ANALYSIS OF "THE SOCIOLOGICALLY EXAMINED LIFE" (part 27)

Patterns and Individual Lives

by

Charles Lamson

A satellite camera can show us that clouds and storms are patterned in ways that we cannot see from the ground. Being sociologically mindful is like taking a satellite view of society. It means trying to see the patterns that are not evident, as we muttle through from one situation to the next. Sociological mindfulness requires gaining altitude, so to speak, so that we can see the patterns of human action that swirl around us, and in which we are caught up.

It is not easy to take this view. Usually we focus on our everyday problems. This is understandable because these problems seem most pressing to us. We might also think that we have about as much chance of changing the social world as of changing the weather. So why bother with the big picture?

Being sociologically mindful, however, we will see that many of our daily struggles grow out of the larger patterns of human action in which we are caught up. If it is hard to achieve dignity, security, and peace in our lives, it is largely because we lack control over our workplaces, communities, and governments. If we are not mindful of how these patterned features of social life operate to diminish our control, we will never see how to change the conditions that keep generating many of the problems we face in everyday life.

One thing that is important to try to see when we look at patterns in social life, is where we fit into them. Sometimes we are much like the typical case; sometimes we are right at the average; sometimes our lives play out according to the usual tendencies; sometimes we are at the center of the pattern.

Perhaps, our lives run against the grain. If so, we should try to understand why. For example, the writer (Michael Schwalbe) of this book (The Sociologically Examined Life),  said earlier that children tend to end up in about the same social class as their parents. But suppose that is not true for you. Suppose you have experienced upward mobility - that is you have (or are) on your way to getting a more prestigious and better paying job than either of your parents. This seems to break the pattern. How can you make sense of this?

You might think, "My life is different, because, there is no usual tendency; every individual is unique." This would be incorrect if most people born into any given social class end up in the same social class. That is hardly evidence of weakness. We can truthfully say that the usual tendency is for there to be little class mobility. So if say 10 percent do achieve class mobility, that is just another interesting piece of the pattern. Perhaps you are part of the 10 percent.

What is important, in any case, is to be sociologically mindful about how your life fits (or does not fit) the usual pattern. If it fits, ask how and why this is so. What do you have in common with other people whose lives have unfolded like yours? What kind of circumstances do you share with them? What sorts of problems and opportunities? Being sociologically mindful, you will try to see how common contexts have created similar lives for you and others. Whether you are in the 90 percent, or the 10 percent, you can thus make better sense of your own life.

Sociological mindfulness does not imply that people's lives can be understood simply by knowing the categories they fall into. Being a white male born into a middle-class family does not mean that your experiences will be the same as for all white males born in middle-class families. Nor does it mean you will have no experiences in common with people in other categories. Even so, by virtue of being in certain racial, ethnic, gender, and class categories, you are likely to have a lot of experiences in common with others in the same categories. You are likely to get caught up in similar patterns.

Trying to determine who or what is a typical case, examining difference between groups, looking for trends and tendencies, and for what goes with what are ways to see more about how the social world works. If we pay attention carefully, we will see large patterns and many smaller ones. Being sociologically mindful about our own lives, we will also try to see where we fit into these patterns. We may thus discover that many of our personal habits of thought, and behavior, and adaptions to the larger patterns of social life carry us along. Though, we need not resign ourselves to being carried along, Being sociologically mindful of patterns in social life, makes it possible to change them.

*SOURCE: THE SOCIOLOGICALLY EXAMINED LIFE, 2ND EDITION, 2001, MICHAEL SCHWALBE, PGS. 110-112*

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