What is Society?
Sociological Meanderings Towards Collective Well-Being
What is sociology? The study of society. But, what exactly is society? To get right down to it, sociology studies the way that people are organized, and how that organization changes across time and space. What do we mean when we say “organized”? Well, that will take the whole length of the course to explore, but it includes the sociological ideas of culture and structure. Until we get to those concepts, we can settle on the reality that there are rules, laws, norms, and institutions that govern our relationships to each other.
Sometimes this is informal: we shake hands when we meet someone new. Sometimes this changes: in other cultures it’s a bow, not a handshake, or there are rules around gender and handshakes. Sometimes this changes because of a pandemic: now we think it’s not hygienic to shake hands because we can pass the virus to each other that way, so we bump elbows instead.
Other times it’s formal: there are laws that govern when and how you can (or can’t) turn when you encounter a red light, for example. Or, whether you have to wear a face mask at the doctor’s office (yes) or while walking your dog in your neighborhood (no).
The point is, society is large and complex, and our relationships to each other are ever present and always organized. We are in relationships with our loved ones, obviously. But we are also in relationships with the Amazon driver (even if we don’t know her name or where she lives) who delivers our packages. And, as I post this, I am in a relationship with the people who make Blackboard possible, and my internet connection possible, and my electricity possible, because without these things (Blackboard, the internet, electricity), I couldn’t post this for you. And, without students, I couldn’t be a teacher. So, to study our relationships goes beyond intimacy, and extends into the depths of the strangers who make our lives what they are. We are always in relationships, and there is always something governing the dynamics of our relationships.
As we have these conversations about society, using the “sociological imagination” (Mills 1959), we will be relying on sociological evidence. What does this mean? Well, simply, sociological evidence is the outcome of the research of sociologists. So, if a chemist does a study on sugar, and they published their data in a chemistry journal, that would be evidence, but it wouldn’t be sociological evidence. Why? Because the chemist would study the molecular dynamics of sugar, for example, and that wouldn’t be quite pertinent to the sociologist.
But a sociologist would explore how sugar is a part of how our society is organized. Sugar — like the orange — is food that we eat. But it is much more than that. Sugar has played a huge role in our local and global economy. For example, it has produced people and nations great wealth as a direct result of the reliance on slavery. At every turn sugar is about people and our relationships to each other: the people who were enslaved to work on sugar plantations, the people who built wealth from owning sugar plantations and slaves. The long term consequences of this historical reality is ever present today. The history of Haiti is a good example of this.
Michael Pollan used the “sociological imagination” when he wrote his book, In Defense of Food, which explores the way that sugar is organized by society and also how it impacts our health care system (public issues) and our personal health (personal trouble). And, he uses evidence, not opinion, to shape the conclusions that he comes to (though he does, also, have opinions about the evidence!).
C. Wright Mills would encourage me to explore how sugar is a part of my biography — I eat 1 square of dark chocolate every day — and how the historical context that I was born into makes this possible. An indigenous person in what we now call Illinois wouldn’t have been able to consume mass produced dark chocolate in the 1500’s because cacao didn’t grow in Illinois, and our technology and social relationships hadn’t developed yet to allow such an exchange of resources. In the 1500’s, cacao was mostly eaten by the aristocratic wealthy in Europe and North America; it wasn’t until the 1800’s that sugar and chocolate consumption started spreading to the masses. The exception is among some of the indigenous Mexico and in the Southwest United States (e.g. Colorado, New Mexico).
Also, every time I eat sugar — and chocolate specifically — I am contributing to an economic context that is reliant on slave and child labor (so I choose ethical brands); and eating sugar and dark chocolate throughout the pandemic meant I impacted the emerging history regarding who was/is an essential worker and how international trade and grocery stores are organized during public health crises.
Are you curious about sugar and chocolate and slave and child labor? Do some critical thinking; be skeptical and explore the issue for yourself. Create some openness around your pre-existing opinions, ask questions, and explore some of the sources linked throughout this reflection. Opinions, on their own, are not bad, and they are impossible to get rid of. We all have them, and they shape how we act — how we love, how we vote, what we wear when we go to the grocery store, etc. This is how they come to matter, in that they shape our actions, and our actions, as Mills and Collins point out, impact everyone in some way. Thus we can and should relate to our opinions with flexibility.
The sociological evidence you encounter in this class may or may not jive with your current opinions, and yet, you have signed up to learn the sociological perspective. So I stress: you might not LIKE the sociological evidence, but that doesn’t make it untrue; that doesn’t make it “bad” evidence. The evidence stays the same no matter how you feel about it. The goal of critical thinking is to be able to move beyond the realm of established opinion, to not be rigid and stuck in our pre-existing ideas, and instead, to open ourselves up to new possibilities and explore new ways of making sense of the world in which we live, and of the people to which we depend.
For example, during the early phase of the pandemic, I didn’t love the fact that I was “stuck” in my house for many months, with very little contact with the outside world. I really didn’t love the fact that my partner was unemployed (for over a year) during the shut-down phase of the pandemic. My opinion — my feelings about all these happenings — is that the shelter-in-place experience, and the continued ups and downs of infection waves, social distancing, and mask wearing was/is difficult both psychologically and economically. I also have an opinion that is shaped by gratitude: I have a house, a partner, and a job that kept me/us afloat during the most trying times.
At the same time, as a critical thinker who has explored the evidence that has emerged from the scientific community (mostly epidemiological evidence, but also some sociological), I learned to accept the situation and understand that it wasn’t/isn’t about what’s best for me. All the policies were constructed as protective measures for the collective, through the lens of what is best for everyone in the name of public health, and for society as a whole. As a sociologist I know that what I do has an impact far beyond my ability to see that impact (and vise versa); that my singular actions (like continuing to wear a mask to the grocery store or at the airport) can impact people in other houses, other states, and other countries, and thus, I’m contributing to something larger than my own personal experience. History!
Further, as Patricia Hill Collins illuminates, my biography is shaped by history, and that history is always interconnected with structures of race, class and gender. Thus, my ability to shelter-in-place even as an essential worker was an example of how my class privilege shapes my biography. And, as I stated in the lecture, my class privilege is shaped by historical structures of racism: my white ancestors were able to purchase homes, and produce intergenerational wealth, which was/is a possibility because of the institutional racism embedded in U.S. housing policy. Thus, my sociological imagination, informed by both Mills and Collins, allows me to explore how race, class and gender (as history) impact my experiences (my biography) during the pandemic: I had a home to shelter-in-place in, to work in, to be safe in.
And, importantly, my sociological imagination allows me to build empathy for those whose experiences diverge from mine. As Collins wrote:
“If you care about me, you should want to know not only the details of my personal biography but a sense of how race, class and gender as categories of analysis created the institutional and symbolic backdrop for my personal biography” (653).
I do care about you, and because I do, and also because I have developed a sociological imagination, I can see that there’s more going on than what I can see from the bubble of my “personal troubles.” If I step outside of myself I can come to realize that the social world is more complex than I originally thought; that what’s happening to me isn’t the only thing that’s happening. That there’s this whole realm of “public issues” to explore!
Please take care of yourselves, of your loved ones, of everyone.
Happy learning ☺
