Summary Of The Social Foundations Of Human Experience

Critical Analysis of “The social foundations of human experience”
The academic essay, “The Social Foundations of Human Experience”, by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann written in 1966 is an interesting take on the socialization of human beings. It provides a myriad of information and ideas promoting readers to think about how socialization, as well as social structures effect both society and individual beings. The authors argue that human beings experience life based on the socialization process and their innate abilities to interact with each other. Society operates in a distinct way, based on human activity and human interaction. Through examining our course content and reading the essay I have found that the Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann

do a great job of examining several aspects of human life, providing intriguing information, while creating readers to think about the society they live in and how that life came to be due to socialization.
The essay goes into great detail about the socialization process that humans endure. It begins with primary socialization, where human beings are first taught about society. They argue that human beings are not really members of society until this socialization process begins (1966, Page 11). Berger and Luckmann go on to talk about how this socialization process affects mankind including several factors within human interaction that are important to socialization. These factors being conversation (language), roles individuals play, social order individuals create and the situation in which an individual is born into. These factors all greatly affect the way an individual is socialized, as well as the way they view socialization in general. Socialization is never complete, and people are always adapting to their society.
Berger and Luckmann do a great job of explaining human interactions, as well as socialization in terms of relating to our course content. For example, Berger and Luckmann discuss the idea that “the developing human being not only interrelates with a particular natural environment, but with a specific cultural and social order, which is mediated to him (or her) by the significant others who have charge of him (or her)” (1966, Page 10). This idea is talking about how humans are relatively nothing until they are socialized and taught how to act by other members of a society within a certain culture. This relates to our course content when referring to the idea that genetics play a small part in who and what human beings are. Ross makes an argument that “genetically speaking we are all dissimilar to each other” (Lajoie 2016), however, human beings are a lot more similar to each other than what our genetics show. Ross proves this by explaining how different cultures, as well as people from different eras all dress in a similar matter. People are socialized to dress a certain way, it is not your biology that creates you to wear certain clothing, rather your ability to want to fit in with society (Lajoie 2016). Berger and Luckmann analyze the idea
Another point from “The Social Foundations of Human Experience” that I found interesting has to do with the idea of social order and symbolic interactionism.

Berger and Luckmann go into great detail about social order being a human product (Page 10). They explain that social order does not have biological roots, rather it was designed because of human activity. This caused me to think about how social order is involved in today’s society. Without social order, life would be upside down as we know it today, as laws would not be in place, social institutions would not be operating and human beings would likely live more like the current animal kingdom. However, human beings have caused society to have social order based on their own activities throughout history. This idea also caused me to think about our course content and the three main ideas of symbolic interactionism, specifically number three. “The meanings of things are handled in, and modified through, an interpretive process used by the person dealing with things he encounters” (Lajoie, 2016). This sentence represents social order, as human beings act and react based on situations they encounter, creating a need for social order. Social order is always changing as human beings

adapt.
While I find the work of Berger and Luckmann to be insightful, I also find it has flaws.

I agree with most of what they are saying, however, they do not back it up with many facts, in terms of quantitative data. For example, there are several occasions Berger and Luckmann make a statement that sounds relatively accurate, however the essay does not state any examples as to how or why this statement is accurate. For example, the statement “(People do) have drives, of course. But these drives are highly unspecialized and undirected” (1966, Page 10). This statement is vague, and quantitative data would help to back it up and make it seem more credible. Some of the information is also fairly common sense. For example, as they talk about how lower class children and upper class children see the world quite differently (Page 11). That statement is quite obvious as children of the upper class will have quite different realities than those children who come from lower class families. This means their socialization process will be different, therefore they will be dissimilar in more ways than those of the same socio-economic status. These flaws in the essay are minor, but still

evident.
Another interesting point from the essay has to do with language. I find it interesting that within our course content, as well as their own essay, that language is of extreme importance to the socialization process of human beings. However, I found their word choice to be particularly confusing. There were often times I had to re-read the section in order to understand what it is they were trying to say. I also had to look up what some of the words met, because I had never heard of them before. I realize this is an academic essay, however, the language would be enough for me not to recommend it to my peers as I think the confusing word choice could promote the readers to become uninterested if they are continually having to look up what the definition of several words are. I think Berger and Luckamnn could have written the essay in more basic terms for a wider range of readers.
In conclusion, I found the work of Peter Bergman and Thomas Luckmann to be well thought out and relatable to our course content. It was an interesting read and provided information that could be backed up by our own course materials. I think based upon the material read, I can be convinced that social interactions create human experiences, and that social aspects of life are of prominent influence within society. While some individuals benefit more from genetic factors, I believe it is ultimately the social foundations that create human beings to act in a particular fashion. Berger and Luckmann were clear in their arguments, making their essay a strong research piece.