Why study sociology?
(From Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective
Peter L. Berger Anchor Books 1963, pp. 1-24 -- gender modified)
The sociologist . . . is someone concerned with understanding
society in a disciplined way.
S/he will naturally be interested in the events that engage
people's ultimate beliefs, their moments of tragedy
and grandeur and ecstasy. But s/he will also be fascinated
by the commonplace, the everyday.
What interests us is the curiousity that grips any sociologist
in front of a closed door behind which
there are human voices. If s/he is a good sociologist,
s/he will want to open that door, to understand
those voices. Behind each closed door s/he will anticipate
some new facet of human life not yet
perceived and understood.
The fascination of sociology lies in the fact that its perspective
makes us see in a new light
the very world in which we have lived all our lives.
[T]here is a deceptive simplicity and obviousness about some
sociological investigations.
One reads them, nods at the familiar scene, remarks that one
has heard all this before
and don't people have better things to do than to waste their
time on truisms--until one is suddenly
brought up against an insight that radically questions everything
one had previously assumed about this
familiar scene. This is the point at which one begins
to sense the excitement of sociology.
It can be said that the first wisdom of sociology is this--things
are not what they seem.
This too is a deceptively simple statement. It ceases
to be simple after a while.
Social reality turns out to have many layers of meaning.
The discovery of each new layer changes the perception of the
whole.
People who like to avoid shocking discoveries, who prefer to
believe that society is just what
they were taught in Sunday School, who like the safety of the
rules and the maxims of what Alfred
Schuetz has called the "world-taken-for-granted," should stay
away from sociology.
People who feel no temptation before closed doors, who have
no curiousity about human beings,
who are content to admire scenery without wondering about the
people who live in those houses on the
other side of that river, should probably stay away from sociology.
They will find it unpleasant or,
at any rate, unrewarding.
People who are interested in human beings only if they can change,
convert or reform them should
also be warned, for they will find sociology much less useful
than they hoped. And people whose interest
is mainly in their own conceptual constructions will do just
as well to turn to the study of little white mice.
Sociology will be satisfying, in the long run, only to those
who can think of nothing more entrancing
than to watch people and understand things human.