perform the rain ceremonial and only
weapon-makers may sleep with their maternal cousiils. In
terms of their external social functionality, these several areas
of conduct need not be integrated into one cohesive system.
They can continue to coexist on the basis of segregated performances.
But while performances can be segregated, meanings
tend towards at least minimal consistency. As the
individual reflects about the successive moments of his
experience, he tries to fit their meanings into a consist�nt
biographical framework. This tendency increa�es
.
as the
.
Individual
shares with others his meanings and their biographical
integration. It is possible that this tendency to integrate
81
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
meanings is based on a psychological need, which may in turn
be physiologically grounded (that is, that there may be a
built-in 'need' for cohesion in the psycho-physiological constitution
of man). Our argument, however, does not rest on
such anthropological assumptions, but rather on the analysis
of meaningful reciprocity in processes of institutionalization.
It follows that great care is required in any statements one
makes about the 'logic' of institutions. The logic does not
reside in the institutions and their external functionalities, but
in the way these . are treated in reflection about them. Put
differently, reflective consciousness superimposes the quality
of logic on the institutional order.30
Language provides the fundamental superimposition of
logic on the objectivated social world. The edifice of legitima?ons
is built upon language and uses language as its principal
Instrumentality. The 'logic' thus attributed to the institutional
order is part of the socially available stock of knowledge
and taken for granted as such. Since the well-socialized
individual 'knows' that his social world is a consistent whole,
he will be constrained to explain both its functioning and malfunctioning
in terms of this 'knowledge'. It is very easy, as a
result, for the observer of any society to assume that its
institutions do indeed function and integrate as they are
'supposed to'.31
De facto, then, institutions are integrated. But their integration
is not a functional imperative for the social processes
that produce them ; it is rather brought about in a derivative
fashion. Individuals perform discrete institutionalized actions
within the context of their biography. This biography is a
reflected-upon whole in which the discrete actions are thought
of, not as isolated events, but as related parts in a subjectively
meaningful universe whose meanings are not specific to the
in?ividual, but socially articulated and shared. Only by way of
thi� detour of socially shared universes of meaning do we
arnve at the need for institutional integration.
This has far-reaching implications for any analysis of social
phenomena. If the integration of an institutional order can be
understood only in terms of the 'knowledge' that its members
have ofit, it follows that the analysis of such 'knowledge' will
be essential for an analysis of the institutional order in ques-
82
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
tion. It is important to stress that this does not exclusively or
even primarily involve a preoccupation with complex theoretical
systems serving as legitimations for the institutional
order. Theories also have to be taken into account, of course.
But theoretical knowledge is only a small and by no means the
most important part of what passes for knowledge in a society.
Theoretically sophisticated legitimations appear at particular
moments of an institutional history. The primary knowledge
about the institutional order is knowledge on the pretheoretical
level. It is the sum total of 'what everybody
knows' about a social world, an assemblage of maxims, morals,
proverbial nuggets of wisdom, values and beliefs, myths,
and so forth, the theoretical integration of which requires
considerable intellectual fortitude in itself, as the long line
of heroic integrators from Homer to the latest sociological
system-builders testifies. On the pre-theoretical level, however,
every institution has a body of transmitted recipe
knowledge, that is, knowledge that supplies the institutionally
appropriate rules of conduct.32
Such knowledge constitutes the motivating dynamics of
institutionalized conduct. It defines the institutionalized areas
of conduct and designates all situations falling within them. It
defines and constructs the roles to be played in the context of
the institutions in question. Ipsofacto, it controls and predicts
all such conduct. Since this knowledge is socially objectivated
as knowledge, that is, as a body ofgenerally valid truths about
reality, any radical deviance from the institutional order
appears as a departure from reality. Such deviance may be
designated as moral depravity, mental disease, or just plain
ignorance. While these fine distinctions will have obvious
consequences for the treatment of the deviant, they all share
an inferior cognitive status within the particular social world.
In this way, the particular social world becomes the world
tout court. What is taken for granted as knowledge in the
society comes to be coextensive with the knowable, or at any
rate provides the framework within which anything not yet
known will come to be known in the future. This is the knowledge
that is learned in the course of socialization and that
mediates the internalization within individual consciousness of
the objectivated structures ofthe social world. Knowledge, in
THE SoCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
this sense, is at the heart of the fundamental dialectic of
society. It 'programmes' the channels in which externalization
produces an objective world. It objectifies this world through
language and the cognitive apparatus based on language, that
is, it orders it into objects to be apprehended as reality.33 It is
internalized again as objectively valid truth in the course of
socialization. Knowledge about society is thus a realization in
the double sense of the word, in the sense ofapprehending the
objectivated social reality, and in the sense of ongoingly
producing this reality.
For example, in the course of the division of labour a body
ofknowledge is developed that refers to the particular activities
involved. In its linguistic basis, this knowledge is already indispensable
to the institutional 'programming' of these economic
activities. There will be, say, a vocabulary designating the
various modes of hunting, the weapons to be employed, the
animals that serve as prey, and so on. There will further be a
collection of recipes that must be learned if one is to hunt
correctly. This knowledge serves as a channelling, controlling
force in itself, an indispensable ingredient of the institutionalization
of this area of conduct. As the institution of
hunting is crystallized and persists in time, the same body of
knowledge serves as an objective (and, incidentally, empirically
verifiable) description of it. A whole segment of the social
world is objectified by this knowledge. There will be an
objective 'science' of hunting, corresponding to the objective
reality of the hunting economy. The point need not be belaboured
that here 'empirical verification' and 'science' are not
understood in the sense of modern scientific canons, but
rather in the sense of knowledge that may be borne out in
experience and that can subsequently become systematically
organized as a body of knowledge.
Again, the same body of knowledge is transmitted to the
next generation. It is learned as objective truth in the course
of socialization and thus internalized as subjective reality.
This reality in turn has power to shape the individual. It will
produce a specific type of person, namely the hunter, whose
identity and biography as a hunter have meaning only in a
universe constituted by the aforementioned body ofknowledge
as a whole (say, in a hunters' society) or in part (say, in our
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
own society, in which hunters come together in a sub-universe
oftheir own). In other words, no part ofthe institutionalization
of hunting can exist without the particular knowledge that has
been socially produced and objectivated with reference to this
activity. To hunt and to be a hunter imply existence in a
social world defined and controlled by this body ofknowledge.
Mutatis mutandis, the same applies to any area of institutionalized
conduct.
Sedimentation and Tradition
Only a small part of the totality of human experiences is
retained in consciousness. The experiences that are so retained
become sedimented, that is, they congeal in recollection as
recognizable and memorable entities.34 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, experiences
of which become incorporated in a common stock of
knowledge. Intersubjective sedimentation can be called truly
social only 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. Only then is it
likely that these experiences will be transmitted from one
generation to the next, and from one collectivity to another.
Theoretically, common activity, without a sign system, could
be the basis for transmission. Empirically, this is improbable.
An objectively available sign system bestows a status of
incipient anonymity on the sedimented experiences by detaching
them from their original context of concrete individual
biographies and making them generally available to all who
share, or may share in the future, in the sign system in question.
The experiences thus become readily transmittable.
In principle, any sign system would do. Normally, ofcourse,
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 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OP REALITY
the instrument of the collective stock of knowledge. Furthermore,
language provides the means for objectifying new
experiences, allowing their incorporation into the already
existingstock ofknowledge, and it is the most important means
by which the objectivated and objectified sedimentations are
transmitted in the tradition of the collectivity in question.
For example, only some members of a hunting society have
the experience of losing their weapons and being forced to
fight a wild animal with their bare hands. This frightening
experience, with whatever lessons in bravery, cunning and
skill it yields, is firmly sedimented in ·the consciousness of the
individuals who went through it. If the experience is shared
by several individuals, it will be sedimented intersubjectively,
may perhaps even form a profound bond between t?ese
individuals. As this experience is designated and transnutted
linguistically, however, it becomes accessible and, perhaps,
strongly relevant to individuals who have never gone through
it. The linguistic designation (which, in a hunting society, we
may imagine to be very precise and elaborate indeed - say,
'lone big kill, with one hand, of male rhinoceros', 'lone big
kill, with two hands, of female rhinoceros', and so forth)
abstracts the experience from its individual biographical
occurrences. It becomes an objective possibility for everyone,
or at any rate for everyone within a certain typ� (sa�, f�ly
initiated hunters) ; that is, it becomes anonymous m prmople
even ifit is still associated with the feats ofspecific individuals.
Even to those who do not anticipate the experience in their
own future biography (say, women forbidden to hunt), it may
be relevant in a derived manner (say, in terms of the desirability
of a future husband) ; in any case it is part of the common
stock ofknowledge. The objectification of the experience
in the language (that is, its transformation
.
int� a gener�ly
available object of knowledge) then allows 1ts mcorporatton
into a larger body of tradition by way of moral instruction,
inspirational poetry, religious allegory .and whatnot. Both
.
the
experience in the narrower sense and 1ts appendage o� wtder
significations can then be taught to every new generatton, or
even diffused to an altogether different collectivity (say, an
agricultural society that may attach quite different meanings
to the whole business).
86
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
Language becomes the depository of a large aggregate of
collective sedimentations, which can be acquired monothetically,
that is, as cohesive wholes and without reconstructing
their original process offormation.86
Since the actual origin of
the sedimentations has become unimportant, the tradition
might invent quite a different origin without thereby threatening
what has been objectivated. In other words, legitimations
can succeed each other, from time to time bestowing new
meanings on the sedimented experiences of the collectivity in
question. The past history of the society can be reinterpreted
without necessarily upsetting the institutional order as a
result. For instance, in the above example, the 'big kill' may
come to be legitimated as a deed of divine figures and any
human repetition of it as an imitation of the mythological
prototype.
This process underlines all objectivated sedimentations, not
only institutionalized actions. It may refer, for instance, to the
transmission of typifications of others not directly relevant to
specific institutions. For example, others are typified as 'tall'
or 'short', 'fat' or 'thin', 'bright' or 'dull', without any particular
institutional implications being attached to these typifications.
The process, ofcourse, also applies to the transmission
of sedimented meanings that meet the previously given
specification of institutions. 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 ofinstitutionalized
actions must be systematically acquainted with these
meanings. This necessitates some form of 'educational' process.
The institutional meanings must be impressed powerfully
and unforgettably upon the consciousness of the individual.
Since human beings are frequently sluggish and forgetful,
there must also be procedures by which these meanings can be
reimpressed and rememorized, if necessary by coercive and
generally unpleasant means. Furthermore, since human beings
are frequently stupid, instituticnal meanings tend to
become simplified in the process of transmission, so that the
given collection of institutional 'formulae' can be readily
learned and memorized by successive generations. The 'formula'
character of institutional meanings ensures their
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
memorability. We have here on the level of sedimented
meanings the same processes ofroutinization and trivialization
that we have already noted in the discussion ofinstitutionalization.
Again, the stylized form in which heroic feats enter a
tradition is a useful illustration.
The objectivated meanings ofinstitutional activity are conceived
ofas 'knowledge' and transmitted as such. Some ofthis
'knowledge' is deemed relevant to all, some only to certain
types. All transmission requires some sort of social apparatus.
That is, some types are designated as transmitters, other types
as recipients of the traditional 'knowledge'. The specific
character ofthis apparatus will, ofcourse, vary from society to
society. There will also be typified procedures for the passage
of the tradition from the knowers to the non-knowers. For
example, the technical, magical and moral lore ofhunting may
be transmitted by maternal uncles to nephews ofa certain age,
by means of specified procedures of initiation. The typology
of knowers and non-knowers, like the 'knowledge' that is
supposed to pass between them, is a matter of social definition;
both 'knowing' and 'not knowing' refer to what is
socially defined as reality, and not to some extra-social criteria
of cognitive validity. To put this crudely, maternal uncles do
not transmit this particular stock of knowledge because they
know it, but they know it (that is, are defined as knowers)
because they are maternal uncles. If an institutionally designated
maternal uncle, for particular reasons, turns out to be
incapable of transmitting the knowledge in question, he is no
longer a maternal uncle in the full sense of the word, and,
indeed, institutional recognition of this status may be withdrawn
from him.
Depending on the social span of relevance of a certain type
of 'knowledge' and its complexity and importance in a particular
collectivity, the 'knowledge' may have to be reaffirmed
through symbolic objects (such as fetishes and military emblems),
and/or symbolic actions (such as religious or military
ritual). In other words, physical objects and actions may be
called upon as mnemotechnic aids. All transmission ofinstitutional
meanings obviously implies control and legitimation
procedures. These are attached to the institutions themselves
and administered by the transmitting personnel. It may be
88
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
stressed again here that no a priori consistency, let alone
functionality, may be presumed as existing between different
institutions and the forms of the transmission of knowledge
pertaining to them. The problem of logical coherence arises
first on the level of legitimation (where there may be conflict
or competition between different legitimations and their
administrative personnel), and secondly on the level ofsocialization
(where there may be practical difficulties in the internalization
of successive or competing institutional meanings).
To return to a previous example, there is no a priori reason
why institutional meanings that originated in a hunting society
should not be diffused to an agricultural society. What is more,
these meanings may, to an outside observer, appear to have
dubious 'functionality' in the first society at the time of
diffusion and no 'functionality' at all in the second. The difficulties
that may arise here are connected with the theoretical
activities of the legitimators and the practical ones of the
'educators' in the new.society. The theoreticians have to satisfy
themselves that a hunting goddess is a plausible denizen in an
agrarian pantheon and the pedagogues have a problem explaining
her mythological activities to children who have never
seen a hunt. Legitimating theoreticians tend to have logical
aspirations and children tend to be recalcitrant. This, however,is
not a problem ofabstractlogicortechnicalfunctionality,
but rather of ingenuity on the one hand and credulity on the
other - a rather different proposition.
Roles
As we have seen, the origins ofany institutional order lie in the
typification of one's own and others' performances. This implies
that one shares with 9thers specific goals and interlocking
phases of performance, and, further, that not only specific
actions but forms of action are typified. That is, there will be
the recognition not only of a particular actor performing an
action oftype X, but oftype-X action as being performable by
any actor to whom the relevance structure in question can be
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
plausibly imputed. For example, one may recognize one's
brother-in-law engaged in thrashing one's insolent offspring
and understand that this particular action is only one instance
of a form of action appropriate to other pairs of uncles and
nephews, indeed, is a generally available pattern in a matrilocal
society. Only ifthe latter typification prevails will this incident
follow a socially taken-for-granted course, with the father discreetly
withdrawing from the scene so as not to disturb the
legitimate exercise of avuncular authority.
The typification of forms of action requires that these have
an objective sense, which in turn requires a linguistic objectification.
That is, there will be a vocabulary referring to these
forms ofaction (such as 'nephew-thrashing', which will belong
to a much larger linguistic structuring of kinship and its
various rights and obligations). In principle, then, an action
and its sense can be apprehended apart from individual performances
ofit 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 very 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. Although there continues to be a
margina! awareness of the body and other aspects of the self
not directly involved in the action, the actor, for that moment,
apprehends himself essentially in identification with the
socially objectivated action ('I am now thrashing my nephew'
-a taken-for-granted episode in the routine of everyday life).
Mter the action has taken place there is a further important
consequence, as the actor reflects about his action. Now a part
· of the self is objectified as the performer of this action, with
the whole self again becoming relatively disidentifi.ed from the
performed action. That is, it becomes possible to conceive of
the self as having been only partially involved in the action
(after all, the man in our example is other things besides being
a nephew-thrasher). It is not difficult to see that, as
these objectifications accumulate ('nephew-thrasher', �sisterSOCIETY
AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
supporter', 'initiate-warrior', 'rain-dance virtuoso', and so
forth), an entire sector of self-consciousness is structured in
terms of these objectifications. In other words, a segment of
the self is objectified in terms of the socially available
typifications. This segment is the truly 'social self', which is
subjectively experienced as distinct from and even confronting
the self in its totality.36 This important phenomenon,
which allows an internal 'conversation' between the different
segments of the self, will be taken up again later when we
look at the process by which the socially constructed world is
internalized in individual consciousness. For the moment,
what is important is the relationship of the phenomenon to
the objectively available typifications of conduct.
In sum, the actor identifies with the socially objectivated
typifications of conduct in actu, but re-establishes .distance
from them as he reflects about his conduct afterwards. This
distance between the actor and his action can be retained in
consciousness and projected to future repetitions ofthe actions.
In this way both acting selfand acting others are apprehended
not as unique individuals, but as types. By definition, these
types are interchangeable.
We can properly begin to speak of roles when this kind of
typification occurs in the context of an objectified stock of
knowledge common to a collectivity of actors. Roles are types
of actors in such a context.37 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.
In the common stock of knowledge there are standards of
role performance that are accessible to all members of a
society, or at least to those who are potential performers ofthe
roles in question. This general accessibility is itselfpart ofthe
same stock ofknowledge; not only are the standards of role X
generally known, but it is known that these standards are
known. Consequently every putative actor of role X can be
held responsible for abiding by the standards, which can be
91
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
taught as part of the institutional tradition and used to verify
the credentials of all performers and, by the same token, serve
as controls.
The origins of roles lie in the same fundamental process of
habitualization and objectivation as the origins of institutions.
Roles appear as soon as a common stock of knowledge containing
reciprocal typifications of conduct is in process of
formation, a process that, as we have seen, is endemic to social
interaction and prior to instiwtionalization proper. The question
as to which roles become institutionalized is identical
with the question as to which areas of conduct are affected by
institutionalization, and may be answered the same way. All
institutionalized conduct involves roles. Thus roles share in
the controlling character of institutionalization. As soon as
actors are typified as role performers, their conduct is ipsofacto
susceptible to enforcement. Compliance and non-compliance
with socially defined role standards cease to be optional,
though, of course, the severity of sanctions may vary from
case to case.
The roles represent the institutional order.38 This representation
takes place on two levels. First, performance of the role
represents itself. For instance, to engage in judging is to represent
the role of judge. The judging individual is not acting
'on his own', but qua 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.
The institution, with its assemblage of'programmed'
actions, is like the unwritten libretto ofa drama. The realization
of the drama depends upon the reiterated performances of its
prescribed roles by living actors. The actors embody the roles
and actualize the drama by representing it on the given stage.
Neither drama nor institution exist empirically apart from this
recurrent realization. To say, then, that roles represent institutions
is to say that roles make it possible for institutions to
exist, ever again, as a real presence in the experience of living
individuals.
Institutions are also represented in other ways. Their lin-
92
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
guistic objectifications, from their simple verbal designations
to their incorporation in highly complex symbolizations of
reality, also represent them (that is, make them present) in
experience. And they may be symbolically represented by
physical objects, both natural and artificial. All these representations,
however, become 'dead' (that is, bereft of subjective
reality) unless they are ongoingly 'brought to life' in actual
human conduct. The representation of an institution in and
by roles is thus the representation par excellence, on which all
other representations are dependent. For example, the institution
of law is, of course, also represented by legal language,
codes of law, theories of jurisprudence and, finally, by the
ultimate legitimations of the institution and its norms in
ethical, religious or mythological systems of thought. Such
man-made phenomena as the awesome paraphernalia that
frequently accompany the administration of law, and such
natural ones as the clap of thunder that may be taken as the
divine verdict in a trial by ordeal and may eventually even
become a symbol of ultimate justice, further represent the
institution. All these representations, however, derive their
continuing significance an� even intelligibility from their
utilization in human conduct, which here, ofcourse, is conduct
typified in the institutional roles of the law.
When individuals begin to reflect upon these matters they
face the problem of binding the various representations together
in a cohesive whole that will make sense.39 Any concrete
role performance refers to the objective sense ofthe institution,
and thus to the other complementary role performances, and
to the sense of the institution as a whole. While the problem of
integrating the various representations so involved is solved
primarily on the level of legitimation, it is also dealt with in
terms of certain roles. All roles represent the institutional
order in the aforementioned sense. Some roles, however,
symbolically represent that order in its totality more than
others. Such roles are ofgreat strategic importance in a society,
since they represent not only this or that institution, but the
integration of all institutions in a meaningful world. Ipsofacto,
of course these roles help in maintaining such integration in' .
the consciousness and conduct of the members of the soc1ety,
that is, they have a special relationship to the legitimating
93
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
apparatus of the society. Some roles have no functions other
than this symbolic representation of the institutional order as
an integrated totality, others take on this function from time
to time in addition to the less exalted functions they routinely
perform. The judge, for instance, may, on occasion in some. '
particularly important case, represent the total integration of
society in this way. The monarch does so all the time and
indeed, in a constitutional monarchy, may have no othe;
function than as a 'living symbol' for all levels of the society,
do�n to the man in the street. Historically, roles that symbolically
represent the total institutional order have been most
commonly located in political and religious institutions.40
More important for our immediate considerations is the
character of roles as mediators of specific sectors of the common
stock of knowledge. By virtue of the roles he plays the
individual is inducted into specific areas ofsocially objectivated
knowledge, not only in the narrower cognitive sense but also. '
m the sense of the 'knowledge' of norms, values and even
emotions. To be a judge obviously involves a knowledge of
the Iaw and probably also knowledge of a much wider range of
human affairs that are legally relevant. It also involves, howev�r,
'knowle�ge' of the val
.
ues and attitudes deemed appropnate
for a Judge, extendmg as far as those proverbially
deemed appropriate for a judge's wife. The judge must also
have appropriate 'knowledge' in the domain of the emotions :
he will have to know, for example, when to restrain his feelings
of compassion, to mention a not unimportant psychological
prerequisite for this role. In this way, each role opens an
entrance into a specific sector of the society's total stock of
knowledge. To learn a role it is not enough to acquire the
routines immediately necessary for its 'outward' performance.
One must also be initiated into the various cognitive and even
affective layers of the body of knowledge that is directly and
indirectly appropriate to this role.
This implies a social distribution ofknowledge.41 A society's
stock of knowledge is structured in terms of what is generally
relevant and what is relevant only to specific roles. This is true
of even very simple social situations, such as our previous
example of a social situation produced by the ongoing interaction
of a man, a bisexual woman and a Lesbian. Here some
94
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
knowledge is relevant to all three individuals (for instance,
knowledge of the procedures necessary to keep this company
econoxnically afloat), while other knowledge is relevant only to
two of the individuals (the savoir-faire of Lesbian or, in the
other case, of heterosexual seduction). In other words, the
social distribution of knowledge entails a dichotomization in
terms of general and role-specific relevance.
Given the historical accumulation ofknowledge in a society,
we can assume that, because of the division of labour, rolespecific
knowledge will grow at a faster rate than generally
relevant and accessible knowledge. The multiplication of
specific tasks brought about by the division of labour requires
standardized solutions that can be readily learned and transInitted.
These in turn require specialized knowledge of certain
situations, and of the means/ends relationships in terms of
which the situations are socially defined. In other words,
specialists will arise, each ofwhom will have to know whatever
is deemed necessary for the fulfilment of his particular task.
To accumulate role-specific knowledge a society must be so
organized that certain individuals can concentrate on their
specialities. If in a hunting society certain individuals are to
become specialists as swordsmiths, there will have to be provisions
to excuse them from the hunting activities that are
incumbent on all other adult males. Specialized knowledge of
a more elusive kind, such as the knowledge of mystagogues
and other intellectuals, requires sixnilar social organization. In
all these cases the specialists become administrators of the
sectors of the stock of knowledge that have been socially
assigned to them.
At the same time, an important part of generally relevant
knowledge is the typology of specialists. While the specialists
are defined as individuals who know their specialities, everyone
must know who the specialists are in case their specialities
are needed. The man in the street is not expected to knoN the
intricacies of the magic of inducing fertility or casting evil
spells. What he must know, however, is which magicians to
call upon if the need for either of these services arises. A
typology of experts (what contemporary social workers call a
referral guide) is thus part ofthe generally relevant and acces:.
sible stock ofknowledge, while the knowledge that constitutes
95
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
expertise is not. The practical difficulties that may arise in
certa�n societies (for instance, when there are competing
cotenes ofexperts, or when specialization has become so complicated
that the layman gets confused) need not concern us
at the moment.
It is thus possible to analyse the relationship between roles
and knowledge from two vantage points. Looked at from the
per�pe�tive of the institutional order, the roles appear as
msutut10nal representations and mediations of the institutionally
objectivated aggregates of knowledge. Looked at from
the perspective of the several roles, each role carries with it a
socially defined appendage of knowledge. Both perspectives,
of course, point to the same global phenomenon, which is the
essential dialectic of society. The first perspective can be
�u��ed up in the proposition that society exists only as
IDdlVtduals are conscious of it, the second in the proposition
that individual consciousness is socially determined. Narrowing
this to the matter ofroles, we can say that, on the one hand,
the institutional order is real only in so far as it is realized in
performed roles and that, on the other hand, roles are representative
of aninstitutional order that defines their character
(including their appendages of knowledge) and from which
they derive their objective sense.
The analysis ofroles is ofparticular importance to the sociology
of knowledge because it reveals the mediations between
the macroscopic universes ofmeaning objectivated in a society
and the ways by which these universes are subjectively real to
individuals. Thus it is possible, for example, to analyse the
macroscopic social roots of a religious world view in certain
collectivities (classes, say, or ethnic groups, or intellectual
coteries), and also to analyse tl- , manner in which this world
view is manifested in the consciousness of an individual. The
two analyses can be brought together only if one inquires into
the ways in which the individual, in his total social activity,
relates to the collectivity in question. Such an inquiry will, of
necessity, be an exercise in role analysis.42
SociETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
Scope and Modes of Institutionalization
So far we have discussed institutionalization in terms of essential
features that may be taken as sociological constants.
Obviously we cannot in this treatise give even an overview of
the countless variations in the historical manifestations and
combinations ofthese constants - a task that could be achieved
only by writing a universal history from the point of view of
sociological theory. There are, however, a number ofhistorical
variations in the character of institutions that are so important
for concrete sociological analyses that they should be at least
briefly discussed. Our focus will, of course, continue to be on
the relationship between institutions and knowledge.
In investigating any concrete institutional order, one may
ask the following question : What is the scope ofinstitutionalization
within the totality ofsocial actions in a given collectivity?·
In other words, how large is the sector of institutionalized
activity as compared with the sector that is left uninstitutionalized?43
Clearly there is historical variability in this
matter, with different societies allowing more or less room for
uninstitutionalized actions. An important general consideration
is what factors determine a wider as against a narrower
scope of institutionalization.
Very formally, the scope of instituuunalization depends on
the generality of the relevance structures. If many or most
relevance structures in a society are generally shared, the scope
of institutionalization will be wide. If only few relevance
structures are generally shared, the scope of institutionalization
will be narrow. In the latter case, there is the further
possibility that the institutional order will be highly fragmented,
as certain relevance structures are shared by groups
within the society but not by the society as a whole.
It may be heuristically useful to think here in terms ofidealtypical
extremes. 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 social actions are institutionalized. The
institutional order embraces the totality of social life, which
97
THE SociAL CoNSTRUCTION oF REALITY
resembles the continuous performance of a complex, highly
stylized liturgy. There is no role-specific distribution o f
knowledge, or nearly none, since all roles are performed within
situations of equal relevance to all the actors. This heuristic
model of a totally institutionalized society (a fit topic for
nightmares, it might be remarked in passing) can be slightly
modified by conceiving that all social actions are institutionalized,
but not only around common problems. While the
style oflife such a society would impose on its members would
be equally rigid, there would be a greater degree ofrole-specific
distribution of knowledge. A number of liturgies would be
going on at the same time, so to speak. Needless to say, neither
the model of institutional totality nor its modification can be
found in history. Actual societies can, however, be considered
in terms oftheir approximation to this extreme type. It is then
possible to say that primitive societies approximate the type
to a much higher degree than civilized ones.44 It may even be
said that in the development ofarchaic civilizations there is a
progressive movement away from this type.45
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. Almost all knowledge would be role-specific. In
terms of macroscopic societies, even approximations of this
type are historically unavailable. But certain approximations
can be found in smaller social formations - for example, in
libertarian colonies where common concerns are limited to
economic arrangements, or in military expeditions consisting
of a number oftribal or ethnic units whose only common problem
is the waging of the war.
Apart from stimulating sociological fantasies, such heuristic
fictions are useful only in so far as they help to clarify the conditions
that favour approximations to them. The most general
condition is the degree ofdivision oflabour, with the concomitant
differentiation ofinstitutions.48 Any society in which there
is increasing division of labour is moving away from the first
extreme type described above. Another general condition,
closely related to the previous one, is availability of an
economic surplus, which makes it possible for certain indiviSOCIETY
AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
duals or groups to engage in specialized activities not directly
concerned with subsistence.47 These specialized activities, as
we have seen, lead to specialization and segmentation in the
common stock of knowledge. And the latter makes possible
knowledge subjectively detached from any social relevance,
that is, 'pure theory'.48 This means that certain individuals are
(to return to a previous example) freed from hunting not only
to forge weapons but also to fabricate myths. Thus we have
the 'theoretical life', with its luxurious proliferation of
specialized bodies of knowledge, administered by specialists
whose social prestige may actually depend upon their inability
to do anything except theorize - which leads to a number of
analytic problems to which we shall return later.
Institutionalization is not, however, an irreversible process,
despite the fact that institutions, once formed, have a tendency
to persist.49 For a variety of historical reasons, the scope of
institutionalized actions may diminish ; de-institutionalization
may take place in certain areas of social life.50 For example, the
private sphere that has emerged in modern industrial society
is considerably de-institutionalized as compared to the public
sphere.51
A further question, with respect to which institutional
orders will vary historically, is : What is the relationship of the
various institutions to each other, on the levels of performance
and meaning?52 In the first extreme type discussed above,
there is a unity of institutional performances and meanings in
each subjective biography. The entire social stock of knowledge
is actualized in every individual biography. Everybody
does everything and knows everything. The problem of the
integration ofmeanings (that is, of the meaningful relationship
of the various institutions) is an exclusively subjective one.
The objective sense of the institutional order presents itself to
each individual as given and generally known, socially taken
for granted as such. If there is any problein at all, it is because
of subjective difficulties the individual may have internalizing
the socially agreed-upon meanings.
With increasing deviance from this heuristic model (that is,
of course, with all actual societies, though not to the same
degree) there will be important modifications in the givenness
of the institutional meanings. The first two of these we have
99
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
already indicated : a segmentation of the institutional order�
with only certain types of individuals performing certain
actions, and, following that, a social distribution ofknowledge,
with role-specific knowledge coming to be reserved to certain
types. With these developments, however, a new configuration
appears on the level ofmeaning. There will now be an objective
problem with respect to an encompassing integration of
meanings within the entire society. This is an altogether
different problem from the merely subjective one of harmonizing
the sense one makes of one's biography with the
sense ascribed to it by society. The difference is as great as
that between producing propaganda that will convince others
and producing memoirs that will convince oneself.
In our example of the man/woman/Lesbian triangle we
went to some lengths to show that it cannot be assumed a
priori that different processes of institutionalization will 'hang
together'. The relevance structure that is shared by the man
and the woman (A-B) does not have to be integrated with the
one shared by the woman and the Lesbian (B-C), or with the
one shared by the Lesbian and the man (C-A). Discrete
institutional processes can continue to coexist without overall
integration. We then argued that the empirical fact that institutions
do hang together, despite the impossibility ofassuming
this a priori, can be accounted for only in reference to the
reflective consciousness of individuals who impose a certain
logic upon their experience of the several institutions. We can
now push this argument one step further by assuming that one
of our three individuals (let us assume that it is the man, A)
becomes dissatisfied with the lack ofsymmetry in the situation.
This does not imply that the relevances in which he shares
(A-B and C-A) have changed for him. It is rather the relevance
in which he has not previously shared (B-C) that now
bothers him. This may be because it interferes with his own
interests (C spends too much time lllaking love with B and
neglects her flower-arranging activities with him), or it may be
that he has theoretical ambitions. In any case, he wants to
unite the three discrete relevances and their concomitant
habitualization processes into a cohesive, meaningful whole A-B-C.
How can he do this?
Let us imagine him a religious genius. One day he presents
IOO
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
the other two with a new mythology. The world was created in
two stages, the dry land by the creator god copulating with his
sister, the sea in an act of mutual masturbation by the latter
and a twin goddess. And when the world was thus made, the
creator god joined the twin goddess in the great flower dance,
and in this way there came to be flora and fauna on the face of
the dry land. The existing triangulation of heterosexuality,
Lesbianism and flower cultivation is thus nothing less than a
human imitation of the archetypal actions of the gods. Not
bad? The reader with some background in comparative mythology
will have no difficulty finding historical parallels to
this cosmogonic vignette. Our man may have more difficulty
getting the others to accept his theory. He will have a problem
of propaganda. If, however, we assume that B and C have also
had practical difficulties in keeping their various projects going,
or (less likely) that they are inspired by A's vision of the
cosmos, there is a good chance that he will be able to put his
scheme over. Once he has succeeded and all three individuals
'know' that their several actions work together for the great
society (which is A-B-C), this 'knowledge' will influence
what goes on in the situation. For instance, C may be more
amenable to budgeting her time in an equitable way between
her two major enterprises.
If this extension of our example seems far-fetched, we can
bring it closer to home by imagining a secularization process
in the consciousness of our religious genius. Mythology no
longer seems plausible. The situation has tQ be explained by
social science. This, of course, is very easy. lc is evident (to
our religious genius turned social scientist, that is) that the
two sorts of sexual activity going on in the situation express
deep-seated psychological needs of the participants. · He
'knows' that to frustrate these needs will lead to 'disfunctional'
tensions. On the other hand, it is a fact that our trio sell their
flowers for coconuts on the other end of the island. That
settles it. Behaviour patterns A-B and B-C are functional in
terms of the 'personality system', while C-A is functional in
terms of the economic sector of the 'social system'. A-B-C is
nothing but the rational outcome of functional integration on
the intersystemic level. Again, if A is successful in propagandizing
his two girls with this theory, their 'knowledge'
101
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
of the functional imperatives involved in their situation will
have certain controlling consequences for their conduct.
Mutatis mutandis, the same argument will hold if we transpose
it from the face-to-face idyll of our example to the
macro-social level. The segmentation ofthe institutional order
and the concomitant distribution ofknowledge will lead to the
problem ofproviding integrative meanings thatwill encompass
the society and provide an overall context of objective sense
for the individual's fragmented social experience and knowledge.
Furthermore, there will be not only the problem of
overall meaningful integration, but also aproblem oflegitimating
the institutional activities of one type of actor vis-a-vis
other types. We may assume that there is a universe ofmeaning
that bestows objective sense on the activities of warriors,
farmers, traders and exorcists. This does not mean that there
will be no conflict of interests between these types of actors.
Even within the common universe of meaning, the exorcists
may have a problem of 'explaining' some of their activities to
the warriors, and so forth. The methods of such legitimation
again vary historically.53
Another consequence of institutional segmentation is the
possibility of socially segregated sub-universes of meaning.
These result from accentuations of role specialization to the
point where role-specific knowledge becomes altogether esoteric
as against the common stock of knowledge. Such subuniverses
ofmeaning may or may not be submerged from the
common view. In certain cases, not only are the cognitive
contents of the sub-universe esoteric, but even the existence
of the sub-universe and of the collectivity that sustains it may
be a secret. Sub-universes of meaning may be socially structured
by various criteria - sex, age, occupation, religious
inclination, aesthetic taste, and so on. The chance of subuniverses
appearing, of course, increases steadily with progressive
division of labour and econ01nic surplus. A society
with a subsistence economy can have cognitive segregation
between men and women, or between old and young warriors,
as in the 'secret societies' common in Mrica and among
American Indians. It may still be able to afford the esoteric
existence of a few priests and magicians. Full-blown subuniverses
ofmeaning, such as characterized,say, Hindu castes,
10.2
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
the Chinese literary bureaucracy or the priestly coteries of
ancient Egypt, require much more developed solutions of the
economic problem.
Like all social edifices of meaning, the sub-universes must
be 'carried' by a particular collectivity,54 that is, by the group
that ongoingly produ.::es the meanings in question and within
which these meanings have objective reality. Conflict or
competition may exist between such groups. On the simplest
level, there may be conflict over the allocation of surplus
resources to the specialists in question, for example, over
exemption from productive labour. Who is to be officially
exempt, all medicine men, or only those who perform services
in the household of the chief? Or, who is to receive a fixed
stipend from the authorities, those who cure the sick with
herbs or those who do it by going into a trance? Such social
conflicts are readily translated into conflicts between rival
schools of thought, each seeking to establish itself and to discredit
if not liquidate the competitive body of knowledge. In
contemporary society, we continue to have such conflicts
(socio-economic as well as cognitive) between orthodox medicine
and such rivals as chiropractice, homeopathy or Christian
Science. In advanced industrial societies, with their immense
economic surplus allowing large numbers of individuals to
devote themselves full-time to even the obscurest pursuits,
pluralistic competition between sub-universes of meaning of
every conceivable sort becomes the normal state of affairs.55
With the establishment of sub-universes of meaning a
variety ofperspectives on the total society emerges, each viewing
the latter from the angle of one sub-universe. The chiropractor
has a different angle on society than the medical
school professor, the poet than the business man,the Jew than
the Gentile, and so on. It goes without saying that this multiplication
of perspectives greatly increases the problem of
establishing a stable symbolic canopy for the entire society.
Each perspective, with whatever appendages of theories or
even Weltanschauungen, will be related to the concrete social
interests of the group that holds it. This does not mean, however,
that the various perspectives, let alone the theories or
We/tanschauungen, are nothing but mechanical reflections of
the social interests. Especially on the theoretical level it is
103
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
quite possible for knowledge to attain a great deal of detachment
from the biographical and social interests ofthe knower.
Thus there may be tangible social reasons why Jews have become
preoccupied with certain scientific enterprises, but it is
impossible to predict scientific positions in terms oftheir being
held by Jews or non-Jews. In other words, the scientific universe
of meaning is capable of attaining a good deal of autonomy
as against its own social base. Theoretically, though in
practice there will be great variations, this holds with any body
of knowledge, even with cognitive perspectives on society.
What is more, a body of knowledge, once it is raised to the
level of a relatively autonomous sub-universe ofmeaning, has
the capacity to act back upon the collectivity that has produced
it. For instance, Jews may become social scientists because
they have special problems in society as Jews. But once they
have been initiated into the social-scientific universe of discourse,
they may not only look upon society from an angle
that is no longer distinctively Jewish, but even their social
activities as Jews may change as a result of their newly
acquired social-scientific perspectives. The extent of such
detachment of knowledge from its existential origins depends
upon a considerable number of historical variables (such as
the urgency of the social interests involved, the degree of
theoretical refinement of the knowledge in question, the social
relevance or irrelevance of the latter, and others). The
important principle for our general considerations is that the
relationship between knowledge and its social base is a dialectical
one, that is, knowledge is a social product and knowledge
is a factor in social change.66 This principle of the dialectic
between social production and the objectivated world that is
its product has already been explicated ; it is especially
important to keep it in mind in any analysis of concrete
subuniverses of meaning.
The increasing number and complexity of sub-universes
make them increasingly inaccessible to outsiders. They become
esoteric enclaves, 'hermetically sealed' (in the sense
classically associated with the Hermetic corpus of secret lore)
to all but those who have been properly initiated into their
mysteries. The increasing autonomy of sub-universes makes
for special problems of legitimation 'Vis-a-vis both outsiders
104
SociETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
and insiders. The outsiders have to be kept out, sometimes
even kept ignorant of the existence of the sub-universe. If,
however, they are not so ignorant, and if the sub-universe
requires various special privileges and recognitions from the
larger society, there is the problem ofkeeping out the outsiders
and at the same time having them acknowledge the legitimacy
of this procedure. This is done through various techniques of
intimidation, rational and irrational propaganda (appealing to
the outsiders' interests and to their emotions), mystification
and, generally, the manipulation of prestige symbols. The
insiders, on the other hand, have to be kept in. This requires
the development of both practical and theoretical procedures
by which the temptation to escape from the sub-universe can
be checked. We shall look at some of the details of this double
problem oflegitimation later. An illustration may serve for the
moment. It is not enough to set up an esoteric sub-universe of
medicine. The lay public must be convinced that this is right
and beneficial, and the medical fraternity must be held to the
standards of the suq-universe. Thus the general population is
intimidated by images of the physical doom that follows
'going against doctor's advice' ; it is persuaded not to do so by
the pragmatic benefits of compliance, and by its own horror of
illness and death. To underline its authority the medical profession
shrouds itself in the age-old symbols of power and
mystery, from outlandish costume to incomprehensible language,
all ofwhich, ofcourse, are legitimated to the public and
to itself in pragmatic terms. Meanwhile the fully accredited
inhabitants of the . medical world are kept from 'quackery'
(that is, from stepping outside the medical sub-universe in
thought or action) not only by the powerful external controls
available to the profession, but by a whole body of professional
knowledge that offers them 'scientific proof' of the folly
and even wickedness of such deviance. In other words, an
entire legitimating machinery is at work so that laymen will
remain laymen, and doctors doctors, and (if at all possible)
that both will do so happily.
Special problems arise as a result of differential rates of
change of institutions and sub.ulliverses.�'>7 This makes more
difficult both the overall legitimation ofthe institutional order
and the specific legitimations of particular institutions or sub-
105
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
�verses. A feudal society with a modern army, a landed
artstocracy having to exist under conditions of industrial
capitalism, a traditional religion forced to cope with the
popularization of a scientific world view, the coexistence in
one society of the theory of relativity and astrology - our
contemporary experience is so full of examples of this sort
that it is unnecessary to belabour the point. Suffice it to say
that, under such conditions, the work of the several legitimators
becomes especially strenuous.
A final question ofgreat theoretical interest arisingfrom the
historical variability of institutionalization has to do with the
manner in which the institutional order is objectified : To
what extent is an institutional order, or any part of it, apprehended
as a non-human facticity? This is the question of the
reification of social reality.ss
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 zf they
were something other than human products - such as facts of
nature, results ofcosmic laws, or manifestations ofdivine will.
Reificati�n implies that man is capable of forgetting his own
authorship of the human world, and, further, that the dialectic
between man, the producer, and his products is lost to consciousness.
The reified world is, by definition, a dehumanized
w�rld. It is experienced by man as a strange facticity, an opus
a/zenum over which he has no control rather than as the opus
proprium of his own productive activity.
It will be clear from our previous discussion of objectivation
that, as soon as an objective social world is established the
possibility ofreification is never far away.58 The objectivicyof
the �ocial w�rld means that it confronts man as something
outside of htmself. The decisive question is whether he still
retains the awareness that, however objectivated, the social
world was made by men - and, therefore, can be remade by
them. In other words, reification can be described as an extreme
step in the process ofobjectivation, whereby the objectivated
world loses its comprehensibility as a human enterprise
and becomes fixated as a non-hum.aJl. non-humanizable, inert
facticity.80 Typically, the real relationship between man and
Io6
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
his world is reversed in consciousness. Man, the producer of a
world, is apprehended as its product, and human activity a� an
epiphenomenon of non-human processes. Human meanmgs
are no longer understood as world-producing but as being, in
their turn, products of the 'nature of things'. I
.
t must be emphasized
that reification is a modality of consciousness, more
precisely, a modality of man's objectification of the human
world. Even while apprehending the world in reified terms,
man continues to produce it. That is, man is capable paradoxically
of producing a reality that denies him.61
Reification is possible on both the pre-theoretical and theoretical
levels of consciousness. Complex theoretical systems
can be described as reifications, though presumably they have
their roots in pre-theoretical reifications established i� t?is or
that social situation. Thus it would be an error to ltmtt the
concept of reification to the mental
.
constructions of int
.
ellectuals.
Reification exists in the consciOusness of the man tn the
street and indeed, the latter presence is more practically
significant: It would also be a mistake to look at reification as
a perversion of an originally non-reified apprehension of the
social world, a sort of cognitive fall from grace. On the contrary,
the available ethnological and psychological evi�e�ce
seems to indicate the opposite, namely, that the origtnal
apprehension of the social w_orld is hi�hlr re�ed both
phylogenetically and ontogeneucally.12 This Imph
.
es that a�
apprehension of reification as a modality of consciOusness IS
dependent upon an at least relative de-reification
.
of c
.
onsciousness,
which is a comparatively late development tn history and
in any individual biography.
.
Both the institutional order as a whole and segments of It
may be apprehended in reified terms. For example, the entire
order of society may be conceived of as of a microcosm reflecting
the macrocosm of the total universe as made by the gods.
Whatever happens 'here below' is but a pale reflection ofwhat
takes place 'up above'.ea Particular insti�tions may � app�ehended
in similar ways. The basic 'recrpe' for the reificauon
of institutions is to bestow on them an ontological status independent
of human activi� and signification.
.
specific
reifications are variations on this general theme. Marnage, for
instance, may be reified as an imitation of divine acts of
107
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
creativity, as a universal mandate ofnatural laws, as the necessary
consequence of biological or psychological forces, or, for
that matter, as a functional imperative of the social system.
What all these reifications have in common is their obfuscation
of marriage as an ongoing human production. As can be
readily seen in this example, the reification may occur both
theoretically and pre-theoretically. Thus the mystagogue can
concoct a highly sophisticated theory reaching out from the
concrete human event to the farthest corners of the divine
cosmos, but an illiterate peasant couple being married may
apprehend the event with a similarly reifying shudder ofmetaphysical
dread. Through reification, the world of institutions
appears to merge with the world of nature. It becomes necessity
and fate, and is lived through as such, happily or unhappily
as the case may be.
Roles may be reified in the same manner as institutions. The
sector ofself-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' - as husband, father, general, archbishop, chairman
of the board, gangster or hangman, as the case may be. This
means that the reification of roles narrows the subjective distance
that the individual may establish between himself and
his role-playing. The distance implied in all objectification
remains, of course, but the distance brought about by disidentification
shrinks to the vanishing point. Finally, identity
itself (the total self, if one prefers) may be reified, both one's
own and that of others. There is then a total identification of
the individual with his socially assigned typifications. He is
apprehended as nothing but that type. This apprehension may
be positively or negatively accented in terms of values or emotions.
The identification of 'Jew' may be equally reifying for
the anti-Semite and the Jew himself, except that the latter will
accent the identification positively and the former negatively.
Both reifications bestow an ontological and total status on a
typification that is humanly produced and that, even as it is
internalized, objectifies but a segment ofthe self.64 Once more,
such reifications may range from the pre-theoretical level of
108
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
'what everybody knows about Jews' to the most complex
theories of Jewishness as a manifestation of biology ('Jewish
blood'), psychology ('the Jewish soul') or metaphysics ('the
mystery of Israel').
The analysis ofreification is important because it serves as a
standing corrective to the reifying propensities of theoretical
thought in general and sociological thought in particular. It is
particularly important for the sociology of knowledge, because
it prevents it from falling into an undialectical conception of
the relationship between what men do and what they think.
The historical and empirical application of the sociology of
knowledge must take special note of the social circumstances
that favour de-reification - such as the overall collapse of
institutional orders, the contact between previously segregated
societies, and the important phenomenon of social marginality.85
These problems, however, exceed the framework of
our present considerations.
109
2. Legitimation
Origins of Symbolic Universes
Legitimation as a process is best described as a 'second-order'
objectivation of meaning. Legitimation produces new meanings
that serve to integrate the meanings already attached to
disparate institutional processes. The function of legitimation
is to make objectively available and subjectively plausible the
'first-order' objectivations that have been institutionalized.66
While we define legitimation by this function, regardless of
the specific motives inspiring any particular legitimating process,
it should be added that 'integration', in one form or
another, is also the typical purpose motivating the legitimators.
Integration and, correspondingly, the question ofsubjective
plausibility refer to two levels. First, the totality of the institutional
order should make sense, concurrently, to the participants
in different institutional processes. Here the question of
plausibility refers to the subjective recognition of an overall
sense 'behind' the situationally predominant but only partial
institutionalized motives of one's own as well as of one's
fellowmen - as in the relation ofthe chiefand the priest, or the
father and the military commander, or even, in the case of one
and the same individual, of the father, who is also the military
commander of his son, to himself. This, then, is a 'horizontal'
level of integration and plausibility, relating the total institutional
order to several individuals participating in it in several
roles, or to several partial institutional processes in which a
single individual may participate at any given time.
Second, the totality of the individual's life, the successive
passing through various orders of the institutional order, must
be made subjectively meaningful. In other words, the individual
biography, in its several, successive, institutionally predefined
phases, must be endowed with a meaning that makes
the whole subjectively plausible. A 'vertical' level within the
1 10
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
life span ofsingle individuals must, therefore, be added to the
'horizontal' level of integration and subjective plausibility of
the institutional order.
As we have argued before, legitimation is not necessary in
the first phase of institutionalization, when the institution is
simply a fact that requires no further support either intersubjectively
or biographically; it is self-evident to all concerned.
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 individual's own recollection
and habitualization. The unity ofhistoryand biography
is broken. In order to restore it, and thus to make intelligible
both aspects of it, there must be 'explanations' and justifications
of the salient elements of the institutional tradition.
Legitimation is this process of •explaining' and justifying.67
Legitimation •explains' the institutional order by ascribing
cognitive validity to its objectivated meanings. Legitimation
justifies the institutional order by giving a normative dignity
to its practical imperatives. It is important to understand that
legitimation has a cognitive as well as a normative element. In
other words, legitimation is not just a matter of •values'. It
always implies 'knowledge' as well. For example, a kinship
strur.ture is not legitimated merely by the ethics of its particular
incest taboos. There must first be 'knowledge' of the
roles that define both 'right' and 'wrong' actions within the
structure. The individual, say, may not marry within his clan.
But he must first 'know' himself as a member of this clan.
This 'knowledge' comes to him through a tradition that
'explains' what clans are in general and what his clan is in
particular. Such 'explanations' (which typically constitute a
'history' and a 'sociology' of the collectivity in question, and
which in the case of incest taboos probably contain an 'anthropology'
as well) are as much legitimating instruments as
ethical elements of the tradition. Legitimation not only tells
the individual why he should perform one action and not
another; it also tells him why things are what they are. In
other words, 'knowledge' precedes 'values' in the legitimation
of institutions.
I I I
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
It is possible to distinguish analytically between different
levels oflegitimation (empirically, of course, these levels overlap).
Incipient legitimation is present as soon as a system of
linguistic objectifications of human experience is transmitted.
For example, the transmission of a kinship vocabulary ipso
facto legitimates the kinship structure. The fundamental
legitimating 'explan-ations' are, so to speak, built into the
vocabulary. Thus a child learns that another child is a
'cousin', a piece of information that immediately and inherently
legitimates the conduct with regard to 'cousins' that
is learned along with the designation. To this first level of
incipient legitimation belong all the simple traditional affirmations
to the effect that 'This is how things are done' - the
earliest and generally effective responses to a child's questions
of 'Why?' This level, of course, is pre-theoretical. But it is the
foundation of self-evident 'knowledge' on which all subsequent
theories must rest - and, conversely, which they must
attain if they are to become incorporated in tradition.
The second level of legitimation contains theoretical propositions
in a rudimentary form. Here may be found various
explanatory schemes relating sets ofobjective meanings. These
schemes are highly pragmatic, directly related to concrete
actions. Proverbs, moral maxims and wise sayings are common
on this level. Here, too, belong legends and folk tales,
frequently transmitted in poetic forms. Thus the child learns
such adages as 'He who steals from his cousin gets warts on
his hands' or 'Go when your wife cries, but run when your
cousin calls for you'. Or he may be inspired by the 'Song of
the Loyal Cousins Who Went Hunting Together' and
frightened out of his wits by the 'Dirge for Two Cousins Who
Fornicated'.
The third level of legitimation contains explicit theories by
which an institutional sector is legitimated in terms of a
differentiated body of knowledge. Such legitimations provide
fairly comprehen,sive frames of reference for the respective
sectors of institutionalized conduct. Because of their complexity
and differentiation, they are frequently entrusted to
specialized personnel who transmit them through formalized
initiation procedures. Thus there may be an elaborate economic
theory of 'cousinhood', its rights, obligations and
1 12
SociETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
standard operating procedures. This lore is administered by
the old men of the clan, perhaps assigned to them after their
own economic usefulness is at an end. The old men initiate
the adolescents into this higher economics in the course of the
puberty rites and appear as experts whenever there are problems
of application. If we assume that the old men have no
other tasks assigned to them, it is likely that they will spin out
the theories in question among themselves even ifthere are no
problems of application, or, more accurately, they will invent
such problems in the course of their theorizing. In other
words, with the development of specialized legitimating
theories and their administration by full-time legitimators,
legitimation begins to go beyond pragmatic application and to
become 'pure theory'. With this step, the sphere of legitimations
begins to attain a measure of autonomy vis-a-vis the
legitimated institutions and eventually may generate its own
institutional processes.68 In our example, the 'science of
cousinhood' may begin to have a life of its own quite independent
of the activities of merely 'lay' cousins, and the
body of 'scientists' may set up its own institutional processes
over against the institutions that the 'science' was originally
meant to legitimate. We may imagine an ironic culmination
of this development when the word 'cousin' no longer applies
to a kinship role but to the holder of a degree in the hierarchy
of 'cousinhood' specialists.
Symbolic universes constitute the fourth level of legitimation.
These are bodies of theoretical tradition that integrate
different provinces ofmeaning and encompass the institutional
order in a symbolic totality,59 using the term 'symbolic' in the
way we have previously defined. To reiterate, symbolic processes
are processes of signification that refer to realities other
than those of everyday experience. It may be readily seen how
the symbolic sphere relates to the most comprehensive level of
legitimation. The sphere of pragmatic application is transcended
once and for all. Legitimation now takes place by
means of symbolic totalities that cannot be experienced in
everyday life at all - except, of course, in so far as one might
speak of 'theoretical experience' (strictly speaking, a mis·
nomer, to be used heuristically if at all). This level oflegitimation
is further distinguished from the preceding one by its
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THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
scope of meaningful integration. Already on the preceding
level it is possible to find a high degree of integration of particular
provinces of meaning and discrete processes of institutionalized
conduct. Now, however, all the sectors of the
institutional order are integrated in an all-embracing frame of
reference, which now constitutes a universe in the literal
sense of the word, because all human experience can now be
conceived of as taking place within it.
The symbolic universe is conceived of as the matrix of all
socially objectivated and subjectively real meanings; the entire
historic society and the entire biography of the individual are
seen as events taking place within this. universe. What is particularly
important, the marginal situations of the life of the
individual (marginal, that is, in not being included in the
reality of everyday existence in society) are also encompassed
by the symbolic universe.70 Such situations are experienced in
dreams and fantasies as provinces of meaning detached from
everyday life, and endowed with a peculiar reality of their
own. Within the symbolic universe these detached realms of
reality are integrated within a meaningful totality that 'explains',
perhaps also justifies them (for instance, dreams may
be 'explained' by a psychological theory, both 'explained' and
justified by a theory of metempsychosis, and either theory will
be grounded in a much more comprehensive universe - a
'scientific' one, say, as against a 'metaphysical' one). The
symbolic universe is, ofcourse, constructed by means of social
objectivations. Yet its meaning-bestowing capacity far exceeds
the domain of social life, so that the individual may 'locate'
himself within it even in his most solitary experiences.
On this level of legitimation, the reflective integration of
discrete institutional processes reaches its ultimate fulfilment.
A whole world is created. All the lesser legitimating theories
are viewed as special perspectives on phenomena that are
aspects of this world. Institutional roles become modes of
participation in a universe that transcends and includes the
institutional order. In our previous example, the 'science of
cousinhood' is only a part of a much wider body of theory,
which, almost certainly, will contain a general theory of the
cosmos and a general theory ofman. The ultimate legitimation
for 'correct' actions in the kinship structure will then be their
1 14
SociETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
'location' within a cosmological and anthropological frame of
reference. Incest, for instance, will attain its ultimate negative
sanction as an offence against the divine order of the cosmos
and against the divinely established nature of man. So may
economic misbehaviour, or any other deviance from the institutional
norms. The limits of such ultimate legitimation are,
in principle, coextensive with the limits oftheoretical ambition
and ingenuity on the part of the legitimators, the officially
accredited definers of reality. In practice, of course, there will
be variations in the degree of precision with which particular
segments of the institutional order are placed in a cosmic context.
Again, these variations may be due to particular pragmatic
problems on which the legitimators are consulted, or
they may be the result of autonomous developments in the
theoretical fancy of the cosmological experts.
The crystallization of symbolic universes follows the previously
discussed processes of objectivation, sedimentation
and accumulation of knowledge. That is, symbolic universes
are social products with a history. Ifone is to understand their
meaning, one has to understand the history of their production.
This is all the more important because these products of
human consciousness, by their very nature, present themselves
as full-blown and inevitable totalities.
We may now inquire further about the manner in which
symbolic universes operate to legitimate individual biography
and the institutional order. The operation is essentially the
same in both cases. It is nomic, or ordering, in character.71
The symbolic universe provides order for the subjective
apprehension of biographical experience. Experiences belonging
to different spheres of reality are integrated by incorporation
in the same, overarching universe of meaning. For
example, the symbolic universe determines the significance of
dreams within the reality of everyday life, re-establishing in
each instance the paramount status ofthe latter and mitigating
the shock that accompanies the passage from one reality to
another.72 The provinces of meaning that would otherwise
remain unintelligible enclaves within the reality of everyday
life are thus ordered in terms of a hierarchy of realities, ipso
facto becoming intelligible and less terrifying. This integration
of the realities of marginal situations within the paramount
115
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
reality of everyday life is of great importance, because these
situations constitute the most acute threat to taken-forgranted,
routinized existence in society. Ifone conceives of the
latter as the 'daylight side' of human life, then the marginal
situations constitute a 'night side' that keeps lurkingominously
on the periphery of everyday consciousness. Just because the
'night side' has its own reality, often enough of a sinister kind,
it is a constant threat to the taken-for-granted, matter-of-fact,
'sane' reality of life in society. The thought keeps suggesting
itself (the 'insane' thought par excellence) that, perhaps, the
bright reality ofeveryday life is but an illusion, to be swallowed
up at any moment by the howling nightmares of the other, the
night-side reality. Such thoughts of madness and terror are
contained by ordering all conceivable realities within the same
symbolic universe that encompasses the reality of everyday
life - to wit, ordering them in such a way that the latter reality
retains its paramount, definitive (if one wishes, its 'most real')
quality.
This nomic function of the symbolic universe for individual
experience may be described quite simply by saying that it
'puts everything in its right place'. What is more, whenever
one strays from the consciousness of this order (that is, when
one finds oneself in the marginal situations of experience), the
symbolic universe allows one 'to return to reality' - namely, to
the reality of everyday life. Since this is, of course, the sphere
to which all forms of institutional conduct and roles belong,
the symbolic universe provides the ultimate legitimation of
the institutional order by bestowing upon it the primacy in the
hierarchy of human experience.
Apart from this crucially important integration of marginal
realities, the symbolic universe provides the highest level of
integration for the discrepant meanings actualized within
everyday life in society. We have seen how meaningful integration
of discrete sectors of institutionalized conduct takes
place by means of reflection, both pre-theoretically and theoretically.
Such meaningful integration does not presuppose
the positing of a symbolic universe ab initio. It can take place
without recourse to symbolic processes, that is, without transcending
the realities of everyday experience. However, once
the symbolic universe is posited, discrepant sectors of every-
116
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
day life can be integrated by direct reference to the symbolic
universe. For example, discrepancies between the meaning of
playing the role of cousin and playing the role of landowner
can be integrated without reference to a general mythology.
But if a general mythological Weltanschauung is operative, it
can be directly applied to the discrepancy in everyday life. To
throw a cousin off a plot of land may then be not only bad
economics or bad morals (negative sanctions that need not be
extended to cosmic dimensions) ; it may be understood as a
violation of the divinely consptuted order of the universe. In
this way, the symbolic universe orders and thereby legitimates
everyday roles, priorities, and operating procedures by placing
them sub specie universi, that is, in the context of the most
general frame of reference conceivable. Within the same context
even the most trivial transactions of everyday life may
come to be imbued with profound significance. It can be
readily seen how this procedure provides powerful legitimation
for the institutional order as a whole as well as for particular
sectors of it.
The symbolic universe also makes possible the ordering of
the different phases of biography. In primitive societies the
rites of passage represent this nomic function in pristine form.
The periodization of biography is symbolized at each stage
with reference to the totality of human meanings. To be a
child, to be an adolescent, to be an adult, and so forth - each
of these biographical phases is legitimated as a mode of being
in the symbolic universe (most often, as a particular mode of
relating to the world of the gods). We need not belabour the
obvious point that such symbolization is conducive to feelings
of security and belonging. It would be a mistake, however, to
think here only of primitive societies. A modern psychological
theory ofpersonality development can fulfil the same function.
In both cases, the individual passing from one biographical
phase to another can view himself as repeating a sequence that
is given in the 'nature of things', or in his own 'nature'. That
is, he can reassure himself that he is living 'correctly'. The
'correctness' of his life programme is thus legitimated on the
highest level of generality. As the individual looks back upon
his past life, his biography is intelligible to him in these terms.
As he projects himselfinto the future, he may conceive of his
II7
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
biography as unfolding within a universe whose ultimate
coordinates are known.
The same legitimating function pertains to the 'correctness'
of the individual's subjective identity. By the very nature of
socialization, subjective identity is a precarious entity.'3 It is
dependent upon the individual's relations with significant
others, who may change or disappear. The precariousness is
further increased by self-experiences in the afore-mentioned
marginal situations. The 'sane' apprehension of oneself as
possessor of a definite, stable and socially recognized identity
is continually threatened by the 'surrealistic' metamorphoses
of dreams and fantasies, even ifit remains relatively consistent
in everyday social interaction. Identity is ultimately legitimated
by placing it within the context of a symbolic universe.
Mythologically speaking, the individual's 'real' name is the one
given to him by his god. The individual may thus 'know who
he is' by anchoring his identity in a cosmic reality protected
from both the contingencies ofsocialization and the malevolent
self-transformations of marginal experience. Even ifhis neighbours
do not know who he is, and even ifhe himselfmay fo . get
in the throes of nightmare, he can reassure himself that his
'true self' is an ultimately real entity in an ultimately real
universe. The gods know - or psychiatric science - or the
party. In other words, the realissimum of identity need not be
legitimated by being known at all times by the individual ; it is
enough, for purposes oflegitimation, that it is knowable. Since
the identity that is known or knowable by the gods, by psychiatry,
or by the party is at the same time the identity that is
assigned the status of paramount reality, legitimation again
integrates all conceivable transformations of identity with the
identity whose reality is grounded in everyday life in society.
Once more, the symbolic universe establishes a hierarchy,
from the 'most real' to the most fugitive self-apprehensions of
identity. This means that the individual can live in society
with some assurance that he really is what he considers himself
to be as he plays his routine social roles, in broad daylight and
under the eyes of significant others.
A strategic legitimating function of symbolic universes for
individual biography is the 'location' of death. The experience
of the death of others and, subsequently, the anticipation of
118
SOCIETY A S OBJECTIVE REALITY
one's own death posit the marginal situation par excellence for
the individual.74 Needless· to elaborate, death also posits the
most terrifying threat to the taken-for-granted realities of
everyday life. The integration of death within the paramount
reality of social existence is, therefore, of the greatest importance
for any institutional order. This legitimation of death is,
consequently, one of the most important fruits of symbolic
universes. Whether it is done with or without recourse to
mythological, religious or metaphysical interpretations of
reality is not the essential question here. The modern atheist,
for instance, who bestows meaning upon death in terms of a
Weltanschauung of progressive evolution or of revolutionary
history also does so by integrating death with a realityspanning
symbolic universe. All legitimations of death must
carry out the same essential task - they must enable the individual
to go on living in society after the death of significant
others and to anticipate his own death with, at the very least,
terror sufficiently mitigated so as not to paralyse the continued
performance of the routines of everyday life. It may readily be
seen that such legitimation is difficult to achieve, short of
integrating the phenomenon of death within a symbolic universe.
Such legitimation, then, provides the individual with a
recipe for a 'correct death'. Optimally, this recipe will retain
its plausibility when his own death is imminent and will
allow him, indeed, to 'die correctly'.
It is in the legitimation of death that the transcending
potency of symbolic universes manifests itself most clearly,
and the fundamental terror-assuaging character of the ultimate
legitimations of the paramount reality of everyday life is
revealed. The primacy of the social objectivations of everyday
life can retain its subjective plausibility only if it is constantly
protected against terror. On the level of meaning, the institutional
order represents a shield against terror. To be anomie,
therefore, means to be deprived of this shield and to be exposed,
alone, to the onslaught of nightmare. While the horror
of aloneness is probably already given in the constitutional
sociality of man, it manifests itself on the level of meaning in
man's incapacity to sustain a meaningful existence in isolation
from the nomic constructions of society. The symbolic universe
shelters the individual from ultimate terror by bestowing
II9
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
ultimate legitimation upon the protective structures of the
institutional order.75
Very much the same may be said about the social (as against
the just discussed individual) significance of symbolic universes.
They are sheltering canopies over the institutional
order as well as over individual biography. They also provide
the delimitation of social reality; that is, they set the limits of
what is relevant in terms of social interaction. One extreme
possibility of this, sometimes approximated in primitive
societies, is the definition of everything as social reality; even
inorganic matter is dealt with in social terms. A narrower, and
more common, delimitation includes only the organic or
animal worlds. The symbolic universe assigns ranks to various
phenomena in a hierarchy of being, defining the range of the
social within this hierarchy.76 Needless to say, such ranks are
also assigned to different types of men, and it frequently
happens that broad categories of such types (sometimes everyone
outside the collectivity in question) are defined as other
than or less than human. This is commonly expressed linguistically
(in th� extreme case, with the name of the collectivity
being equivalent to the term 'human'). This is not too
rare, even in civilized societies. For example, the symbolic
universe oftraditional India assigned a status to the outcastes
that was closer to that of animals than to the human status of
the upper castes (ari operation ultimately legitimated in the
theory of karma-samsara, which embraced all beings, human
or otherwise), and as recently as the Spanish conquests in
America it was possible for the Spaniards to conceive of the
Indians as belonging to a different species (this operation being
legitimated in a less comprehensive manner by a theory that
'proved' that the Indians could not be descended from Adam
and Eve).
The symbolic universe also orders history. It locates all
collective events in a cohesive unity that includes past, present
and future. With regard to the past, it establishes a 'memory'
that is shared by all the individuals socialized within the collectivity.77
With regard to the future, it establishes a common
frame of reference for the projection of individual actions.
Thus the symbolic universe links men with their predecessors
and their successors in a meaningful totality,78 serving to
12.0
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
transcend the finitude of individual existence and bestowing
meaning upon the individual's death. All the members of a
society can now conceive of themselves as belonging to a
meaningful universe, which was there before they were born
and will be there after they die. The empirical community is
transposed on to a cosmic plane and made majestically
independent of the vicissitudes of individual existence.79
As we have already observed, the symbolic universe provides
a comprehensive integration of all discrete institutional
processes. The entire society now makes sense. Particular institutions
and roles are legitimated by locating them in a
comprehensively meaningful world. For example, the political
order is legitimated by reference to a cosmic order of power
and justice, and political roles are legitimated as representations
of these cosmic principles. The institution of divine
kingship in archaic civilizations is an excellent illustration of
the manner in which this kind of ultimate legitimation
operates. It is important, however, to understand that the
institutional order, like the order of individual biography, is
continually threatened by the presence of realities that are
meaningless in its terms. The legitimation of the institutional
order is also faced with the ongoing necessity ofkeeping chaos
at bay. All social reality is precarious. All societies are constructions
in the face of chaos. The constant possibility of
anomie terror is actualized whenever the legitimations that
obscure the precariousness are threatened or collapse. The
dread that accompanies the death of a king, especially if it
occurs with sudden violence, expresses this terror. Over and
beyond emotions ofsympathy or pragmatic political concerns,
the death of a king under such circumstances brings the
terror of chaos to conscious proximity. The popular reaction
to the assassination of President Kennedy is a potent illustration.
It may readily be understood why such events have to be
followed at once with the most solemn reaffirmations of the
continuing reality of the sheltering symbols.
The origins of a symbolic up.iverse have their roots in the
constitution of man. If man in society is a world-constructor,
this is made possible by his constitutionally given worldopenness,
which already implies the conflict between order
and chaos. Human existence is, ab initio, an ongoing
Ill
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
externalization. As man externalizes himself, he constructs the
world into which he externalizes himself. In the process of
externalization, he projects his own meanings into reality.
Symbolic universes, which proclaim that allreality is humanly
meaningful and call upon the entire cosmos to signify the
validity of human existence, constitute the furthest reaches of
this projection.80
Conceptual Machineries of Universe-Maintenance
Considered as a cognitive construction, the symbolic universe
is theoretical. It originates in processes ofsubjective reflection,
which, upon social objectivation, lead to the establishment of
explicit links between the significant themes that have their
roots in the several institutions. In this sense, the theoretical
character of symbolic universes is indubitable, no matter how
unsystematic or illogical such a universe may seem to an 'unsympathetic'
outsider. However, one may and typically does
live naively within a symbolic universe. Whereas the establishment
of a symbolic universe presupposes theoretical reflection
on the part of somebody (to whom the world or, more
specifically, the institutional order appeared problematic),
everybody may 'inhabit' that universe in a taken-for-granted
attitude. If the institutional order is to be taken for granted in
its totality as a meaningful whole, it must be legitimated by
'placement' in a symbolic universe. But, other things being
equal, this universe itselfdoes not require further legitimation.
To begin with, it was the institutional order, not the symbolic
universe, that appeared p{oblematic and to which, consequently,
theorizing was addressed. For example, returning to
the previous illustration of kinship legitimation, once the
institution of cousinship is 'located' in a cosmos of mythological
cousins, it is no longer a simple matter of social fact
without any 'additional' significance. The mythology itself,
however, may be held to naively without theoretical reflection
about it.
Only after a symbolic universe is objectivated as a 'first'
122
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
product of theoretical thought does the possibility of systematic
reflection about the nature ofthat universe arise. Whereas
the symbolic universe legitimates the institutional order on
the highest level of generality, theorizing about the symbolic
universe may be described as, so to speak, legitimation to the
second degree. All legitimations, from the simplest pretheoretical
legitimations of discrete institutionalized meanings
to the cosmic establishments of symbolic universes, may, in
turn, be described as machineries of universe-maintenance.
These, it will readily be seen, require a good deal ofconceptual
sophistication from the beginning.
Obviously there are difficulties in drawing firm lines
between 'naive' and 'sophisticated' in concrete instances. The
analytic distinction, however, is useful even in such instances,
because it draws attention to the question of the extent to
which a symbolic universe is taken for granted. In this respect,
of course, the analytic problem is similar to the one we have
· already encountered in our discussion of legitimation. There
are various levels of the legitimation of symbolic universes
just as there are of the legitimation of institutions, except that
the former cannot be said to descend to the pre-theoretical
level, for the obvious reason that a symbolic universe is itself
a theoretical phenomenon and remains so even if naively held
to.
As in the case of institutions, the question arises as to the
circumstances under which it becomes necessary to legitimate
symbolic universes by means ofspecific conceptual machineries
of universe-maintenance. And again the answer is similar to
the one given in the case of institutions. Specific procedures
of universe-maintenance become necessary when the symbolic
universe has become a problem. As long as this is not the
case, the symbolic universe is self-maintaining, that is, selflegitimating
by the sheer facticity of its objective existence
in the society in question. One may conceive of a society in
which this would be possible. Such a society would be a harmonious,
self-enclosed, perfectly functioning 'system'. Actually,
no such society exists. Because of the inevitable tensions of
the processes of institutionalization, and by the very fact that
all social phenomena are constructions produced historically
through human activity, no society is totally taken for granted
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
and so, a fortiori, is no symbolic universe. Every symbolic
universe is incipiently problematic. The question, then, is the
degree to which it has become problematic.
An intrinsic problem, similar to the one we discussed in
connexion with tradition in general, presents itself with the
process of transmission of the symbolic universe from one
generation to another. Socialization is never completely successful.
Some individuals 'inhabit' the transmitted universe
more definitely than others. Even among the more or less
accredited 'inhabitants', there will always be idiosyncratic
variations in the way they conceive of the universe. Precisely
because the symbolic universe cannot be experienced as such
in everyday life, but transcends the latter by its very nature, it
is not possible to 'teach' its meaning in the straightforward
manner in which one can teach the meanings of everyday life.
Children's questions about the symbolic universe have to be
answered in a more complicated way than their questions
about the institutional realities of everyday life. The questions
of idiosyncratic adults require further conceptual elaboration.
In the previous example, the meaning of cousinhood is continually
represented by flesh-and-blood cousins playing cousin
roles in the experienced routines of everyday life. Human
cousins are empirically available. Divine cousins, alas, are not.
This constitutes an intrinsic problem for the pedagogues of
divine cousinhood. Mutatis mutandis, the same is true of the
transmission of other symbolic universes.
This intrinsic problem becomes accentuated if deviant versions
of the symbolic universe come to be shared by groups of
'inhabitants'. In that case, for reasons evident in the nature of
objectivation, the deviant version congeals into a reality in its
own right, which, by its existence within the society, challenges
the reality status of the symbolic universe as originally constituted.
The group that has objectivated this deviant reality
becomes the carrier of an alternative definition of reality.81 It
is hardly necessary to belabour the point that such heretical
groups posit not only a theoretical threat to the symbolic universe,
but a practical one to the institutional order legitimated
by the symbolic universe in question. The repressive procedures
customarily employed against such groups by the
custodians of the 'official' definitions of reality need not con-
124
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
cern us in this context. What is important for our considerations
is the need for such repression to be legitimated, which,
of course, implies the setting in motion of various conceptual
machineries designed to maintain the 'official' universe :::gainst
the heretical challenge.
Historically, the problem of heresy has often been the first
impetus for the systematic theoretical conceptualization of
symbolic universes. The development of Christian theological
thought as a result of a series of heretical challenges to the
'official' tradition provides excellent historical illustrations for
this process. As in all theorizing, new theoretical implications
within the tradition itself appear in the course of this process,
and the tradition itself is pushed beyond its original form in
newconceptualizations. For instance, the precise Christological
formulations of the early church councils were necessitated
not by the tradition itself but by the heretical challenges to it.
As these formulations were elaborated, the tradition was
maintained and expanded at the same time. Thus there
emerged, among other innovations, a theoretical conception of
the Trinity that was not only unnecessary but actually nonexistent
in the early Christian community. In other words, the
symbolic universe is not only legitimated but also modified by
the conceptual machineries constructed to ward off the challenge
of heretical groups within a society.
A major occasion for the development of universemaintaining
conceptualization arises when a society is confronted
with another societyhaving a greatlydifferent history.82
The problem posed by such a confrontation is typically sharper
than that posed by intra-societal heresies because here there
is an alternative symbolic universe with an 'official' tradition
whose taken-for-granted objectivity is equal to one's own. It
is much less shocking to the reality status ofone's own universe
to have to deal with minority groups of deviants, whose contrariness
is ipso facto defined as folly or wickedness, than to
confront another society that views one's own definitions of
reality as ignorant, mad or downright evil,83 It is one thing to
have some individuals around, even if they band together as
a minority group, who cannot or will not abide by the institutional
rules ofcousinhood. It is quite another thing to meet an
entire society that has never heard ofthese rules, perhaps does
125
THE SoCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
not even have a word for 'cousin', and that nevertheless seems
to get along very well as a going concern. The alternative
universe presented by the other society must be met with the
best possible reasons for the superiority of one's own. This
necessity requires a conceptual machinery of considerable
sophistication.
The appearance of an alternative symbolic universe poses a
threat because its very existence demonstrates empirically
that one's own universe is less than inevitable. As anyone can
see now, it is possible to live in this world without the institution
of cousinhood after all. And it is possible to deny or even
mock the gods of cousinhood without at once causing the
downfall ofthe heavens. This shocking fact must be accounted
for theoretically, ifnothing more. Of course it may also happen
that the alternative universe has a missionary appeal. Individuals
or groups within one's own society might be tempted to
'emigrate' from the traditional universe or, even more serious
a danger, to change the old order in the image of the new. It
is easy to imagine, for example, how the advent of the patriarchal
Greeks must have upset the universe of the matriarchal
societies then existing along the eastern Mediterranean. The
Greek universe must have had considerable appeal for the
henpecked males of these societies, and we know that the
Great Mother made quite an impression on the Greeks themselves.
Greek mythology is full of the conceptual elaborations
that proved necessary to take care of this problem.
It is important to stress that the conceptual machineries of
universe-maintenance are themselves products of social activity,
as are all forms of legitimation, and can only rarely be
understood apart from the other activities of the collectivity in
question. Specifically, the success of particular conceptual
machineries is related to the power possessed by those who
operate them.84 The confrontation of alternative symbolic
universes implies a problem ofpower - which ofthe conflicting
definitions of reality will be 'made to stick' in the society. Two
societies confronting each other with conflicting universes
will both develop conceptual machineries designed to maintain
their respective universes. From the point of view of intrinsic
plausibility the two forms of conceptualization may seem to
the outside observer to offer little choice. Which of the two
u6
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
will win, however, will depend more on the power than on the
theoretical ingenuity of the respective legitimators. It is possible
to imagine that equally sophisticated Olympian and
Chthonic mystagogues met together in ecumenical consultations,discussing
the merits of their respective universes sine ira
et studio, but it is more likely that the issue was decided on the
less rarefied level ofmilitary might. The historical outcome of
each clash of gods was determined by those who· wielded the
better weapons rather than those who had the better arguments.
The same, of course, may be said of intrasocietal conflicts
of this kind. He who has the bigger stick has the better
chance of imposing his definitions of reality. This is a safe
assumption to make with regard to any larger collectivity,
although there is always the possibility of politically disinterested
theoreticians convincing each other without recourse
to the cruder means of persuasion.
The conceptual machineries that maintain symbolic universes
always entail the systematization of cognitive and
normative legitimations, which were already present in the
society in a more naive mode, and which crystallized in the
symbolic universe in question. In other words, the material
out of which universe-maintaining legitimations are constructed
is mostly a further elaboration, on a higher level of
theoretical integration, of the legitimations of the several institutions.
Thus there is usually a continuity between the
explanatory and exhortatory schemes, which serve as legitimations
on the lowest theoretical level, and the imposing intellectual
constructions that expound the cosmos. The relationship
between cognitive and normative conceptualizations, here as
elsewhere, is empirically fluid ; normative conceptualizations
always imply certain cognitive presuppositions. The analytic
distinction is useful, however, especially because it draws
attention to varying degrees of differentiation between these
two conceptual spheres.
It would be obviously absurd to attempt here a detailed
discussion ofthe different conceptual machineries of universemaintenance
that are historically available to us. 85 But a few
remarks about some conspicuous types of conceptual
machineries are in order - mythology, theology, philosophy
and science. Without proposing an evolutionary scheme for
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
such types, it is safe to say that mythology represents the most
archaic form of universe-maintenance, as indeed it represents
the most archaic form of legitimation generally.86 Very likely
mythology is a necessary phase in the development of human
thought as such.87 In any case, the oldest universe-maintaining
conceptualizations available to us are mythological in form.
For our purposes, it is sufficient to define mythology as a conception
of reality that posits the pngoing penetration of the
world of everyday experience by sacred forces.88 Such a conception
naturally entails a high degree of continuity between
social and cosmic order, and between all their respective legitimations;89
all reality appears as made of one cloth.
Mythology as a conceptual machinery is closest to the naive
level ofthe symbolic universe - the level on which there is the
least necessity for theoretical universe-maintenance beyond
the actual positing of the universe in question as an objective
reality. This explains the historically recurrent phenomenon
ofinconsistent mythological traditions continuing to exist side
by side without theoretical integration. Typically, the inconsistency
is felt only after the traditions have become problematic
and some sort of integration has already taken place.
The 'discovery' ofsuch inconsistency (or, ifone prefers, its ex
postfacto assumption) is usually made by the specialists in the
tradition, who are also the most common integrators of the
discrete traditional themes. Once the need for integration is
felt, the consequent mythological reconstructions may have
considerable theoretical sophistication. The example of
Homer may suffice to make this point.
Mythology is also close to the naive level in that, although
there are specialists in the mythological tradition, their knowledge
is not far removed from what is generally known. Initiation
into the tradition administered by these specialists may be
difficult in extrinsic ways. It may be limited to select candidates,
to special occasions or times, and it may involve arduous
ritual preparation. It is, however, rarely difficult in terms of
the intrinsic qualities ofthe body ofknowledge itself, which is
not difficult to acquire. To safeguard the specialists' monopolistic
claim the non-accessibility of their lore must be institutionally
established. That is, a 'secret' is posited, and an
intrinsically exoteric body of knowledge is institutionally
us
SociETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
defined in esoteric terms. A brief look at the 'public relation�'
of contemporary coteries of theoreticians will reveal that this
ancient legerdemain is far from dead today. All the s�e,
.
the�e
are important sociological differences b�tw�en societies m
which all universe-maintaining conceptuahzattons are mythological
and societies in which they are not. . . .
More elaborate mythologic�l systems stnve to ehmmate
inconsistencies and maintain the mythological universe in
theoretically integrated terms. Such 'canonica�' �ythologies,
as it were, go over into theological conceptuahzatton pr�p�r.
For our present purposes, theological thoug?t rna� be distlnguished
from its mythologic�l predecesso� SI�ply m term� of
its greater degree of theoretical systemauzauon. Theological
concepts are further removed from the naive level. The cos�os
may still be conceived ofin term� ofthe sacred forces or bemgs
of the old mythology, but these sacred entities have been
removed to a greater distance. Mythological thought operates
within the continuity between the human world a�d the world
of the gods. Thulogical thought serves.
to �:diate be�we�n
these two worlds, precisely because thetr ongmal conunwty
now appears broken. With the transition
.
from mythology to
theology, everyday life appears less ongomgly pene�ated by
sacred forces. The body of theological knowledge IS, consequently,
further removed from th� ge
_
ne�al stock ofk�owledge
of the society and thus becomes mtrmstcal�y �ore. diffi�ult to
acquire. Even where it is not d�liberate�y mst.Itutl�n���d as
esoteric, it remains 'secret' by virtue of lts uruntelhgibdlty to
the general populace. This has the further consequence th�t
the populace may remain relatively unaffected by the sophisticated
universe-maintaining theories concocted by the theological
specialists. The coexistence of naive mythology
.
a�ong
the masses and a sophisticated theology among an ehte �f
theoreticians, both serving to maintain the same sy
_
mbol�c
universe, is a frequent historical phenomeno�. Only With th�s
phenomenon in mind, for example, is it posstble to call traditional
societies of the Far East 'Buddhist', or, for that matter,
to call medieval society 'Christian'.
Theology is paradigmatic for the later philos�phical and
scientific conceptualizations of the cosmos. While theol�y
may be closer to mythology in the religious contents of 1ts
129
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
definitions of reality, it is closer to the later secularized conceptualizations
in its social location. Unlike mythology, the
other three historically dominant forms of conceptual
machinery became the property of specialist elites, whose
bodies of knowledge were increasingly removed from the
common knowledge of the society at large. Modern science is
an extreme step in this development, and in the secularization
and sophistication of universe-maintenance. Science not only
completes the removal of the sacred from the world of everyday
life, but removes universe-maintaining knowledge as such
from that world. Everyday life becomes bereft of both sacred
legitimation and the sort of theoretical intelligibility that
would link it with the symbolic universe in its intended totality.
Put more simply, the 'lay' member of society no longer knows
how his universe is to be conceptually maintained, although,
of course, he still knows who the specialists of universemaintenance
are presumed to be. The interesting problems
posed by this situation belong to an empirical sociology of
knowledge of contemporary society and cannot be further
pursued in this context.
It goes without�ayingthat the types ofconceptual machinery
appear historically in innumerable modifications and combinations,
and that the types we have discussed are not necessarily
exhaustive. But two applications ofuniverse-maintaining
conceptual machinery still remain to be discussed in the context
of general theory : therapy and nihilation.
Therapy entails the application of conceptual machinery to
ensure that actual or potential deviants stay within the institutionalized
definitions of reality, or, in other words, to prevent
the 'inhabitants' of a given universe from 'emigrating'. It does
this by applying the legitimating apparatus to individual
'cases'. Since, as we have seen, every society faces the danger
of individual deviance, we may assume that therapy in one
form or another is a global social phenomenon. Its specific
institutional arrangements, from exorcism to psycho-analysis,
from pastoral care to personnel counselling programmes, belong,
of course, under the category of social control. What
interests us here, however, is the conceptual aspect of therapy.
Since therapy must concern itself with deviations from the
'official' definitions of reality, it must develop a conceptual
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
machinery to account for such deviations and to maintain the
realities thus challenged. This requires a body of knowledge
that include a theory of deviance, a diagnostic apparatus, and
a conceptual system for the 'cure of souls'.
For example, in a collectivity that has institutionalized
military homosexuality the stubbornly heterosexual individual
is a sure candidate for therapy, not only because his sexual
interests constitute an obvious threat to the combat efficiency
of his unit of warrior-lovers, but also because his deviance is
psychologically subversive to the others' spontaneous virility.
After all, some of them, perhaps 'subconsciously', might be
tempted to follow his example. On a more fundamental level,
the deviant's conduct challenges the societal reality as such,
putting in question its taken-for-granted cognitive ('virile
men by nature love one another') and normative ('virile men
should love one another') operating procedures. Indeed, the
deviant probably stands as a living insult to the gods, who love
one another in the heavens as their devotees do on earth. Such
radical deviance requires therapeutic practice soundly
grounded in therapeutic theory. There must be a theory of
deviance (a 'pathology', that is) that accounts for this shocking
condition (say, by positing demonic possession). There must
be a body of diagnostic concepts (say, a symptomatology, with
appropriate skills for applying it in trials by ordeal), which
optimally not only permits precise specification ofacute conditions,
but also detection of 'latent hetero-sexuality' and the
prompt adoption of preventive measures. Finall�, there must
be conceptualization of the curative process 1tself (say, a
catalogue of exorcizing techniques, each with an adequate
theoretical foundation).
Such a conceptual machinery permits its therapeutic application
by the appropriate specialists, and may also be internalized
by the individual afflicted with the deviant condition.
Internalization in itself will have therapeutic efficacy. In our
example, the conceptual machinery may be so designed as to
arouse guilt in the individual (say, a 'heterosexual panic'), a
not too difficult feat if his primary socialization has been even
minimally successful. Under the pressure of this guilt, the
individual will come to accept subjectively the conceptualization
of his condition with which the therapeutic practitioners
131
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
confront him ; he develops 'insight', and the diagnosis becomes
subjectively real to him. The conceptual machinery may be
further developed to allow conceptualization (and thus conceptual
liquidation) of any doubts regarding the therapy felt
by either therapist or 'patient'. For instance, there may be a
theory of 'resistance' to account for the doubts of the latter
and a theory of 'counter-transference' to account for those of
the former. Successful therapy establishes a symmetry between
the conceptual machinery and its subjective appropriation
in the individual's consciousness ; it re-socializes the
deviant into the objective reality of the symbolic universe of
the society. There is, of course, considerable subjective satisfaction
in such a return to 'normalcy'. The individual may
now return to the amorous embrace ofhis platoon commander
in the happy knowledge that he has 'found himself', and that
he is right once more in the eyes of the gods.
Therapy uses a conceptual machinery to keep everyone
within the universe in question. Nihilation, in its turn, uses a
similar machinery to liquidate conceptually everything outside
the same universe. This procedure may also be described as a
kind of negative legitimation. Legitimation maintains the
reality of the socially constructed universe ; nihilation denies
the reality of whatever phenomena or interpretations of
phenomena do not fit into that universe. This may be done in
two ways. First, deviant phenomena may be given a negative
ontological status, with or without a therapeutic intent. The
nihilating application of the conceptual machinery is most
often used with individuals or groups foreign to the society in
question and thus ineligible for therapy. The conceptual
operation here is rather simple. The threat to the social
definitions of reality is neutralized by assigning an inferior
ontological status, and thereby a not-to-be-taken-seriously
cognitive status, to all definitions existing outside the symbolic
universe. Thus, the threat of neighbouring anti-homosexual
groups can be conceptually liquidated for our homosexual
society by looking upon these neighbours as less than human,
congenitally befuddled about the right order of things,
dwellers in a hopeless cognitive darkness. The fundamental
syllogism goes as follows : The neighbours are a tribe of barbarians.
The neighbours are anti-homosexual. Therefore,
132
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
their anti-homosexuality is barbaric nonsense, not to be taken
seriously by reasonable men. The same conceptual procedure
may, of course, also be applied to deviants within the society.
Whether one then proceeds from nihilation to therapy, or
rather goes on to liquidate physically what one has liquidated
conceptually, is a practical question of policy. The material
power of the conceptually liquidated group will be a not
insignificant factor in most cases. Sometimes, alas, circumstances
force one to remain on friendly terms with barbarians.
Second, nihilation involves the more ambitious attempt to
account for all deviant definitions ofreality in terms ofconcepts
belonging to one's own universe. In a theological frame of
reference, this entails the transition from heresiology to apologetics.
The deviant conceptions are not merely assigned a
negative status, they are grappled with theoretically in detail.
The final goal of this procedure is to incorporate the deviant
conceptions within one�s own universe, and thereby to liquidate
them ultimately. The deviant conceptions must, therefore,
be translated into concepts derived from one's own
universe. In this manner, the negation of one's universe is
subtly changed into an affirmation of it. The presupposition is
always that the negator does not really know what he is saying.
His statements become meaningful only as they are translated
into more 'correct' terms, that is, terms deriving from the
universe he negates. For example, our homosexual theoreticians
may argue that all men are by nature homosexual. Those
who deny this, by virtue of being possessed by demons or
simply because they are barbarians, are denying their own
nature. Deep down within themselves, they know that this is
so. One need, therefore, only search their statements carefully
to discover the defensiveness and bad faith of their position.
Whatever they say in this matter can thus be translated into an
affirmation of the homosexual universe, which they ostensibly
negate. In a theological frame of reference the same procedure
demonstrates that the devil unwittingly glorifies God, that all
unbelief is but unconscious dishonesty, even that the atheist
is really a believer.
The therapeutic and nihilating applications of conceptual
machineries are inherent in the symbolic universe as such. If
the symbolic universe is to comprehend all reality, nothing
133
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
can be allowed to remain outside its conceptual scope. In
principle, at any rate, its definitions ofreality must encompass
the totality of being. The conceptual machineries by which
this totalization is attempted vary historically in their degree
of sophistication. In nuce they appear as soon as a symbolic
universe has been crystallized.
Social Organizationfor Universe-Maintenance
Because they are historical products of human activity, all
socially constructed universes change, and the change is
brought about by the concrete actions ofhuman beings. Ifone
gets absorbed in the intricacies of the conceptual machineries
by which any specific universe is maintained, one may forget
this fundamental sociological fact. Reality is socially defined.
But the definitions are always embodied, that is, concrete individuals
and groups of individuals serve as definers of reality.
To understand the state of the socially constructed universe
at any given time, or its change over time, one must understand
the social organization that permits the definers to do their
defining. Put a little crudely, it is essential to keep pushing
questions about the historically available conceptualizations of
reality from the abstract 'What?' to the sociologically concrete
'Says who?'90
As we have seen, the specialization of knowledge and the
concomitant organization of personnel for the administration
of the specialized bodies of knowledge develop as a result of
the division of labour. It is possible to conceive of an early
stage of this development in which there is no competition
between the different experts. Each area of expertise is defined
by the pragmatic facts of the division of labour. The
hunting expert will not claim fishing expertise and will thus
have no ground for competing with the one who does.
As more complex forms of knowledge emerge and an economic
surplus is built up, experts devote themselves full-time
to the subjects oftheir expertise, which, with the development
of conceptual machineries, may become increasingly removed
134
____SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALIT_!_ ---
·
----
from the pragmatic necessities of everyday life. Experts in
these rarefied bodies of knowledge lay claim to a novel status.
They are not only experts in this or that sector of the societal
stock of knowledge, they claim ultimate jurisdiction over that
stock of knowledge in its totality. They are, literally, universal
experts. This does not mean that they claim to �ow e�er�thing,
but rather that they claim to know the ulumate stgmficance
of what everybody knows and does. Other men may
continue to stake out particular sectors of reality, but they
claim expertise in the ultimate definitions of reality as such.
This stage in the development of knowledge has a number
of consequences. The first, which we have already discussed,
is the emergence of pure theory. Because the universal experts
operate on a level of considerable abstraction from the vicissitudes
of everyday life, both others and they themselves may
conclude that their theories have no relation whatever to the
ongoing life of the society, but exist in a sor� of Platonic
heaven of ahistorical and asocial ideation. This ts, of course,
an illusion, but it can have great socio-historical potency, by
virtue of the relationship between the reality-defining and
reality-producing process.
. . .
A second consequence is a strengthening of tradiuonahsm
in the institutionalized actions thus legitimated, that is, a
strengthening of the inherent tendency of institutionalization
towards inertia.91 Habitualization and institutionalization in
themselves limit the flexibility of human actions. Institutions
tend to persist unless they become 'problematic'. Ultimate
legitimations inevitably strengthen this tendency. The more
abstract the legitimations are, the less likely they are to be
modified in accordance with changing pragmatic exigencies.
If there is a tendency to go on as before anyway, the tendency
is obviously strengthened by having excellent reasons for doing
so. This means that institutions may persist even when, to an
outside observer, they have lost their original functionality or
practicality. One does certain things not because they wor�,
but because they are right - right, that is, in terms �f the ulumate
definitions of reality promulgated by the uruversal ex-
perts.82
. .
The emergence of full-time personnel for uruverse-mamtaining
legitimation also brings with it occasions for social
135
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
conflict. Some of this conflict is between experts and practitioners.
The latter, for reasons that need not be belaboured;,
may come to resent the experts' grandiose pretensions and the
concrete social privileges that accompany them. What is likely
to be particularly galling is the experts' claim to know the
ultimate significance of the practitioners' activity better than
the practitioners themselves. Such rebellions on the part of
'laymen' may lead to the emergence of rival definitions of
reality and, eventually, to the appearance of new experts in
charge of the new definitions. Ancient India provides us with
some ofthe best historical illustrations of this. The Brahmans,
qua experts in ultimate reality, succeeded to an astounding
degree in impressing their definitions of reality upon society
at large. Whatever may have been its origins, it was as a Brahman
construction that the caste system expanded over a period
ofcenturies until it covered most of the Indian subcontinent.
Indeed, the Brahmans were invited by one ruling prince after
another to serve as 'social engineers' for the setting up of the
system in new territories (partly because the system was seen
as identical with higher civilization, partly also, no doubt, because
the princes understood its immense capacity for social
control). The Code of Manu gives us an excellent idea of both
the Brahman design for society and the very mundane advantages
that accrued to the Brahmans in consequence of being
accepted as the cosinically ordained designers. It was inevitable,
however, that conflict would ensue between the theoreticians
and the practitioners of power in such a situation.
The latter were represented by the Kshatriyas, the Inilitary
and princely caste. The epic literature of ancient India, the
Mahabharata and the Ramayana, give eloquent witness to this
conflict. Not accidentally the two great theoretical rebellions
against the Brahman universe, Jainism and Buddhism, had
their social locations in the Kshatriya caste. Needless to say,
both the Jain and the Buddhist re-definitions of reality produced
their own expert personnel, as was probably also the
case with the epic poets who challenged the Brahman universe
in a less comprehensive and less sophisticated manner.93
This brings us to another, equally important, possibility of
conflict - that between rival coteries of experts. As long as
theories continue to have immediate pragmatic applications,
SoCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY-------- --------------
what rivalry may exist is fairly amenable to settlement by
means of pragmatic testing. There may be competing theories
of boar-hunting in which rival coteries of hunting experts
develop vested interests. The question can be decided with
relative ease by seeing which theory is most conducive to killing
the most boars. No such possibility exists for deciding
between, say, a polytheistic and a henotheistic theory of the
universe. The respective theoreticians are forced to substitute
abstract argumentation for pragmatic testing. By its very
nature such argumentation does not carry the inherent conviction
of pragmatic success. What is convincing to one man may
not be to another. We cannot really blame such theoreticians
if they resort to various sturdier supports for the frail power of
mere argument - such as, say, getting the authorities to employ
armed Inight to enforce one argument against its competitors.
In other words, definitions of reality may be enforced by the
police. This, incidentally, need not mean that such definitions
will remain less convincing than those accepted 'voluntarily' power
in society includes the power to determine decisive
socialization processes and, therefore, the power to produce
reality. In any case, highly abstract symbolizations (that is,
theories greatly removed from the concrete experience of
everyday life) are validated by social rather than empirical
support.94 It is possible to say that in this manner a pseudopragmatism
is reintroduced. The theories may again be said
to be convincing because they work - work, that is, in the
sense ofhaving become standard, taken-for-granted knowledge
in the society in question.
These considerations imply that there will always be a
social-structural base for competition between rival definitions
of reality and that the outcome of the rivalry will be affected,
if not always determined outright, by the development of this
base. It is quite possible for abstruse theoretical formulations
to be concocted in near-total isolation from the broad movements
in the social structure, and in such cases competition
between rival experts may occur in a sort of societal vacuum.
For instance, two coteries of eremetical dervishes may go on
disputing about the ultimate nature of the universe in the
Inidst of the desert, with nobody on the outside being in the
least interested in the dispute. As soon, however, as one or the
137
THE SociAL CoNSTRUCTION oF REALITY
other of these viewpoints gets a hearing in the surrounding
society, it will be largely extra-theoretical interests that will
decide the outcome of the rivalry. Different social groups will
have different affinities with the competing theories and will,
subsequently, become 'carriers' of the latter.95 Thus dervish
theory A may appeal to the upper stratum and dervish theory
B to the middle stratum of the society in question, for reasons
far removed from the passions that animated the original inventors
of these theories. The competing coteries of experts
will then come to attach themselves to the 'carrier' groups, and
their subsequent fate will depend on the outcome of whatever
conflict led these groups to adopt the respective theories. Rival
definitions of reality are thus decided upon in the sphere of
rival social interests whose rivalry is in turn 'translated' into
theoretical terms. Whether the rival experts and their respective
supporters are 'sincere' in their subjective relationship to
the theories in question is of only secondary interest for a
sociological understanding of these processes.
When not only theoretical but practical competition arises
between groups ofexperts dedicated to different ultimate definitions
of reality, the de-pragmatization of theory is reversed
and the pragmatic potency of the theories in question becomes
an extrinsic one ; that is, a theory is 'demonstrated' to be pragmatically
superior not by virtue of its intrinsic qualities, but
by its applicability to the social interests of the group that has
become its 'carrier'. There is considerable historical variability
in the social organization of theoretical experts resulting from
this. While it is obviously impossible to give an exhaustive
· typology here, it will be useful to look at some of the more
general types.
There is first ofall, perhaps paradigmatically, the possibility
of the universal experts holding an effective monopoly over
all ultimate definitions of reality in a society. Such a situation
may be regarded as paradigmatic because there is good reason
for thinking that it is typical of the earlier phases of human
history. Such a monopoly means that a single symbolic tradition
maintains the universe in question. To be in the society
then implies acceptance of this tradition. The experts in the
tradition are recognized as such by virtually all members of
the society and have no effective competitors to deal with. All
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY-------------------
primitive societies empirically open to our inspection seem to
fall under this type, and, with some modifications, most
archaic civilizations do too.96 This does not imply that such
societies have no sceptics, that everyone has without exception
fully internalized the tradition, but rather that what scepticism
there is has not been socially organized to offer a challenge to
the upholders of the 'official' tradition.97
In such a situation the monopolistic tradition and its expert
administrators are sustained by a unified power structure.
Those who occupy the decisive power positions are ready to
use their power to impose the traditional definitions of reality
on the population under their authority. Potentially competitive
conceptualizations of the universe are liquidated as soon
as they appear - either physically destroyed ('whoever does
not worship the gods must die') or integrated within the tradition
itself (the universal experts argue that the competing
pantheon Y is 'really' nothing but another aspect or nomenclature
for the traditional pantheon X). In the latter case, if
the experts succeed with their argument and the competition
is liquidated by 'merger', as it were, the tradition becomes
enriched and differentiated. The competition may also be
segregated within the society and thus made innocuous as far
as the traditional monopoly is concerned - for example, no
member of the conquering or ruling group may worship gods
of type Y, but the subjugated or lower strata may do so. The
same protective segregation may be applied to foreigners or
'guest peoples'.98
Medieval Christendom (certainly not to be called primitive
or archaic, but still a society with an effective symbolic monopoly)
provides excellent illustrations of all three liquidating
procedures. Open heresy had to be physically destroyed,
whether it was embodied in an individual (say, a witch) or a
collectivity (say, the Albigensian community). At the same
time, the Church, as the monopolistic guardian ofthe Christian
tradition, was quite flexible in incorporating within that tradition
a variety of folk beliefs and practices so long as these did
not congeal into articulate, heretical challenges to the Christian
universe as such. It did not matter if the peasants took one of
their old gods, 'baptized' him as a Christian saint, and continued
to tell the old stories and to celebrate the old feasts
139
THE S ociAL CoNSTRUCTION OF REALITY
associated with him. And certain competing definitions of
reality at least could be segregated within Christendom without
being viewed as a threat to it. The most important case of
this, of course, is that of the Jews, although similar situations
also arose where Christians and Muslims were forced to live
close to one another in times ofpeace. This sort ofsegregation,
incidentally, also protected the Jewish and Muslim universes
from Christian 'contamination'. As long as competing definitions
of reality can be conceptually and socially segregated as
appropriate to straugers, and ipsofacto as irrelevant to oneself,
it is possible to have fairly friendly relations with these
strangers. The trouble begins whenever the 'strangeness' is
broken through and the deviant universe appears as a possible
habitat for one's own people. At that point, the traditional
experts are likely to call for the fire and the sword - or,
alternatively, particularly if fire and sword tum out to be unavailable,
to enter into ecumenical negotiations with the
competitors.
Monopolistic situations of this kind presuppose a high
degree of social-structural stability, and are themselves
structurallystabilizing. Traditionaldefinitions ofreality inhibit
social change. Conversely, breakdown in the taken-for-granted
acceptance of the monopoly accelerates social change. It
should not surprise us, then, that a profound affinity exists
between those with an interest in maintaining established
power positions and the personnel administering monopolistic
traditions of universe-maintenance. In other words, conservative
political forces tend to support the monopolistic claims of
the universal exp�rts, whose monopolistic organizations in
tum tend to be politically conservative. Historically, of course,
most of these monopolies have been religious. It is thus possible
to say that Churches, understood as monopolistic combinations
offull-time experts in a religious definition ofreality,
are inherently conservative once they have succeeded in
establishing their monopoly in a given society. Conversely,
ruling groups with a stake in the maintenance of the political
status quo are inherently churchly in their religious orientation
and, by the same token, suspicious of all innovations in the
religious tradition.99
Monopolistic situations may fail to be established or mainSociETY
AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
rained for a variety of historical reasons, both 'international'
and 'domestic'. It is then possible for a struggle between
competing traditions and their administrative personnel to
continue for a long time. When a particular definition ofreality
comes to be attached to a concrete power interest, it may be
called an ideology. 100 It should be stressed that this term has
little utility if it is applied to the sort of monopolistic situation
discussed above. It makes little sense, for example, to speak of
Christianity as an ideology in the Middle Ages - even though
it had obvious political uses for the ruling groups - for the
simple reason that the Christian universe was 'inhabited' by
everyone in medieval society, by the serfs just as much as by
their lords. In the period following the Industrial Revolution,
however, there is a certain justification in calling Christianity
a bourgeois ideology, because the bourgeoisie used the Christian
tradition and its personnel in its struggle against the new
industrial working class, which in most European countries
could no longer be rega5ded as 'inhabiting' the Christian universe.
101 It also makes little sense to use the term if two
different definitions of reality confront each other in intersocietal
contact - for example, if one spoke of the 'Christian
ideology' of the Crusaders and the 'Muslim ideology' of the
Saracens. The distinctiveness of ideology is rather that the
same overall universe is interpreted in different ways, depending
upon concrete vested interests within the society in ques­
tion.
Frequently an ideology is taken on by a group because of
specific theoretical elements that are conducive to its interests.
For example, when an impoverished peasant group struggles
against an urban merchant group that has financially enslaved
it, it may rally around a religious doctrine that upholds the
virtues of agrarian life, condemns the money economy and its
credit system as immoral, and generally decries the luxuries of
urban living. The ideological 'gain' of such a doctrine for the
peasants is obvious. Good illustrations of this may be found in
the history of ancient Israel. It would be erroneous, however,
to imagine that the relationship between an interest group and
its ideology is always so logical. Every group engaged in social
conflict requires solidarity. Ideologies generate solidarity.
The choice of a particular ideology is not necessarily based on
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
its intrinsic theoretical elements, but may stem from a chance
encounter. It is far from clear, for example, that it was intrinsic
elements in Christianity that made the latter politically 'interesting'
to certain groups in the age of Constantine. It seems
rather that Christianity (originally a lower-middle-class ideology
if anything) was harnessed by powerful interests for
political purposes with little relationship to its religious contents.
Something else might have served equally well Christianity
just happened to be around at some crucial
moments of decision. Of course, once the ideology is adopted
by the group in question (more accurately, once the particular
doctrine becomes the ideology of the group in question) it is
modified in accordance with the interests it must now legitimate.
T�i� entails a process ofselection and addition in regard
to the ongmal body oftheoretical propositions. But there is no
reason to assume that these modifications have to affect the
totality of the adopted doctrine. There may be large elements
in an ideology that bear no particular relationship to the
legitimated interests, but that are vigorously affirmed by the
'carrier' group simply because it has committed itself to the
ide?l�gy. In
.
practice thi� may lead power holders to support
�heir Ideological experts m theoretical squabbles that are quite
Irrelevant to their interests. Constantine's involvement in the
Christological controversies of the time is a good case in
point.
It is important to bear in mind that most modern societies
are pluralistic. This means that they have a shared core universe
taken for granted as such, and different partial universes
coexisting in a state of mutual accommodation. The latter
probably have some ideological functions, but outright conflict
between ideologies has been replaced by varying degrees of
tolerance or even cooperation. Such a situation, brought about
by a constellation of non-theoretical factors, presents the
traditional experts with severe theoretical problems. Administering
a tradition with age-old monopolistic pretensions they
�av� to find ways oftheoretically legitimating the de-monopo­
hzat10n
.
th�t has ta�en place. Sometimes they take the option
of conunumg to voice the old totalitarian claims as if nothing
had happened, but very few people are likely to take these
claims seriously. Whatever the experts do, the pluralistic
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
situation changes not only the social position ofthe traditional
definitions of reality, but also the way in which these are held
in the consciousness of individuals.w2
The pluralistic situation presupposes an urban society with
a highly developed division of labour, a concomitant high
differentiation in the social structure and high economic surplus.
These conditions, which obviously prevail in modern
industrial society, existed in at least certain sectors of earlier
societies. The cities of the later Graeco-Roman period may
serve as an example here. The pluralistic situation goes with
conditions of rapid social change, indeed pluralism itself is an
accelerating factor precisely because it helps to undermine the
change-resistant efficacy ofthe traditional definitions ofreality.
Pluralism encourages both scepticism and innovation and is
thus inherently subversive of the taken-for-granted reality of
the traditional status quo. One can readily sympathize with the
experts in the traditional definitions ofreality when they think
back nostalgically to the times when these definitions had a
monopoly in the field.
One historically important type of expert, possible in principle
in any of the situations just discussed, is the intellectual,
whom we may define as an expert whose expertise is not
wanted by the society at large. 103 This implies a redefinition of
knowledge vis-a-vis the 'official' lore, that is, it implies more
than just a somewhat deviant interpretation of the latter. The
intellectual is thus, by definition, a marginal type. Whether he
was first marginal and then became an intellectual (as, for
example, in the case of many Jewish intellectuals in the
modern West), or whether his marginality was the direct result
of his intellectual aberrations (the case of the ostracized
heretic), need not concern us here.101 In either case, his social
marginality expresses his lack oftheoretical integration within
the universe of his society. He appears as the counter-expert
in the business ofdefining reality. Like the 'official' expert, he
has a design for society at large. But while the former's design
is in tune with the institutional programmes, serving as their
theoretical legitimation, the intellectual's exists in an institutional
vacuum, socially objectivated at best in a sub-society of
fellow-intellectuals. The extent to which such a sub-society is
capable of surviving obviously depends on structural con-
143
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
figurations in the larger society. It is safe to say that a certain
degree ofpluralism is a necessary condition.
The intellectual has a number of historically interesting
options open to him in his situation. He may withdraw into an
intellectual sub-society, which may then serve as an emotional
refuge and (more importantly) as the social base for theobjectivation
ofhis deviant definitions ofreality. In other words, the
intellectual may feel 'at home' in the sub-society as he does
not in the larger society, and at the same time be able subjectively
to maintain his deviant conceptions, which the larger
society nihilates, because in the sub-society there are others
who regard these as reality. He will then develop various procedures
to protect the precarious reality of the sub-society
from the nihilating threats from the outside. On the theoretical
level, these procedures will include the therapeutic defences
we have discussed previously. Practically, the most important
procedure will be the limitation of all significant relationships
to fellow-members ofthe sub-society. The outsider is avoided
because he always embodies the threat of nihilation. The
religious sect may be taken as the prototype for sub-societies
of this kind.105 Within the sheltering community of the sect
even the most wildly deviant conceptions take on the character
ofobjective reality. Conversely, sectarian withdraw�! is typical
of situations in which previously objectivated definitions of
reality disintegrate, that is, become de-objectivated in the
larger society. The details of these processes belong to a historical
sociology of religion, though it must be added that
various secularized forms of sectarianism are a key characteristic
of intellectuals in modern pluralistic society.
A historically very important option, ofcourse,is revolution.
Here the intellectual sets out to realize his design for society in
society. It is impossible to discuss here the various forms this
option has taken historically,106 but one important theoretical
point must be made. Just as the withdrawing intellectual needs
others to assist him in maintaining his deviant definitions of
reality as reality, so the revolutionary intellectual needs others
to confirm his deviant conceptions. This requirement is much
more basic than the obvious fact that no conspiracy can succeed
without organization. The revolutionary intellectual
must have others who maintain for him the reality (that is, the
144
SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY
subjective plausibility in his own consciousness) ofthe revolutionary
ideology. All socially meaningful definitions of reality
must be objectivated by social processes. Consequently, subuniverses
require sub-societies as their objectivating base, and
counter-definitions of reality require counter-societies. Needless
to add, any practical success ofthe revolutionary ideology
will fortify the reality it possesses within the sub-society and
within the consciousness of the sub-society's members. Its
reality takes on massive proportions when entire social strata
become its 'carriers'. The history of modern revolutionary
movements affords many illustrations ofthe transformation of
revolutionary intellectuals into 'official' legitimators following
the victory ofsuch movements.107 This suggests not only that
there is considerable historical variability in the social career
of revolutionary intellectuals, but that different options and
combinations may occur within the biography of individuals
as well.
In the foregoing discussion we have emphasized the structural
aspects in the soCial existence of universe-maintaining
personnel. No genuine sociological discussion could do otherwise.
Institutions and symbolic universes are legitimated by
living individuals, who have concrete social locations and concrete
social interests. The history of legitimating theories is
always part ofthe history ofthe society as a whole. No 'history
of ideas' takes place in isolation from the blood and sweat of
general history. But we must once again stress that this does
not mean that these theories are nothing but reflections of
'underlying' institutional processes ; the relationship between
'ideas' and their sustaining social processes is always a dialectical
one. It is correct to say that theories are-concocted in
order to legitimate already existing social institutions. But it
also happens that social institutions are changed in order to
bring them into conformity with already existing theories,
that is, to make them more 'legitimate'. The experts in legitimation
may operate ·as theoretical justifiers of the status quo;
they may also appear as revolutionary ideologists. Definitions
ofreality have self-fulfilling potency. Theories can be realized
in history, even theories that were highly abstruse when they
were first conceived by their inventors. Karl Marx brooding in
the British Museum Reading Room has become a proverbial
145
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
example of this historical possibility. Consequently, social
change must always be understood as standing in a dialectical
relationship to the 'history of ideas'. Both 'idealistic' and
'materialistic' understandings of the relationship overlook
this dialectic, and thus distort history. The same dialectic
prevails in the overall transformations of symbolic universes
that we have had occasion to look at. What remains sociologically
essential is the recognition that all symbolic universes
and all legitimations are human products ; their existence has
its base in the lives of concrete individuals, and has no empirical
status apart from these lives.
Part Three
Society as
Subjective Reality
1 . Internalization of Reality
Primary Socialization
Since society exists as both objective and subjective reality,
any adequate theoretical understanding ofit must comprehend
both these aspects. As we have already argued, these aspects
receive their proper recognition if society is understood in
terms of an ongoing dialectical process composed of the three
moments of externalization, objectivation and internalization.
As far as the societal phenomenon is concerned, these moments
are not to be thought of as occurring in a temporal sequence.
Rather society and each part of it are simultaneously characterized
by these three moments, so that any analysis in terms
of only one or two of them falls short. The same is true of the
individual member ofsociety, who simultaneously externalizes
his own being into the social world and internalizes it as an
objective reality. In other words, to be in society is to participate
in its dialectic.
The individual, however, is not born a member of society.
He is born with a predisposition towards sociality, and he
becomes a member of society. In the life of every individual,
therefore, there is a temporal sequence, in the course of which
he is inducted into participation in the societal dialectic. The
beginning point of this process is internalization : the immediate
apprehension or interpretation of an objective event as
expressing meaning, that is, as a manifestation of another's
subjective processes which thereby becomes subjectively
meaningful to myself. This does not mean that I understand
the other adequately. I may indeed misunderstand him : he is
laughing in a fit of hysteria, but I understand his laughter as
expressing mirth. But his subjectivity is nevertheless objectively
available to me and becomes meaningful to me, whether
or not there is congruence between his and my subjective
process. Full congruence between the two subjective mean-
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THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
ings, and reciprocal knowledge of the congruence, presupposes
signification, as previously discussed. However,
internalization in the general sense used here underlies
both signification and its own more complex forms. More
precisely, internalization in this general sense is the basis, first,
for an understanding of one's fellowmen and, second, for
the apprehension of the world as a meaningful and sooial
reality.1
This apprehension does not result from autonomous creations
of meaning by isolated individuals, but begins with the
individual 'taking over' the world in which others already live.
To be sure, the 'taking over' is in itself, in a sense, an original
process for every human organism, and the world, once 'taken
over', may be creatively modified or (less likely) even recreated.
In any case, in the complex form of internalization, I
not only 'understand' the other's momentary subjective processes,
I 'understand' the world in which he lives, and that
world becomes my own. This presupposes that he and I share
time in a more than ephemeral way and a comprehensive perspective,
which links sequences of situations together intersubjectively.
We now not only understand each other's
definitions of shared situations, we define them reciprocally.
A nexus ofmotivations is established between us and extends
into the future. Most importantly, there is now an ongoing
mutual identification between us. We not only live in the same
world, we participate in each other's being.
Only when he has achieved this degree of internalization is
an individual a member of society. The ontogenetic process
by which this is brought about is socialization, which may
thus be defined as the comprehensive and consistent induction
of an individual into the objective world of a society or a sector
of it. Primary socialization is the first socialization an individual
undergoes in childhood, through which he becomes a
member of society. Secondary socialization is any subsequent
process that inducts an already socialized individual into new
sectors of the objective world of his society. We may leave
aside here the special question of the acquisition ofknowledge
about the objective world of societies other than the one of
which we first became a member, and the process of internalizing
such a world as reality - a process that exhibits, at
SociETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
least superficially, certain similarities with both primary and
secondary socialization, yet is structurally identical with
neither.2
It is at once evident that primary socialization is usually the
most important one for an individual, and that the basic structure
of all secondary socialization has to resemble that of
primary socialization. Every individual is born into an objective·social
structure within which he encounters the significant
others who are in charge of his socialization.3 These significant
others are imposed upon him. Their definitions of his
situation are posited for him as objective reality. He is thus
born into not only an objective social &tructure but also an
objective social world. The significant others who mediate
this world to him modify it in the course of mediating it. They
select aspects of it in accordance with their own location in
the social structure, and also by virtue oftheir individual, biographically
rooted idiosyncrasies. The social world is 'filtered'
to the individual through this double selectivity. Thus the
lower-class child not only absorbs a lower-class perspective on
the social world, he absorbs it in the idiosyncratic coloration
given it by his parents (or whatever other individuals are in
charge of his primary socialization). The same lower-class
perspective may induce a mood of contentment, resignation,
bitter resentment, or seething rebelliousness. Consequently,
the lower-class child will not only come to inhabit a world
greatly different from that of an upper-class child, but may do
so in a manner quite different from the lower-class child next
door.4
It should hardly be necessary to add that primary socialization
involves more than purely cognitive learning. It takes
place under circumstances that are highlycharged emotiomilly.
Indeed, there is good reason to believe that without such emotional
attachment to the significant others the learning process
would be difficult if not impossible.5 The child identifies with
the significant others in a variety ofemotional ways. Whatever
they may be, internalization occurs only as identification
occurs. The child takes on the significant others' roles and
attitudes, that is, internalizes t�em and makes them his own.
And by this identification with significant others the child
becomes capable of identifying himself, ofacquiring a subjec-
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
tively coherent and plausible identity. In other words, the self
is a reflected entity, reflecting the attitudes first taken by
significant others towards it ;6 the individual becomes what he
is addressed as by his significant others. This is not a onesided,
mechanistic process. It entails a dialectic between
identification by others and self-identification, between objectively
assigned and subjectively appropriated identity. The
dialectic, which is present each moment the individual identifies
with his significant others, is, as it were, the particularization
in individual life of the general dialectic of society that has
already been discussed.
Although the details of this dialectic are, of course, of great
importance for social psychology, it would exceed our present
purpose if we were to follow up its implications for socialpsychological
theory. 7 What is most important for our considerations
here is the fact that the individual not only takes on
the roles and attitudes ofothers, but in the same process takes
on their world. Indeed, identity is objectively defined as location
in a certain world and can be subjectively appropriated
only along with that world. Put differently, all identifications
take place within horizons that imply a specific social world.
The child learns that he is what he is called. Every name implies
a nomenclature, which in turn implies a designated social
location. 8 To be given an identity involves being assigned a
specific place in the world. As this identity is subjectively
appropriated by the child ('I am John Smith'), so is the world
to which this identity points. Subjective appropriation of
identity and subjective appropriation of the social world are
merely different aspects of the same process of internalization,
mediated by the same significant others.
Primary socialization creates in the child's consciousness a
progressive abstraction from the roles and attitude of specific
others to roles and attitudes in general. For example, in the
internalization ofnorms there is a progression from, 'Mummy
is angry with me now' to, 'Mummy is angry with me whenever
I spill the soup'. As additional significant others (father,
grandmother, older sister, and so on) support the mother's
negative attitude towards soup-spilling, the generality of the
norm is subjectively extended. The decisive step comes when
the child recognizes that everybody is against soup-spilling,
SociETY AS SuBJECTIVE REALITY
and the norm is generalized to, 'One does not spill soup' 'one'
being himself as part of a generality that includes, in
principle, all of society in so far as it is significant to the child.
This abstraction from the roles and attitudes of concrete
significant others is called the generalized other.9 Its formation
within consciousness means that the individual now identifies
not only with concrete others but with a generality of others,
that is, with a society. Only by virtue of this generalized
identification does his own self-identification attain stability
and continuity. He now has not only an identity vis-a-visthis or
that significant other, but an identity in general, which is subjectively
apprehended as remaining the same no matter what
others, significant or not, are encountered. This newly
coherent identity incorporates within itself all the various
internalized roles and attitudes - including, among many
other things, the self-identification as a non-spiller of soups.
The formation within consciousness of the generalized
other marks a decisive phase in socialization. It implies the
internalization of society as such and of the objective reality
established therein, and, at the same time, the subjective
establishment of a coherent and continuous identity. Society,
identity and reality are subjectively crystallized in the same
process of internalization. This crystallization is concurrent
with the internalization of language. Indeed, for reasons evident
from the foregoing observations on language, language
constitutes both the most important content and the most
important instrument of socialization.
When the generalized other has been crystallized in consciousness,
a symmetrical relationship is established between
objective and subjective reality. What is real 'outside' corresponds
to what is real 'within'. Objective reality can readily be
'translated' into subjective reality, and vice versa. Language,
of course, is the principal vehicle of this ongoing translating
process in both directions. It should, however, be stressed
that the symmetry between objective and subjective reality
cannot be complete. The two realities correspond to each
other, but they are not coextensive. There is always more
objective reality 'available' than is actually internalized in any
individual consciousness, simply because the contents of
socialization are determined by the social distribution of
153
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
knowledge. No individual internalizes the totality of what is
objectivated as reality in his society, not even ifthe society and
its world are relatively simple ones. On the other hand, there
are always elements of subjective reality that have not originated
in socialization, such as the awareness of one's own
body prior to and apart from any socially learned apprehension
of it. Subjective biography is not fully social. The individual
apprehends himself as a being both inside andoutside society. w
This implies that the symmetry between objective and subjective
reality is never a static, once-for-all state of affairs. It
must always be produced and reproduced in actu. In other
words, the relationship between the individual and the objective
social world is like an ongoing balancing act. The anthropological
roots of this are, of course, the same as those we
discussed in connexion with the peculiar position of man in
the animal kingdom.
In primary socialization there is no problem ofidentification.
There is no choice of significant others. Society presents the
candidate for socialization with a predefined set of significant
others, whom he must accept as such with no possibility of
opting for another arrangement. Hie Rhodus, hie salta. One
must make do with the parents that fate has regaled one with.
This unfair disadvantage inherent in the situation of being a
child has the obvious consequence that, although the child is
not simply passive in the process of his socialization, it is the
adults who set the rules of the game. The child can play the
game with enthusiasm or with sullen resistance. But, alas,
there is no other game around. This has an important corollary.
Since the child has no choice in the selection of his
significant others, his identification with them is quasi-automatic.
For the same reason, his internalization of their particular
reality is quasi-inevitable. The child does not internalize
the world of his significant others as one of many possible
worlds. He internalizes it as tlze world, the only existent and
only conceivable world, the world tout court. It is for this
reason that the world internalized in primarysocialization is so
much more firmly entrenched in consciousness than worlds
internalized in secondary socializations. However much the
o�iginal sense of inevitability may be weakeried in subsequent
dtsenchantments, the recollection of a never-to-be-repeated
154
SociETY AS SuBJ ECTIVE REALITY
certainty - the certainty ofthe first dawn of reality - still adheres
to the first world of childhood. Primary socialization
thus accomplishes what (in hindsight, of course) may be seen
as the most important confidence trick that society plays on
the individual - to make appear as necessity what is in fact a
bundle of contingencies, and thus to make meaningful the
accident ofhis birth.
The specific contents that are internalized in primary
socialization vary, of course, from society to society. Some are
found everywhere. It is language that must be internalized
above all. With language, and by means of it, various motivational
and interpretative schemes are internalized as institutionally
defined - wanting to act like a brave little boy, for
instance, and assuming little boys to be naturally divided into
the brave and the cowardly. These schemes provide the child
with institutionalized programmes for everyday life, some
immediately applicable to him, others anticipating conduct
socially defined for later biographical stages - the bravery that
will allow him to get through a day beset with tests of will
from one's peers and from all sorts of others, and also the
bravery that will be required of one later - when one is initiated
as a warrior, say, or when one might be called by the
god. These programmes, both the immediately applicable and
the anticipatory, differentiate one's identity from that ofothers
- such as girls, slave boys, or boys from another clan. Finally,
there is internalization of at least the rudiments of the legitimating
apparatus; the child learns 'why' the programmes are
what they are. One must be brave because one wants to become
a real man; one must perform the rituals because otherwise
the gods will be angry ; one must be loyal to the chief
because only if one does will the gods support one in times of
danger; and so on.
In primary socialization, then, the individual's first world is
constructed. Its peculiar quality offirmness is to be accounted
for, at least in part, by the inevitability of the individual's
relationship to his very first significant others. The world of
childhood, in its luminous reality, is thus conducive to confidence
not only in the persons of the significant others but in
their definitions of the situation. The worid of childhood is
massively and indubitably real.11 Probably this could not be
ISS
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
otherwise at this stage in the development of consciousness.
Only later can the individual afford the luxury of at least a
modicum of doubt. And probably this necessity of a protorealis�
in the apprehension of the world pertains phylogenettcally
as well as ontogenetically.12 Itl any case, the world
of childhood is so constituted as to instil in the individual a
nomic structure in which he may have confidence that 'everything
is all right' - to repeat what is possibly the most frequent
sentence mothers say to their crying offspring. The later discovery
that some things are far from 'all right' may be more or
less shocking, depending on biographical circumstances but. . '
m etther case the world of childhood is likely to retain its
peculiar reality in retrospection. It remains the 'home world',
however far one may travel from it in later life into regions
where one does not feel at home at all.
Primary socialization involves learning sequences that are
socially defined. At age A the child should learn X, at age B
he should learn Y, and so on. Every such programme entails
some social recognition of biological growth and differentiation.
Thus every programme, in any society, must recognize
that a one-year-old child cannot be expected to learn what a
three-year-old can. Also, most programmes are likely to define
the matter differently for boys and girls. Such minimal recognition
is, of course, imposed on society by biological facts.
�eyond this, however, there is great socio-historical variability
�n t�e definition of the stages in the learning sequence. What
ts still defined as childhood in one society may be defined as
well into adulthood in another. And the social implications of
childhood may vary greatly from one society to another - for
instance, in terms ofemotional qualities, moral accountability,
or intellectual capacities. Contemporary Western civilization
(at least prior to the Freudian movement) tended to regard
children as naturally 'innocent' and 'sweet'; other societies
considered them 'by nature sinful and unclean', different from
adults only in terms of their strength and understanding.
There have been similar variations ·in terms of children's
availability, for sexual activity, criminal responsibility, divine
inspiration, and so on. Such variations in the social definition
of childhood and its stages will obviously affect the learning
programme.13
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
The character ofprimary socialization is also affected by the
requirements of the stock of knowledge to be transmitted.
Certain legitimations may require a higher degree oflinguistic
complexity for their understanding than others. We might
guess, for instance, that a child would need less words to
understand that he must not masturbate because that makes
his guardian angel angry than to understand the argument
that masturbation will interfere with his later sexual adjustment.
The requirements of the overall institutional order will
further affect primary socialization. Different skills are required
at different ages in one society as against another, or
indeed in varying sectors ofthe same society. Theage at which,
in one society, it may be deemed proper for a child to be able
to drive an automobile may, in another, be the age at which he
is expected to have killed his first enemy. An upper-class child
may learn the 'facts of life' at an age when a lower-class child
has mastered the rudiments of abortion te.chnique. Or, an
upper-class child may experience his first stirrings ofpatriotic
emotion about the time that his lower-class contemporary first
experiences hatred ofthe police and everything they stand for.
Primary socialization ends when the concept ofthe generalized
other (and all that goes with it) has been established in the
consciousness ofthe individual. At this point he is an effective
member ofsociety and in subjective possession ofa selfand a
world. But this internalization of society, identity and reality
is not a matter of once and for all. Socialization is never total
and never finished. This presents us with two further problems:
First, how the reality internalized in primary socialization
is maintained in consciousness, and second, how further
internalizations - or secondary socializations - in the later
biography of the individual take place. We will take up these
problems in reverse order.
Secondary Socialization
It is possible to conceive of a society in which no further
socialization takes place after primary socialization. Such a
157
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
society would, of course, be one with a very simple stock of
knowledge. All knowledge would be generally relevant, with
different individuals varying only in their perspectives on it.
This conception is useful in positing a limiting case, but there
is no society known to us that does not have some division of
labour and, concomitantly, some social distribution of knowledge;
and as soon as this is the case, secondary socialization
becomes necessary.
Secondary socialization is the internalization ofinstitutional
or institution-based 'sub-worlds'. Its extent and character are
therefore determined by the complexity of the division of
labour and the concomitant social distribution of knowledge.
Of course, generally relevant knowledge, too, may be socially
distributed - for example, in the form ofclass-based 'versions'
- but what we have in mind here is the social distribution of
'special knowledge' - knowledge that arises as a result of the
division of labour and whose 'carriers' are institutionally defined.
Forgetting for a moment its other dimensions, we may
say that secondary socialization is the acquisition of rolespecific
knowledge, the roles being directly or indirectly
rooted in the division of labour. There is some justification for
such a narrow definition, but this is by no means the whole
story. Secondary socialization requires the acquisition of rolespecific
vocabularies, which means, for one thing, the internalization
ofsemantic fields structuring routine interpretations
and conduct within an institutional area. At the same time
'tacit understandings', evaluations and affective colorations of
these semantic fields are also acquired. The 'sub-worlds'
internalized in secondary socialization are generally partial
realities in contrast to the 'base-world' acquired in primary
socialization. Yet they, too, are more or less cohesive realities,
characterized by normative and affective as well as cognitive
components.
Furthermore, they, too, require at least the rudiments of a
legitimating apparatus, often accompanied by ritual or material
symbols. For example, a differentiation may arise between
foot soldiers and cavalry. The latter will have to have special
training, which will probably involve more than learning the
purely physical skills necessary to handle military horses. The
language of the cavalry will become quite different from that
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
of the infantry. A terminology will be built up referring to
horses, their qualities and uses, and to situations arising as a
result ofcavalry life, which will be quite irrelevant to the foot
soldier. The cavalry will also use a different language in more
than an instrumental sense. An angry infantryman swears by
making reference to his aching feet, while the cavalryman may
mention his horse's backside. In other words, a body ofimages
and allegories is built up on the instrumental basis of cavalry
language. This role-specific language is internalized in toto by
the individual as he is trained for mounted combat. He becomes
a cavalryman not only by acquiring the requisite skills
but by becoming capable of understanding and using this
language. He can then communicate with his fellow-horsemen
in allusions rich in meaning to them but quite obtuse to men
in the infantry. It goes without saying that this process of
internalization entails subjective identification with the role
and its appropriate norms - 'I am a horseman', 'A h0rseman
never lets the enemy see the tail of his mount', 'Never let a
woman forget the feel of the spurs', 'A fast rider in war, a fast
rider in gambling', and so forth. As the need arises, this body
of meanings will be sustained by legitimations, ranging from
simple maxims like the foregoing to elaborate mythological
constructions. Finally, there may be a variety ofrepresentative
ceremonies and physical objects - say, the annual celebration
of the feast of the horse-god at which all meals are taken on
horseback and the newly initiated horsemen receive the horsetail
fetishes they will henceforth carry around their necks.
The character of such secondary socialization depends upon
the status of the body of knowledge concerned within the
symbolic universe as a whole. Training is necessary to learn to
make a horse pull a manure cart or to fight on it in battle. But
a society that limits its use of horses to the pulling of manure
carts is unlikely to embellish this activity with elaborate rituals
or fetishism, and the personnel to whom this task has been
assigned is unlikely to identify with the role in any profound
manner ; the legitimations, such as they are, are likely to be ofa
compensatory kind. Thusthere is a great deal ofsocio-historical
variability in the representations involved in secondary
socialization. In most societies, however, some rituals accompany
the transition from primary to secondary socialization.u
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THE SociAL CoNSTRUCTION oF REALITY
The formal processes of secondary socialization are determined
by its fundamental problem : it always presupposes a
preceding process of primary socialization ; that is, that it
must deal with an already formed self and an already internalized
world. It cannot construct subjective reality ex nihilo.
This presents a problem because the already internalized
reality has a tendency to persist. Whatever new contents are
now to be internalized must somehow be superimposed upon
this already present reality. There is, therefore, a problem of
consistency between the original and the new internalizations.
The problem may be more or less difficult of solution in
different cases. Having learned that cleanliness is a virtue in
one's own person, it is not difficult to transfer the same virtue
to one's horse. But having learned that certain obscenities are
reprehensible as a pedestrian child, it may need some explanation
that they are now de rigueur as a member of the cavalry.
To establish and maintain consistency, secondary socialization
presupposes conceptual procedures to integrate different
bodies of knowledge.
In secondary socialization, biological limitations become
decreasingly important to the learning sequences, which now
come to be established in terms of intrinsic properties of the
knowledge to be acquired ; that is, in terms ofthe foundational
structure of that knowledge. For example, in order to Jearn
certain hunting techniques one must first Jearn mountainclimbing
; or in order to learn calculus one must first learn
algebra. The learning sequences can also be manipulated in
terms of the vested interests of the personnel administering
the body of knowledge. For example, it can be established
that one must learn divination from animal entrails before one
can learn divination from the flight of birds, or that one must
have a high-school diploma before one can enrol in an embalming
school, or that one must pass an examination in
Gaelic before being eligible for a position in the Irish civil
service. Such stipulations are extrinsic to the knowledge pragmatically
required for the performance of the roles of diviner,
embalmer or Irish civil servant. They are established institutionally
to enhance the prestige of the roles in question or to
meet other ideological interests. A grade-school education
may be perfectly sufficient to grasp the curriculum of an
I6o
SociETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
embalming school, and Irish civil servants carry on their normal
business in the English language. It may even happen that
the learning sequences thus manipulated are pragmatically
disfunctional. For instance, it may be stipulated that a college
background in 'general culture' should precede the professional
training of research sociologists, while their actual activities
might in fact be more efficiently carried on if they were
unburdened with 'culture' of this sort.
While primary socialization cannot take place without an
emotionally charged identification of the child with his significant
others, most secondary socialization can dispense with
this kind of identification and proceed effectively with only
the amount of mutual identification that enters into any communication
between human beings. Put crudely, it is necessary
to love one's mother, but not one's teacher. Socialization in
later life typically begins to take on an affectivity reminiscent
ofchildhood when it seeks radically to transform the subjective
reality of the individual. This posits special problems that we
shall analyse a little further on.
In primary socialization the child does not apprehend his
significant others as institutional functionaries, but as mediators
of reality tout court; the child internalizes the world of his
parents as the world, and not as the world appertaining to a
specific institutional context. Some of the crises that occur
after primary socialization are indeed caused by the recognition
that the world of one's parents is not the only world there
is, but has a very specific social location, perhaps even one
with a pejorative connotation. For example, the older child
comes to recognize that the world represented by his parents,
the same world that he had previously taken for granted as
inevitable reality, is actually the world of uneducated, lowerclass,
rural Southerners. In secondary socialization, the institutional
context is usually apprehended. Needless to say, this
need not involve a sophisticated understanding of all the
implications of the institutional context. Yet the Southern
child, to stay within the same example, does apprehend his
school teacher as an institutional functionary in a way he never
did his parents, and he understands the teacher's role as representing
institutionally specific meanings - such as those of
the nation as against the region, of the national middle-class
161
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
world as against the lower-class ambience of his home, of the
city as against the countryside. Hence the social interaction
between teachers and learners can be formalized. The teachers
need not be significant others in any sense of the word. They
are institutional functionaries with the formal assignment of
transmitting specific knowledge. The roles of secondary
socialization carry a high degree of anonymity; that is, they
are readily detached from their individual performers. The
same knowledge taught by one teacher could also be taught by
another. Any functionary of this type could teach this type of
knowledge. The individual functionaries may, of course, be
subjectively differentiated in various ways (as more or less
congenial, better or worse teachers of arithmetic, and so on),
but they are in principle interchangeable.
This formality and anonymity are, of course, linked with
the affective character ofsocial relations in secondary socialization.
Their most important consequence, however, is to bestow
on the contents of what is learned in secondary socialization
much less subjective inevitability than the contents of primary
socialization possess. Therefore, the reality accent of knowledge
internalized in secondary socialization is more easily
bracketed (that is, the subjective sense that these internalizations
are real is more fugitive). It takes severe biographical
shocks to disintegrate the massive reality internalized in early
childhood; much less to destroy the realities internalized
later. Beyond this, it is relatively easy to set aside the reality of
the secondary internalizations. The child lives willy-nilly in
the world as defined by his parents, but he can cheerfully
leave the world of arithmetic behind him as soon as he leaves
the classroom.
This makes it possible to detach a part of the self and its
concomitant reality as relevant only to the role-specific situation
in question. The individual then establishes distance between
his total self and its reality on the one hand, and the
role-specific partial self and its reality on the other. 15 This
important feat is possible only after primary socialization has
taken place. Put crudely once more, it is easier for the child
'to hide' from his teacher than from his mother. Conversely, it
is possible to say that the development ofthis capacity 'to hide'
is an important �spectofthe process ofgrowing intoadulthood.
162
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
The reality accent of knowledge internalized in primary
socialization is given quasi-automatically. In secondary socialization
it must be reinforced by specific pedagogic techniques,
'brought home' to the individual. The phrase is suggestive.
The original reality of childhood is 'home'. It posits itself as
such, inevitably and, as it were, 'naturally'. By comparison
with it, all later realities are 'artificial'. Thus the school teacher
tries to 'bring home' the contents he is imparting by making
them vivid (that is, making them seem as alive as the 'home
world' of the child), relevant (that is, linking them to the relevance
structures already present in the 'home world') and
interesting (that is, inducing the attentiveness of the child to
detach itself from its 'natural' objects to these more 'artificial'
ones). These manoeuvres are necessary because an internalized
reality is already there, persistently 'in the way' of new internalizations.
The degree and precise character of these pedagogic
techniques will vary with the motivations the individual
has for the acquisition of the new knowledge.
The more these techniques make subjectively plausible a
continuity between the original and the new elements of
knowledge, the more readily they acquire the accent ofreality.
One learns a second language by building on the taken-forgranted
reality of one's 'mother tongue'. For a long time, one
continually retranslates into the original language whatever
elements of the new language one is acquiring. Only in this
way can the new language begin to have any reality. As this
reality comes to be established in its own right, it slowly
becomes possible to forego retranslation. One becomes capable
of 'thinking in' the new language. Nevertheless, it is rare
that a language learned in later life attains the inevitable, selfevident
reality of the first language learned in childhood.
Hence derives, of course, the affective quality of the 'mother
tongue'. Mutatis mutandis, the same characteristics of building
from the 'home' reality, linking up with it as learning proceeds
and only slowly breaking this linkage, appertain to other learning
sequences in secondary socialization.
The facts that the processes of secondary socialization do
not presuppose a high degree of identification and its contents
do not possess the quality ofinevitability can be pragmatically
useful because they permit learning sequences that are rational
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
and emotionally controlled. But because the contents of this
type of internalization have a brittle and unreliable subjective
reality compared to the internalizations of primary socialization,
in some cases special techniques must be developed to
produce whatever identification and inevitability are deemed
necessary. The need for such techniques may be intrinsic in
terms oflearning and applying the contents ofinternalization,
or it may be posited for the sake of the vested interests of the
personnel administering the socialization process in question.
For example, an individual who wants to become an accomplished
musician must immerse himself in his subject to a
degree quite unnecessary for an individual learning to be an
engineer. Engineering education can take place effectively
through formal, highly rational, emotionally neutral processes.
Musical education, on the other hand, typically involves much
higher identification with a maestro and a much more profound
immersion in musical reality. This difference comes
from the intrinsic differences between engineering and musical
knowledge, and between the ways of life in which these two
bodies of knowledge are practically applied. A professional
revolutionary, too, needs an immeasurably higher degree of
identification and inevitability than an engineer. But here the
necessity comes not from intrinsic properties of the knowledge
itself, which may be quite simple and sparse in content, but
from the personal commitment required of a revolutionary in
terms of the vested interests of the revolutionary movement.
Sometimes the necessity for the intensifying techniques may
come from both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The socialization
of religious personnel is one example.
The techniques applied in such cases are designed to intensify
the affective charge of the socialization process. Typically,
they involve the institutionalization of an elaborate initiation
process, a novitiate, in the course of which the individual
comes to commit himself fully to the reality that is being
internalized. When the process requires an actual transformation
of the individual's 'home' reality, it comes to replicate as
closely as possible the character ofprimary socialization, as we
shall see a little later. But even short of such transformation,
secondary socialization becomes affectively charged to the
degree to which immersion in and commitment to the new
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
reality are institutionally defined as necessary. The relationship
of the individual to the socializing personnel becomes
correspondingly charged with 'significance', that is, the
socializing personnel take on the character of significant
others vis-a-vis the individual being socialized. The individual
then commits himself in a comprehensive way to the new
r'!ality. He 'gives himself' to music, to the revolution, to the
faith, not just partially but with what is subjectively the whole
of his life. The readiness to sacrifice oneself is, of course, the
final consequence of this type of socialization.
An important circumstance that may posit a need for such
intensification is competition between the reality-defining
personnel of various institutions. In the case of revolutionary
training the intrinsic problem is the socialization of the individual
in a counter-definition of reality - counter, that is, to the
definitions ofthe 'official' legitimators ofthe society. But there
will also have to be intensification in the socialization of the
musician in a society that offers sharp competition to the
aesthetic values of the musical community. For example, it
may be assumed that a musician in the making in contemporary
America must commit himself to music with an emotional
intensity that was unnecessary in nineteenth-century
Vienna, precisely because in the American situation there is
powerful competition from what will subjectively appear as
the 'materialistic' and 'mass culture' world of the 'rat race'.
Similarly, religious training in a pluralistic situation posits the
need for 'artificial' techniques of reality-accentuation that are
unnecessary in a situation dominated by a religious monopoly.
It is still 'natural' to become a Catholic priest in Rome in a
way that it is not in America. Consequently, American theological
seminaries must cope with the problem of 'realityslipping'
and devise techniques for 'making stick' the same
reality. Not surprisingly, they have hit upon the obvious expedient
of sending their most promising students to Rome
for a while.
Similar variations may exist within the same institutional
context, depending upon the tasks assigned to different categories
of personnel. Thus the degree of commitment to the
military required of career officers is quite different from that
required of draftees, a fact clearly reflected in the respective
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
training processes. Similarly, different commitments to the
institutional reality are demanded from an executive and from
lower-echelon white-collar personnel, from a psycho-analyst
and from a psychiatric social worker, and so forth. An executive
must be 'politically sound' in a way not incumbent on the
supervisor of the typing pool, and a 'didactic analysis' is imposed
upon the psycho-analyst but only suggested to the
social worker, and so on. There are, then, highly differentiated
syste�s of secondary socialization in complex institutions,
sometimes geared very sensitively to the differential requirements
of the various categories of institutional personnel.Is
The institutionalized distribution of tasks between primary
and secondary socialization varies with the complexity of the
social distribution of knowledge. As long as it is relatively
uncomplicated, the same institutional agency can proceed
from primary to secondary socialization and carry on the latter
to a
.
c�nsiderable extent. In cases of very high complexity,
specialized agencies for secondary socialization may have to be
developed, with full-time personnel specially trained for the
educational tasks in question. Short of this degree of specialization,
there may be a sequence of socializing agencies combining
this task with others. In the latter case, for example, it
may be established that at a certain age a boy is transferred
from his mother's hut to the warriors' barracks, where he will
be trained to become a horseman. This need not entail fulltime
educational personnel. The older horsemen may teach
the younger ones. The development of modern education is,
ofcourse, the best illustration ofsecondary socialization taking
place under the auspices ofspecialized agencies. The resultant
decline in the position of the family with regard to secondary
socialization is too well known to require further elaboration
hereY
Maintmance and Transformation of Subjective Reality
Since socialization is never complete and the contents it internalizes
face continuing threats to their subjective reality, every
166
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
viable society must develop procedures of reality-maintenance
to safeguard a measure of symmetry between objective and
subjective reality. We have already discussed this problem in
connexion with legitimation. Our focus here is on the defence
of subjective rather than objective reality ; reality as apprehended
in individual consciousness rather than on reality as
institutionally defined.
Primary socialization internalizes a reality apprehended as
inevitable. This internalization may be deemed successful if
the sense of inevitability is present most of the time, at least
while the individual is active in the world of everyday life. But
even when the world of everyday life retains its massive and
taken-for-granted re;tlity in actu, it is threatened by the marginal
situations of human experience that cannot be completely
bracketed in everyday activity. There is always the
haunting presence of metamorphoses, those actually remembered
and those only sensed as sinister possibilities. There are
also the more directly threatening competing definitions of
reality that may be encountered socially. It is one thing for
a well-behaved man to dream of unspeakable orgies in
nocturnal solitude. It is quite another to see these dreams
empirically enacted by a libertarian colony next door. Dreams
can more easily be quarantined within consciousness as 'nonsense'
to be shrugged aside or as mental aberrations to be
silently repented ; they retain the character of phar.tasms
vis-a-vis the reality of everyday life. An actual acting-out
forces itself upon consciousness much more clamorously. It
may have to be destroyed in fact before it can be coped with
in the mind. In any case, it cannot be denied as one can at
least try to deny the metamorphoses of marginal situations.
The more 'artificial' character of secondary socialization
makes the subjective reality of its internalizations even more
vulnerable to challenging definitions of reality, not because
they are not taken for granted or are apprehended as less than
real in everyday life, but because their reality is less deeply
rooted in consciousness and thus more susceptible to displacement.
For example, both the prohibition on nudity, which is
related to one's sense of shame and internalized in primary
socialization, and the canons of proper dress for different
social occasions, which are acquired as secondary internaliza-
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
tions, are taken for granted in everyday life. As long as they
are not socially challenged, neither constitutes a problem for
the individual. However, the challenge would have to be much
stronger in the former case than in the latter to crystallize as
a threat to the taken-for-granted reality of the routines in
question. A relatively minor shift in the subjective definition
of reality would suffice for an individual to take for granted
that one may go to the office without a tie. A much more
drastic shift would be necessary to have him go, as a matter of
course, without any clothes at all. The former shift could be
socially mediated by nothing more than a change of job - say,
from a rural to a metropolitan college campus. The latter
would entail a social revolution in the individual's milieu ; it
would be subjectively apprehended as a profound conversion,
probably after an initially intense resistance.
The reality of secondary internalizations is less threatened
by marginal situations, because it is usually irrelevant to them.
What may happen is that such reality is apprehended as trivial
precisely because its irrelevance to the marginal situation is
revealed. Thus it may be said that the imminence of death
profoundly threatens the reality of one's previous self-identifications
as a- man, a moral being, or a Christian. One's selfidentification
as an assistant manager in the ladies' hosiery
department is not so much threatened as trivialized in the
same situation. Conversely, it may be said that the maintenance
of primary internalizations in the face of marginal situations
is a fair measure of their subjective reality. The same test
would be quite irrelevant when applied to most secondary
socializations. It makes sense to die as a man, hardly to die as
an assistant manager in the ladies' hosiery department. Again,
where secondary internalizations are socially expected to have
this degree of reality-persistence in the face of marginal situations,
the concomitant socialization procedures will have to be
intensified and reinforced in the manner discussed before.
Religious and military processes of secondary socialization
could again be cited in illustration.
It is convenient to distinguish between two general types of
reality-maintenance - routine maintenance and crisis maintenance.
The former is designed to maintain the internalized
reality in everyday life, the latter in situations of crises. Both
168
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
entail fundamentally the same social processes, though some
differences must be noted.
As we have seen, the reality of everyday life maintains itself
by being embodied in routines, which is the essence ofinstitutionalization.
Beyond this, however, the reality of everyday
life is ongoingly reaffirmed in the individual's interaction with
others. Just as reality is originally internalized by a social
process, so it is maintained in consciousness by social processes.
These latter processes are not drastically different from
those of the earlier internalization. They also reflect the basic
fact that subjective reality must stand in a relationship with an
objective reality that is socially defined.
In the social process of reality-maintenance it is possible to
distinguish between significant others and less important
others. 18 In an important way all, or at least most, ofthe others
encountered by the individual in everyday life serve to reaffirm
his subjective reality. This occurs even in a situation as 'nonsignificant'
as riding on a commuter train. The individual may
not know anyone on the train and may speak to no one. All the
same, the crowd of fellow-commuters reaffirms the basic
structure ofeveryday life. By their overall conduct the fellowcommuters
extract the individual from the tenuous reality of
early-morning grogginess and proclaim to him in no uncertain
terms that the world consists of earnest men going to work, of
responsibility and schedules, of the New Haven Railroad and
the New York Times. The last, of course, reaffirms the widest
coordinates of the individual's reality. From the weather report
to the help-wanted ads it assures him that he is, indeed,
in the most real world possible. Concomitantly, it affirms the
less-than-real status ofthe sinister ecstasies experienced before
breakfast - the alien shape of allegedly familiar objects upon
waking from a disturbing dream, the shock ofnon-recognition
of one's own face in the bathroom mirror, the unspeakable
suspicion a little later that one's wife and children are mysterious
strangers. Most individuals susceptible to such metaphysical
terrors manage to exorcize them to a degree in the
course of their rigidly performed morning rituals, so that the
reality of everyday life is at least gingerly established by the
time they step out oftheir front door. But the reality begins to
be fairly reliable only in the anonymous community of the
169
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION O F REALITY
commuter train. It attains massivity as the train pulls into
Grand Central Station. Ergo sum, the individual can now
murmur to himself, and proceed to the office wide-awake and
self-assured.
It would, therefore, be a mistake to assume that only significant
others serve to maintain subjective reality. But significant
others occupy a central position in the economy of realitymaintenance.
They are particularly important for the ongoing
confirmation of that crucial element of reality we call identity.
To retain confidence that he is indeed who he thinks he is, the
individual requires not only the implicit confirmation of this
identity that even casual everyday contacts will supply, but
the explicit and emotionally charged confirmation that his
significant others bestow on him. In the previous illustration,
our suburbanite is likely to look to his family and other private
associates within the family ambience (neighbourhood,
church, club, and the like) for such confirmation, though
close business associates may also fulfil this function. If he
moreover sleeps with his secretary, his identity is both confirmed
and amplified. This assumes that the individual likes
the identity being confirmed. The same process pertains to
the confirmation of identities that the individual may not like.
Even casual acquaintances may confirm his self-identification
as a hopeless failure, but wife, children and secretary ratify
this with undeniable finality. The process from objective
reality-definition to subjective reality-maintenance is the
same in both cases.
The significant others in the individual's life are the principal
agents for the maintenance of his subjective reality. Less
significant others function as a sort of chorus. Wife, children
and secretary solemnly reaffirm each day that one is a man of
importance, or a hopeless failure; maiden aunts, cooks and
elevator operators lend varying degrees of support to this. It
is, of course, quite possible that there is some disagreement
between these people. The individual then faces a problem of
consistency, which he can, typicaHy, solve either by modifying
his reality or his reality-maintaining relationships. He may
have the alternative of accepting his identity as a failure on the
one hand, or of firing his secretary or divorcing his wife on
the other. He also has the option of downgrading some of
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
these people from their status ofsignificant others and turning
instead to others for his significant reality-confirmations - his
psycho-analyst, say, or his old cronies at the club. There are
many possible complexities in this organization of realitymaintaining
relationships, especially in a highly mobile and
role-differentiated society.19
The relation between the significant others and the 'chorus'
in reality-maintenance is a dialectical one ; that is, they interact
with each other as well as with the subjective reality they
serve to confirm. A solidly negative identification on the part
of the wider milieu may eventually affect the identification
offered by the significant others - when even the elevator
operator fails to say 'sir', the wife may give up her identification
of her husband as a man of importance. Conversely, the
significant others may eventually have an effect on the wider
milieu - a 'loyal' wife can be an asset in several ways as the
individual seeks to get across a certain identity to his business
associates. Reality-maintenance and reality-confirmation thus
involve the totality of the individual's social situation, though
the significant others occupy a privileged position in these
processes.
The relative importance of the significant others and the
'chorus' can be seen most easily ifone looks at instances ofdisconfirmation
of subjective reality. A reality-disconfirming act
by the wife, taken by itself, has far greater potency than a
similar act by a casual acquaintance. Acts by the latter have to
acquire a certain density to equal the potency of the former.
The reiterated opinion ofone's best friend that the newspapers
are not reporting substantial developments going on beneath
the surface may carry more weight than the same opinion expressed
by one's barber. However, the same opinion expressed
in succession by ten casual acquaintances may begin to outweigh
acontraryopinion ofone's best friend. The crystallization
subjectively arrived at as a result of these various definitions
of reality will then determine how one is likely to react to
the appearance of a solid phalanx of grim, silent, briefcasecarrying
Chinese on the commuter train one morning ; that is,
will determine the weight one gives the phenomenon in one's
own definition of reality. To take another illustration, if one
is a believing Catholic the reality of one's faith need not be
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
threatened by non-believing business associates. It is very
likely to be threatened, however, by a non-believing wife. In
a pluralistic society, therefore, it is logical for the Catholic
Church to tolerate a broad variety of inter-faith associations in
economic and political life, but to continue to frown on interfaith
marriage. Generally speaking, in situations where there
is competition between different reality-defining agencies, all
sorts of secondary-group relationships with the competitors
may be tolerated, as long as there are firmly established
primary-group relationships within which one reality is ongoingly
reaffirmed against the competitors.20 The manner in
which the Catholic Church has adapted itself to the pluralistic
situation in America is an excellent illustration.
The most important vehicle of reality-maintenance is conversation.
One may view the individual's everyday life in
terms of the working away of a conversational apparatus that
ongoingly maintains, modifies and reconstructs his subjective
reality.21 Conversation means mainly, of course, that people
speak with one another. This does not deny the rich aura of
non-verbal communication that surrounds speech. Nevertheless
speech retains a privileged position in the total conversational
apparatus. It is important to stress, however, that the
greater part of reality-maintenance in conversation is implicit,
not explicit. Most conversation does not in so many words
define the nature of the world. Rather, it takes place against
the background of a world that is silently taken for granted.
Thus an exchange such as, 'Well, it's time for me to get to the
station', and 'Fine, darling, have a good day at the office',
implies an entire world within which these apparently simple
propositions make sense. By virtue of this implication the
exchange confirms the subjective reality of this world.
Ifthis is understood, one will readily see that the great part,
ifnot all, ofeveryday conversation maintains subjective reality.
Indeed, its massivity is achieved by the accumulation and
consistency of casual conversation - conversation that can
afford to be casual precisely because it refers to the routines of
a taken-for-granted world. The loss of casualness signals a
break in the routines and, at least potentially, a threat to the
taken-for-granted reality. Thus one may imagine the effect on
casualness of an exchange like this : 'Well, it's time for me to
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
get to the station', 'Fine, darling, don't forget to take along
your gun.'
At the same time that the conversational apparatus ongoingly
maintains reality, it ongoingly modifies it. Items are
dropped and added, weakening some sectors of what is still
being taken for granted and reinforcing others. Thus the subjective
reality ofsomething that is never talked about comes to
be shaky. It is one thing to engage in an embarrassing sexual
act. It is quite another to talk about it beforehand or afterwards.
Conversely, conversation gives firm contours to items
prev�ously apprehended in a fleeting and unclear manner. One
may have doubts about one's religion ; these doubts become
real in a quite different way as one discusses them. One then
'talks oneself into' these doubts ; they are objectified as reality
within one's own consciousness. Generally speaking, the conversational
apparatus maintains reality by 'talking through'
various elements of experience and allocating them a definite
place in the real world.
This reality-generating potency of conversation is already
given in the fact of linguistic objectification. We have seen
how language objectifies the world, transforming the panta
rhei of experience into a cohesive order. In the establishment
of this order language realizes a world, in the double sense of
apprehending and producing it. Conversation is the actualizing
of this realizing efficacy of language in the face-to-face
situations of individual existence. In conversation the objectifications
of language become objects of individual consciousness.
Thus the fundamental reality-maintaining fact is the
continuing use of the same language to objectify unfolding
biographical experience. In the widest sense, all who employ
this same language are reality-maintaining others. The significance
of this can be further differentiated in terms of what is
meant by a 'common language' - from the group-idiosyncratic
language of primary groups to regional or class dialects to the
national community that defines itself in terms of language.
There are corresponding 'returns to reality' for the individual
who goes back to the few individuals who understand his ingroup
allusions, to the section to which his accent belongs, or
to the large collectivity that has identified itself with a particular
linguistic tradition - in reverse order, say, a return to the
173
THE SociAL CoNSTRUCTION OF REALITY
United States, to Brooklyn, and to the people who went to the
same public school.
In order to maintain subjective reality effectively, the conversational
apparatus must be continual and consistent. Disruptions
of continuity or consistency ipso facto posit a threat
to the subjective reality in question. We have already discussed
the expedients that the individual may adopt to meet the threat
of inconsistency. Various techniques to cope with the threat
of discontinuity are also available. The use of correspondence
to continue significant conversation despite physical separation
may serve as an illustration.22 Different conversations can be
compared in terms of the density of the reality they produce
or maintain. On the whole, frequency ofconversationenhances
its reality-generating potency, but lack of frequency can
sometimes be compensated for by the intensity of the conversation
when it does take place. One may see one's lover
only once a month, but the conversation then engaged in is of
sufficient intensity to make up for its relative infrequency.
Certain conversations may also be explicitly defined and legitimated
as having a privileged status - such as conversations
with one's confessor, one's psycho-analyst, or a similar
'authority' figure. The 'authority' here lies in the cognitively
and normatively superior status that is assigned to these
conversations.
Subjective reality is thus always dependent upon specific
plausibility structures, that is, the specific social base and
social processes required for its maintenance. One can maintain
one's self-identification as a man of importance only in a
milieu that confirms this identity; one can maintain one's
Catholic faith only if one retains one's significant relationship
with the Catholic community ; and so forth. Disruption of
significant conversation with the mediators of the respective
plausibility structures threatens the subjective realities in
question. As the example of correspondence indicates, the
individual may resort to various techniques of reality-maintenance
even in the absence of actual conversation, but the
reality-generating potency of these techniques is greatly inferior
to the face-to-face conversations they are designed to
replicate. The longer these techniques are isolated from faceto-face
confirmations, the less likely they will be to retain the
174
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
accent ofreality. The individual living for many years among
people of a different faith and cut off from the community of
those sharing his own may continue to identify himselfas, say,
a Catholic. Through prayer, religious exercises, and similar
techniques his old Catholic reality may continue to be subjectively
relevant to him. At the very least the techniques may
sustain his continued self-identification as a Catholic. They
will, however, become subjectively empty of 'living' reality
unless they are 'revitalized' by social contact with other
Catholics. To be sure, an individual usually remembers the
realities of his past. But the way to 'refresh' these memories is
to converse with those who share their relevance.23
The plausibility structure is also the social base for the particular
suspension of doubt without which the definition of
reality in question cannot be maintained in consciousness.
Here specific social sanctions against such reality-disintegrating
doubts have been internalized and are ongoingly reaffirmed.
Ridicule is one such sanction. As long as he remains
within the plausibility structure, the individual feels himself
to be ridiculous whenever doubts about the reality concerned
arise subjectively. He knows that others would smile at him if
he voiced them. He can silently smile at himself, mentally
shrug his shoulders - and continue to exist within the world
thus sanctioned. Needless to say, this procedure of autotherapy
will be much more difficult ifthe plausibility structure
is no longer available as its social matrix. The smile will
become forced, and eventually is likely to be replaced by a
pensive frown.
In crisis situations the procedures are essentiaUy the same as
in routine maintenance, except that the reality-confirmations
have to be explicit and intensive. Frequently, ritual techniques
are brought into play. While the individual may improvise
reality-maintaining procedures in the face ofcrisis, the society
itself sets up specific procedures for situations recognized as
involving the risk of a breakdown in reality. Included in these
predefined situations are certain marginal situations, of which
death is by far the most important. Crises in reality, however,
may occur in a considerably wider number of cases than are
posited by marginal situations. They may be either collective
oi individual, depending upon the character of the challenge
175
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
to the socially defined reality. For example, collective rituals of
reality-maintenance may be institutionalized for times of
natural catastrophe, individual ones for times ofpersonal misfortune.
Or, to take another example, specific reality-maintaining
procedures may be established to cope with foreigners and
·
their potentia! threat to the 'official' reality. The individual
may have to go through an elaborate ritual purification after
contact with a foreigner. The ablution is internalized as a subjective
nihilation of the alternative reality represented by the
foreigner. Taboos, exorcisms and curses against foreigners,
heretics or madmen similarly serve the purpose of individual
'mental hygiene'. The violence of these defensive procedures
will be proportional to the seriousness with which the threat
is viewed. If contacts with the alternative reality and its representatives
become frequent, the defensive procedures may,
of course, lose their crisis character and become routinized.
Every time one meets a foreigner, say, one must spit three
times - without giving much further thought to the matter.
Everything that has been said so far on socialization implies
the possibility that subjective reality can be transformed. To
be in society already entails an ongoing process ofmodification
of subjective reality. To talk about transformation, then,
involves a discussion of different degrees of modification. We
will concentrate here on the extreme case, in which there is a
near-total transformation; that is, in which the individual
'switches worlds'. If the processes involved in the extreme
case are clarified, those ofless extreme cases will be understood
more easily.
Typically, the transformation is subjectively apprehended
as total. This, of course, is something of a misapprehension.
Since subjective reality is never totally socialized, it cannot be
totally transformed by social processes. At the very least the
transformed individual will have the same body and live in the
same physical universe. Nevertheless, there are instances of
transformation that appear total if compared with lesser modifications.
Such transformations we will call alternations.21
Alternation requires processes of re-socialization. These
processes resemble primary socialization, because they have
radically to re-assign reality accents and, consequently, must
replicate to a considerable degree the strongly affective identiSociETY
AS SuBJECTIVE REALITY
fication with the socializing personnel that was characteristic
of childhood. They are different from primary socialization
because they do not start ex nihilo, and as a result must cope
with a problem of dismantling, disintegrating the preceding
nomic structure of subjective reality. How can this be done?
A 'recipe' for successful alternation has to include both
social and conceptual conditions, the social, of course, serving
as the matrix of the conceptual. The most important social
condition is the availability of an effective plausibility structure,
that is, a social base serving as the 'laboratory' of transformation.
This plausibility structure will be mediated to the
individual by means of significant others, with whom he must
establish strongly affective identification. No radical transformation
of subjective reality (including, of course, identity)
is possible without such identification, which inevitably replicates
childhood experiences of emotional dependency on
significant others.2·; These significant others are the guides
into the new reality. They represent the plausibility structure
in the roles they play vis-a-vis the individual (roles that are
typically defined explicitly in terms of their re-socializing
function), and they mediate the new world to the individual.
The individual's world now finds its cognitive and affective
focus in the plausibility structure in question. Socially, t�s
means an intense concentration of all significant interaction
within the group that embodies the plausibility structure and
particularly upon the personnel assigned the task of re­
socialization.
The historical prototype of alternation is religious conversion.
The above considerations can be applied to this by saying,
extra ecclesiam nulla sa/us. By sa/us we mean here (with due
apologies to the theologians who had other things in mind
when they coined the phrase) the empirically successful
accomplishment of conversion. It is only within the religious
community, the ecclesia, that the conversion can be effectively
maintained as plausible. This is not to deny that conversion
may antedate affiliation with the community - Saul of Tarsus
sought out the Christian community after his 'Damascus �xperience'.
But this is not the point. To have a convers1on
experience is nothing much. The real thing is to be able to
keep on taking it seriously ; to retain a sense ofits plausibility.
177
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
This is where the religious community comes in. It provides
the indispensable plausibility structure for the new reality. In
other words, Saul may have become Paul in the aloneness of
religious ecstasy, but he could remain Paul only in the context
of the Christian community that recognized him as such and
confirmed the 'new being' in which he now located this identity.
This relationship of conversion and community is not a
peculiarly Christian phenomenon (despite the historically
peculiar features of the Christian ecclesia). One cannot remain
a Muslim outside the 'umma of Islam, a Buddhist outside the
sangha, and probably not a Hindu anywhere outside India.
Religion requires a religious community, and to live in a religious
world requires affiliation with that community.26 The
plausibility structures of religious conversion have been imitated
by secular agencies of alternation. The best examples are
in the areas of political indoctrination and psychotherapy.27
The plausibility structure must become the individual's
world, displacing all other worlds, especially the world the
individual 'inhabited' before his alternation. This requires
segregation of the individual from the 'inhabitants' of other
worlds, especially his 'cohabitants' in the world he has left
behind. Ideally this will be physical segregation. If that is not
possible for whatever reasons, the segregation is posited by
definition; that is, by a definition ofthose others that nihil"ates
them. The alternating individual disaffiliates himself from his
previous world and the plausibility structure that sustained it,
bodily if possible, mentally if not. In either case he is no
longer 'yoked together with unbelievers', and thus is protected
from their potential reality-disrupting influence. Such segregation
is particularly important in the early stages of alternation
(the 'novitiate' phase). Once the new reality has congealed,
circumspect relations with outsiders may again be
entered into, although those outsiders who used to be biographically
significant are still dangerous. They are the ones
who will say, 'Come offit, Saul', and there may be times when
the old reality they invoke takes the form of temptation.
Alternation thus involves a reorganization of the conversational
apparatus. The partners in significant conversation
change. And in conversation with the new significant others
subjective reality is transformed. It is maintained by conSOCIETY
AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
tinuing conversation with them, or within the community
they represent. Put simply, this means that one must now be
very careful with whom one talks. People and ideas that are
discrepant with the new definitions ofreality are systematically
avoided.28 Since this can rarely be done with total success, if
only because of the memory of past reality, the new plausibility
structure will typically provide various therapeutic
procedures to take care of 'backsliding' tendencies. These
procedures follow the general pattern of therapy, as discussed
earlier.
The most important conceptual requirement for alternation
is the availability of a legitimating apparatus for the whole
sequence of transformation. What must be legitimated is not
only the new reality, but the stages by which it is appropriated
and maintained, and the abandonment or repudiation of all
alternative realities. The nihilating side of the conceptual
machinery is particularly important in view of the dismantling
problem that must be solved. The old real�ty, as well
.
as th
.
e
collectivities and significant others that prev10usly mediated 1t
to the individual, must be reinterpreted within the legitimating
apparatus of the new reality. This reinterpretation brings
about a rupture in the subjective biography of the individual
in terms of 'B.c.' and
'
A.D.
'
, 'pre-Damascus' and 'postDamascus'.
Everything preceding the alternation is now apprehended
as leading towards it (as an 'Old Testament', so to
speak, of as praeparatio evangelii), everything following it as
flowing from its new reality. This involves a reinterpretation
of past biography in toto, following the formula, 'Then I
thought . . . now I know'. Frequently this includes the retrojection
into the past of present interpretative schemas
.
(the
formula for this being, 'I already knew then, though m an
unclear manner . . .') and motives that were not subjectively
present in the past but that are now necessary for the reinterpretation
of what took place then (the formula being, 'I really
did this because . . .'). Pre-alternation biography is typically
nihilated in toto by subsuming it under a negative category
occupying a strategic position in the new legitimating ap�tus
: 'When I was still living a life of sin', 'When I was snll
caught in bourgeois consciousness', 'When I was still m�tivated
by these unconscious neurotic needs'. The biographical
179
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
rupture is thus identified with a cognitive separation of darkness
and light.
In addition to this reinterpretation in toto there must be
particular reinterpretations of past events and persons with
past significance. The alternating individual would, of course,
be best off if he could completely forget some of these. But to
forget completely is notoriously difficult. What is necessary,
then, is a radical reinterpretation of the meaning of these past
events or persons in one's biography. Since it is relatively
easier to invent things that never happened than to forget
those that actually did, the individual may fabricate and insert
events wherever they are needed to harmonize the remembered
with the reinterpreted past. Since it is the new reality
rather than the old that now appears dominatingly plausible
to him, he may be perfectly 'sincere' in such a procedure - subjectively,
he is not telling lies about the past but bringing it in
line with the truth that, necessarily, embraces both present and
past. This point, incidentally, is very important if one wishes
to understand adequattly the motives behind the historically
recurrent falsifications and forgeries of religious documents.
Persons, too, particularly significant others, are reinterpreted
in this fashion. The latter now become unwilling actors in a
drama whose meaning is necessarily opaque to them; and, not
surprisingly, they typically reject such an assignment. This is
the reason prophets typically fare badly in their home towns,
and it is in this context that one may understand Jesus's statement
that his followers must leave behind them their fathers
and mothei:s.
It is not difficult now to propose a specific 'prescription' for
alternation into any conceivable reality, however implausible
from the standpoint of the outsider. It is possible to prescribe
specific procedures for, say, convincing individuals that they
can communicate with beings from outer space provided that
and as long as they stay on a steady diet of raw fish. We can
leave it to the imagination of the reader, if he is so inclined, to
work out the details of such a sect of lchthyosophists. The
'prescription' would entail the construction of an Ichthyosophist
plausibility structure, properly segregated from the
outside world and equipped with the necessary socializing and
therapeutic personnel; the elaboration of an Ichthyosophist
180
SociETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
body of knowledge, sufficiently sophisticated to explain why
the self-evident nexus between raw fish and galactic telepathy
had not been discovered before; and the necessary legitimations
and nihilations to make sense of the individual's journey
towards this great truth. Ifthese procedures are followed carefully,
there will be a high probability of success once an individual
has been lured or kidnapped into the Ichthyosophist
brainwashing institute.
There are in practice, of course, many intermediate types
between re-socialization as just discussed and secondary
socialization that continues to build on the primary internalizations.
In these there are partial transformations of subjective
reality or of designated sectors of it. Such partial transformations
are common in contemporary society in connexion
with the individual's social mobility and occupational training.29
Here the transformation of subjective reality can be
considerable, as the individual is made into an acceptable
upper-middle-class type or an acceptable physician, and as he
internalizes the appropriate reality-appendages. But these
transformations typically fall far short ofre-socialization. They
build on the basis of primary internalizations and generally
avoid abrupt discontinuities within the subjective biography
of the individual. As a result, they face the problem of maintaining
consistency between the earlier and later elements of
subjective reality. This problem, not present in this form in
re-socialization, which ruptures the subjective biography and
reinterprets the past rather than correlating the present with
it, becomes more acute the closer secondary socialization gets
to re-socialization without actually becoming it. Re-socialization
is a cutting of the Gordian knot of the consistency problem
- by giving up the quest for consistency and reconstructing
reality de novo.
The procedures for maintaining consistency also involve a
tinkering with the past, but in a less radical manner - an
approach dictated by the fact that in such cases there is usually
a continuing association with persons and groups who were
significant before. They continue to be around, are likely to
protest too fanciful reinterpretations, and must themselves be
convinced that such transformations as have taken place are
plausible. For example, in the case of transformations occur-
181
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
ring in conjunction with social mobility, there are ready-made
interpretative schemes that explain what has happened to all
concerned without positing a total metamorphosis of the
individual concerned. Thus the parents of such an upwardly
mobile individual will accept certain changes in the latter's
demeanour and attitudes as a necessary, possibly even desirable,
accompaniment of his new station in life. 'Of course',
they will agree, Irving has had to de-emphasize his Jewishness
now that he has become a successful doctor in suburbia ; 'of
course' he dresses and speaks differently; 'of course' he now
votes Republican; 'of course' he married a Vassar girl - and
perhaps it will also become a matter of course �hat he only
rarely comes to visit his parents. Such interpretative schemes,
which are ready-made in a society with high upward mobility
and already internalized by the individual before he himself
is actually mobile, guarantee biographical continuity and
smooth inconsistencies as they arise.30
Similar procedures take place in situations where transformations
are fairly radical but defined as temporary in duration
- for example, in training for. short-term military service
or in cases of short-term hospitalization.31 Here the difference
from full re-socialization is particulai:Iy easy to see - by comparing
what happens with training for career military service
or with the socialization of chronic patients. In the former
instances, consistency with the previous reality and icentity
(existence as a civilian or as a healthy person) is already posited
by the assumption that one will eventually return to these.
Broadly speaking, one may say that the procedures involved
are of opposite character. In re-socialization the past is reinterpreted
to conform to the present reality, with the tendency
to retroject into the past various elements that were subjectively
unavailable at the time. In secondary socialization the
present is interpreted so as to stand in a continuous relationship
with the past, with the tendency to minimize such transformations
as have actually taken place. Put differently, the
reality-base for re-socialization is the present, for secondary
socialization the past.
182
2. Internalization and Social Structure
Socialization always takes place in the context of a specific
social structure. Not only its contents but also its measure of
'success' have social-structural conditions and social-structural
consequences. In other words, the micro-s
.
ociologi
.
cal ?r socialpsychological
analysis of phenomena of mte�nah�auon must
always have as its background a macro-soc10logtcal understanding
of their structural aspects.32
On the level oftheoretical analysis attempted here we cannot
enter into a detailed discussion of the different empirical
relationships between the contents of socialization a.nd socialstructural
configurations.33 Some general observatiOns may,
however, be made on the social-structural aspects of the 'success'
ofsocialization. By 'successful socialization' we mean the
establishment ofa high degree ofsymmetry between objective
and subjective reality (as well as identity, of course). Co�versely
'unsuccessful socialization' is to be understood tn
terms �f asymmetry between objective and subjective reality.
As we have seen, totally successful socialization is anthropologically
impossible. Totally unsuccessful socializ�tio.n
.
is, at
the very least, extremely rare, limited to cases of mdtvtduals
with whom even minimal socialization fails because ofextreme
organic pathology. Our analysis must, therefore, be concerned
with gradations on a continuum whose extreme poles a�e
empirically unavailable. Such analysis is useful ?�cause tt
permits some general statements about the condtttons and
consequences of successful socialization.
. . .
Maximal success in socialization is likely to occur tn soctettes
with very simple division of labour and mini��� distribution
of knowledge. Socialization under such condtttons produ�es
identities that are socially predefined and profiled to a htgh
degree. Since every individual is confronted with essentially
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
the same institutional programme for his life in the society,
the total force of the institutional order is brought to bear
with more or less equal weight on each individual, producing
a compelling massivity for the objective reality to be internalized.
Identity then is highly profiled in the sense of representing
fully the objective reality within which it is located.
Put simply, everyone pretty much is what he is supposed to be.
In such a society identities are easily recognizable, objectively
and subjectively. Everybody knows who everybody else is and
who he is himself. A knight is a knight and a peasant is a
peasant, to others as well as to themselves. There is, therefore,
no problem of identity. The question, 'Who am I ?' is unlikely
to arise in consciousness, since the socially predefined answer
is massively real subjectively and consistently confirmed in
all significant social interaction. This by no means implies
that the individual is happy with his identity. It was probably
never very agreeable to be a peasant, for instance. To be a
peasant entailed problems of all sorts, subjectively real, pressing
and far from happiness-producing. It did not entail the
problem of identity. One was a miserable, perhaps even a
rebellious peasant. But one was a peasant. Persons formed
under such conditions are unlikely to conceive of themselves
in terms of 'hidden depths', in a psychological sense. 'Surface'
and 'under-the-surface' selves are differentiated only in terms
of the range of subjective reality present to consciousness in
any given moment, not in terms ofa permanent differentiation
of 'layers' of the self. For example, the peasant apprehends
himself in one role as he is beating his wife and in another as
he cringes before his lord. In each case, the other role is
'under the surface', that is, not attended to in the peasant's
consciousness. But neither role is posited as a 'deeper' or
'more real' self. In other words, the individual in such a
society not only is what he is supposed to be, but he is that in
a unified, 'unstratified' way.a-t
Under such conditions unsuccessful socialization occurs
only as a result of biographical accidents, either biological or
social. For example, a child's primary socialization may be
impaired because of a physical deformity that is socially stigmatized
or because of a stigma based on social definitions.35
The cripple and the bastard are prototypes of these two cases.
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
There is also the possibility of socialization being intrinsically
prevented by biological handicaps, as in the case of extreme
mental deficiency. All these cases have the character of individual
misfortune. They do not provide the ground for the institutionalization
of counter-identities and counter-reality.
Indeed, this fact provides the measure of misfortune present
in such biographies. In a society of this kind, the individual
cripple or bastard has virtually no subjective defence against
the stigmatic identity assigned to him. He is what he is supposed
to be, to himself as to his significant others and to the
community as a whole. To be sure, he may react to this fate
with resentment or rage, but it is qua inferior being that he is
resentful or enraged. His resentment and rage may even serve
as decisive ratifications of his socially defined identity as an
inferior being, since his betters, by definition, are above these
brutish emotions. He is imprisoned in the objective reality of
his society, although that reality is subjectively present to him
in an alien and truncated manner. Such an individual will be
unsuccessfully socialized, that is, there will be a high degree
of asymmetry between the socially defined reality in which he
is defacto caught, as in an alien world, and his own subjective
reality, which reflects that world only very poorly, The asymmetry
will, however, have no cumulative structural consequences
because it lacks a social base within which it could
crystallize into a counter-world, with its own institutionalized
cluster of counter-identities. The unsuccessfully socialized
individual himselfis socially predefin-ed as a profiled type - the
cripple, the bastard, the idiot, and so on. Consequently, whatever
contrary self-identifications may at times arise in his own
consciousness lack any plausibility structure that would
transform them into something more than ephemeral fantasies.
Incipient counter-definitions of reality and identity are
present as soon as any such individuals congregate in socially
durable groups. This triggers a process of change that will
introduce a more complex distribution of knowledge. A
counter-reality may now begin to be objectivated in the marginal
group of the unsuccessfully socialized. At this point, of
course, the group will initiate its own socialization processes.
For example, lepers and the offspring of lepers may be stigmatized
in a society. Such stigmatization may be limited to
185
THE SociAL CoNSTRUCTION oF REALITY
those physically afHicted with the disease, or it may include
others by social definition - say, anyone born in an earthquake.
Thus individuals may be defined as lepers from birth, and this
definition may s�verely affect their primary socialization - say,
under the ausptces of a crazy old woman, who keeps them
physically alive beyond the confines of the community and
transmits to them a bare minimum of the community's
institutional traditions. As long as such individuals, even
if they number more than a handful, do. not form a countercommunity
of their own, both their objective and subjective
identities will be predefined in accordance with the community's
institutional programme for them. They will be
lepers, and nothing else.
The situation begins to change when there is a leper colony
sufficiently large and durable to serve as a plausibility structure
for counter-definitions ofreality - and ofthe fate ofbeing
a leper. To be a leper, be it in terms of biological or social
assignment, may now be known as the special mark of divine
election. The individuals prevented from fully internalizing
the reality of the community may now be socialized into the
counter-reality of the lepers' colony ; that is, unsuccessful
socialization into one social world may be accompanied by
successful socialization into another. At any early stage of
such a process of change the crystallization of counter-reality
and counter-identity may be hidden from the knowledge of
the larger community, which still predefines and ongoingly
identifies these individuals as lepers, and nothing else. It does
not know that, 'really', they are the special sons of the gods.
At this point an individual assigned to the leper category may
discover 'hidden depths' within himself. The question 'Who
am I?' becomes possible simply because two conflicting
answers are socially available - the crazy old woman's ('You
are a leper') and that of the colony's own socializing personnel
('You are a son of god'). As the individual accords a privileged
status within his consciousness to the colony's definitions of
reality and of himself, a rupture occurs between his 'visible'
conduct in the larger community and his 'invisible' selfidentification
as someone quite different. In other words, a
cleavage appears between 'appearance' and 'reality' in the ihdividual's
self-apprehension. He no longer is what he is sup-
186
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
posed to be. He acts the leper - he is a son ofgod. Ifwe are to
push the example one step further, to the point when this
cleavage becomes known to the non-leprous community, it is
not difficult to see that the community's reality, too, will be
affected by this change. Minimally, it will no longer be so easy
to recognize the identity of those defined as lepers - one will
no longer be sure whether an individual so defined identifies
himself in the same way or not. Maximally, it will no longer
be an easy matter to recognize anybody's identity - for iflepers
can refuse to be what they are supposed to be, so can others ;
perhaps, so can oneself. If this process appears fanciful at first,
it is beautifully illustrated by Gandhi's designation ofharijans,
that is, 'children of God', for the outcastes of Hinduism.
Once there is a more complex distribution ofknowledge in a
society, unsuccessful socialization may be the result ofdifferent
significant others mediating different objective realities to the
individual. Put differently, unsuccessful socialization may be
the result of heterogeneity in the socializing personnel. This
may occur in a number of ways. There may be situations in
which all the significant others ofprimary socialization mediate
a commonreality, but from considerably different perspectives.
To a degree, of course, every significant other has a different
perspective on the common reality simply by virtue of being a
specific individual with a specific biography. But the consequences
we have in mind here occur only when the differences
between the significant others pertain to their social types
rather than their individual idiosyncrasies. For example, men
and women may 'inhabit' considerably different social worlds
in a society. If both men and women function as significant
others in primary socialization, they mediate these discrepant
realities to the child. This by itself does not raise the threat of
unsuccessful socialization. The male and female versions of
reality are socially recognized, and this recognition, too, is
transmitted in primary socialization. Thus thereis a predefined
dominance of the male version for the male child and of the
female version for the female. The child will know the version
appertaining to the other sex, to the extent that it has been
mediat�d to him by the significant others of the other sex, but
he will not identify with this version. Even minimal distribution
of knowledge posits specific jurisdictions for the different
THE SociAL CoNSTRUCTION OF. REALITY
versions of the common reality. In the above case the femal�
version is socially defined as having no jurisdiction over the
male child. Normally, this definition of the 'proper place' of
the reality of the other sex is internalized by the child, who
'properly' identifies with the reality to which he has been
assigned.
However, 'abnormality' becomes a biographical possibility
if a certain competition exists between reality-definitions,
raising the possibility of choosing between them. For a variety
of biographical reasons the child may make the 'wrong
choice'. For example, a male child may internalize 'improper'
elements of the female world because his father is absent during
the crucial period of primary socialization and it is administered
exclusively by his mother and three older sisters.
They may mediate the 'proper' jurisdictional definitions to the
little boy so that he knows he is not supposed to live in the
women's world. But he may nevertheless identify with it. His
resulting 'effeminacy' may be either 'visible' or 'invisible'. In
either case, there will be asymmetry between his social identityassignment
and his subjectively real identity.36
Obviously ·a society will supply therapeutic mechanisms to
take care of such 'abnormal' cases. We need not reiterate here
what has been said about therapy, except to stress that the
need for therapeutic mechanisms increases in proportion to
the structurally given potentiality for unsuccessful socialization.
In the example just discussed, at the very least the successfully
socialized children will put pressure on the 'wrong'
ones. As long as there is no fundamental conflict between the
mediated definitions of reality, but only differences between
versions of the same common reality, the chances for successful
therapy are good.
Unsuccessful socialization may also result from the mediation
of acutely discrepant worlds by significant others during
primary socialization. As the distribution of knowledge becomes
more complex, discrepant worlds become available and
may be mediated by different significant others in primary
socialization. This happens less frequently than the situation
just discussed, in which versions of the same common world
are distributed among the socializing personnel, because
individuals (say, a married couple) sufficiently cohesive as a
188
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
group to take on the task of primary socialization are likely to
have concocted some sort of common world between them. It
does occur, however, and is ofconsiderable theoretical interest.
For example, a child may be raised not only by his parents
but also by a nurse recruited from an ethnic or class subsociety.
The parents mediate to the child the world of, say,
a conquering aristocracy of one race ; the nurse mediates the
world ofa subjugated peasantry ofanother race. It is even possible
that the two mediations employ completely different
languages, which the child learns simultaneously but which
the parents and the nurse find mutually unintelligible. In such
a case, of course, the parental world will have dominance by
predefinition. The child will be recognized by all concerned
and by himself as belonging to his parents' group and not his
nurse's. All the same, the predefinition of the respective jurisdictions
of the two realities may be upset by various biographical
accidents, just as it may in the first situation discussed,
except that now unsuccessful socialization entails the
possibility of alternation internalized as a permanent feature
of the individual's subjective self-apprehension. The choice
potentially available to the child now is more profiled, involving
different worlds rather than different versions of the same
world. Needless to say, in practice there will be many gradations
between the first and second situations.
When acutely discrepant worlds are mediated in primary
socialization, the individual is presented with a choice of profiled
identities apprehended by him as genuine biographical
possibilities. He may become a man as understood by race A
or as understood by race B. This is when the possibility of a
truly hidden identity, not readily recognizable in accordance
with the objectively available typifications, appears. In other
words, there may be a socially concealed asymmetry between
'public' and 'private' biography. As far as the parents are
concerned, the child is now ready for the preparatory phase
ofknighthood. Unknown to them, but sustained by the plausibility
structure supplied by his nurse's sub-society, the child
himself is 'only playing at' this process, while 'really' preparing
himself for initiation into the higher religious mysteries of
the subjugated group. Similar discrepancies occur in contemporary
society between the socialization processes in the
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
family and in the peer group. As far as the family is concerned
the child is ready for graduation from junior high school. A�
far as the peer group is concerned, he is ready for his first
serious test ofcourage by stealing an automobile. It goes without
saying that such situations are fraught with possibilities
of internal conflict and guilt.
Presumably all men, once socialized, are potential 'traitors
to themselves'. The internal problem of such 'treason', however,
becomes much more complicated if it entails the further
problem of which 'self' is being betrayed at any particular
moment, a problem posited as soon as identification with
different significant others includes different generalized
others. The child is betraying his parents as he prepares for
the mysteries and his nurse as he trains for knighthood, just as
he betrays his peer group by being a 'square' young scholar
and his parents by stealing an automobile, with each betrayal
concomitant with 'treason to himself' in so far as he has identified
with the two discrepant worlds. We have discussed the
various options open to him in our previous analysis ofalternation,
although it will be clear that these options have a different
subje:tiv� reality
_
when they are already internalized in primary
soc1ahzat10n. It 1s safe to assume that alternation remains a
lifelong threat to whatever subjective reality emerges from
such conflict as the result of whatever options, a threat posited
once and for all with the introduction of the alternating possibility
into primary socialization itself.
The possibility of 'individualism' (that is, of individual
�boice between �s:�epant realities and identities) is directly
hnked to the poss1bil1ty of unsuccessful socialization. We have
argued that unsuccessful socialization opens up the question
of 'Who am I?' In the social-structural context in which uns�cces�ful
socialization becomes so recognized, the same questl?n
anses �or the successfully socialized individual by virtue of
h1s reflectiOn about the unsuccessfully socialized. He will
sooner or later encounter those with 'hidden selves' the
'traitors', those who have alternated or are alternating bet�een
discrepant worlds. By a kind of mirror effect the question
may come to apply to himself, first according to the formula
'There, but for the grace of God, go I', eventually perhaps by
the formula 'If they, why not I?' This opens a Pandora's box
190
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
of 'individualistic' choices, which eventually become generaliized
regardless of whether one's biographical course was
determined by the 'right' or the 'wrong' choices. The 'individualist'
emerges as a specific social type who has at least the
potential to migrate between a number of available worlds and
who has deliberately and awarely constructed a self out of the
'material' provided by a number of available identities.
A third important situation leading to unsuccessful socialization
arises when there are discrepancies between primary and
secondary socialization. The unity of primary socialization is
maintained, but in secondary socialization, alternative realities
and identities appear as subjective options. The options are,
of course, limited by the social-structural context of the individual.
For example, he may want to become a knight, but his
social position makes this a foolish ambition. When secondary
socialization has been differentiated to the point where subjective
disidentification from one's 'proper place' in society
becomes possible, and when at the same time the social structure
does not permit the realization of the subjectively chosen
identity, an interesting development occurs. The subjectively
chosen identity becomes a fantasy identity, objectified within
the individual's consciousness as his 'real self'. It may be
assumed that people always have dreams of impossible wishfulfilment,
and the like. The peculiarity of this particular fantasy
lies in the objectification, on the level of imagination, of
an identity other than the one objectively assigned and previously
internalized in primary socialization. It is obvious that
any wider distribution of this phenomenon will introduce
tensions and unrest into the social structure, threatening the
institutional programmes and their taken-for-granted reality.
Another very important consequence when there is discrepancy
between primary and secondary socialization is the
possibility that the individual may have a relationship to discrepant
worlds qualitatively different from the relationships in
the previously discussed situations. Ifdiscrepant worlds appear
in primary socialization, the individual has the option ofidentifying
with one of them as against the others, a process that,
because it occurs in primary socialization, will be affectively
charged to a high degree. Identification, disidentification and
alternation will all be accompanied by affective crises, since
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THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
they will invariably depend upon the mediation of significant
others. The appresentation of discrepant worlds in secondary
socialization produces an entirely different configuration. In
secondary socialization, internalization need not be accompanied
by affectively charged identification with significant ·
others ; the individual may internalize different realities without
identifying with them. Therefore, if an alternative world
appears in secondary socialization, the individual may opt for
it in a manipulative manner. One could speak here of 'cool'
alternation. The individual internalizes the new reality, but
instead of its being his reality, it is a reality to be used by him
for specific purposes. In so far as this involves the performance
of certain roles, he retains subjective detachment vis-a-vis
them - he 'puts them on' deliberately and purposefully. If this
phenomenon becomes widely distributed, the institutional
order as a whole begins to take on the character of a network
of reciprocal manipulations.37
A society in which discrepant worlds are generally available
on a market basis entails specific constellations of subjective
reality and identity. There will be an increasingly general consciousness
of the relativity of all worlds, including one's own,
which is now subjectively apprehended as '
a world', rather
than 'the world'. It follows that one's own institutionalized
conduct may be apprehended as 'a role' from which one may
detach oneself in one's own consciousness, and which one may
'act out' with manipulative control. For example, the aristocrat
no longer simply is an aristocrat, but he plays at being an
aristocrat, and so forth. The situation, then, has a much more
far-reaching consequence than the possibility of individuals
playing at being what they are not supposed to be. They also
play :tt being what they are supposed to be - a quite different
matter. This situation is increasingly typical of contemporary
industrial society, but it would obviously transcend the scope
of our present considerations to enter further into a sociologyof-knowledge
and social-psychological analysis of this constellation.38
What should be stressed is that such a situation
cannot be understood unless it is ongoingly related to its
social-structural context, which follows logically from the
necessary relationship between the social division of labour
(with its consequences for social structure) and the social dis-
192
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
tribution of knowledge (with its consequences for the social
objectivation of reality). In the contemporary situation this
entails the analysis of both reality and identity pluralism with
reference to the structural dynamics of industrialism, particu!arly
the dynamics of the social stratification patterns produced
by industrialism.39
193
3· Theories about Identity
Identity is, of course, a key element of subjective reality and,
like all subjective reality, stands in a dialectical relationship
with society. Identity is formed by social processes. Once
crystallized, it is maintained, modified, or even reshaped by
social relations. The social processes involved in both the
formation and the maintenance ofidentity are determined by
the social structute. Conversely, the identities produced by
the interplay of organism, individual consciousness and social
structure react upon the given social structure, maintaining it,
modifying it, or even reshaping it. Societies have histories in
the course of which specific identities emerge ; these histories
are, however, made by men with specific identities.
If one is mindful of this dialectic one can avoid the misleading
notion of'collective identities' without having recourse
to the uniqueness, sub specie aeternitatis, of individual existence.40
Specific historical social structures engender identity
types, which are recognizable in individual cases. In this sense
one may assert that an American has a different identity than
a Frenchman, a New Yorker than a Midwesterner, an executive
than a hobo, and so forth. As we have seen, orientation
and conduct in everyday life depend upon such typifications.
This means that identity types can be observed in everyday
life and that assertions like the ones above can be verified - or
refuted - by ordinary men endowed with common sense. The
American who doubts that the French are different can go to
France and find out for himself. Clearly the status of such
typifications is not comparable to that of the constructs of the
social sciences, nor do the verification and refutation follow
the canons of scientific method. We must leave aside the
methodological problem of what the precise relationship is
between everyday-life typifications and scientific constructs
194
SociETY AS SuBJECTIVE REALITY-----------------
(a Puritan knew himselfto be a Puritan and was recognized as
one by, say, Anglicans without much deliberation ; the social
scientist, however, who wishes to check Max Weber's thesis
about the Puritan ethic must follow somewhat different and
more complex procedures in order to 'recognize' the empirical
referents of the Weberian ideal type). The point of interest in
the present context is that identity types are 'observable' and
'verifiable' in pre-theoretical, and thus pre-scientific experience.
Identity is a phenomenon that emerges from the dialectic
between individual and society. Identity types, on the other
hand, are social products tout court, relatively stable elements
of objective social reality (the degree of stability being, of
course, socially determined in its turn). As such, they are the
topic of some form of theorizing in any society, even if they
are stable and the formation ofindividual identities is relatively
unproblematic. Theories about identity are always embedded
in a more general interpretation ofreality; they are 'built into'
the symbolic universe and its theoretical legitimations, and
vary with the character of the latter. Identity remains unintelligible
unless it is located in a world. Any theorizing about
identity - and about specific identity types - must therefore
occur within the framework of the theoretical interpretations
within which it and they are locate:d. We will return to this
point presently.
It should be stressed again that we are here referring to
theories about identity as a social phenomenon; that is, without
prejudice as to their acceptability to modern science. Indeed,
we will refer to such theories as 'psychologies' and will
include any theory about identity that claims to explain the
empirical phenomenon in a comprehensive fashion, whether
or not such an explanation is 'valid' for the contemporary
scientific discipline of that name.
If theories about identity are always embedded in the more
comprehensive theories about reality, this must be understood
in terms of the logic underlying the latter. For example, a
psychology interpreting certain empir�al phenomena as possession
by demoniacal beings has as its matrix a mythological
theory of the cosmos, and it is inappropriate to interpret it in
a non-mythological framework. Similarly, a psychology interpretingthe
same phenomena in terms ofelectrical disturbances
195
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
of the brain has as its background an overall scientific theory
of reality, both human and non-human, and derives its consistency
from the logic underlying this theory. Put simply,
psychology always presupposes cosmology.
This point can be well illustrated by reference to the much ·
used psychiatric term 'reality-oriented'.41 A psychiatrist trying
to diagnose an individual whose psychological status is in
doubt asks him questions to determine the degree of his
'reality-orientedness'. This is quite logical ; from a psychiatric
viewpoint there is obviously something problematic about an
individual who does not know what day of the week it is or
who readily admits he has talked with departed spirits: Indeed,
the term 'reality-oriented' itself can be useful in such a context.
The sociologist, however, has to ask the additional question
'Which reality?' Incidentally, this addition is not irrelevant
psychiatrically. The psychiatrist will c"'rtainly take it
into account, when an individual does not know the day of the
week, if he has just arrived by jet plane from another continent.
He may not know the day of the week simply because he
is still 'on another time' - Calcutta time, say, instead of
Eastern Standard Time. If the psychiatrist has any sensitivity
to the socio-cultural context of psychological conditions he
will also arrive at different diagnoses of the individual who
converses with the dead, depending on whether such an individual
comes from, say, New York City or from rural Haiti.
The individual could be 'on another reality' in the same
socially objective sense that the previous one was 'on another
time'. In other words, questions ofpsychological status cannot
be decided without recognizing the reality-definitions that are
taken for granted in the social situation of t.1.e individual. To
put it more sharply, psychological status is relative to the
social definitions of reality in general and is itself socially
defined.42
The emergence ofpsychologies introduces a further dialectical
relationship betweenidentity and society - the relationship
between psychological theory and those elements ofsubjective
reality it purports to define and explain. The level of such
theorizing may, of course, vary greatly, as in the case of all
theoretical legitimations. What has been said previously about
the origins and phases of legitimating theories applies here
I9()
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
with equal validity, but with one not unimportant difference.
Psychologies pertain to a dimension of reality that is of the
greatest and most continuous subjective relevance for all individuals.
Therefore the dialectic between theory and reality
affects the individual in a palpably direct and intensive manner.
When psychological theories attain a high degree ofintellectual
complexity they are likely to be administered by personnel
specially trained in this body of knowledge. Whatever the
social organization of these specialists may be, psychological
theories re-enter everyday life by providing the interpretative
schemes for disposing of proble�atic cases. Problems arising
out of the dialectic between either subjective identity and
social identity-assignments, or identity and its biological substratum
(of which more later), can be classified according to
theoretical categories - which is, of course, the presupposition
for any therapy. The psychological theories then serve to
legitimate the identity-maintenance and identity-repair procedures
established in the society, providing the theoretical
linkage between identity and world, as these are both socially
defined and subjectively appropriated.
Psychological theories may be empirically adequate or inadequate,
by which we do not mean their adequacy in terms of
the procedural canons of empirical science, but rather, as
interpretative schemes applicable by the expert or the layman
to empirical phenomena in everyday life. For example, a
psychological theory positing demoniacal possession is unlikely
to be adequate in interpreting the identity problems of
middle-class, Jewish intellectuals in New York City. These
people simply do not have an identity capable of producing
phenomena that could be so interpreted. The demons, if such
there are, seem to avoid them. On the other hand, psychoanalysis
is unlikely to be adequate for the interpretation of
identity problems in rural Haiti, while some sort of Voudun
psychology might supply interpretative schemes with a high
degree of empirical accuracy. The two psychologies demonstrate
their empirical adequacy by their applicability in therapy,
but neither thereby demonstrates the ontological status of its
categories. Neither the Voudun gods nor libidinal energy may
exist outside the world defined in the respective social contexts.
But in these contexts they do exist by virtue of social
197
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
definition and are internalized as realities in the course of
socialization. Rural Haitians are possessed and New York
intellectuals are neurotic. Possession and neurosis are thus
constituents of both objective and subjective reality in these
contexts. This reality is empirically available in everyday life.
The respective psychological theories are empirically adequate
in precisely the same sense. The problem of whether or how
psychological theories could be developed to transcend this
socio-historical relativity need not concern us here.
In so far as psychological theories are adequate in this sense,
they are capable of empirical verification. Again, what is at
issue is notverificationin the scientific sense, but testing in the
experience of everyday social life. For example, it may be
proposed that individuals born on certain days of the month
arelikely to be possessed, or that individuals with domineering
mothers are likely to be neurotic. Such propositions are empirically
verifiable to the extent that they belong to adequate
theories, in the afore-mentioned sense. Such verification may
be undertaken by participants as well as by outside observers
of the social situations in question. A Haitian ethnologist can
empirically discover New York neurosis, just as an American
ethnologist can empirically discover Voudun possession. The
presupposition for such discoveries is simply that the outside
observer is willing to employ the conceptual machinery ofthe
indigenous psychology for the inquiry at hand. Whether he is
also willing to accord that psychology a more general epistemological
validity is irrelevant to the immediate empirical
investigation.
Another way of saying that psychological theories are adequate
is to say that they reflect the psychological reality they
purport to explain. But if this were the whole story, the
relationship between theory and reality here would not be a
dialectical one. A genuine dialectic is involved because of the
realizing potency of psychological theories. In so far as psychological
theories are elements of the social definition of
reality, their reality-generating capacity is a characteristic they
share with other legitimating theories; however, their realizing
potency is particularly great because it is actualized by emotionally
charged processes ofidentity-formation. If a psychology
becomes socially established (that is, becomes generally
198
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
recognized as an adequate interpretation of objective reality),
it tends to realize itselfforcefully in the phenomena it purports
to interpret. Its internalization is accelerated by the fact that
it pertains to internal reality, so that the individual realizes it
in the very act ofinternalizing it. Again, since a psychology by
definition pertains to identity, its internalization is likely to be
accompanied by identification, hence is ipsofacto likely to be
identity-forming. In this close nexus between internalization
and identification, psychological theories differ considerably
from other types of theory. Not surprisingly, since problems
ofunsuccessful socialization are most conducive to this kind of
theorizing, psychological theories are more apt to have
socializing effects. This is not the same thing as saying that
psychologies are self-verifying. As we have indicated, verification
comes by confronting psychological theories and psychological
reality as empirically available. Psychologies produce a
reality, which in turn serves as the basis for their verification.
In other words, we are dealing here with dialectics, not tauto­
logy.
The rural Haitian who internalizes Voudun psychology will
become possessed as soon as he discovers certain well-defined
signs. Similarly, the New York intellectual who internalizes
Freudian psychology will become neurotic as soon as he diagnoses
certain well-known symptoms. Indeed, it is possible
that, given a certain biographical context, signs or symptoms
will be produced by the individual himself. The Haitian will,
in that case, produce not symptoms of neurosis but signs of
possession, while the New Yorker will construct his neurosis in
conformity with the recognized symptomatology. This has
nothing to do with 'mass hysteria', much less with malingering,
but with the imprint of societal identity types upon the
individual subjective reality of ordinary people with common
sense. Thedegreeofidentificationwillvarywiththe conditions
of internalization, as previously discussed, depending, for
instance, on whether' it takes place in primary or secondary
socialization. The social establishment ofa psychology, which
also entails the accord�nce of certain social roles to the personnel
administeringthetheory and its therapeutic application,
will naturally depend upon a variety of socio-historical circumstances.43
But the more socially established it becomes,
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THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
the more abundant will be the phenomena it serves to inter­
pret.
If we posit the possibility that certain psychologies come to
be adequate in the course of a realizing process, we imply the
question of why as-yet-inadequate theories (as they would
have to be in the earlier stages of this process) arise in the first
place. Put more simply, why should one psychology replace
another in history? The general answer is that such change
occurs when identity appears as a problem, for whatever
reasons. The problem may arise out ofthe dialectic of psychological
reality and social structure. Radical changes in the
social structure (such as, for instance, the changes brought
about by the Industrial Revolution) may result in concomitant
changes in the psychological reality. In that case, new psychological
theories may arise because the old ones no longer adequately
explain the empirical phenomena at hand. Theorizing
about identity will then seek to take cognizance of the transformations
of identity that have actually occurred, and will be
itself transformed in the process. On the other hand, identity
may become problematic on the level of theory itself, that is,
as a result of intrinsic theoretical developments. In that case,
psychological theories will be concocted 'before the fact', so to
speak. Their subsequent social establishment, and concomitant
reality-generating potency, may be brought about by any
number of affinities between the theorizing personnel and
various social interests. Deliberate ideological manipulation
by politically interested groups is one historical possibility.
200
4· Organism and Identity
We discussed much earlier the organismic presuppositions and
limitations of the social construction of reality. It is important
to stress now that the organism continues to affect each phase
of man's reality-constructing activity and that the organism,
in turn, is itself affected by this activity. Put crudely, man's
animality is transformed in socialization, but it is not abolished.
Thus man's stomach keeps grumbling away even as he is about
his business of world-building. Conversely, events in this, his
product, may make his stomach grumble more, or less, or
differently. Man is even capable ofeating and theorizing at the
same time. The continuing coexistence of man's animality and
his sociality may be profitably observed at any conversation
over dinner.
It is possible to speak of a dialectic between nature and
society." This dialectic is given in the human condition .and
manifests itself anew in each human individual. For the
individual, of course, it unfolds itself in an already structured
socio-historical situation. There is an ongoing dialectic, which
comes into being with the very first phases of socialization and
continues to unfold throughout the individual's existence in
society, between each human animal and its socio-historical
situation. Externally, it is a dialectic between the individual
animal and the social world. Internally, it is a dialectic between
the individual's biological substratum and his socially
produced identity.
In the external aspect, it is still possible to say that the
organism posits liffiits to what is socially possible. As English
constitutional lawyers have said, Parliament can do anything
except make men bear children. If Parliament tried, its project
would founder on the hard facts of human biology. Biological
factors limit the range of social possibilities open to any
201
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
individual, but the social world, which is pre-existent to each
individual, in its turn imposes limits on what is biologically
possible to the organism. The dialectic manifests itself in the
mutua/ limitation of organism and society.
A pointedillustration ofsociety's limitation ofthe organism's
biological possibilities is longevity. Life expectancy varies
with social location. Even in contemporary American society
there is considerable discrepancy between the life expectancies
of lower-class and upper-class individuals. Furthermore, both
the incidence and the character of pathology vary with social
location. Lower-class individuals are ill more frequently than
upper-class individuals; in addition they have different illnesses.
In other words, society determines how long and in
what manner the individual organism shall live. This determination
may be institutionally programmed in the operation
of social controls, as in the institution of law. Society can
maim and kill. Indeed, it is in its power over life and death
that it manifests its ultimate control over the individual.
Society also directly penetrates the organism in its functioning,
most importantly in respect to sexuality and nutrition.
While both sexuality and nutrition are grounded in biological
drives, these drives are extremely plastic in the human animal.
Man is driven by his biological constitution to seek sexual
release and nourishment. But his biological constitution does
not tell him where he should seek sexual release and what he
should eat. Left to himself, man may attach himselfsexually to
just about any object and is perfectly capable of eating things
that will kill him. Sexuality and nutrition are channelled in
specific directions socially rather than biologically, a channelling
that not only imposes limits upon these activities, but
directly �ects organismic functions. Thus the successfully
socialized individual is incapable of functioning sexually with
the 'wrong' sexual object and may vomit when confronted
with the 'wrong' food. As we have seen, the social channelling
of activity is the essence of institutionalization, which is the
foundation for the social construction ofreality. It may be said
then that social reality determines not only activity and consciousness
but, to a considerable degree, organismic functioning.
Thus such intrinsically biological functions as orgasm
and digestion are socially structured. Society also determines
202
SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY
the manner in which the organism is used in activity; expressivity,
gait and gesture are socially structured. The possibility of
a sociology of the body that this raises need not concern us
here.45 The point is that society sets limits to the organism, as
the organism sets limits to society.
In the internal aspect, the dialectic manifests itself as the
resistance ofthe biological substratum to its social moulding.48
This is, of course, most obvious in the process of primary
socialization. The difficulties in first socializing a child cannot
be accounted for simply in terms of intrinsic problems of
learning. The little animal fights back, so to speak. The fact
that it is fated to lose the battle does not eliminate its animality's
resistance to the ever more penetrating influence of
the social world. For example, the child resists the imposition
of the temporal structure of society on the natural temporality
of his organism.47 He resists eating and sleeping by the clock
rather than by the biologically given demands ofthe organism.
The resistance is progressively broken in the course ofsocialization,
but perpetuates itself as frustration on every occasion
when society forbids the hungry individual to eat and the
sleepy individual to go to bed. Socialization inevitably involves
this sort of biological frustration. Social existence depends
upon the continuing subjugation of biologically grounded
resistance in the individual, which entails legitimation as well
as institutionalization. Thus society provides the individual
with various explanations as to why he should eat three times
a day, and not whenever he'is hungry, and with even stronger
explanations as to why he should not sleep with his sister.
Similar problems of fitting the organism into the socially
constructed world exist in secondary socialization, although,
of course, the degree of biological frustration is likely to be
less acute.
In the fully socialized individual there is a continuing internal
dialectic between identity and its biological substratum.48
The individual continues to experience himselfas an organism,
apart from and sometimes set against the socially derived
objectifications of himself. Often this dialectic is apprehended
as a struggle between a 'higher' and a 'lower' self, respectively
equated with social identity and pre-social, possibly �ntisocial
animality. The 'higher' self must repeatedly assert Itself
203
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
over the 'lower', sometimes in critical tests of strength. For
example, a man must overcome his instinctive fear ofdeath by
courage in battle. The 'lower' self here is whipped into subMission
by the 'higher', an assertion of dominance over the
biological substratum that is necessary if the social identity of
warrior is to be maintained, both objectively and subjectively.
Similarly, a man may force himselfto perform sexually against
the inert resistance ofphysiological satiety in order to maintain
his identity as a paragon of virility. Again, the 'lower' self is
pressed into service for the sake of the 'higher'. The victory
over fear and the victory over sexual prostration both illustrate
the manner in which the biological substratum resists and is
overcome by the social self within man. It goes without saying
that there are many lesser victories routinely undertaken in
the course of everyday life, as indeed there are both lesser and
greater defeats.
Man is biologically predestined to construct and to inhabit
a world with others. This world becomes for him the dominant
and definite reality. Its limits are set by nature, but, once constructed,
this world acts back upon nature. In the dialectic
between nature and the socially constructed world the human
organism itself is transformed. In this same dialectic man
produces reality and thereby produces himself.
Conclusion
The Sociology of Knowledge
and Sociological Theory
In the foregoing we-have tried to present a general and systematic
account ofthe role ofknowledge in society. It is obvious
that our analyses are not exhaustive. But we hope that our
attempt to develop a systematic theory for the sociology of
knowledgewill stimulate both critical discussion and empirical
investigations. Ofone thing we are confident. A redefinition of
the problems and tasks of the sociology ofknowledge was long
overdue. We hope that our analysis indicates the way along
which further work might fruitfully proceed.
However, our conception of the sociology ofknowledge also
contains some general implications for sociological theory and
the sociological enterprise at large, and furnishes a different
perspective on a number ofspecific areas ofsociological interest.
The analyses of objectivation, institutionalization and legitimation
are directly applicable to the problems of the sociology
of language, the theory of social action and institutions, and
the sociology of religion. Our understanding of the sociology
of knowledge leads to the conclusion that the sociologies of
language and religion cannot be considered peripheral specialities
of little interest to sociological theory as such, but have
essential contributions to make to it. This insight is not new.
Durkheim and his school had it, but it was lost for a variety of
theoretically irrelevant reasons. We hope we have made it
clear that the sociology of knowledge presupposes a sociology
oflanguage, and that a sociology ofknowledge without a sociology
of religion is impossible (and vice versa). Furthermore,
we believe that we have shown how the theoretical positions
of Weber and Durkheim can be combined in a comprehensive
theory of social action that does not lose the inner logic of
either. Finally, we would contend that the linkage we have
been led to make here between the sociology of knowledge and
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THE SoCIAL CONSTRUCTION OP REALITY
the theoretical core ofthe thought ofMead and his school suggests
an interesting possibility for what might be called a
sociological psychology, that is, a psychology that derives its
fundamental perspectives from a sociological understanding
of the human condition. The observations made here point to
a programme that seems to carry theoretical promise.
More generally, we would contend that the analysis of the
role of knowledge in the dialectic of individual and society, of
personal identity and social structure, provides a crucial complementary
perspective for all areas of sociology. This is certainly
not to deny that purely structural analyses of social
phenomena are fully adequate for wide areas of sociological
inquiry, ranging from the study ofsmall groups to that oflarge
institutional complexes, such as the economy or politics.
Nothing is further from our intentions thanthe suggestion that
a sociology-of-knowledge 'angle' ought somehow to be injected
into all such analyses. In many cases this would be unnecessary
for the cognitive goal at which these studies aim. We
are suggesting, however, that the integration ofthe findings of
such analyses into the body of sociological theory requires
more than the casual obeisance that might be paid to the
'human factor' behind the uncovered structural data. Such
integration requires a systematic accounting of the dialectical
relation between the structural realities and the human enterprise
of constructing reality - in history.
We have no polemic interest in writing this book. It would
be foolish to deny, however, that our enthusiasm for the present
state of sociological theory is markedly restrained. For
one thing, we have tried to show, by our analysis of the interrelations
between institutional processes and the legitimating
symbolic universes, why we must consider the standard versions
of functionalist explanations in the social sciences a
theoretical legerdemain. Furthermore, we hope we have
shown cause for our conviction that a purely structural sociology
is endemically in danger of reifying social phenomena.
Even ifit begins by modestly assigning to its constructs merely
heuristic status, it all too frequently ends by confusing its own
conceptualizations with the laws of the universe.
In contrast to some of the dominant fashions of theorizing
in contemporary sociology, the ideas we have tried to develop
2o8
CONCLUSION
posit neither an ahistorical 'social system' nor an ahistorical
'human nature'. The approach we have employed here is both
non-sociologistic and non-psychologistic. We cannot agree
that sociology has as its object the alleged 'dynamics' of social
and psychological 'systems', placed post hoc into a dubious
relationship (incidentally, the intellectual itinerary of these
two terms is worthy of a case study in the empirical sociology
of knowledge).
The insight into the dialectic between social reality and
individual existence in history is by no means new. It was, of
course, most powerfully introduced into modem social
thought by Marx. What is needed, however, is to bring to bear
a dialectical perspective upon the theoretical orientation of
the social sciences. Needless to say, we do not have in mind
some doctrinaire introduction of Marxian ideas into sociological
theory. Nor is there any point in the mere assertion that
the afore-mentioned dialectic, in fact and generally, does exist.
What is needed is to proceed from such an assertion to a specification
of the dialectical processes in a conceptual framewo1·k
that is congruent with the great traditions of sociological
thought. Mere rhetoric about dialectics, such as is commonly
engaged in by doctrinaire Marxists, must appear to the sociologist
as just another form of obscurantism. And yet we are
convinced that only an understanding of what Marcel Mauss
called the 'total social fact' will protect the sociologist against
the distortive reifications of both sociologism and psychologism.
It is against the background ofan intellectual situation
in which this double danger is very real that we wish our
treatise to be understood. ·
Our undertaking has been theoretical. Yet theory, in any
empirical discipline, must be relevant in a double fashion to
the 'data' defined as pertinent to that discipline. It must be
congruent with them, and it must be geared to further empirical
inquiry. There is a vast area of empirical problems that
opens up for the sociology of knowledge. This is not the place
to provide a catalogue of what we consider to be the most
interesting of these problems, even less to propound specific
hypotheses. We have given some indications of what we have
in mind in some of the illustrations of our theoretical argument.
We would add here only that, in our view, empirical
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
research in the relation ofinstitutions to legitimating symbolic
universes will greatly enhance the sociological understanding
of contemporary society. The problems here are numerous.
They are more obscured than clarified by speaking about contemporary
society in terms of 'secularization', of a 'scientific ·
age', of 'mass society', or, conversely, of the 'autonomous
individual', ofthe 'discovery ofthe unconscious', and so forth.
These terms indicate only the immensity of the problem requiring
scientific clarification. It may readily be conceded that
contemporary Western men, by and large, live in a world
vastly different from any preceding one. Yet just what this
means in terms of the reality, objective and subjective, in
which these men conduct their everyday lives and in which
their crises occur is very far from clear. Empirical research
into these problems, as distinct from more or less intelligent
speculation, has barely begun. We would hope that the clarification
of the theoretical perspective of the sociology of
knowledge we have attempted here points to problems for
such research that are easily ignored in other theoretical perspectives.
To give but one example, the present interest on the
part of social scientists in theories derived from psychoanalysis
would take on a very different coloration as soon as
these theories were not regarded, positively or negatively, as
propositions of 'science', but analysed as legitimations of a
very peculiar and probably highly significant construction of
reality in modern society. Such analysis, of course, would
bracket the question ofthe 'scientific validity' ofthese theories
and simply look upon them as data for an understanding of
the subjective and objective reality from which they emerged
and which, in turn, they influence.
We have expressly refrained from following up the methodological
implications of our conception of the society of knowledge.
It should be clear, however, that our approach is
non-positivistic, if positivism is understood as a philosophical
position defining the object ofthe social sciences in such a way
as to legislate away their most important problems. All the
same, we do not underestimate the merit of 'positivism',
broadly understood, in redefining the canons of empirical
investigation for the social sciences.
The sociology of knowledge understands human reality as
210
CONCLUSION
socially constructed reality. Since the constitution of reality
has traditionally been a central problem of philosophy, this
understanding has certain philosophical implications. In so far
as there has been a strong tendency for this problem, with all
the questions it involves, to become trivialized in contemporary
philosophy, the sociologist may find himself, to his
surprise perhaps, the inheritor of philosophical questions that
the professional philosophers are no longer interested in considering.
In various sections of this treatiS"e, especially in the
analysis of the foundations of knowledge in everyday life and
in the discussion of objectivation and institutionalization in
relation to the biological presuppositions of human exi�tence,
we have given some indication of the contributions sociologically
oriented thought may make to philosophical anthro­
pology.
In sum, our conception of the sociology of knowledge
implies a specific conception ofsociology in general. It does not
imply that sociology is not a science, that its methods should
be other than empirical, or that it cannot be 'value-free'. It
does imply that sociology takes its place in the company of the
sciences that deal with man as man ; that it is, in that specific
sense, a humanistic discipline. An important consequence of
this conception is that sociology must be carried on in a continuous
conversation with both history and philosophy or lose
its proper object ofinquiry. This object is society as part of a
human world, made by men, inhabited by men, and, in turn,
making men, in an ongoing historical process. It is not the
least fruit of a humanistic sociology that it rewakens our
wonder at this astonishing phenomenon.
2II
Notes
Notes
Introduction: The Problem of the Sociology of K1Wfl)/edge
1. cf. Max Scheler, Die Wissensformen unddie Gesellschaft (Bern :
Francke, 196o). This volume of essays, first published in 1925,
contains the basic formulation of the sociology of knowledge in an
essay entided 'Probleme einer Soziologie des Wissens', which was
originally published a year earlier.
2. cf. Wilhelm Windelband and Heinz Heimsoeth, Lehrbuch der
Geschichte der Philosophie (Tiibingen : Mohr, 1950), pp. 6o5 ff.
3· cf. Albert Salomon, In Praise of Enlightenment (New York:
Meridian Books, 1963); Hans Barth, Wahrheit und /deologie
(Zurich: Manesse, 1945); Werner Stark, The Socrology of K110'1JJledge
(Chicago : Free Press of Glencoe, 1958; London: Roudedge
& Kegan Paul), pp. 46 ff.; Kurt Lenk, ed., Ideologie (Neuwied/
Rhein : Luchterhand, 1961), pp. 13 ff.
4· Pensees v. �94·
5· cf. Karl Marx, Die Frilhschriften (Stuttgart : Kroner, 1953).
The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 will be found
on pp. 225 ff.
6. On Marx's UnterbaufUeberbau scheme, cf. Karl Kautsky,
' Verhiiltnis von Unterbau und Ueberbau', in Iring Fetscher, ed.,
Der Marxismus (Munich : Piper, 1962), pp. 16o ff. ; Antonio
Labriola, 'Die Vermittlung Z'lDischen Basis und Ueberbau', ibid., pp.
167ff. ; Jean-Yves Calvez, La Pensee deKarlMarx(Paris : Editions
du Seuil, 1956), pp. 424 ff. The most important twentieth-century
reformulation of the problem is that by Gyorgy Lukacs, in his
GeschichteundKlassenbervusstsein (Berlin, 1923),today more readily
accessible in the French translation, Histoire et conscience de classe
(Paris : Editions de Minuit, 196o). Lukacs's understanding of
Marx's concept of dialectics is all the more remarkable as it antedated
by almost a decade the rediscovery of the Economic and
Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844.
7· The most important works of Nietzsche's for the sociology of
knowledge are The Genealogy ofMorals and The Willto Pcn»er. For
secondary discussions, cf. Walter A. Kaufmann, Nietzsche (New
215
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
York : Meridian Books, 1956); Karl Lowith, From Hegel to
Nietzsche (New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964).
8. One of the earliest and most interesting applications of
Nietzsche's thought to a sociology of knowledge is Alfred Seidel's
in BnDUsstseinals Verhiingnis (Bonn : Cohen, 1927). Seidel, who had .
been a student of Weber's, tried to combine both Nietzsche and
Freud with a radical sociological critique of consciousness.
9· One of the most suggestive discussions of the relationship
between historicism and sociology is Carlo Antoni's in Dallo
storicismo alia sociologia (Florence, 1940). Also, cf. H. Stuart
Hughes, Consciousness and Society (New York: Knopf, 1958;
London : Macgibbon & Kee), pp. 183 ff. The most important work
of Wilhelm Dilthey's for our present considerations is Der Aufbau
der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften (Stuttgart :
Teubner, 1958).
10. For an excellent discussion of Scheler's conception of the
sociology of knowledge, cf. Hans-Joachim Lieber, Wissen und
Gesellschaft (Tiibingen : Niemeyer, 1952), pp. 55 ff. See also Stark,
op. cit., passim.
11. For the general development of German sociology during
this period, cf. Raymond Aron, La Sociologie allemande contemporaine
(Paris : Presses Universitaires de France, 1950). For important
contributions from this period concerning the sociology of
knowledge, cf. Siegfried Landshut, Kritik der Soziologie (Munich,
1929); Hans Freyer, Soziologie als Wirklichkeitswissenschaft (Leipzig,
1930); Ernst Griinwald, Das Problem der Soziologie des Wissens
(Vienna, 1934); Alexander von Schelting, Max Webers Wissenschaftslehre
(Tiibingen, 1934). The last-named work, still the most
important discussion ofWeber's methodology, must be understood
against the background of the debate on the sociology of knowledge,
then centring on both Scheler's and Mannheim's formula­
tions.
12. Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (London : Routledge
& Kegan Paul, 1936); Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge (New
York: O.U.P., 1952); Essays on Sociology and Social Psychology
(New York : O.U.P., 1953); Essays on the Sociology of Culture
(New York : O.U.P., 1956). A compendium of Mannheim's most
important writings in the sociology of knowledge, compiled and
with a useful introduction by Kurt Wolff, is Karl Mannheim,
Wissenssoziologie (Neuwied/Rhein : Luchterhand, 1964). For
secondary discussions of Mannheim's conception of the sociology
of knowledge, cf. Jacques J. Maquet, Sociologie de Ia connaissance
(Louvain : Nauwelaerts, 1949); Aron, op. cit. ; Robert K. Merton,
Social Theory and Social Structure (Chicago : FreePress ofGlencoe,
.u6
NOTES
1957; London : Collier-Macmillan), pp. 489 ff. ; Stark, op. cit. ;
Lieber, op. cit.
13. This characterization ofthe two original formulations ofthe
discipline was made by Lieber, op. cit.
14. cf. Merton, op. cit., pp. 439 ff.
15. cf. Talcott Parsons, 'An Approach to the Sociology of
Knowledge', Transactions of the Fourth World Congress of Sociology
(Louvain : International Sociological Association, 1959), vol.
IV, pp. 25 ff. ; 'Culture and the Social System', in Par10ons et al.,
eds., Theories of Society (New York : Free Press, 1961 ; London :
Collier-Macmillan), vol. II, pp. 963 ff.
16. cf. Talcott Parsons, The Social System (Glencoe, Ill. : Free
Press, 1951; London : Tavistock), pp. 326 ff.
- 17. cf. C. Wright Mills, Power, Politics and People (New York :
Ballantine Books, 1963), pp. 453 ff.
18. cf. Theodor Geiger, Ideologie und Wahrheit (Stuttgart : Humboldt,
1953); Arbeiten zur Soziologie (Neuwied/Rhein: Luchterband,
1962), pp. 412 ff.
19. cf. Ernst Topitsch, Vom Ursprung und Ende der Metaphysik
(Vienna: Springer, 1958); Sozialphilosophie zwischen Ideologie und
Wissenschaft (Neuwied/Rhein : Luchterhand, 1961). An important
inftuence on Topitsch is the Kelsen school oflegal positivism. For
the implications of the latter for the sociology of knowledge, cf.
Hans Kelsen, Aufsatze zur Ideologiekritik (Neuwied/Rhein :
Luchterhand, 1964).
20. cf. Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology (New York : Free Press
of Glencoe, 196o; London : Collier-Macmillan); Kurt Lenk, ed.,
Ideologie; Norman Birnbaum, ed., The Sociological Study of Ideology
(Oxford : Blackwell, 1962).
21. cf. Stark, op. cit.
22. Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers, vol. I (The Hague: Nijhoff,
1962), p. 149. Italics ours.
23. Ibid., vol. II (1964), p. 121.
24. For discussions ofthe implications ofDurkheimian sociology
for the sociology of knowledge, cf. Gerard L. DeGre, Society and
Ideology (New York: Columbia University Bookstore, 1943), pp.
54 ff.; Merton, op. cit. ; Georges Gurvitch, 'Problbnes de Ia sociologie
de Ia amnaissance', Trait/desociologie (Paris : Presses Universitaires
de France, 196<>), vol. II, pp. 103 ff.
25. The closest approach, to our knowledge, of symboli�interactionism
to the problems of the sociology of knowledge may
be found in Tamotsu Shibutani, 'Reference Groups and Social Control',
in Arnold Rose, ed., Human Behavior and Social Processes
(Boston : Houghton Mifftin, 1962; London : Routledge & Kegan
217
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
Paul), pp. 128 1£. The failure to make the connexion between
Meadian social psychology and the sociology ofknowledge, on the
part of the symbolic-interactionists, is of course related to the
limited 'diffusion' of the sociology of knowledge in America but
its more important theoretical foundation is to be sought u; the
fact that both Mead himselfand his later followers did not develoP'
an adequate concept of social structure. Precisely for this reason
we think, is the integration of the Meadian and Durkh�
appr�c�� so very important. It may be observed here that, just as
the mdifference to the sociology of knowledge on the part of
American social psychologists has prevented the latter from relating
�eir perspectives to a macro-sociological theory, so is the
total 1gnorance of Mead a severe theoretical defect ofneo-Marxist
social thought in Europe today. There is considerable irony in the
�a� that,
.
of late, n�o-Marxist theoreticians have been seeking a
liaison Wlth Freudian psychology (which is fundamentally incompatible
wit? �e anthropological presuppositions of Marxism),
�mpl�ely obliv1ous of the existence of a Meadian theory of the
dialectic between society and the individual that would be immeasurably
more congenial to their own approach. For a recent
eumple of this ironic phenomenon, cf. Georges Lapassade,
L'Entree dans Ia me (Paris: Editions de Minuit, I963), an otherwise
highly suggestive book that, as it were, cries out for Mead on every
page. The same irony, albeit in a different context of intellectual
segregation, pertains to the recent American efforts for a rapprochementbetween
Marxism and Freudianism. One European sociologist
who has drawn heavily and successfully upon Mead and the
M�� tradition in the .construction of sociological theory is
Fr1ednch Tenbruck. Cf. his Geschichu r.md GeseUschaft (Habilitationss�hri/t,
Unive
.
rsity o
.
f Freiburg, to be published shortly),
especially the sectJoo entitled 'Realitdt'. In a different systematic
context from ours, but in a manner quite congenial to our own
approach to the Meadian problematic, Tenbruclt discusses the
social origin of reality and the social-structural bases for the
maintenance of reality.
26. Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (Chicago:
Free Press, 1949; London: Allen & Unwin), p. v.
27. Emile Durkheim, The Ruhs ofSociologicalMethod(Chicago:
Free Press, 1950; London : Collier-Maanillan), p. 14.
.
28. Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic OrganizatiOn
(New York: O.U.P., I947), p. IOI.
.us
NOTES
One. The Foundation of KtiOfl)/edge in Ewryday Life *
I. This entire section ofour treatise is based on Alfred Schutz
and Thomas Lucltmann, Die Strukturen der LebensrDelt, now being
prepared for publication. In view of this, we have refrained from
providing individual references to the places in Schutz's published
work where the same problems are discussed. Our argument here
is based on Schutz, as developed by Luckmann in the aforementioned
work, in toto. The reader wishing to acquaint himself
with Schutz's work published to date may consult Alfred Schutz
Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt (Vienna: Springer, IC)6o)�
Colkcted Papers, vols. I and II. The reader interested in Schutz's
adaptation of the phenomenological method to the analysis of the
social world ma� consult especially his Colkcted Papers, vol. I, pp.
99 1£., and Maunce Natanson, ed., Plrilosophy ofthe Social Scienus
(New York: Random House, IC)63), pp. 183 1£.
TfDO. Society as Objectiw Reality *
I. On recent biological work concerning the peculiar position of
man in the animal kingdom, cf. Jakob von UexkUll, Bedeunmgskhre
(Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1958); F. J. J. Buytendijlt, Mensch und Tier
(Hamburg: Rowohlt, I958); AdolfPortmann, Zoologie r.mddas neue
Bild fJOm Menschen (Hamburg: Rowohlt, I956). The most im.portant
evaluations of these biological perspectives in terms of a
philosophical anthropology are those by Helmuth Plessner (Die
Stu/en des Organischen r.md der Mensch, I928 and 1965) and Arnold
Gehlen (Der Mensch, seine Natur r.md seilu Stelhmg in der Welt,
I940 and 1950). It was Gehlen who further developed these per��ves
in terms ofa sociological theory ofinstitutions (especially
1n his Urmensch r.md Spdtkultur, I956). For an introduction to the
latter, cf. Peter L. Berger and Hansfried Kellner, 'Arnold Gehlen
and the Theory of Institutions', Social Research32: I, pp. IIO 1£.
(I¢j).
2. The term 'species-specific environment' is taken from von
UexkUll.
3· The anthropological implications of the term 'worldopenness'
were developed by both Plessner and Gehlen.
4· The peculiarity of the human organism as ontogenetically
219
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
grounded was shown particularly in the investigations of Port­
mann.
S· The suggestion that the foetal period in man extends through
the first year oflife was made by Portmann, who called this year the
'extrauterine Friihjahr'.
6. The term 'significant others' is taken from Mead. For Mead's
theory ofthe ontogenesis ofthe self, cf. hip Mind, Selfand Society
{Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1934). A useful compendium
ofMead's writings is Anselm Strauss, ed., George Herbert
Mead on Social Psychology (Chicago : University of Chicago Press,
1964). For a suggestive secondary discussion, cf. Maurice Natanson,
The Social Dynamics of George H. Mead (Washington : Public
Affairs Press, I956).
1· There is a fundamental dichotomy between the conception of
man as a self-producing being and a conception of 'human nature'.
This constitutes a decisive anthropological difference between
Marx and any properly sociological perspective on the one hand
{especially one that is grounded in Meadian social psychology), and
Freud and most non-Freudian psychological perspectives on the
other. A clarification ofthis difference is very important if there is
to be any meaningful conversation between the fields of sociology
and psychology today. Within sociological theory itselfit is possibl;
to distinguish between positions in terms of their closeness to tt.e
'sociological' and the 'psychological' poles. Vilfredo Pareto probably
expresses the most elaborate approach to the 'psychological'
pole within sociology itself. Incidentally, acceptance or rejection of
the 'human nature' presupposition also has interesting implications
in terms of political ideologies, but this point cannot be developed
here.
8. The work ofBronislaw Malinowski, Ruth Benedict, Margaret
Mead, Oyde Kluckhohn and George Murdock may be cited in
this connexion.
9· The view here presented on the sexual plasticity of man has
an affinity with Freud's conception of the originally unformed
character of the libido.
10. This point is explicated in Mead's theory ofthesocial genesis
of the self.
II. The term 'eccentricity· is taken from Plessner. Similar perspectives
can be found in Scheler's later work on philosophical
anthropology. Cf. Max Scheler, Die Stellung des Menschen im
Kosmos (Munich : Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, I947).
12. The social character of man's self-production was formulated
most sharply by Marx in his critique of Stirner, in The
German Ideology. Jean-Paul Sartre's development from his earlier
220
NOTES
existentialism to its later Marxist modification, that is, from L'Etre
et le neant to the Critique de Ia raison dialectique, is the most impressive
example in contemporary philosophical anthropology of the
achievement of this sociologically crucial insight. Sartre's own
interest in the 'mediations' between the macroscopic socio-historical
processes and individual biography would be greatly served,
once more, through a consideration of Meadian social psychology.
13. The inextricable connexion between man's humanity and
his sociality was most sharply formulated by Durkheim, especially
in the concluding section of the Formes elbnentaires de Ia vie
religieuse.
14. In insisting that social order is not based on any 'laws of
nature' we are not ipsofacto taking a position on a metaphysical
conception of 'natural law'. Our statement is limited to such facts
of nature as are empirically available.
15. It was Durkheim who Insisted most strongly on the character
sui generis of social order, especially in his Regles de Ia methode
sociologique. The anthropological necessity of externalization was
developed by both Hegel and Marx.
x6. The biological foundation of externalization and its relationship
to the emergence of institutions was developed by Gehlen.
17. The term 'stock of knowledge' is taken from Schutz.
18. Gehlen refers to this point in his concepts of TriebUberschuss
and Entlastung.
19. Gehlen refers to this point in his concept of Hintergrundser­
fiillung.
_ 20. The concept of the definition of the situation was formed by
W. I. Thomas and developed throughout his sociological work.
21. We are aware of the fact that this concept of institution is
broader than the prevailing one in contemporary sociology. We
think that such a broader concept is useful for a comprehensive
analysis of basic social processes. ,On. social control, cf. Friedrich
Tenbruck, 'Soziale Kontrolle', Shuztslexikon der Goerres-Gesellschaft
(1962), and Heinrich Popitz, 'Soziale Normen', European
Journal of Sociology.
22. The term 'taking the role ofthe other' is taken from Mead.
We are here taking Mead's paradigm of socialization and applying
it to the broader problem of institutionalization. The argument
combines key features of both Mead's and Gehlen's approaches.
23. Simmel's analysis of the expansion from the dyad to the
triad is important in this connexion. The following argument combines
Simmel's and Durkheim's conceptions of the objectivity of
social reality.
24· In Durkheim's terms this means that, with the expansion of
221
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
the dyad into a triad and beyond, the original formations become
geniune 'social facts', that is, they attain choseite.
25. Jean Piaget's concept ofinfantile 'realism' may be compared
here.
26. For an analysis of this process in the contemporary family,
cf. Peter L. Berger and Hansfried Kellner, 'Marriage and the Construction
of Reality', Diogenes 46 (1964), pp. I ff.
27. The preceding description closely follows Durkheim's
analysis of social reality. This does not contradict the Weberian
conception of the meaningful character of society. Since social
reality always originates in meaningful human actions, it continues
to carry meaning even if it is opaque to the individual at a given
time. The original may be reconstructed, precisely by means of
what Weber called Verstehen.
28. The term 'objectivation' is derived from the Hegelian/
Marxian Versachlichung.
29. Contemporary American sociology tends towards leaving
out the first moment. Its perspective on society thus tends to be
what Marx called a reification ( Verdinglichung), that is, an undialectical
distortion ofsocial reality that obscures the latter's character
as an ongoing human production, viewing it instead in thing-like
categories appropriate only to the world of nature. That the dehumanization
implicit il" �his is mitigated by values deriving from
the larger tradition ofthe society is, presumably, morally fortunate,
but is irrelevant theoretically.
30. Pareto's analysis ofthe 'logic' ofinstitutions is relevant here.
A point similar to ours is made by Friedrich Tenbruck, op. cit. He
too insists that the 'strain towards consistency' is rooted in the
meaningful character of human action.
31. This, of course, is the fundamental weakness of any functionalistically
oriented sociology. For an excellent critique of this,
cf. the discussion ofBororo society in Claude Levi-Strauss, Tristes
Tropiques (New York : Atheneum, 1964), pp. 183 ff.
32. The term 'recipe knowledge' is taken from Schutz.
33· The term 'objectification' is derived from the Hegelian
Vergegenstiindlichung.
34· The term 'sedimentation' is derivt:d from Edmund Husserl.
It was first used by Schutz in a sociological context.
35· This is meant by the term 'monothetic acquisition' of
Husserl's. It was also used extensively by Schutz.
36. On the 'social self' confronting the self in its totality, cf.
Mead's concept of the 'me' with Durkheim's concept of homo
duplex.
37· Although our argument uses terms foreign to Mead, our
222
NOTES
conception of the role is very close to his and intends to be an expansion
of Meadian role theory in a broader frame of reference,
namely one that includes a theory of institutions.
38. The term 'representation' is closely related here to the
Durkheimian usage, but broader in scope.
. 39· This process of 'binding together' is one of the central concerns
ofDurkheimian sociology - the integration ofsociety through
the fostering of solidarity.
40. The symbolic representations ofintegration are what Durkheim
called 'religion'.
41. The concept of the social distribution of knowledge is derived
from Schutz.
42· The term 'mediation' has been used by Sartre, but without
the concrete meaning that role theory is capable ofgiving to it. The
term serves well to indicate the general nexus between role theory
and the sociology of knowledge.
43· This question could be designated as concerning the 'density'
of the institutional order. However, we have been trying to avoid
introducing new terms and have decided not to use this term. although
it is suggestive.
44· This is what Durkheim referred to as 'organic solidarity'.
Lucien Uvy-Bruhl gives further psychological content to this
Durkheimian concept when he speaks of 'mystic participation' in
primitive societies.
45· Eric Voegelin's concepts of 'compactness' and 'differentiation'
may be compared here. See his Order and History, vol. I
(Baton Rouge, La : Louisiana State University Press, 1956; Oxford
: 0.U.l'.). Talcott Parsons has spoken ofinstitutional differentiation
in various parts of his work.
46. The relationship between the division of labour and institutional
differentiation has been analysed by Marx, Durkheim,
Weber, Ferdinand Tonnies and Talcott Parsons.
47· It may be said that, despite different interpretations in
detail, there is a high degree ofconsensus on this point throughout
the history of sociological theory.
48. The relationship between 'pure theory' and economic surplus
was first pointed out by Marx.
49· The tendency of institutions to persist was analysed by
Georg Simmel in terms of his concept of 'faithfulness'. Cf. his
Soziologie (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1958), pp. 438 ff.
so. This concept of de-institutionalization is derived from
Gehlen.
.
5 I. The analysis of de-institutionalization in the private sphere
1S a central problem of Gehlen's social psychology of modern
223
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
society. Cf. his Die Seele im technischen Zeitalter (Hamburg :
Rowohlt, 1957).
52. If one were willing to put up with further neologisms, one
could call this the question about the degree of 'fusion' or 'segmentation'
ofthe institutional order. On the face ofit, this question
would seem to be identical with the structural-functional concern
about the 'functional integration' of societies. The latter term,
however, presupposes that the 'integration' of a society can be
determined by an outside observer who investigates the external
functioning ofthe society's institutions. We would contend, on the
contrary, that both 'functions' and 'disfunctions' can only be
analysed by way ofthe level ofmeaning. Consequently, 'functional
integration', if one wants to use this term at all, means the integration
of the institutional order by way of various legitimating
processes. In other words, the integration lies not in the institutions
but in their legitimation. This implies, as against the structuralfunctionalists,
that an institutional order cannot adequately be
understood as a 'system'.
53· This problem is related to that of 'ideology', which we discuss
later in a more narrowly defined context.
54· Weber repeatec· •Y .·efers to various collectivities as 'carriers'
(Trager) of what we have called here sub-universes of meaning,
especially in his comparative sociology of religion. The analysis of
this phenomenon is, of course, related to Marx's Unterbauf
Ueberbau scheme.
55· The pluralistic competition between sub-universes ofmeaning
is one ofthe most importantproblems for an empiricalsociology
of knowledge of contemporary society. We have dealt with this
problem elsewhere in our work in the sociology ofreligion, but see
no point in developing an analysis of this in the present treatise.
56. This proposition can be put into Marxian terms by saying
that there is a dialectical relationship between substructure (Unterbau)
and superstructure (Ueberbau) - a Marxian insight that has
been widely lost in main-line Marxism until very recently. The
problem of the possibility of socially detached knowledge has, of
course, been a central one for the sociology ofknowledge as defined
by Scheler and Mannheim. We are not giving it such a central
place for reasons inherent in our general theoretical approach. The
important point for a theoretical sociology of knowledge is the
dialectic between knowledge and its social base. Questions such as
Mannheim's concerning the 'unattached intelligentsia' are applications
of the sociology of knowledge to concrete historical and
empirical phenomena. Propositions about these will have to be
made on a level of much lesser theoretical generality than interests
NOTES
us here. Questions concerning the autonomy of social-scientific
knowledge, on the other hand, should be negotiated in the context
of the methodology of the social sciences. This area we have excluded
in our definition ofthe scope ofthe sociology of knowledge,
for theoretical reasons stated in our introduction.
51· This is the phenomenon commonly called 'cultural lag' in
American sociology since Ogburn. We have avoided this term
because of its evolutionistic and implicitly evaluative connotation.
58. Reification ( Verdinglichung) is an important Marxian concept,
particularly in the anthropological considerations of the
FI'Uhschriften, then developed in terms ofthe 'fetishism of commodities'
in Das Kapital. For more recent developments of the concept
in Marxist theory, cf. Gyorgy Lukacs, Histoire et conscience de
classe, pp. 109 ff.; Lucien Goldmann, Recherches dialectiques
(Paris : Gallimard, 1959), pp. 64 ff. ; Joseph Gabel, La Fausse Conscience
(Paris : Editions de Minuit, 1962), and Formen der Entfremdung
(Frankfurt : Fischer, 1964). For an extensive discussion of the
applicability of the concept within a non-doctrinaire sociology of
knowledge, cf. Peter L. Berger and Stanley Pullberg, 'Reification
and the Sociological Critique of Consciousness', History and
Theory IV: 2, pp. 198 ff. (1965). In the Marxian frame ofreference
the concept ofreification is closely related to that ofalienation (Entfremdung).
The latter concept has been confused in recent sociological
writing with phenomena ranging from anomie to neurosis,
almost beyond the point of terminological retrieval. In any case,
we have felt that this is not the place to attempt such a retrieval and
have, therefore, avoided the use of the concept.
59. Recent French critics of Durkheimian sociology, such as
Jules Monnerot (Les Faits sociaux ne sont pas des choses, 1946) and
Armand Cuvillier ('Durkheim et Marx', Cahiers internationaux de
sociologie, 1948), have accused it ofa reified view ofsocial reality. In
other words, they have argued that Durkheim's choseite is ipsofacto
a reification. Whatever one may say about this in terms of Durkheim
exegesis, it is possible in principle to assert that 'social facts
are things', and to intend thereby no more than the objectivity of
social facts as human products. The theoretical key to the question
is the distinction between objectivation and reification.
6o. Compare here Sartre's concept of the 'practico-inert', in
Critique de Ia raison dialectique.
61. For this reason Marx called reifying consciousness a false
consciousness. This concept may be related to Sartre's 'bad faith'
(mauvaisefoi).
62. The work of Lucien Levy-Bruhl and Jean Piaget may be
taken as basic for an understanding ofprotoreification, both phylo-
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
and ontogenetically. Also, cf. Oaude Levi-Strauss, La Pmsle
saUf1age (Paris : Pion, 1962).
63. On the parallelism between 'here below' and 'up above', cf.
Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and History (New York : Harper, 1959). A
similar point is made by Voegelin, op. cit., in his discussion of
'cosmological civilizations'.
64. On the reification of identity, compare Sartre's analysis of
anti-Semitism.
65. On conditions for dereification, cf. Berger and Pullberg, Joe.
cit.
66. The term 'legitimation' is derived from Weber, where it is
developed particularly in the context of his political sociology. We
have given it a much broader use here.
67. On legitimations as 'explanations', compare Pareto's
analysis of 'derivations'.
68. Both Marx and Pareto were aware ofthe possible autonomy
of what we have called legitimations ('ideology' in Marx, 'derivations'
in Pareto).
69. Our concept of 'symbolic universe' is very close to Durkheim's
'religion'. Schutz's analysis of 'finite provinces of meaning'
and their relationship to each other, and Sartre's concept of
'totalization', have been very relevant for our argument at this
point.
70. The term 'marginal situation' (GTmzsituation) was coined by
Karl Jaspers. We are using the term in a manner quite different
from Jaspers's.
71. Our argument here is influenced by Durkheim's analysis of
anomie. We are more interested, though, in the nomic rather than
the anomie processes in society.
72. The paramount status of everyday reality was analysed by
Schutz. Cf. especially the article 'On Multiple Realities', Collected
Papers, vol. I, pp. 207 tf.
73· The precariousness of subjective identity is already implied
in Mead's analysis of the genesis of the self. For developments of
this analysis, cf. Anselm Strauss, Mirrors and Masks (New York:
Free Press of Glencoe, 1959; London : Collier-Macmillan);
Erving Gotfmann, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
{Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday-Anchor, 1959).
74· Heidegger gives the most elaborate analysis in recent philosophy
of death as the marginal situation par excellence. Schutz's
concept of the 'fundamental anxiety' refers to the same phenomenon.
Malinowski's analysis of the social function of funerary
ceremonialism is also relevant at this point.
15· The use of certain perspectives on 'anxiety' (Antst) de-
226
NOTES
vclopcd by existential philosophy makes it possible to place Durkheim's
analysis of anomie in a broader anthropological frame of
reference.
76. cf. Levi-Strauss, op. cit.
77· On collective memory, cf. Maurice Halbwachs, Les Cadres
sociaux de Ia mlmoire (Paris : Presses Universitaires de France,
1952). Halbwachs also developed his sociological theory ofmemory
in La Mlmoire collective(1950) and in La Topographie Ugmdairedes
EfJangilu en Terre Sainte (1941).
]8. The concepts of 'predecessors' and 'successors' are derived
from Schutz.
79· The conception ofthe transcending character ofsociety was
especially developed by Durkheim.
So. The conception of 'projection' was first developed by
Feuerbach, then, albeit in greatly different directions, by .Marx,
Nietzsche and Freud.
81. Compare again Weber's concept of 'carrier' (Trager).
82. The analyses of •culture contact' in contemporary American
cultural anthropology are relevant here.
83. Compare the concept of 'culture shock' in contemporary
American cultural anthropology.
84. Marx developed in considerable detail the r-elationship �
tween material power and 'conceptual success'. Cf. the wellknown
formulation of this in The German Ideology: 'Die Gedanken
der herrschenden Klasse sind in jeder Epoche die herrsclrenden
Gedanken' (FriJhschriften, Kroner edition, p. 373).
85. Pareto comes closest to the writing ofa history ofthought in
sociological terms, which makes Pareto important for the sociology
of knowledge regardless of reservations one may have about his
theoretical frame of reference. Cf. Brigitte Berger, Vilfredo Pareto
and the Sociology of Knowledge (unpublished doctoral dissertation,
New School for Social Research, 1964).
86. This may be reminiscent of Auguste Comte's 'law of the
three stages'. We cannot accept this, of course, but it may still be
useful in suggesting that consciousness develops in historially
recognizable stages, thoughthey cannot be conceived ofin Comte's
manner. Our own understanding of this is closer to the Hegelian/
Marxian approach to the historicity of human thought.
87. Both Uvy-Bruhl and Piaget suggest that mythology constitutes
a necessary stage in the development of thought. For a
suggestive discussion of the biological roots of mythological/
magical thought, cf. Arnold Gehlen, Studien zur Anthropologie II1Ul
Soziologie (Neuwied/Rhein: Luchterhand, 1963), pp. 79 tf.
88. Our conception ofmythology here is influenced by the wotk
227
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
of Gerardus van der Leeuw, Mircea Eliade and Rudolf Bultmann.
89. On the continuity between social and cosmic orders in
mythological consciou�ness, compare again the work of Eliade and
Voegelin.
90. It will be clear from our theoretical presuppositions that we
�nnot here go in any detail into the questions of the 'sociology of
mtellectuals'. In addition to Mannheim's important work in this
area (to be found especially in Ideology and Utopia and Essays on the
Sociology of Culture), cf. Florian Znaniecki, The Social Role of the
Man of Knou:ledge (New York : Columbia University Press, 1940);
Theodor Geiger, Aufgaben und Stellung der Intelligenz in der Gesellschaft
(Stuttgart, 1949) ; Raymond Aron, L'Opium des intellectuals
(Paris, 1955) ; George B. de Huszar, ed., The Intellectuals (New
York : Free Press of Glencoe, 196o; London : Allen & Unwin).
91. On ultimate legitimations strengthening institutional 'inertia'
(Simmel's 'faithfulness'), compare both Durkheim and Pareto.
92. It is precisely at this point that any functionalist interpretation
of institutions is weakest, tending to look for practicalities that
are not in fact existing.
93· On the Brahman/Kshatriya conflict, compare Weber's
work on the sociology of religion in India.
94· On the social validation of propositions that are hard to
validate empirically, cf. Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive
Dissonance (Evanston, Ill. : Row, Peterson and Co., 1957; London :
Tavistock).
95· The term 'affinity' (Wahlverwandschaft) is derived from
Scheler and Weber.
96. On monopolistic definitions of reality in primitive and
archaic societies, compare both Durkheim and Voegelin.
97· The work of Paul Radin suggests that scepticism is possible
even in such monopolistic situations.
98. The term 'guest peoples' (Gastv6/ker) is derived from
Weber.
99. On the affinity between politically conservative forces and
religious monopolies ('churches'), compare Weber's analysis of
hierocracy.
100. The term 'ideology' has been used in so many different
senses that one might despair of using it in any precise manner at
all. We have decided to retain it, in a narrowly defined sense, because
it is useful in the latter and preferable to a neologism. There
is no point here in discussing the transformations ofthe term in the
history of both Marxism and of the sociology of knowledge. For a
useful overview, cf. Kurt Lenk, ed., Ideologie.
101. On the relationship of Christianity to bourgeois ideology,
228
NOTES
see both Marx and Veblen. A useful overview of the former's
treatment of religion may be obtained from the anthology Marx
and Engels on Religion (Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing
House, 1957).
102. cf. Thomas Luckmann, Das Problem der Religion in der
modernen Gesellschaft (Freiburg : Rombach, 1963).
103. Our conception ofthe intellectual as the 'unwanted expert'
is not very different from Mannheim's insistence on the marginality
of the intellectual. In a definition of the intellectual that will be
sociologically useful it is important, we think, to set off this type
clearly from the 'man of knowledge' in general.
104. On the marginality of intellectuals, compare Simmel's
analysis of the 'objectivity' of the stranger and Veblen's of the
intellectual role of the Jews.
105. cf. Peter L. Berger, 'The Sociological Study of Sectarianism',
Social Research, Winter 1954, pp. 467 ff.
Io6. Compare Mannheim's analysis of revolutionary intellectuals.
For the Russian prototype of the latter, cf. E. Lampert,
Studies in Rebellion (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1957;
London : Routledge & Kegan Paul).
107. The transformation of revolutionary intellectuals into
legitimators of the status quo can be studied in practically 'pure'
form in the development of Russian Communism. For a sharp
critique of this process from a Marxist viewpoint, cf. Leszek
Kolakowski, Der Mensch ohne Alternative (Munich, 1960).
Three. Society as Subjective Reality *
1. Our conception of 'understanding the other' is derived from
both Weber and Schutz.
2. Our definitions of socialization and its two sub-types closely
follow current usage in the social sciences. We have only adapted
the wording to conform to our overall theoretical framework.
3· Our description here, ofcourse, leans heavily on the Meadian
theory of socialization.
4· The concept of 'mediation' is derived from Sartre, who lacks,
however, an adequate theory of socialization.
S· The affective dimension of early learning has been especially
emphasized by Freudian child psychology, although there are
various findings of behaviouristic learning theory that would tend
2.2.9
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
to confirm this. We do not imply acceptance of the theoretical
presuppositions of either psychological school in our argument
here.
6. Our conception ofthe reflected character ofthe selfis derived
from both Cooley and Mead. Its roots may be found in the analysis
of the 'social self' by William James (Principles of Psychology).
1· Although this could not be developed here, enough may have
been said to indicate the possibility ofa genuinely dialectical social
psychology. The latter would be equally important for philosophical
anthropology as for society. As far as the latter is concerned,
such a social psychology (fundamentally Meadian in
orientation, but with the addition of important elements from
other streams of social-scientific thought) would make it unnecessary
to seek theoretically untenable alliances with either Freudian
or behaviouristic psychologism.
8. On nomenclature, cf. Claude Levi-Strauss, La PenseesaUfJage,
pp. 253 ff.
9. The concept of the 'generalized other' is used here in a fully
Meadian sense.
10. Compare Georg Simmel on the self-apprehension of man as
both inside and outside society. Plessner's concept of 'eccentricity'
is again relevant here.
n. Compare Piaget on the massive reality of the child's world.
12. Compare Uvy-Bruhl on the phylogenetic analogue to
Piaget's infantile 'realism'.
13. cf. Philippe Aries, Centuries of ChildJwod (New York:
Knopf, 1962; London: Jonathan Cape).
14. Compare here the cultural-anthropological analyses of 'rites
ofpassage' connected with puberty.
15. The concept of 'role distance' is developed by Erving Goffman,
particularly in Asylums (Garden City, N.Y. : DoubledayAnchor,
1961). Our analysis suggests that such distance is only
possible with regard to realities internalized in secondary socialization.
If it extends to the realities internalized in primary socialization,
we are in the domain of what American psychiatry calls
'psychopathy', which implies a deficient formation of identity. A
very interesting further point suggested by our analysis concerns
the structural limits within which a 'Goffmanian model' of social
interaction may be viable - to wit, societies so structured that
decisive elements of objectivated reality are internalized in
secondary socialization processes. This consideration, incidentally,
should make us careful not to equate Goffman's 'model' (which is
very useful, let it be added, for the analysis ofimportant features of
modernindustrialsociety)witha 'dramatic model' toutCOUTt. There
230
NOTES
have been other dramas, after all, than that of the contemporary
organization man bent on 'impression management'.
16. The studies in the sociology of occupations, as developed
particularly by Everett Hughes, offer interesting material on this
point.
17. cf. Talcott Parsons, Essays in Sociological T'!eory, Pur_e and
Applied (Chicago : Free Press, 1949; London � Colher-Macmillan),
pp. 233 ff.
18. Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, in Character and
Social Structure (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1953; London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul), suggest the term 'intimate oth�rs' for
significant others engaged in reality-main�en�ce
.
in
_
later life. We
prefer not to use this term because of 1ts s�llll'lty to that of
Intimsphiire, which has been employed a lot m recent Germanspeaking
sociology and which has a considerably different connota­
tion.
19. Compare Goffman again on this point, as well as David
Riesman. ·
,
20. The concepts of 'primary group' and 'secondary group
.
are
derived from Cooley. We are following current usage in Amer1can
sociology here.
21. On the concept of the 'conversational apparatus', cf. P�ter
L. Berger and Hansfried Kellner, 'Marriage and the Construebon
of Reality', Diogenes 46 (1964), pp. I ff. Friedrich Te�b�ck (op.
cit.) discusses in some detail the fun<..tion of commurucanve networks
in maintaining £ommon realities.
22. On correspondence, cf. Georg Simmel, Soziologie, pp. 287
� .
23. The concept of'reference group' is relevant in this connexto�.
Compare Merton's analysis ofthis, in his. Social Theory and Social
Structure. .
24. cf. Peter L. Berger, Imntation to Sociology (Garden Cil?',
N.Y. : Doubleday-Anchor, 1963; Harmondsworth: Pengum
Books), pp. 54 ff. .
25. The psycho-analytic concept of'transference' refers precisely
to this phenomenon. What the psycho-analysts who use It �o not
understand ofcourse, is that the phenomenon can be found m any
process of ;e-socialization with its resultant identification �ith the
significant others who are!ncharge of�t
?
so �t �o concl��o�s CU:
be drawn from it concemmg the cogrunve valid1ty ofthe ms�ghts
occurring in the psychoanalytic situation.
.
.
. .
26. This is what Durkheim referred to m his analys1S ofthe mevitably
social character ofreligion. We would not use, however,
his term 'church' for the 'moral community' ofreligion, becau.� it
231
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
is appropriate only to a historically specific case in the institutionalization
of religion.
27. The studies of Chinese Communist 'brainwashing' techniques
are highly revealing ofthe basic patterns ofalternation. Cf.,
for instance, Edward Hunter, Brainwashing in Red China (New
York : Vanguard Press, 1951). Goffman, in his Asylums, comes
close to showing the procedural parallel to group psychotherapy in
America.
28. Again, compare Fcstinger for the avoidance of discrepant
definitions of reality.
29. cf. Thomas Luckmann and Peter L. Berger, 'Social Mobility
and Personal Identity', EuropeanJourr.al of Sociology V, pp. 331 ff.
(1964).
30. Riesman's concept of 'other-direction' and Merton's of
'anticipatory socialization' are relevant at this point.
31. cf. the essays on medical sociology by Eliot Freidson,
Theodor J. Litman and Julius A. Roth in Arnold Rose, ed.,
Human Behavior and Social Processes.
32. Our argument implies the necessity of a macro-sociological
background for analyses of internalization, that is, of an understanding
ofthe social structure within which internalization occurs.
American social psychology today is greatly weakened by the fact
that such a background is widely lacking.
33· cf. Gerth and Mills, op. cit. Also cf. Tenbruck, op. cit., who
assigns a prominent place to the structural bases of personality in
his typology of primitive, traditional and modern societies.
34· This has the important implication that most psychological
models, including those of contemporary scientific psychology,
have limited socio-historical applicability. It further implies that a
sociological psychology will at the same time have to be a historical
psychology.
35· cf. Erving Goffman, Stigma (Englewood Cliffs, N. J. :
Prentice-Hall, 1963). Also, cf. A. Kardiner and L. Ovesey, The
Mark of Oppression (New York : Norton, 1951).
36. cf. Donald W. Cory, The Homosexual in America (New
York : Greenberg, 1951).
37· We would stress here once more the social-structural conditions
for the applicability of a 'Goffmanian model' of analysis.
38. Helmut Schelsky has coined the suggestive term 'permanent
reflectiveness' (Dauerreflektion) for the psychological
cognate of the coctemporary 'market of wo:lds' ('1st die Dauerreftektion
institutionalisierbar?', Zeitschrift fiir evangelische Ethik,
1957). The theoretical background of Schelsky's argument is
Gehlen's general theory of 'subjectivization' in modern society. It
232
NOTES
was developed further in terms of the sociology of contemporary
religion by Luckmann, op. cit.
39· cf. Luckmann and Berger, loc. cit.
40. It is inadvisable to speak of 'collective identity' because of
the danger of false (and reifying) hypostatization. The exemplum
horribi/e ofsuch hypostatization is the German 'Hegelian' sociology
of the 192os and 19305 (such as the work of Othmar Spann). The
danger is present in greater or lesser degree in various works ofthe
Durkheim school and the 'culture and personality' school in
American cultural anthropology.
41. What is implied here, of course, is a sociological critique of
the Freudian 'reality principle'.
42. cf. Peter L. Berger, 'Towards a Sociological Understanding
of Psychoanalysis', Social Research, Spring 1965, pp. 26 ff.
43· cf. ibid.
44· The dialectic between nature and society here discussed is in
no way to be equated with the 'dialectic ofnature', as developed by
Engels and later Marxism. The former underlines that man's
relationship to his own body (as to nature in general) is itself a
specifically human one. The latter, on the contrary, projects specifically
human phenomena into non-human nature and then proceeds
to theoretically dehumanize man by looking upon him as but
the object of natural forces or laws of nature.
45· For this possibility of a discipline of 'sociosomatics', cf.
Georg Simmel, op. cit., pp. 483 ff. (the essay on the 'sociology of
the senses'); Marcel Mauss, Sociologie et anthropologie (Paris :
Presses Universitaires de France, 1950), pp. 365 ff. (the essay on
the 'techniques of the body'); Edward T. Hall, The Silent Language
(Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1959). The sociological
analysis of sexuality would probably provide the richest empirical
material for such a discipline.
46. This was understood very well in Freud's conception of
socialization. It was greatly underestimated in the functionalist
adaptations of Freud, from Malinowski on.
47· Compare here Henri Bergson (especially his theory ofduree),
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Alfred Schutz and Jean Piaget.
48. Compare here both Durkheim and Plessner, as well as
Freud.
233
Indexes
Subject Index
Abnormality. See Deviance
Activity, 18, 30, 202-3, (see also
Biography; Everyday life;
Habitualization; Institutionalization;
Labour; Roles;
specific activities); and organism,
65-70, 202
Adolescents, rites for. See Initia­
tion
Aesthetic experience, 39· See
also Art
Age, 157, 166
Alienation, 225
Aloneness. See Solitariness
Alternation, 176-81, 1 89-90 ff.
Anger, 49, 51
Angst, 226
Animals, 65 ff., 120
Anomie terror, I I9, 121
Anonyntity, 46-8, 53-4, 85, 162
'Anticipatory socialization', 232
'Anxiety', 226
Apologetics, 133
Archaic civilizations, 98, 121,
139
Art, 39. 55
'Art of mistrust', 19
'Authority', 174
Background, -;:ammon, 75· See
also Relevances
'Bad faith', 225
'Base-world'. SeePrimary socia­
lization
Biography, individual, 77, 78,
81 ff., 85 ff., 99 ff., 145 (see
also Activity; History; Roles;
Self, the; Subjective reality;
specific experiences, types of
experiences); and symbolic
�iverses, 1 10, I I4, I I5 ff.
Biology, 28, 65-70, 156, 16o,
201-4
Body, the, 5 1, 154. See also
Biology
Brain, the, 196
'Brainwashing', 181, 232
'Carriers', 138 ff., 158
Casualness, 172-3
Chaos, 121
Children, 75 ff., 79, So, 89, 1 12,
1 87 ff. (see also Initiation;
New generation; Primary
socialization); infants, 66;
play of, 39
Choices, 71
Civilized societies, 120. See also
Industrial societies; Urban
societies ; Western civilization;
specific aspects
Cans. See Kinship
Classes. See Social classes
'Collective identities', 194
237
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OP REALITY
Collectivities. See Institutionalization;
specific collectivities
'Common language', 173
Common sense, 33-4 ff., 199
Communication, 37, 75. See also
Language
Competition, 136 ff. See also
Specialists and specialization
Conceptualization, 122-34 ff.
See also Legitimation
Consciousness, 34-5 ff., 85 ff.,
91, 96, 100, (see also Marginal
situations; Subjectivereality);
and reification, 1o6-7 ff.
Contemporaries, 46-7, 48. See
also Peer groups
Control, social, 72-3, 79-80,
202-4. See also Institutionalization;
specific areas, types
of control
Conversation, 172-4, 178--9. See
also Language
Correspondence, 44, 174
Cosmology, 127-30, 195-6. See
also Mythology; Universes
Crises, 168, 175-6
'Cultural lag', 225
'Culture contact', 227
'Culture shock', 227
'Cure of souls', 13I
Dasein, 2o
Dauerrejlektion, 232
Death, 41, 168, 175, 204; and
legitimation, u8-19, 121 ;
social control of, 202
Decisions, 71
Dehumanization. See Reifica­
tion
Demonic possession, I31, I95,
197--9
238
Despotism, 59
'Detachability', 5I
Deviance, So, 83, ns, 124-5 ff.,
I3I, I36-46 passim, 185-6 ff.
See also Control; Habitualization;
Institutionalization;
Tradition; specific types of
deviance
Diagnosis, 131, 132
Dialectic, 78--9, 104, 145-6, I49,
152 1f., 171, 194 ft'., 208 ft'. See
also specific participants
'Dialectic of nature', 233
Digestion, 202
'Disorientation', 42
Divinity, 12o-24. Seealso Gods;
Mythology
Division of labour, 75, 84, 95,
98, 134 183, 192 (see also
Experts; Roles); and pluralism,
143; and secondary
socialization, 158
Doubt, suspension of, 37
Drama, 92. See also Theatre
Dreams, 37, 39, 40, 54, 169, 191 ;
acting-out of, 167; as marginal
situations, n4, us, uS
Dress, proper, 167-8
Eating, 201 ff.
Economic surplus, 98--9, I03,
I34
Education, 86 ff. See also
Socialization
Effeminacy, 188. Seealso Homo­
sexuality
'Emigrating', 130. See also De-
viance
Emotions, 151 ff., ISs, I98
Entfremdung, 225
Environment, 65 ff.
SUBJBCT INDBX
Epistemology, 25-6
Everyday life, 33-61, I30 (see
also Habitualization; Integration;
Marginal situations;
Routines; Types, typifications);
language and, 49-6I;
reality of, 33-42; social interaction
in, 43-8
Exorcisms, 176
Experience. See Biography
Experts, 113, I34 ff. See also
Specialists and specialization;
specific fields
Expressivity, facial, 43, 203
�ernalization, 70,78-9, I21-2,
I49 See also Theories; Uni-
verses
'Extrauterine Frii.hjahr', 220
Face-to-face situations, 43-8 ff.,
I74-S
'False consciousness', 18, 19, 21
Familiarity, 57. SeealsoIntimacy
Families, 167, 190. See also
Children; Kinship
Fantasies, n4, 118, I9I
Fate. See Reification
Fetishes, fetishism, 88, IS9
Finite provinces of meaning,
39
'First things first', 41
Folk tales, 112
Food. See Eating
Foreigners, 139-40, I76
'Formulae', institutional, 87-8
'Freedom ofthe will', 14
FreischrDeberuk lntelligenz, 22
Friends, I71-2. See also Familiarity;
Intimacy
'Functional integration', 224
Func:tionality, 89
Future, the, I20. See also New
generation; Successors
Gait, 203
Generalized other, the, I53, IS7
Geography, 6s
Gesture, SI-2, 203
Gods, I07, 118, I26 ff., I86.
See also Mythology
Grammar, SS-6
'Guest peoples'. See Foreigners
Guilt, I3I, I90
Habitualization, 70 ff., 92, III,
I3S· See also Institutionalization;
Roles; Routines
'Here and now', 37, SI, 52. See
also Face-to-face situations
Heresy, heretics, I24-S, I33•
I39· I44, I76
Hierarchy, 1 18, I20
History, historicity, I7 ff., 4I-2,
I94• 200 ff., 208 ff. (see also
Biography; Theories; Tradition;
specific areas); and
legitimation of universes,
III ff., I21, I2S1f.;andorigins
of institutionalization, 72-3,
76 ff. {see also Institutionali­
zation)
'Home world'. See Primary
socialization
Homosexuality, I3I-3, 188. See
also Sexuality
Human nature, 66 ff. See also
specific traits
'Hypocrisy', 4S
'Ideal factors', 20
ldealjaktorm, 20
239
THE S OCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
'Ideas'. See Theories ; Universes;
Weltanschauung
Identity, identification, S4, I50
ff., 2oS (see also Roles ; Self,
the; Socialization ; Subjective
reality); and marginal situations,
nS-I9; organism and,
20I-4; reification of, IOS-9;
theories about, I94-200
Ideology, IS, 2I-2, 24, 26, I4I-
2, I45· 200
Idiosyncrasies, I24, I5I, 1S7
Illness. See Medicine; Pathology;
Therapy
Incest, 73, I I I, I I5, 203
Individualism, I9I
Individualization, 46. See also
Anonymity
Industrial Revolution, I4I, 200
Industrial societies, 102, 143,
192-3
Inertia, I35· See also Tradition
Infants, 66. See also Children
Initiation, SS, 94, I I3, 12S, I64.
See also Rites of passage
Innovations, 75, I43
Insanity. See Madness
'Insight', I32
Instincts, 65, 66; 7I
Institutionalization, 65-I09,
207 (see also Roles; Socialization
; Tradition) ; and identity
(see Identity); legitimation
of(see Legitimation)
Integration, 3S, 54, SI-3, 92-3,
99, I02. Seealso Institutionalization
; Legitimation; Roles
Intellectuals, 143-5, I97 ff. ;
'socially unattached intelligentsia',
22
Internalization, 78-9, 131, I49-
93 ff. (see also Socialization);
and identity (see Identity) ;
and psychology 199; and
social structure, 183-93
Intimacy, 47-S, 55· See also
Friends
Isolation. See Solitariness
Kings (see also Despotism;
Monarchs); divine kingship,
121
Kinship, 90, no-I3 ff., I22. See
also Families; specific re­
lationships
'Knowledge', I3 ff.
Labour, 1S, 75. See also Division
of labour; Roles ; specific
activities
Language, 36, 39-40, 49-61,
82, 92-3, 207 (see also Conversation;
Vocabulary); children
(primary socialization)
and, 77, 153, 155, 157, 189;
and secondary socialization,
I5S-9, I6I ; and sedimentation
and tradition, 85-7;and social
classification, 120
'Latent' functions, 23
Law, the, 93, 94, 202
'Law of the three stages', 227
'Leaping', 39
Learning. See Education; Socia­
lization
Legends, 1 12. See also Mytho­
logy
Legitimation, 79, S2-3, 87 ff.,
102, I Io-46, 195 tf., 207 ff.
(see also Theories); and alternation,
179; and primary
SUBJECT INDEX
Legitimation-cont.
socialization, 155; and subuniverses,
I05, Io6
Life expectancy, 202
Logic, 82, xoo, I95-6
Longevity, 202
Macroscopic societies, 9S
Madness, madmen (insanity),
39, I I6, I76
Magic, 51, 95
'Making present', language and,
54-5
'Manifest' functions, 23
Man in the street, the, 13 ff., 107
Marginal situations, n4, n6,
I IS-19, 167, I6S, 175
'Market of worlds', 232
Marriage, 107-S (see also Children
; Families) ; interfaith,
I72
Maxims, I I2
Mediators, 94
Medicine, 103, 105; hospitalization,
IS2
Medieval society, I29, 139-40
Mediterranean societies, 126
Memory. See History; Recollec-
tion
Mental deficiency, 1S5
Methodology, 25-6
Middle Ages. See Medieval
society
Minority groups. See Deviance
Monarchs, 94; divine kingship,
121
Monopolism, 138-42
Motivations, 150, 179-So
Mysticism. See Religion
Mythology, 101, I I7 ff., 122,
t26, 127-9, 195· See also
Cosmology; Divinity; Gods ;
Symbolic universes
Names, 152
'Negotiation', face-to-face, 45-6
Neurosis, 19S ff.
New generation, 76, 77, 79,
I I 1, 124. See also Children;
Successors ; Tradition ; Nightmare,
I I9. See also Dreams ;
Marginal situations
Nihilation, 130, 132-3, 144,
I76, 179
Nomenclature, 152
Norms, I52-3
Nudity, 167-8
Nutrition. See Eating
Objectivation, 34, 49 ff., 7S ff.
See also Legitimation ; specific
areas, types of objectiva­
tion
Objective reality, 65-146, 153,
I83, 184. See also Secondary
socialization
Occupations, 56, ISI, 1S2. See
alsoDivision oflabour; Roles;
Specialists and specialization ;
specific activities
Organism, 65-70, 201-4 See also
Biology
Orgasm, 202
'Other-direction', 232
Outsiders, 104-5. See also Deviance;
Foreigners
Parents, I6I, I62, 1S2 (see also
Children; Primary socialization;
Significant others); and
unsuccessful socialization,
IS7 ff.
THI! SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF RI!ALITY
Past, the. See Biography; History;
Tradition
Paternity, 76
'Pathology', 131, 1S3, 202
Peer groups, 190
'Permanent reflectiveness', 232
Personality development, 117.
See also Identity
Phenomenological analysis, 34
Philosophers, philosophy, 13 ff.,
25, 55, 2II. See also Theories
Plausibility. See Legitimation
Play, 39
Pluralistic societies, 142 ff., 165,
172, 193
Politics, political institutions,
94. 121, 140, 142, 17S, 200
Possession. See Demonic pos-
session
Power, 127, 133, 137, 139 ff.
'Practico-inert', 225
Pragmatism, 53, 56-7, 136 ff.
Predecessors, 4S. See also History;
Tradition
Predictability, 74-5
Prestige, 105, I6o
Priests, 102-3, 165
Primary socialization, 149-57
ff., 167 ff., 199, 203; and unsuccessful
socialization, 1S4
ff.
Primitive societies, 9S, 117, 120,
139. See also Subsistence
economies
Programmes, institutional. See
Institutionalization
'Projection', 227
Propaganda, 101, 105
Pseudo-pragmatism, 137
Psychiatry, uS, 196
Psychoanalysis, 166, 210
242
Psychologies, psychological
phenomena, 69, 71, 75, S2,
I I4, II7, 195-200, 208 ff.
'Psychopathy', 230
Psychotherapy,.178
Puberty rites. See Initiation
'Real factors', 20
Realfaktoren, 20
'Reality', 13 ff.
'Reality-oriented', 196
'Reality principle', 233
'Reality sui generis', 30
Recipe knowledge, 57, S3. See
also Routines
Recollection, S5, III, 175· See
also Tradition
Reference-group theory, 23
Reification, 1o6-9, 208, 209
'Relationism', 22
'Relative-natural world view',
20
'Relativism', 22, 2S
Relativnatiirliche Weltanschauung,
2o
Relevances, 59-00, 75, So, S1,
94, 95, 97, 99· See also
Institutionalization
Religion, 37, 39, 55, 88, 91, 164,
16S, 179, 18o, 207 (see also
Mythology; specific religions);
andconversation, I73;
conversion 177-8o; and monopolies,
140; nihilation and,
133
'Reorientation', 42
'Resentment', 19
'Responsibility', 14
Revolution, revolutionaries,
144-s. 164, 165
SUBJI!CT INDEX
Rites of passage, 117. See also
Initiation
Rituals, 159, 176. See also
Initiation
Roles, 74 ff., S3, S9-96 ff.,
110 ff., 192 (see also Alter·
nation; Identity; Significant
others; Specialists and specialization;
specific roles);
reification of, 10S
Routines, 38, 56-7, 76, 16S-75,
176. See also Institutionalization;
Roles
Sanctions, So, 175
Science, 55, 104, 1o6, II3, 114,
130, 194 ff. See also specific
disciplines
'Seat in life', 19
Secondary socialization, 157-
66 ff., 191-2, 199, 203
Sectet societies, I02. See also
Specialists and specialization
Sects, religious, 144
Sedhnentation, S5-9
Segmentation, institutional, 99IOO,
I02 ff.
Segregation, I02 ff., I39-40, I7S
Seinsgebundenheit, r6
Self, the, 6S, 73, 90-91 (see also
Biography; Identity; Roles;
Socialization; Subjective reality);
reification of, xoS
Semanticzones ofmeaning, 55-6
Sexuality, sex, 67, �3, 75, So-SI
94-5, Ioi, 13I ff., 202; and
conversation, 173; masturbation
and, I57; overcoming
satiety, 204; programme for
boys and girls, 156; and unsuccessful
socialization, ISS
Significant others, 151 ff., I69-
72, ISo; conversation and,
I7S; and discrepancies between
primary and secondary
socialization, IS7 ff.
Signs, sign systems, so-sx ff.,
55, Ss ff. See also Language
'Situational determination', I9
Sitz im Leben, 19
Sleeping, 203
Snarling, 51
Social classes, 120, 13S ff., 151,
157, 158, ISI, 182, 1S4 ff., 202.
Seealso Experts
Socialization, 149-82 ff. (see also
Identity; Primary socialization;
Secondary socialization);
success, lack of success
in, IS3-93
'Socially unattached intelligentsia',
22
Social sciences, 25, 101, 104,
20S ff.
Sociology, 207 ff.
'Sociology of knowledge', 15 ff.
'Sociosomatics', 233
Solidarity, 141
Solitariness, 69 ff. ; anomie
terror, r 19, 121
Sosein, 20
Spatial structure of life, 40
Specialists and specialization,
95 ff., 1 12-13, u8 ff. Seealso
Divisionoflabour; Secondary
socialization; Theories;specific
activities
Species, 65
Speech. See Conversation; Lan­
guage
Standortsgebundenheit, 19
Stigmatization, 1S4-7
243
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
Stock ofknowledge, 56-60, 135,
I57. See also Roles; Socialization;
Theories; Tradition
Sttangers. See Foreigners
Stream of consciousness, 40
Structural-functional theory, 23
Stupidity, 87. See also Mental
deficiency
Subjective reality, 147-204 (see
also Biography); identitytheories,
194-204 ; maintenance
and transform�tion of, 166-
82 ; and social structure, 183-
93
Subsistence economy, 99, 102.
See also Primitive societies
Subsocieties, 143-5, 189
'Substructure'/superstructure,
18, 20, 224
Subuniverses, 102-6, 145
Subworlrls, 158
Successors, 48. See also Children;
New generation; Tradi­
tion
Surplus. See Economic surplus
Symbolic-interactionist school,
29
Symbolic universes, 1 1o-46,
159, 195, 208; maintenance
of, 122-46
Symbols, symbolism, 55, 88,
93-4, 105. See also Symbolic
universes; specific symbols,
types of symbols
Symptomatology, 131
Syntax, 55
Taboos, 1 76. See also Incest
'Tacit understandings', 158
'Taking over' the social world,
150
244
Talking. See Conversation;
Language
Temporality (and time), 4o-42,
149. 150, 196, 203
Territoriality, 75
Terror, 1 16, 1 19, 121. See also
Marginal situations
Theatre, 39. See also Drama
Theology. See Religion
Theories, theorizing, 38, 39, 40,
83, 99, 103-4, I 12 ff., 208.
Seealso Legitimation; Specialists;
Symbolic universes;
Weltanschauung
Therapy, 13o-34, 144, 179, 188,
197
Time. See Temporality
'Total social fact', 209
Tradition, 85-9, I I I, 125, 128,
135 ff. See also History; New
generation; Stock of knowledge;
specific traditions
Transcendence, language and,
54-5
Transformations, 176-82, 200.
See also Alternation
'Treason', self-, 190
Types,typifications, 45-8, 53-4,
58, 81, 87, 88, 120, 138 ff. (see
also Roles; specific roles); and
identity, 194-5, 199, reciprocal,
72-6
'Understanding', 150
Universes, 1 1o-46. See also
Cosmology; Symbolic universes;
Weltanschauung
UnterbaufUeberbau. See 'Sub-
structure/superstructure'
Urban societies, 141, 143· See
SUBJECT INDEX
Urban-cont.
also Industrial societies; Pluralistic
societies
'Utopian' thought, 22
'Values', I I1. Seealso Legitima-
tion
Verdinglichung. See Reification
Violence, 121
Virility, 204. See also Sexuality
Vocabulary, 36, 51, 84, 90, 1 12,
158
Vocal expressions, 51-3
Vomiting, 202
Waiting, 4o-41
Weltanschauung, 20, 26-7, 103,
1 1 7, 1 19
Western civilization, 156, 210
Wissenssoziologie, 15
Women, 1 87-8 (see also Sexuality),
as mothers (see Children;
Significant others)
World-openness, 65, 67, 69, 121
World views, 96. See also Wel­
tanschauung
245
Name Index for Introduction and Notes
Antoni, Carlo 2I6 n. 9
Aries, Philippe, 230 n. I3
Aron, Raymond, 216 n. rr,
n. 12, 228 n. 90
Banb, Hans, 215 n. 3
Bell, Daniel, 2I7 n. 20
Benedict, Ruth, 220 n. 8
Berger, Brigitte, 227 n. 85
Berger, Peter L., 2I9 n. I, 222
n. 26, 225 n. 58, 226 n. 65,
229 n. IOS, 231 n. 2I, n. 24,
232 n. 29, 233 n. 39, n. 42
Bergson, Henri, 233 n. 47
Birnbaum, Norman, 2I7 n. 20
Bultmann, Rudolf, 228 n. 88
Buytendijk, F. J. J., 2I9 n. I
Calvez, Jean-Yves, 215 n. 6
Cooley, Charles Horton, 230
n. 6, 23I n. 20
Cory, Donald W., 232 n. 36
Cuvillier, Armand, 225 n. 59
DeGre, Gerard L., 2I7 n. 24
Diltbey, Wilhelm, I9, 22, 216
n. 9
Durkbeim, Emile, 18, 28, 30,
218 n. 27, 221 n.13, n. IS,
n. 23, n. 24, 222 n. 27, 223
D. 38, D. 39, n. 40, n. 44, n. 46,
225 n. 59, 226 n. 69, n. 71,
227 n. 75, n. 79, 228 n. 9I,
n. 96, 23I n. 26, 233 n. 48
Eliade, Mircea, 226 n. 63, 228
n. 88, n.89
Engels, Friedrich, 233 n. 44
Festinger, Leon, 228 n. 94, 232
n. 28
Fetscher, Iring, .215 n. 6
Feuerbach, Ludwig, 227 n. 8o
Freidson, Eliot, 232 n. 31
Freud, Sigmund, 216 n. 8, 220
n. 9, 227 n. So, 233 n. 46, n. 48
Freyer, Hans, 2I6 n. 1 1
Ga�l, Joseph, 225 n. 58
Gehlen, Arnold, 28, 219 n. r,
n. 3, 221 n. 16, n. 18, n. 19,
n. 22, 223 n. so, n. SI, 227
n. 87, 232 n. 38
Geiger, Theodor, 23-4, 217 n.
r8, 228 n. 90
Gerth, Hans H., 231 n. r8,
232 n. 33
Goffman, Erving, 226 n. 73,
230 n. IS, 231 n. I9, 232
n. 27, n. 35
Goldmann, Lucien, 225 n. 58
GrUnwald, Ernst, 216 n.n
Gurvitch, Georges, 217 n. 24
247
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
Halbwachs, Maurice, 227 n. 77
Hall, Edward T., 233 n. 45
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich,
22I n. 15, 222 n. 33
Heidegger, Martin, 226 n. 74
Heimsoeth, Heinz, 215 n. 2
Hughes, Everett, 231 n. 16
Hughes, H. Stuart, 216 n. 9
Hunter, Edward, 232 n. 27
Husser!, Edmund, 222 n. 34,
0. 35
Huszar, George B. de, 228 n. 90
Kardiner, A., 232 n. 35
Kaufmann, Walter A., 2I5 n. 7
Kautsky, Karl, 2I5 n. 6
Kellner, Hansfried, 219 n. I,
222 n. 26, 23I n. 2I
Kelsen, Hans, 2I7 n. I9
Kluckhohn, Clyde, 220 n. 8
Kolakowski, Leszek, 229 n. I07
Labriola, Antonio, 215 n. 6
Lampert, Evgenil, 229 n. I06
Landshut, Siegfried, 216 n. 1 1
Lapassade, Georges, 218 n. 25
Leeuw, Gerardus van der, 228
n. 88
Lenk, Kurt, 2I5 n. 3, 217 n. 20,
228 n. 100
Levi-Strauss, Claude, 222 n. 3I,
226 n. 62, 227 n. 76, 230 n. 8
Levy-Bruhl, Lucien, 223 n. 44,
225 n. 62, 227 n. 87, 230 n. 12
Lieber, Hans-Joachim, 2I6 n.
ro, 217 n. 12, n. 13
Litman, Theodor J., 232 n. 3I
Lowith, Karl, 2I6 n. 7
Luckmann, Thomas, 2I9 n. I,
229 n. I02, 232 n. 29, 233
n. 38, n. 39
248
Lukacs, Gyorgy, 2I5 n. 6, 225
n. 58
Malinowski, Bronislaw, 220 n.
8, 226 n. 74
Mannheim, Karl,20-24, 26, 216
n. 12, 224 n. 56, 228 n. 90,
229 n. 103, n. 106
Maquet, Jacques J., 216 n.12
Marx, Karl, 17-19, 20, 2I, 22,
28-9, 215 n. 5, n. 6, 220 n. 7,
221 n. 12, 222 n. 15, n. 29,
223 n. 46, n. 48, 224 n. 54,
n. 56, 225 n. 58, n. 61, 226
n. 68, 227 n. So, n. 84, 229
n. 101, 233 n. 44
Mauss, Marcel, 233 n. 45
Mead, George Herbert, 29, 220
n. 6, n. to, 221 n. 22, 222
n. 36, n. 37, 226 n. 73, 229
n. 3, 230 n.6
Mead, Margaret, 220 n. 8
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 233
n. 47
Merton, Robert, 23, 216 n. 12,
2I7 n. 14, n. 24, 231 n. 23,
232 n. 30
Mills, C. Wright, 23, 217 n. I7,
23I n. I8, 232 n. 33
Monncrot, Jules, 225 n. 59
Murdock, George, 220 n. 8
Natanson, Maurice, 219 n. r,
220 n. 6
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm,
I9, 2I5-I6 n. 7, n. 8, 227 n. So
Ovesey, L., 232 n. 35
Pareto, Vilfredo, IS, 220 n.7,
222 n. 30, 226 n. 67, n. 68,
227 n. 85, 228 n. 9I
NAME INDEX
Parsons, Talcott, 23, 29, 2I7
n. I5, n. I6, 218 n. 26, 223
n. 45, n. 46, 23I n. I7
Pascal, Blaise, I7
Piaget, Jean, 222 n. 25, 226
n. 62, 227 n. 87, 230 n. 1 I,
n. 12, 233 n. 47
Plessner, Helmuth, 28, 219 n. I,
n. 3, 220 D. I I, 230 n. IO, 233
n. 48
Popitz, Heinrich, 221 n. 21
Portmann, Adolf, 2I9 n. I, 220
n. 4• n. 5
Pullberg, Stanley, 225 n. 58, 226
n. 65
Radin, Paul, 228 n. 97
Riesman, David, 231 n. I9, 232
n. 30
Rose, Arnold, 217 n. 25, 232
n. 31
Roth, Julius A., 232 n. 31
Salomon, Albert, 215 n. 3
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 22o-21 n. u,
223 n. 42, 225 n. 6o, n. 61,226
n. 64, n. 69, 229 n. 4
Scheler, Max, I6, 19-20, 21 tf.,
26, 2I5 n. I, 2I6 n. IO, 220
n. I I, 228 n. 95
Schelsky, Helmut, 232 n. 38
Schelting, Alexander von, 216
n. I I
Schutz, Alfred, 27-8, 217 n. 22,
n. 2j, 219 n. I, 221 n. 17,
222 n. 32, n. 34, n. 35, 223
n. 4I, 226 n. 69, n. 72, n. 74,
227 n. 78, 229 n. x, 233 n. 47
Seidel, Alfred, 2I6 n. 8
Shibutani, Tamotsu, 2I7 n. 25
Simmel, Georg, 221 n. 23, 223
n. 49, 229 n. I04, 230 n. xo,
23I n. 22, 233 n. 45
Sorokin, Pitirim, 23
Spann, Othmar, 233 n. 40
Stark, Werner, 24, 2I5 n. 3,
216 n. IO, 2I7 n. 12, n. 2I
Strauss, Anselm, 220 n. 6, 226
n. 73
Tenbruck, Friedrich, 218 n. 25,
221 n. 21, 222 n. 30, 231 n.
21, 232 n. 33
Thomas, W. 1., 22I n. 20
Tonnies, Ferdinand, 223 n. 46
Topitsch, Ernst, 24, 2I7 n. I9
Uexkilll, Jakob von, 2I9 n. I,
n. 2
Veblen, Thorstein, 229 n. IOI,
n.I04
Voegelin, Eric, 223 n. 45, 226
n. 63, 228 n. 89, n. 96
Weber Alfred, 22
Weber, Max, IS, 29, 30, 216
n. II, 2I8 n. 28, 222 n. 27,
223 n. 46, 224 n. 54, 226 n.
66, 227 n. 8I, 228 n. 93, n. 95,
n. 98, n. 99, 229 n. I
Windelband, Wilhelm, 2I5 n. 2
Wolff, Kurt, 216 n. 12
Znaniecki, Florian, 228 n. 90
249