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The social construction of reality is a core
concept in sociology - one that unnerves Christians
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probably more than any other.
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What does it mean?
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The social construction of reality refers
to the process whereby people continuously
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create, through their actions and interactions,
a shared reality that is experienced as objectively
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factual and subjectively meaningful.
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In other words, the social world is not simply
given, it is not natural, it is not revealed,
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it is not even fully determined – it’s
made, and made up by people.
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It is transmitted by people.
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What we have not learned from our own senses,
our own intuition or our own reason, we have
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learned directly from other human beings.
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So, 95 percent of what we know we have simply
accepted from what other people have told
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us.
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Even what our own senses and intuition and
reason tell us is highly shaped by what other
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people have told us.
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For example, what counts as “reason.”
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The social world could therefore be otherwise;
it could be altered.
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The social reality in which humans live is
not inevitable, it is not natural.
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It can be scary to ponder the possibility
that our reality isn’t “real,” but it
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can also be liberating.
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We can literally change the world.
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It can be deconstructed and reconstructed
as it has been continuously throughout history.
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The sociological question is not, “What
is real?”
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nor even “How do we know what is real?”
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The sociological question is, “How does
anything come to be accepted as real?”
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And there are three phases to the process.
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The first is externalization: the process
whereby individuals, by their own human activity,
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create their social worlds.
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They put what is inside of them out there
into social space.
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Our environment consists of both a physical
environment, which we call “nature” (which
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is given to humans), and a social environment,
which we call “culture” (which is created
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by humans).
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Furthermore, culture can be divided into material
culture – our tools and technology, such
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as axes and microchips – and our non-material
culture, which is an abstract order consisting
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of our beliefs, our values, our norms, etcetera.
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Rivers are nature.
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Roads are material culture.
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But humans can even turn nature into material
culture by the meanings we attach to nature;
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by the uses we make of nature.
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For example, we can turn rivers into playgrounds,
into transportation routes, into disposal
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dumps, into political boundaries, into sources
of hydropower, into sacred spaces, etcetera.
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So, our total environment consists of nature
and culture, and it can be broken down into
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the following facts: it consists of natural
facts like mountain and muskrats, it consists
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of technological facts such as hammers and
highways, institutional facts like money and
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marriage, normative facts like freedom and
fulfilment.
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Note that these facts constitute increasing
levels of dependency – some facts are dependent
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on humans, and others are not dependent on
humans.
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Mountains are not dependent on human beings
at all; mountains would exist even if humans
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did not exist.
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But hammers would not exist if humans did
not – hammers are entirely dependent.
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They consist of increasing levels of abstraction.
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Some facts are less physical and more abstract.
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A hammer has more physicality than money.
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Some forms of money don’t even have any
physicality at all – it’s just debt, it’s
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just in theory.
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Money can correspond to many things, but a
hammer is always only just a hammer.
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Normative facts have absolutely no physicality
whatsoever.
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There’s also an increasing level of meaningfulness.
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As things become more dependent on us for
their existence, they become more meaningful
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to us.
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Freedom is more meaningful to us than a hammer,
more meaningful to us than money.
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And finally, there’s an imposed order.
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As things become more dependent, abstract
and meaningful, we impose more order on them.
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Marriage is more ordered than hammers are.
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We impose order even where there is none,
then create an entire meaning system around
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that order.
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For example, skin colour is a continuum.
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We impose the order of race and create racism.
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Note that because meaning is functionally
dependent, abstract and ordered, it is contingent
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and precarious; it can be changed.
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Because it’s not attached to anything.
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It’s a whim of history.
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Why are people willing to kill or die for
meanings such as religion?
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Why?
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Because it does not come to us as contingent
or precarious or unstable.
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It is presented to us as a hard reality through
the process of objectivation.
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Precarious meaning must be made to appear
stable, unquestionable, taken for granted.
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Externalization – that which we humans externalize
– are made into objective reality that has
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consequences for us because it acts back on
us; it coerces its creators.
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Objectivation is the process whereby individuals
apprehend everyday life as an ordered, prearranged
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reality that imposes itself upon, but is seemingly
independent of human beings.
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How’s that possible?
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Well – that’s a result of four things.
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Institutionalization occurs when meaningful
behaviours become routinized or habitual.
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Historicity: as generations come and go, the
institutional world “thickens” and “hardens.”
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Legitimation: all meanings are given either
a cognitive or a moral basis that will explain
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and justify the meaning.
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And the most powerful form of legitimation
– one of many kinds – but probably the
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most powerful form is religion.
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To say that “God says” legitimates it
stronger than any other legitimation that
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we have.
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So, for example, religion places the source
of meaning beyond the human realm as a given,
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eternal truth to be discovered – not just
an optional belief that was created.
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Religion defines deviance as evil, not just
alternative; it allows us to threaten deviance
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with eternal damnation.
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Religion enables people to feel an ultimate
sense of righteousness; it dissolves all our
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doubts about the correctness of our behaviours
and our feelings.
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And religion integrates all of life by making
sense of everything.
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The fourth form of objectivation is language
– meaning becomes embedded in language.
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Language exists outside of each one of us,
therefore it’s an objective social entity.
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Third phase, internalization: The process
whereby individuals learn the legitimations
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of the institutional order.
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We carry culture around in our heads.
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We let culture define who we are.
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And so, reality is socially constructed.
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Here’s a summary: Society is a human product
(externalization); society is an objective
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reality (objectivation); and humans are a
social product.
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One other concept –
reification – is the apprehension of the
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products of human activity as if they were
something other than human products – such
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as facts of nature, or results of cosmic laws,
or manifestation of divine will.
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Reification implies that humans are capable
of forgetting their own authorship of the
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human world, and further that the dialectic
between humans the producers and their products
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is lost to consciousness.
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In other words, the human-made world is explained
in terms that deny its human production.
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Three types of realities: Based on a reality’s
verifiability (objective versus subjective)
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and its dependency on the human mind (independent
or dependent).
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Natural realities are independent and objective
– they are not dependent on human mental
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activities.
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All the physical facts of the universe exist
in reality independent of any human activity
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and they enable us to form some knowledge
of reality beyond our social constructions.
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We learn that we cannot fly – at least not
without the machines we construct that enable
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us to fly.
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Personal realities are dependent and subjective
– beliefs held by persons that are real
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to those who hold them, but that have not
been socially institutionalized.
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In other words, they are mental dependent
because their existence depends on human cognitions,
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but they’re also subjective because they
exist only in the minds of those who hold
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them.
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Such as someone’s belief that they can actually
fly.
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Social realities are dependent and objective
– beliefs that are shared and have been
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institutionalized via externalization, objectivation
and internalization.
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All of culture – non-material culture, material
culture – are social realities.
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Other realities – independent of the human
mind and subjective – cannot be known.
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They can be postulated, but as soon as they
are postulated, they immediately become mind-dependent
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and social.
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So, concepts of the supernatural or the super-personal
or the super-social; concepts of God.
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All human knowledge is conceptually mediated
and influenced by socio-cultural factors.
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We enculturate even rivers – we turn rivers
into culture.
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But three dimensions of reality are entirely
socially constructed: Technological, institutional
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and normative facts.
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Humans construct roads, not rivers.
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But we construct the meanings of rivers, even
if not the rivers themselves.
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Conclusions.
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Practical embodied activity in the material
world is part of human knowing and being.
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Some human existence cannot be reduced to
cognition, or to language, or to socially-constructed
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knowledge.
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The need to eat, the need to breathe, the
need to avoid defying gravity is knowledge
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that we derive directly from nature.
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People do not live only in a world of ideas
or concepts or meanings.
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As Kundera said, “I think, therefore I am
is the statement of an intellectual who underrates
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toothaches.”
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Humans do not socially construct all reality,
but rather primarily their beliefs about reality.
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Beliefs are not substitutes for the things
that beliefs are about, such as what a toothache
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means.
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And it comes down to the physical nature given
by God compared to the social culture constructed
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by humans.
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So, perhaps the best conclusion is to say
the social construction of social reality
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– the technological, the institutional,
the normative.
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Francis Bacon’s notion of “Two Books”
remains helpful: God’s world as general
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revelation given directly to humans by God,”
and God’s word as special revelation given
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indirectly to humans by God but through other
humans (and to that extent is socially constructed).
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That’s why some trust God’s world more
than God’s word, because they trust the
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messages in divinely constructed physical
nature more than the messages in humanly constructed
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texts.
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I’ve given only a brief description of the
social construction of reality – not any
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valuation or critique of it.
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For that, you should take Social Science and
Christianity – pardon the plug.
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Final question: Is God a mind-independent,
objective fact or a mind-dependent social
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construction?
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My beliefs about God are clearly social constructions.
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My faith is that the reality of God lies beyond
those constructions.
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Thank you.
