Food For Thought

In Critical and Effective Histories, Dean is examining how Sociology has failed over the years to embrace historical analysis in its attempts to understand the characteristic social relations of modernity. He accuses sociological theory of ignoring the elements of history that pose difficulties to generalisation. The book is based on what the writings of Foucault -who Dean describes as a philosophical history who studied the history of thought – may have to offer the historical sense of sociology.

Historical analysis, in so far as it is regarded as dealing with the understanding of contingent events, different cycles and temporalities, and diverse and irreducible diachronic processes, stands at the margins of this science of historical movement. (p8)

According to Dean, Philip Abrams wrote in 1980 that sociology and history where involved in much the same activity and they are ‘methodologically indistinguishable’.

Historical sociology now becomes the study of both the structure-forming practices of human actors, and the enabling/constraining effects of those structures upon their actions. (p10)

Foucault was not a fan of hermeneutic or semiotics, distancing himself from these studies, saying that the endless interpretation of signs “dooms us to an endless task nothing can limit”. (p16)  His method treats social facts as ‘things’ which can be examined in a process he calls ‘archaeology’.

In rejecting the naive positivism that imagines history concerns itself with showing what it really was, Foucault replaces it with a sophisticated and rarefied form that insists on the irreducibility of the discursive order and the contents that appear within it. […] Instead of seeking to use documents to reconstruct the historical reality that lies behind and beyond them, Foucault asserts that the problem is to bring the positive reality of discourse into focus and attempt the description of its systems of formation. (p17)

The Social Construction of Reality is rooted in a sociological interest in the concepts of Reality and Knowledge. Berger and Luckmann argue that from a sociological perspective this interest is justified by the social relativity of these concepts.  Berger and Luckman say,  “What is ‘real’ to a Tibetan monk may not be ‘real’ to an American Businessman.  The ‘knowledge’ of the criminal differs from the ‘knowledge’ of the criminologist.  It follows that specific agglomerations of ‘reality’ and ‘knowledge’ pertain to specific social contexts, and that these relationships will have to be included in an adequate sociological analysis of these contexts.” (p15)

Berger and Luckmann believe that the sociology of knowledge should be concerned with a society’s criteria of knowledge and how this is developed.  Their postpositivist stance is clearly laid out when they write of how members of society arrange their world view around their ‘here and now’, both originating and maintaining their ideas of reality and knowledge from their own thoughts and actions (and other significants in their life) rather than anything truly objective.

The world of everyday life is not only taken for granted as reality by the ordinary members of society in the subjectively meaningful conduct of their lives.  It is a world that originates in their thoughts and actions, and is maintained as real by these. (p 33)

Berger and Luckmann believe that semiotics or signification is the primary means by which human beings categorise their subjective view of the world.  They define a sign as anything that has an “explicit intention to serve as an index of subjective meaning.” (p50)   These include gestures, body language, material artefacts, and the most important is language, which they say may be defined as “a series of vocal signs”.

Language provides me with a ready-made possibility for the ongoing objectification of my unfolding experience. (p53)

Berger and Luckmann believe that society and social order are solely products of human activity, and that social norms and rules are a man-made, rather than natural, process.

Society is a human product. Society is an objective reality.  Man is a social product. (p79)

Because of this social construction, members of a society or ‘institution’ who were involved in the construction of the social norms are much more likely to conform to their constraints. Social disorder generally comes from new members of society that were not part of the construction. In order to properly ‘socialise’ new members of the society, sanctions must be put in place to prevent them from breaking the rules.

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 process 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 socialisation into the institutional order requires the establishment of sanctions. (p80)

Institutional segregation causes the formation of “socially segregated sub-universes of meaning”.  These sub-universes can be structured based on criteria such as sex, age, occupation or religion. Each sub-universe has it’s own structured values, norms, rules and barriers to entry.  Berger and Luckmann give the example of the medical profession as a sub-universe and the various mechanics in place to keep non-medical professions following the instructions of doctors and to keep doctors from resorting to unapproved conduct like religious or homeopathic healing.

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 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 of keeping 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 practical and theoretical procedures by which the temptation to escape from the sub-universe can be checked. (p104-105)

On the topic of revolution and revolutionary leaders Berger and Luckmann say that often a group will take on an ideological doctrine because it has gain for them and people of their status in society.  Involvement in such a group provides them with solidarity and legitimation for their cause.   The revolutionary leader likewise must have others who agree with him and help to maintain the subjective plausibility of his ideology in his own mind.  Practical success of the ideology fortifies the reality it possesses for the leader and the group as a whole.

 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 modern living. The ideological ‘gain’ of such a doctrine for the peasants is obvious. […] Every group engaged in social conflict requires solidarity.  Ideologies generate solidarity.  The choice of a particular ideology is not necessarily based on its intrinsic theoretical elements, but may stem from a chance encounter. (p141-142)

Growing Up Digital is a positive, if slightly hyperbolic, account of the youth of what Tapscott terms the Net Generation.  Tapscott defines the Net Generation as a generation who were between the ages of 2 and 22 in 1999 and “the first to grow up surrounded by digital media”.  By my calculations that would make them between 15 and 35 now in 2012, which means he is essentially talking about my generation, except it’s not really representative at all.  I would hazard a guess that while most of the statements he makes here may well apply to me, I am the very definition of an early adopter and growing up in the 80s and 90s I never even used a computer until I was eleven years old, so I doubt they apply to even 10% of the people I grew up with. Part of this discrepancy is likely that whereas Tapscott is talking about young people in the USA, I grew up in Ireland where most people couldn’t get access to the Internet, even if they did want it, up until five or ten years ago.  Looking at the figures for 1998 (the year the book was written) only 18.6% of Irish households had a PC (cso.ie, 1998) – that’s not even an Internet connection, just a PC. Even in the UK only 34% of households had a PC (statistics.gov.uk, 2008).

Tapscott admits that he is talking about a small group of early adopters, even by US standards on the pretext that they will inform us on the widespread future adoption by the rest of their generation. Taking that at face value, from this research we can probably deduce more about people who fall into a demographic 5-10 years younger than what is described in the book. With that said, the book offers some interesting insights into a generation that has had a completely different experience of the knowledge continuum compared to previous generations.

In researching the book Tapscott collaborated with over 300 young people.  This research was carried out online over one year on especially dedicated forums. Tapscott also interviews with parents, business leaders, cyber gurus and policy makers and draws on demographic work and market research conducted by the Alliance for Converging Technologies think tank.

According to Tapscott, the main thing that separates the Net Generation from previous generations is that they are more comfortable with technology and more digitally literate than their parents’ generation (the Baby Boomers).  They are at the crux of social transformation because of the way that they communicate, play, shop, learn, work and create communities online.   The kids are out in front, leading the pack and the adults are struggling to catch up and implement educational and social strategies that take digital media into consideration. They are in the midst of a paradigm shift in which the knowledge hierarchy is being flipped on its head. For the first time children are the authorities on something and have valuable skills to teach their parents.

 Stories about six-year-olds programming new VCRs after their parents’ unsuccessful efforts are now cliché. A newer version is the 14-year-old girl whose parents recently asked her to install Net Nanny software on the family computer to keep Internet pornography out of the house.  Of course, her parents are oblivious to the fact that if she sets up the system, she then controls it. ( p36)

Traits that apply to the NGen personality include curiosity, assertiveness, self-reliance and acceptance of diversity.  Tapscott portrays them as active-minded individuals who want to engage in dialogue through their digital media.  They want to be users, rather than viewers.  To them the television is out-dated, in that it does not allow for interaction.

 While N-Geners understand the basic operation of spatial distances, as did previous generations, they appear to lack appreciation of global distances.  They may be the first generation with a truly global perspective.  The world to them is (to use a term of Nicholas Negroponte) “the size of the head of a pin”. (p101)

This generation is more aware of a global context, they think in hypertext – to them everything is linked somehow and the computer augments their thinking, freeing their mind from linear thought. Although he does not go as far as to say it is value-free, Tapscott believes that the Internet has greater neutrality than traditional media.  Kids can control their own world on the Net leading to a greater capacity for questioning, challenging and diversity of opinion. Unlike the TV, the Net provides children with the capacity to develop and learn while also having fun.  Tapscott believes that when kids control their media they develop faster, so the Net Generation has accelerated development.

 Conventional wisdom took a beating in the spring of 1996 when Harvard students effectively challenged their administration’s million-dollar contract wit PepsiCo which would have given the soft drink manufacturer exclusive beverage rights on campus.  The challenge came about as a direct result of a 1993 notice placed on the Internet by university students in Canada. The notice examined PepsiCo’s holdings in Burma [Myanmar….] calls for a boycott of Pepsi products were renewed on university and college campuses all over the continent.  In January 1997, PepsiCo announced its full disengagement from Burma. (p283)

Ideologically, the NGen value independence, individualism, privacy, tolerance, equality, social justice, and freedom of expression and the oppose censorship, and discrimination.  They trust their future only to themselves, trusting their own judgement and abilities but worrying about the wider world and economy and how it will affect their future.  They mistrust government and elites and value a good education although their primary focus is not making money. They value being connected to others and have a strong sense of collective social and civic responsibility and strong opinions on social issues.   The Internet has become the vehicle for questioning and protest of this generation, much as the Baby Boomer generation protested on the streets in the 60s.

 We can already see this in nascent social movements around the world, from the media guerrillas organizing to expose unethical corporations that are pushing smoking or anorexia or exploiting child labor, to the surging students in Serbia working to topple a bankrupt and authoritarian regime.  The Net is their vehicle for revolution – their tract, megaphone, teach-in, bookstore, fundraising event, demonstration, makeshift stage, and war room all in one. (p300)