![]() ![]() 38), Berger said, sociology looks beyond on-the-surface understandings of social reality and helps us recognize the value of alternative understandings. By “looking for levels of reality other than those given in the official interpretations of society” (p. He referred to this theme of sociology as the debunking motif. He continued, “People who like to avoid shocking discoveries…should stay away from sociology.”Īs Berger was emphasizing, sociology helps us see through conventional understandings of how society works. 23–24) noted in his classic book Invitation to Sociology, “The first wisdom of sociology is this-things are not what they seem.” Social reality, he said, has “many layers of meaning,” and a goal of sociology is to help us discover these multiple meanings. This emphasis is referred to as the debunking motif, to which we now turn.Īs Peter L. In line with Weber’s observation, as sociologists use the sociological perspective in their theory and research, they often challenge conventional understandings of how society works and of controversial social issues. ![]() These facts include the profound influence of society on the individual and also, as we shall see throughout this book, the existence and extent of social inequality. Max Weber (1864–1920), a founder of sociology, wrote long ago that a major goal of sociology was to reveal and explain “inconvenient facts” (Gerth & Mills, 1946, p. If this insight suggests to you that sociology might have some other surprising things to say about the social world, you are certainly correct. We have just seen that sociology regards individuals as social beings influenced in many ways by their social environment and perhaps less free to behave and think than Americans ordinarily assume. Explain what is meant by the blaming-the-victim ideology.
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