Society Explained: An Introduction To Sociology

Book Preface

Welcome to the wonderful world of sociology! This book presents a holistic view of society using concepts from sociology and other fields of study in order to help you, the reader, better understand yourself and the social world around you. I hope this explains the ambitious title of the book. I do not believe that a single source can tell a person everything about a subject area, and if you are using your critical thinking skills, you are aware of this, as well. However, this book puts forward an interdisciplinary framework for understanding that seemingly abstract phenomenon called society. After you finish reading this book, my hope is that you will feel confident in using this framework to explain society for yourself.

I earned my degree in sociology in 1993 from the University of Oregon. I was studying to become a psychologist, but I found that field too limiting. At that time, psychologists were not sufficiently addressing the social conditions that affect what goes on inside the mind of the individual. Today, there are several areas where sociologists and psychologists meet in their understanding of human behavior (e.g., social cognition, constructivism, social epidemiology, and social neuroscience).

I remember telling my parents that I was going to change fields, from psychology to sociology, and they were a little upset; they weren’t exactly sure what sociologists do. Actually, the field is vast, and sociologists work at universities, research institutes, hospitals, government, and industry. I would say that the reason why people know so much more about psychology than sociology is because American culture has always celebrated the myth of individualism. Psychology fits well into American mythology. I say mythology because myth always contains elements of both truth and exaggeration, and while there is some truth to American ideas concerning individualism, it is also wildly exaggerated. This topic will be discussed in detail later in the book, but for now I would just ask the reader to consider that individual achievement always feels more rewarding when others know about it. Another reason why psychology is more widely known than sociology is because during World War II, military and business leaders discovered that psychological testing could be very useful for predicting behavior and placing people in jobs. Psychology boomed after the war. There is a really good, thought-provoking book written by psychologist James Hillman and journalist Michael Ventura called We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy— And the World’s Getting Worse. The book is basically about how people need to take greater responsibility for the consequences of their actions on others and on what the authors refer to as the world’s soul. Becoming more accountable requires taking a close look at one’s assumptions. One popularly held assumption is that self-reflection can inform people about the underlying causes of their feelings and actions. There is no question that self-reflection can lead to self-insight; however reflection can also be self-serving and thereby be deceiving. Sometimes other people see you better than you see yourself. I believe that if there were an explosion of interest in sociology, like there was in psychology in the 1940s, people would better understand themselves, each other, and their society.

I decided to write this book after teaching sociology for many years and not feeling particularly happy with the book options for introducing people to the study of society. Reading a book is like having a conversation with another person. People write books, in part, because they have a lot on their mind, and they wish to share their thoughts with others. That is what I have done here, and I would like you, the reader, to engage in a conversation with me about a variety of social topics. We will discuss relationships, money, politics, religion, and other subjects. You may or may not agree with what I have written, but I would appreciate your giving the ideas presented here a fair hearing.

Authors regularly say that the books they have written are distinct from other books already published in the subject area. Indeed, in order to get a book published, an author has to convince a publisher that the presentation of their material is unique and will sell. I believe that this book actually delivers on that score. Textbooks have become a part of the corporate book world, and, with that, pressures to sell books have created an assembly line of texts that repeat a particular formula regarding what sociologists supposedly want people to know about sociology. The books are big, heavy, expensive, colorful, and sometimes they inadvertently make a thoroughly interesting subject boring. There are also a relatively large number of smaller and shorter books that introduce readers to sociology, but they tend to follow the same basic formula of the bigger texts.

This book is different in a number of ways from what has become the standard formula. Most authors of sociological books discuss concepts and theories in order to educate readers about society; in this book, I discuss society in order to educate readers about the usefulness of sociology. Moreover, I do not limit the discussion of society to sociological concepts and theories; society is a complex phenomenon and multiple fields of study, like anthropology, social psychology, political science, and economics, have made important contributions to understanding social behavior and society. As a result, as I discuss various facets of society, I refer to concepts and theories from whatever field of study that I believe best explains that aspect of social behavior or society. August Comte, the individual who coined the term sociology, envisioned sociology as a field of study encompassing other social sciences. In more recent years sociologist C. Wright Mills (1972, p. 24) expressed a comparable view: “[T]he sociological tradition contains the best statements of the full promise of the social sciences as a whole . . . .” This book is consistent with that vision, and I believe that it results in a more meaningful understanding of how society works and what role each person plays in making society what it is.

Another difference between this book and many others is its application of what sociologists call the sociological imagination. C. Wright Mills introduced the concept with the publication of a book bearing that title. In developing the concept of the sociological imagination, Mills wanted to inspire people to investigate how social and historical factors impinge upon their personal lives. Discussion of this concept has become nearly obligatory in books introducing readers to sociology. The problem, though, is that the standard treatment of the concept in many books is to say something like, “we should all develop our sociological imaginations and change the system,” and then to proceed by giving scant attention to history. In this way, neither personal (psychological) nor social (institutional) factors are contextualized, and this undermines the ability to develop and use the sociological imagination as I believe Mills intended. Mills’s concepts are often used today in ways that, unfortunately, made him suspect by the standards of other sociologists in his own day and contributed to his becoming an intellectual outsider.

In order to develop one’s sociological imagination, a person must become familiarized with history, particularly how past events shape contemporary assumptions and practices. In this book, I give a lot of attention to the historical development of social practices and their associated psychological assumptions, particularly in the chapters on politics and religion. If there is any shortcoming to my presentation of information, it is that I do not get into the debate raging in some academic circles about what constitutes history. I concur (as I believe many sociologists would) with the following statements made by historian George M. Marsden:

Contents
Introduction 1
1 ObservingSocialLife 9 2 IndividualsandtheStructureofSociety 25 3 Culture 49 4 SocializationandImagination 71 5 Values,Money,andPolitics 97 6 Sex,Marriage,Family,andCommunity 141 7 Religion 171 8 Education,Science,andtheInformedCitizen 217
Bibliography 259 Index 275 AbouttheAuthor 281