American Sociological Association (Essay)

98 Ten Questions: A Sociological Perspective

Wilson, William J. 1973 Power, Racism, and Privilege. New York: Macmillan.

Wilson, William J. 1987 The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Winant, Howard 1994 Racial Conditions: Politics, Theory, Comparisons. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Wright, Erik Olin 1978 Class, Crisis and the State. London: NLB.

Wright, Erik Olin 1994 Interrogating Inequality: Essays on Class Analysis, Socialism, and Marxism. New York: Verso. .

Zimbardo, Philip 1972 NPathology of Imprisonment. N Society, 9: 4-8.

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Why Do We Believe What We Do? The Creation of Social Reality

Why do I believe in God? Is it a belief that has been proved to me? Is it something that human beings believe naturally? Is it something that I have accepted from parents? Is it something that I find sooth­ ing? Is it something that I need to believe? Is it a truth that has been revealed to me from a supernatural source?

Beyond simply whether or not I believe in God, how important is that belief to me? And what are the qualities I believe God pos­ sesses? Is God just? All-powerful? Responsive to prayer? A judge of my actions? Why do I believe these ideas?

Ask yourself, NIf my life had been different, if I had been born at a different time or place, would I still believe what I do about God? Would my beliefs about God be the same as they are nowr

We believe a lot of things. For a moment consider what you be­ lieve. What do you believe about the death penalty? about human nature? about capitalism? individualism? freedom? about American high schools? about the frequent displays of violence on television? about men and women, romance, sex, and marriage? about the Middle East? about the future of the United States in the world?

It is one thing to believe something because we have carefully investigated its truth or falsehood, but if you really examine what you have come to believe, you will notice that much of it is embed­ ded in your social life. Indeed, can you think of any idea you have that does not have primarily a social foundation? Is there anything we believe that has not arisen primarily through interaction with others?

Here is the sociological approach to the question of truth.

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100 Ten Questions: A Sodoloeica1 Perspective

The Utility of Knowledge

Psychologists and sociologists begin their approach to knowledge with the safe assumption that human beings have a limited capacity to remember things. Every day we are bombarded with facts and environmental stimuli. We take note of some things that matter at the moment; most things we do not notice at all. Of those things we take note of, we remember only a tiny number, and for most things our memory is very short. Students realize this when they study for­ exams: "I'll remember this for one day, but then I'll forget all of it as soon as I'm done taking the testl"

As we encounter new situations each day, we apply what we can remember, and we work through those situations using what­ ever seems to fit. Each time I walk into a classroom, I draw from all that I know and apply it to the topic at hand. When a question arises, I select from all my "facts" and give an answeL When I meet a political candidate at a party, I pull out what I think is relevant from my memory-always selective-and apply it in that situation. If I have learned to distrust political candidates, I ask questions to test the trustworthiness of this one. If I do not like Democrats and the candidate is a Democrat, I may see whether he or she is any differ­ ent from other Democrats, or I may try to trip him or her up by ask­ ing questions that will reassure me and others that Democrats are still no good. On the other hand, perhaps the fact that the individ­ ual is handsome or young or recently divorced or Irish will be more important to me in the situation. I cannot possibly note everything, and I cannot possibly apply all that I have learned that might help me in that situation.

Out of all that I learn from others and from all the experiences I have had, I remember those things that are useful to me, those things that I can use in situations to achieve my goals and solve any prob­ lems that arise. And every time I apply something to a situation and it works for me, that success simply reinforces it, and I remember and use it again. No matter how truthful something is, I won't re­ member it if I do not use it. I believe in God because it is useful for me; I believe in a just God because that idea makes sense out of the world I encounter every day; I believe in a forgiving God because that helps me deal with issues of right and wrong; I believe in a loving God because that gives my life meaning. When these ideas no longer work for me, I forget them, and others take their place in my life.

The problem is to explain how ideas come to be useful to the individual, and so we enter the world ofthe social.

101Chapter Five Why Do We Believe What We Do?

The Social Construction of Reality

In their wonderful book The Social Construction ofReality (1966), Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann show with great care how people come to create in interaction with one another the truths that they believe. They argue that groups of people find some ideas useful and reject or ignore ideas that are not useful. Fraternities teach the im­ portance of sacrifice to the group in preference to individualism; charities teach sacrifice to the less fortunate; armies teach sacrifice to country rather than concern for one's own future. Individuals find these ideas useful largely because they are members of these groups. Belonging encourages them to see the wisdom of the teach­ ing. The individual's useful ideas arise from ideas useful to the indi­ vidual's groups.

The Meaning of Culture

Each organization-groups, formal organizations, communities, and societies-develops a set of ideas, values, and rules that come to be useful for achieving its goals and solving the problems with which it must deal. As we have seen, this is called culture. Berger and Luck­ mann point out that a hunting society will know facts about hunt­ ing, will develop a set of rituals around hunting, and will teach ideas concerning how to be a successful hunter. On the other hand, a community that is morally opposed to eating meat will know a dif­ ferent set of facts about hunting, will develop a system of morality that condemns hunting, and will teach ideas about how to survive without eating meat.

Culture contains our taken-far-granted truths, a set of assump­ tions that we generally accept without serious question. On a gen­ eral level, a given culture may make religious assumptions or scientific ones about the universe. It may emphasize progress, or it may place great importance on tradition. It may be committed to the individual or to the collective. On this general level, culture tells us to value freedom, materialism, family, or art; it teaches Us to work hard, take it easy, compete, cooperate, exploit others, or love them. It is so general a guide, and so basic, that its elements seem natural to most of us, and it seems that something natural rather than social is at work.

Modernization is a good example of culture as a general guide to the way people think. When modernization occurs in society (that is, when industrialization, urbanization, and bureaucratization de­

Ten Questions: A Sociological Perspective

icif~'S'culture-and consciousness-is altered. People jp,g;i~~~gffthtnk of one another impersonally. They become more indep~ndent and anonymous. They value individuality and change. A people's view of time changes. They tend to think of the future more and pay less attention to the past. Instead of defining time cir­ cularly (tomorrow will be like the past; progress is an illusion), they define it linearly, on a time line with a beginning and a future (to­ morrow will be different from the past; progress is possible). Even their definition of the clock changes. Instead of approximating d'ays worked for purposes of pay, employers and workers place impor­ tance on hours and even minutes. Punctuality is stressed, as are dis­ cipline and routine. A people's culture is basic to their lives; it is a socially constructed set of ideas, values, and norms tnat forms the

basis for the way they act. Culture is best defined as a people's shared perspective. It is their

approach to understanding reality. A culture is a context within which experience is perceived and interpreted. Of course, a shared perspective will be biased. It neglects so much, selects and empha­ sizes certain aspects of the environment, and always interprets facts in light of its preconceived assumptions. We cannot escape culture; we use it as a guide to construct our reality. And as we become com­ mitted to a culture, we have a strong tendency to see those who are different as outsiders, and if they threaten us, they become "de­ viant." We label them wrong, criminal, or sick. This designation, however, remains social; what becomes deviant is a result of our commitment to certain cultural standards.

Consider a gay couple, for example. Society teaches us about homosexuality, filling us with "facts," values, and morals that we use to react to the gay couple. Society gives us words-such as gay, queer, faggot, lesbian, and so on-that we use to apply to people who are homosexual. It teaches us reasons why people are gay (choice, weakness, illness, biology, upbringing, and so on), and it shows us why such actions are moral or immoral. Most of us are influenced by society's perspective, and so when we see a gay couple, this per­ spective becomes our guide for selecting what we see. It makes sense to us; it becomes useful.

Of course, not all of us think the same way, do we? If we are part of the gay community, we will learn a different perspective than if we are a member of a fundamentalist church. If we become part of a university community, chances are we will become more toler­ ant of human differences, and thus we will see homosexuality as a

Chapter Five Why Do We Believe What We Do? 103

sexual orientation of some people. If we are a part of the commu­ nity of psychiatrists, we_ will see another reality, and if we are sociol­ ogists, we will see yet another. But that is exactly the point! We all interact-we take on the perspectives of those groups within which we interact-and those perspectives guide us in terms of what to be­ lieve about the world. Reality never tells us exactly what it is; facts do not fill empty heads. Instead, human beings must interpret reality as it is, and that interpretation begins with the culture we use to guide us. That culture in turn arises from our groups and from society.

This view is not all that obvious to most people. We certainly realize that other people are important for teaching us what we know, and thus we easily recognize the importance of a general so­ cial influence. But here we are looking at something much more basic. Whatever we learn is always interpreted and judged within a social context-a culture that is established among people-and that context strongly influences whether we believe what is being taught at any moment, remember it, and use it. This idea might be illus­ trated like this:

Humans Humans develop Humans to interpret interact -----. a shared ---. use the experience<

perspective per~pective to interpret (culture) m sItuations. . . what they

are taught

It is important to recognize that human beings do not simply learn from experience-they interpret what they experience through the lens of culture. Culture is a group's approach to reality, and it is believed because people in the group find it useful. Together people cooperatively act in their world, and as they do they form an agree­ ment about that world-a culture-and increasingly they take that view for granted as they relate to their environment. They continue to find that agreement useful as a group. It works for them. If ideas, values, or rules somehow do not fit into what the group strives for, then they are forgotten or rejected. If we are a society of inequality, then we develop ideas to justify that inequality or help us ignore that it exists. If we are a capitalist society, it is important for us to value competition. If we have enemies, it is important for us to de­ humanize them by calling them murderers, terrorists, or animals. If we are active in the right-to-life movement, it is important for us to believe that the fetus is a human being; if we are pro-choice it is im­ portant to believe that the fetus is not yet a human being. Karl

105 104 Ten Questions: A Sociological Perspective

Mannheim writes that Neven the categories in which our experi­ ences are ... collected and ordered" depend. on the position in soci­ ety of the group whose ideas we use (1929:130). In every case a group's culture is linked to the group itself: what it does, how it works, how it is structured, what its activities are, and what its his­ tory has been. There is always a reason why a particular group be­ lieves in its core cultural elements, apart from their truth or falsehood. It is both amazing and frightening to recognize the)arge number of truths we have probably rejected or forgotten simply be­ cause our social life causes us to do this.

An example of culture is fascism, a set of beliefs, norms, and values that developed in Germany and Italy after Wqrld War I. Fas­ cism is a political ideology, a set of ideas that exaggerates certain elements in the world in order to justify a certain political program­ for example, a belief that war and power bring out the best in hu­ mankind, a belief that various categories of people are naturally unequal, and a belief that democracy and freedom indicate weak­ ness. Fascism became a central part of German culture because it worked: It explained the failure of Germany in the war, it explained the causes of the Depression, and it appealed to people's general dis­ content. It was also consistent with many themes contained in tra­ ditio~al German culture: strong nationalism, militarism, and authoritarianism. It worked for certain categories of people such as German industrialists and various political opportunists who were able to use it to their advantage. Fascism worked because it ex­ plained the present, was consistent with the past, and gave hope for the future. We might examine carefully the ideas that have domi­ nated our own history and see that they too worked well for what we did as a society. They both influenced what we did and served to justify what we did.

Perspectives are tricky. Once people believe one, they find it dif­ ficult to accept evidence that challenges it. An internal logic is at work, a selective interpretation of evidence, a tendency to interpret experience in line with what people already accept. It is not that people who disagree with us are fools; they simply have a different approach to the same world that we perceive, and they interpret events accordingly. It would seem that when someone predicts the end of the world and it does not come, followers would turn away, but there is evidence that followers become even more committed, because the faithful believe that their commitment saved the world. (See, for example, Leon Festinger, When Prophecy Fails, 1956.)

Chapter Five Why Do We Believe What We Do?

The concept that ideas simply Nwork" and that is why we be­ lieve them is really too simple. Sometimes we continue to believe something we were taught earlier in life, or something that the media or political authorities want us to believe, and we never won­ der if something else might work for us much better. Until we fall into ideas that appear to us to work better than what we have been taught, we have a strong tendency to hang on to the old. Exposure to new groups and, therefore, new cultures presents us with such

. new ideas.

The Importance of Culture to the Individual

To the sociologist, then, in all organized life there exists a Nsocial construction of reality." Instead of reality simply existing out there for us to respond to, we come to construct it ourselves-we build it like a house or a highway-through working together and forming a framework through which we are able to interpret the environ­ ment. An important question for all of us is, Why does the individ­ ual come to accept this social constructipn? It is not inevitable that we do, but there are important reasons we are attracted. The pres­ sure for this is great, and if it is to be understood, it is probably best to break it down into four parts.

First, begin with the idea that the individual takes on the per­ spective that works for him or her. As long as one is within a group, one will usually find its perspective useful: NPeople I know and with. whom I interact every day use this perspective, and it works for them. " The individual is encouraged and reminded to keep using the perspective of his or her group: NIts perspective is my perspec­ tive. Its concerns and values are mine, its rules and its answers make sense to me. Indeed, I stay in the group partly because its perspec­ tive works for me. Evidence is all around me. Those with whom I interact and whom I respect find it useful, and that influences me to believe that it's true." Those who share the culture of rock musi­ cians will find it useful to believe, for example, that music is life, good music needs to be loud, the latest music is the greatest, and loss of hearing is not as important as making it big in the world of rock music.

Second, by its very nature, interaction works to reinforce the perspective that one learns from others. The more intense the inter­ action-that is, the more one interacts with certain others at the ex­ clusion of outsiders-the more one will be convinced that the

106

107

Ten Questions: A Sociological Perspective

group's perspective is the most useful. After alL if I do not have the opportunity to test other perspectives, I have nothing to contrast the group's perspective with. Ongoing interaction reaffirms a perspec­ tive; it prevents one from going outside and learning an alternative perspective. An isolated community means fewer and more certain perspectives. An urban, heterogeneous community usually means crisscrossing interaction, exposure to many groups, and less cer­ tainty concerning one's own perspective. In all cases, however, con­ tinuous interaction reinforces the perspective, and any breakdown in interaction undermines it. The significance of this connection can be profound when we recognize that interaction means communica­ tion, talking, writing, gesturing, and sharing language, ideas, values, norms, and so on. We develop culture within our"i::ommunication channels. As they change, the culture that is important to us changes.

Third, an individual takes on the group perspective because the group encourages conformity through both continuous sodalization and social sanctions. We are socialized to believe what the group does. We learn its perspective through listening and watching oth­ ers and through intentional acts of teaching by others. Orientation to college life, basic training in the army, on-the-job training, and spring football practice are but a few examples of socialization into the culture of the group. We are also subject to social sanctions (re­ wards and punishments) from the group. When we use the group perspective, others in the group accept us, and we come to feel part of something important. If we do not use it, we are not rewarded, and sometimes we are punished. All sodal organizations want loy­ alty, and loyalty is tested through shOWing that we believe in the basic ideas and prindples of the group.

Finally, we come to believe in the group's perspective because it is very difficult for human beings to believe something alone. We want to believe that our view of reality is shared. Most of us seek to check out our truths sodally. Truth becomes socially anchored be­ cause we seek social support for our ideas. We are, in a sense, set up to take on the culture of those groups within which we exist; they help make us certain that what we believe about the world is true.

The first answer to why we believe what we do, therefore, has to do with culture. In interaction with one another, people develop and learn an approach (perspective, culture) for understanding the world. That approach is by definition selective and influences what we come to learn and how we interpret our experiences. We believe

Chapter Five Why Do We Believe What We Do?

in our perspectives because we are active in the groups that share them. The groups that are useful to us share perspectives that be­ come useful to us. Ongoing interaction, sodalization, and reinforce­ ment encourage us to believe in the culture, as does our need to have sodal support for our truths.

Social Structure and Reality

Positions and Perspectives

Our view of reality depends not only on the sOdal organizations in which we are embedded but also on our positions in those organiza­ tions. Perspectives are points of view, angles from which one sees reality. One angle is from the top, another from the bottom. The Upper class and the poor look at reality from different places, and these places are called positions. Leaders and followers in groups have different perspectives, and so do professors and stUdents. The fact is . that sodal organization creates what we believe not only through its culture (shared by everyone) but also through the positions that we take on and the roles that we play.

We believe, for example, in ideas arising from the fact that we are men or women. Pan of how one becomes a woman in this sod­ ety is to learn to "thinklike a woman," to believe, for example, that falling in love, marrying, and having children are necessary actions for a fulfilling life. To become a man is to learn to "think like a man," to believe, for example, that making money and gaining prestige, power, and privilege in the economic world are necessary achieve­ ments for a fUlfilling life. Femininity and masculinityare words assod­ ated with behaviors expected of people, and along with those behaviors go ways of thinking. In our mOre open society today, of course, this distinction is no longer simple, but the increasing com­ pleXity does not contradict its eXistence. It is easier to see these roles in a religious fundamentalist culture (Muslim, Jewish, or Christian). It is probably inconceivable to most of us that traditional Iranian women can allow themselves to be subservient to men, to reject ut. terly doing the kinds of things that men do, to be satisfied with being solely wives and mothers, and even to cover their faces and bodies when they go out in public. If We were to ask them, however, we would find a belief system that explains it. And once we understood that belief system, we would understand the logic of such actions. Women are not simply forced to do such things; they are taught a

108 Ten Questions: A Sociological Perspective

perspective that justifies it. And their angle of vision becomes part of their very being; they come to think differently from the men with whom they interact. This would also be obvious to us if we exam­ ined Jewish or Christian fundamentalism. Let us not forget that in any society women and men have different positions (they are ex­ pected to perform different roles and are granted different amounts of power, privilege, and prestige in society) and therefore will have different perspectives. The perspective of women will influenct:, in­ dividual women's ideas concerning pregnancy, abortion, marriage, birth controL menstruation, occupational opportunities. American history, and professional athletics.

But go beyond gender. A factory worker thinks ditferently from management; a boss, from an employee; an owner, from a manager; a bookkeeper, from a secretary. Each has a position in the social structure, and each has a different way of looking at reality. Imagine society as having thousands of positions, occupational and other­ wise. We interact and find ourselves in these positions. And what happens to us? We come to think of the'world according to these positions: high school graduate, dentist, artist, general in the army, ex-prisoner, member of the upper class, African American, rock star. They influence how we look at reality: at the world out there as well as our own inner world. It is difficult to be in a position, play the role that is expected, yet escape the tyranny of the perspective that goes with that position. The suddenly successful rock star matter-of­ factly declares: "I'm just the same person I always was; I think the way I always did," This could be true at first, but over time the pres­ sures are very great to change one's perspective to fit the position. Peter Berger (1963) reminds us that it is difficult to lie in this world. As we play the roles attached to our positions, we tend to take them on as our own: "Yes, am a college senior." "Yes, I am a husband and father." "Yes, I am a teacher." "I do not only act this way-this is who in the world I am." And, at the same time our roles become our identities, the perspectives that accompany our roles become the way we look at the world we live in.

Why do we do it? Why must we necessarily take on the per­ spective of the positions that we occupy? The simplest answer has to do with the explanation I have used throughout this chapter: The perspective associated with a position is useful for those in that posi­ tion. It works. To playa role associated with a position we must know how to think in that role-sometimes even when we do not like the role. If I am going to succeed as a student, I must take on

Chapter Five Why Do We Believe What We Do? 109

the perspective of a student and understand the world from that angle. If I am going to be a boss or a manager or a quarterback or a president, I had better think like one, If I go to prison, I had better know how prisoners think, or getting through that ordeal will be much more difficult. As our positions change throughout our lives, our perspectives must change, or we will not successfully play the roles associated with those positions.

Socialization also forms our perspectives as we enter our posi­ tions. If we become a prisoner, other prisoners interact with us, and we learn how they think. The guards and warden interact with us, and they, too, tell us how to think. We come to learn how "people like us" are supposed to think, and we are influenced. Socialization strikes again!

But there is another subtle and extremely important reason why positions are so powerful in influencing our thought. Each position sets up the occupant to see reality from that particular angle. In a sense, a student must see the world from a student's angle; that is the place he or she is looking from. If I am a man, I cannot easily think like a woman. I can try to understand how women see the world, but that is not the position I am in, so I do not regularly look at the world from that position. I cannot easily think like a poor per­ son or a rich person unless I am one. I cannot know what it means to be nonwhite in American society, a general in the army, or the president of the university if I am not in these positions. All my ef­ forts at studying other positions do not quite cause me to think like the people in them, for when you are in a position and you see the world from that position, you have an angle on reality that no one else can really have.

Human beings change their perspectives when they occupy new positions, when they go from student to graduate, from single to married, from working class to middle class. We can try to fight changing our perspectives as we change positions (" Aw heck, I'm just the same guy I used to be"), but we usually change without even realiZing it. Positions bring us perspectives, we find them use­ fuL others socialize us into these positions, and, probably most im­ portant, positions bring us angles on reality that are difficult to escape. In the end. most of us do not even recognize how significant our positions are for how we think about the world. It occurs with­ out our understanding the process; before we realize our perspec­ tive has changed, we are already taking for granted a new way of thinking.

Ten Questions: A Sociological Perspective 110

Age Cohort as a Position in Society

Let us expand the meaning of position to include age cohort, the indi­ vidual's generational position in society. The baby boom generation is that category of people, born right after World War II, that reached its forties in the 1980s. This generation is in a different societal position from those born in another decade, and that forms its perspective.

When you were born matters, for it places you within a histori­ cal period when a generation begins to form its perspective,' it ties you to that generation's perspective throughout your life, and it in­ fluences much of what you believe. Those who experience war in their generation have a different view of war (and peace) than those who do not. Those who had job opportunities when they graduated from college have a different view of work and the future than those

who did not. We learn our views of family and sex at a certain point in our

society's history. Divorce, birth control, abortion, marriage, and gen­ der equality will have different meanings for people depending on which generation they are part of: MI can't help it. When I grew up, that's what I learned about sexl"

Those who were young in the 1950s and '60s remember the civil rights movement It was part of their experience, and they were influenced by events reported daily in their newspapers. They saw what people were fighting against, and they interacted and shared a perspective that they used to interpret that fight. It is now hard for them to explain to generations who grew up afterward what the

fight was all about. Think for one moment how different your perspective would be

if your generation had fought in World War II, Korea, or Vietnam; if your generation had been workers fighting for unionization in the 1920s and '30s; or if it had been the one that emerged out of World War II ready to reap the benefits of an affluent and highly conformist society. Or think how different one's perspective is depending on when his or her generation went to college: in the 1950s, when teaching and engineering were highly valued professions; in the '60s and '70s, when social work, law, and medicine were emphasized; in the late '70s and '80s, which stressed computers, economics, and business; and in the 1990s, the era of occupational uncertainty and an ever-changing job market. In many basic ways, our view of what a successful life entails is influenced by the perspective that emerges in our particular generation.

111Chapter Five Why Do We Believe What We Do?

Power and the Creation a/Perspectives

Throughout this chapter, I have emphasized two central points: People take on the culture, or shared perspective, of their group, and people take on the perspective associated with their positions. The perspectives of their groups and their positions shape their re­ ality. These perspectives cause people to believe selectively certain things and to perceive selectively a world both out there and within themselves.

What I have not emphasized is that perspectives are often shaped to some extent by the powerful in society. Marx and Mannheim note how the powerfUl create ideologies, exaggerated and even outmoded perspectives on reality used for the purpose of defending the status quo, that is, their own power, privilege, and prestige in society. Dictators teach people to obey, arguing that order is necessary now and that obedience will someday bring prosperity for all. The upper class teaches people that what it has it deserves and worked hard for. Slave owners teach slaves and those in occu­ pations that do not include slaves various justifications for slavery, and racists inevitably create a whole set of ideas they try to teach others to justify inequality. The ideas are often sophisticated and are not always seen for what they actually are-a defense of racial in­ equality. Even those who are slaves or victims of racism may actu­ ally come to believe them.

The perspective of the poor, for example, is usually a complex mixture of beliefs developed in their position as they interact and live that position. But it is also the result of ideas deveioped by wealthier individuals with whom they come into contact directly (in interaction) or indirectly (through media). The poor are often con­ servative in society, even though they have little to gain from the way society is. Because it is not the poor who control advertising and educational or political institutions, it is not their ideas that are taught in society, so they, like everyone else, become influenG:ed by the ideas of those who do control these avenues of influence.

This principle works throughout society. Those who have power in any organization will influence how others think. The students in any university may develop ideas in interaction with one another, but they are also socialized to believe the ideas (about what students are to believe) from faculty members and administrators. Americans are influenced by the advertising of large corporations and the speeches of their political leaders. More than this, our perspective as

, 'JI!

113 112 Ten Questions; A Sociological Perspective

consumers is molded by the nature of all advertising: buy, charge, have a better life through better products, and always seek the new, the beautiful, and the exciting. What we are to think as parents, men, women, young people, lovers, friends, thirtysomething yup­ pies, or stars on a basketball team is influenced by a complex mix­ ture of advertising, situation comedies, soap operas, music, and college textbooks. Much of this thinking results from powerful eco­ nomic and political actors whose interests are served by our aEcept­ ing these ideas. The perspectives we use, therefore, must always be understood, in part, within a larger context of power. Through a complex mixture of coercion and manipulation, powerful people in every organization mold-at least to some extent-the culture of the organization as well as the ideas associated with the various po­ sitions in it.

This applies to the scientific community as well. Scientists, too, form a perspective over time, and within science, physicists do, biol­ ogists do, and sociologists do. There are powerful people in these communities, too, and their ideas have more influence on each of the perspectives developed. Rising stars in science are encouraged to take on the perspectives developed primarily by those who have been most successful in scienc'e, and their success depends in part on how well they take on those perspectives. The scientific perspec­ tive may be a more objective perspective than most others, but it too has limits, and one of the most important is that it is created pri­ marily by those individuals who are in powerful positions in the sci­ entific world. Indeed, we should also notice that powerful people in government and business also influence many of the ideas and val­ ues that make it to the top of the scientific community.

The Changing Nature of the Individual's Reality

Where does this discussion leave us? Why do we believe what we do? We believe what is useful to us. The usefulness of knowledge is

a result of the perspectives, or cultures, we share in interaction. It is also a result of perspectives that arise from the positions we hold within social organization.

But change is not to be denied. We all change, and we all change our perspectives and therefore what we believe. We reject the ideas of our teachers and parents; we overcome the beliefs of our Sunday schools and the neighborhoods we grew up in. Why? Why do we change, and what causes us not to change? Is it because we become

Chapter Five Why Do We Believe What We Do?

wiser? Hopefully, this is sometimes the case. But, for the sociologi­ cal perspective, change is to be understood in a social context. We change-or we stay the same-because of primarily social factors.

We change, first of all, because we interact with new people and enter new organizations. Belief is embedded in our social life, and our social life is continuous. We always interact, and we join new groups, formal organizations, communities, and even societies. The human being is an actor on many stages, each one bringing a slightly new perspective and thus calling for a slightly different set of truths to interpret reality. As we move from one stage to another, we change. The culture of the elementary school is different from the one we take on in high school, and both are different from the one we take on in the family or at our first job.

We also change because culture changes; in interaction it is con­ stantly being questioned, challenged, and altered, usually a little but sometimes a great deal. This is especially true in small groups, but it is certainly true of society'S general culture, too. Witness how rapidly the former Soviet culture is changing today. Witness also how our ideas of family life, gender inequality, and the socialization of children have changed in the past twenty years. Twenty years ago the term child abuse was not even a part of our normal vocabulary; some people thought that beating children was part of the way to teach discipline, and almost all of us believed that parents had a right to do whatever they chose to do with their children. Today even spanking children is sometimes suspect.

We also change our perspectives because all oius change our posi­ tions. We believe things as seniors that we did not believe as fresh­ men. We believe things as president that we did not as vice­ president. We believe things as a married person that we did not be­ lieve as a single person. We change a lot, as new positions demand new perspectives for interpreting reality.

Indeed, we change simply because we grow older. Age is a posi­ tion in society. Childhood, preadolescence, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, and old age are all stages in people's lives that bring on their own perspectives and interpretations of reality. Our view of retirement changes as we grow older, as does our view of success and the meaning of life. Religious commitment changes as we age, and our political ideas change. Our view of the draft de­ pends on how old we are, as does our view of AIDS.

Belief, therefore, is never fixed. It changes as we interact and change organizations; it changes as culture changes; it changes as

Ten Questions: A Sociological Perspective114

we change,positions. Change occurs slowly, without our even real­ izing it~ We wake up one day, look back, and ask in earnest, NHow could I ever have believed that?"

The Importance of Our Past

We change, yet it is also impossible to escape our past. Human be­ ings interact throughout their life, constantly altering perspectives and ideas, but the past is never erased. '

Primary socialization is the socialization of small children in their home and neighborhood. There we first learn about the world, take on our first perspectives and ideas, and develop our first rules for self-control. Secondary sodalization comes from" our school, the media, our friends, and anyone else who tries to shape who we are and what we think after this early primary sodalization. Secondary sodalization normally does not radically change who we are, because primary socialization normally remains centrally important to our belief system. That is because it is first. We learn language, a system of categorizing the world (men, women, boys, girls), a set of ideas, and our first perspectives. We have nothing to compare these early views with. We are not in a position to judge their worth. Continu­ ous interaction with very powerful people (parents), whose affec­ tion most of us seek, reaffirms the truth of these ideas, and, at least for a while, we believe the ideas because we see no alternatives.

When alternatives do come in secondary socialization, a per­ spective and beliefs are already there, and the individual must com­ pare and contrast new things with what he or she already knows. The new is sometimes accepted, but not quite as unquestioningly as the old. The old hangs on until it is replaced by something that seems better. The old becomes a filter through which new truths are judged, accepted, or rejected, and thus the old exists as a powerful gUide to what we believe. The earlier our perspectives and their truths, the more difficult it is to erase and replace them. The burden is always on the new.

Each group we enter, however, has something to do with what we believe. To some extent, belief is situational, useful for the mo­ ment, useful in the group we happen to be in. Groups exerdse pow­ erful forces on the individual to conform to the dominant view. Studies by Schachter (1951) clearly show that it is those who con­ form to the dominant belief of the group who are liked the best. Studies by Asch (1951) show how people change their expressed

Chapter Five Why Do We Believe What We Do? 115

views, probably because they do not wish to be embarrassed by being different. Groups influence perceptions, ideas, values, emo­ tions, and decisions. Irving Janis (1982) shows us how groups tend to move toward a consensus, discouraging disagreement and often making poor decisions because people are afraid to disagree with what they think their leaders want.

Thus, all of us are complex mixtures of past and present, of be­ liefs learned early through primary sodalization and beliefs that con. form to the groups we happen to be in at the moment. We change as new groups give us perspectives that cause us to question old be­ liefs, but change is often difficult. In fact, we should recognize that to a great extent the present simply reinforces the past; secondary SOcialization reaffirms much of what we learned in primary social­ ization; the culture of early organization prepares us well for later organization.

Do Individuals Form Their Own Ideas?

By now it must be obvious that the reasons we believe what we do are complex and manifold. All have in common a central principle of sociology: Reality is socially constructed. We see the world, we interpret experience, and we learn ideas through perspectives that we take on in interaction with others. The cultures which we learn and the perspectives associated with our positions (from sodal class to position in formal organizations to age cohort to age itself) shape what we see in the world. We change, but change should be placed in the larger context of our social1ife. We change, but our earlier primary socialization helps ensure stability of belief as we come in contact with new groups and new perspectives.

Our discussion now becomes even more complex. Are our be­ liefs simply the result of our social1ife, or do we have any control over them? The case thus far is a strong one: When we understand the influence of perspective over what we believe and see how closely tied it is to our social life, it becomes difficult to see what could cause us to develop Our own ideas.

However, sociology is a complex perspective. Although some sociologists see human thought as simply the product of society, most see human beings as capable, at least to some extent, of devel­ oping their Own perspective and ideas.

To understand this capability. we might return to the argument that began this chapter. People believe that which is useful to them.

116 117

Ten Questions: A Sociological Perspective

Usefulness is tied to our social life, but it is also tied to a testing that we all do as we deal with our life situations. Our actions test out what we know and believe. If our perspectives and beliefs help us achieve our goals, then the test is positive and we continue to be­ lieve. If they do not work, however, then we begin to question their truthfulness. Human beings, although influenced by their associ­ ates, are ultimately their own testers. We check out what we are taught, and if we alter what we know, we can eventually e~d up openly questioning what others teach or can leave the groups whose perspectives simply do not work for us.

Furthermore, although the power of our social life is never to be denied, there is also the particular human quality of thinking and interpreting. Human beings live in a world that they give meaning to, define, analyze, and wonder about. This activity means that what­ ever we are taught is not necessarily accepted but can be-and often is-questioned, altered, integrated into what we know, or rejected altogether. We are in part responsible for our own ideas (as strong as our social life is) because we also have this thinking quality.

Summary and Conclusion

Why, then, do we believe what we do? We are socialized, we take on the perspectives of our society and groups, and we see the world from the positions we take on. Our age matters, our age cohort does, and the power of primary and secondary socialization is not to be denied. Yet we also think and wonder about what we are taught, we apply it and test it out, and this process allows us to develop our own ideas, at least to some extent.

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