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1. Basic Concepts : Thinking and Re-Thinking

Ó Bruce C Wearne 2004

The purpose of this book is to explain sixteen basic concepts used in social theory. We define these 16 concepts to deepen our understanding of human society. The choice is based upon a mixture of perceived strategic importance for engagement with the discipline as well as selection among concepts prominent in social theory discussion.

Many students find studies in Sociology confusing. They are not sure what it is they are studying. They are not sure if it is science or one of the humanities. As a result students easily become confused about sociology’s concepts. Sociology’s concepts are both explanatory and descriptive. This gives us an extra reason to be precise and concise. In this discussion the following concepts are discussed : thinking, humanity, law, participation, society, membership, responsibility, authority, resources, organisations, relationship, conflict, style, power, manners, and theory. My aim is that students will think about these concepts and begin to form a basic sociological perspective of their own. Maybe it will help them start to compile their own dictionary.

This list covers a wide canvas. Some important concepts are left out - community, deviance, stratification, class, role, status/respect - are some of those left to one side. Nevertheless, I believe the 16 to be basic. I endeavour to present them from a Christian standpoint keeping in mind the current debate in the various 'departments' of sociology. I may be out of date in some respects.

This writer believes that one's religious starting point shapes all of science - natural, behavioural, human and historical. But this is still a book for the disciplined, scientific study of society. It is not a book of Biblical doctrines. The definitions which are provided here try to show how presuppositions and assumptions shape argument from its earliest hunches, data and inferences.

Sociology is a science. That statement is contentious these days. Questions will be raised. Is it possible to say this without giving Science a pre-eminent position in our knowledge? I think it is. Each type of research has its own place alongside all the other types; each science is valid alongside all the other science. And scientific research should not be elevated above other forms of thinking or knowledge. Any one science is not more important than any other, and the results of scientific work in one area is always interlinked with scientific investigations in other areas. Scientific results as part of our thinking about the world are never neutral about the way we view creation.

This book assumes that Christian Sociology is not only valid but necessary. There are many arguments against such an approach, and there is no getting around the fact that serious reflection is needed to understand the conflicts. Those conflicts are also ours, going on as we discuss concepts and theories with ourselves. And we might as well face up to an important part of our task from the outset; we have to learn to cross-examine the arguments of those with whom we disagree[1].

Any appeal to facts is always based on some or other way of viewing the facts. Facts are always perspectival. As a contribution to the ongoing discussion and interpretation of the human condition, sociology always presents a view from some position. There is no theory or theoretical perspective that is not based in some view. For non-Christian readers this book might help clarify their own point of view, by helping them to understand what they do not believe and why. Such clarification is important, particularly in a University context where debate and argument should be the order of the day. There are many theories in the social sciences. And there should be many debates. But as much as I welcome non-Christians reading this book, it should be realised that this book also has a special group of people in view. This group consists of Christian students who are seeking to develop a Christian social perspective.

Some students who take Sociology at University often do so to prepare for a life of helping people. Such motivation is never as simple as it first seems. "Helping people" is enmeshed in the relationships in which we live. All are called to love the neighbour in deeds of kindness. But just what does `love' mean? We realise how deep this question is. But then what better place to clarify our thinking about the nature of 'loving our neighbour' than the university?

Intellectual confusion is not always bad but many students often find they have been thrown in at the deep end of complex academic debate. Discussion of 'love' is a prime example of this. Before you know it you are talking about … well I'll leave that for the reader to imagine. Sometimes University courses develop a deep-seated confusion, and "assembly line routines" and the arbitrary evaluation standards do not help. These processes often make genuine study difficult. Knowledge is not just mastering formulae; it is not preparing for examinations. It involves self-knowledge; knowing what you are doing when you are thinking as a scientist. This is not the same as being able to work under examination conditions.

The genuine student has to find a way to work through the confusion; to be critical about their own ideas and state of knowledge and their own education. They need to develop an understanding of how the curriculum presents things, how an integrated view comes through (or doesn't). But let's face it. Sometimes, the asking of serious questions is viewed as deviant, troublesome, or even academic(!). This name calling can come from teachers who should know better. It also comes from peers. It can also come from parents too. Anti-intellectualism is also at work in the University these days. Maybe it is generated from universities. This is enough to cause great confusion. Mix this with the idea of the University as an educational supermarket and the brew is potent. This book, as you might have guessed, is an attempt to encourage you to begin to think in another direction. Let's not assume it will be easy.

Here we develop a Christian perspective in Sociology. This scientific discipline has been around for over 150 years, in Europe and North America. Any introduction to Sociology lists various theoretical perspectives : whatever their names and however they are listed it is very rare indeed to see any hint of a Christian approach. Why is this? This question will frame our investigation to a considerable degree. If Christian belief is incompatible with Sociology then we need to know why. Why should it be assumed that an appeal to non-Christian presuppositions is right? More likely, Christian belief has been excluded by a way of thinking that assumes that since Sociology is a science it cannot be based upon Christian presuppositions. But which religious viewpoint is it which requires the exclusion of a Christian Sociology[2].

Another problem emerges which we had better address straight away. From what I have written above it seems that the Christian student will have to study not only non-Christian sociology, but also develop an alternative approach. This will not be easy. It will not be clear how one is to find one's way among the books of the University library. This is a big problem. How is a student going to develop a Christian perspective when its validity is not even recognised? We have to ask : why is a there a cloud over the Christian contribution? Why is Christian Sociology dismissed as being of no, or only minor, account? If we answer this question then we might also improve our understanding of why Christianity sits uncomfortably in our "post-modern" society.

One way to begin is to consider the way law is referred to by Christian and non-Christian. For the Christian, Jesus Christ has come and fulfilled the law of God. God maintains the whole of creation by His love, but everything is in its place because He is reliable. His law holds. In Christ Jesus the whole cosmos hangs together. The Messiah fulfilled the demands of the law of God on our behalf and those who believe are freed to live a life of thankfulness according to the law which is their rule of gratitude. The will of God is reliable, we can depend upon as the law for creation in its entirety which maintains all things and gives our life meaning, coherence and continuity from one generation to the next.

But dominant and powerful traditions which have shaped our society have in many fundamental ways embodied the belief that humankind is no longer in need of this Messiah who fulfilled the Creator's law. As an individual you might choose Christianity, but any thought of salvation for all the world is ruled out. The tendency in post-Christian society is to discover the Messiah elsewhere. Where the law of God is considered, it is viewed as a mythic construction, a pre-scientific device of social control, which provided people with a sense of meaning, coherence and continuity, when their knowledge was primitive. It has been shown subsequently, so the thinking goes, that after the rise of modern science that a religious view could never really do what Science has been able to do for us. In so far as it was an advance, the law of God, as for example given by God to Moses, prefigured the arrival of True Science. Modern science by its disclosure of the laws of nature, has put the power which previous mythology reserved exclusively for the gods or God within human reach. By implication, Science gives us a detailed knowledge of the laws and conditions for all of non-natural life as well. We will one day be able to explain why in former times we, as members of the human race, found it necessary to posit a Divine realm.

When this view is set over against the Christian view what we see is not alternative theories, so much as alternative religious world-views which result in approaches to the scientific task which are radically (ie at root) different, they take alternative and diverging paths. From a Christian standpoint such Science can only be welcomed as a substitute for the True Messiah.

Political life, philosophy, or art have also been proclaimed as messiahs. The diversity of non-Christian approaches to science is therefore explained by alternative messianic visions undergirding theories, concepts and research programmes. This does not only account for the intense spiritual opposition between Christian and non-Christian; it also helps explain why the non-Christian approaches to scientific endeavour are at times ferociously opposed to each other.

In alternative non-Christian perspectives the ideas about law focus upon different aspects of science, culture and society. One dominant view has been that true knowledge is a matter of understanding cause and effect, as in the laws of physics, as in the study of nature. Progress in knowledge moves from primitive, naïve, every-day type of understanding to complex, scientific analysis. The true expert is the one with a scientific view of whatever we meet in every-day life. Let us note, however, that the understanding of the so-called laws of nature is not withheld from those who believe that science is the to investigation of creation. The formulated and verified experimental discoveries of the regularities and patterns of the bio-physical world, refer to physical motion, the fabric of the heavens, the genetic transformation of plants, animals and humans from one generation to the next, and more besides. These aspects of experience are not limited to those who have embraced Science as Messiah. Indeed the Christian professes belief that here also God's rule over His creation is made known in the things that He has made. The religious profession that Science is messiah, does not, of itself, provide a detailed scientific analysis of one or other "natural aspect", or the things that function in a natural way. In like manner, the Christian belief in creation propels scientific study from the outset.

These so-called natural aspects of experience are also important for social life. But they do not constitute society in all of its richness. Society cannot be studied according to the laws of nature without further assumptions of a non-scientific character intervening, namely that society is a part of nature, or that society is, basically or essentially, a result of the cumulated human response to the natural world and so on. In Christian perspective, society, as the complex web of human responsibility subject to God's law, must function in its own way, showing in its own structure(s), the natural aspects of experience but also the data of human responsibility. Human society has to be thought about, studied and closely examined, also in its natural aspects. Humans have bodies. Society cannot exist without bodily action. In Christian perspective we study those things that God has created for us to enjoy and part of that enjoyment is the scientific enrichment we gain from close and careful examination of His handiwork. This is not simply a natural matter; it is to do with our many-sided human stewardship in a life of service which belongs ultimately to the Creator.

A Christian perspective considers society as creation; social actors are creatures. This does not mean that we study society as if humans form society like a colony of ants; nor does it mean that society is any less human because we focus attention upon the interplay between ecology, geography and culture. Human society, as such, is structured in a social way, just as animals and plants are structured in biotic ways and rocks in physical ways. And sometimes, as in rush-hour, the similarity between commuting and an ant nest is fixed in our consciousness. Wild animals have an impact on human life, and pets are an integral part of suburbia. These facts too must be part of any Christian social perspective. Plants can be nurtured in gardens; rocks become the basic material for a house. But, as much as the natural world cannot be left out of the picture, social science must give itself to the task of studying the social structure of human responsibility. The social structure is not reducible to any of the structures of the natural realm.

Our idea of law is formulated self-consciously. Our religious confession about the meaning, the purpose, the coherence of our life in all of its aspects, is in mind when we engage in science. The law of God, we confess, is the context, the order, the rule, by which all aspects of the cosmos (including all social aspects), and all things (including social structures and acts) make sense. In our idea of law we acknowledge ourselves at the doorway of our social theorising, taking the key and opening the door to the true meaning of scientific inquiry in all of its modes. The biblical confession is that all of human life and culture, including scientific reflection, finds its true meaning in God, subject to God's law. This we confess. Such confession means that a Christian law-idea is inherently self-critical. We identify the basis upon which our own theoretical argument is to be based. Such confession is inescapable. Not only for the Christian, but also for the non-Christian. Law in this sense refers to that which has a cosmic scope and incorporates all the aspects of our experience which the various special sciences study in their own special ways. When we talk about a Christian idea of law, we are taking our cue from the way in which God maintains the structure and character of His creation. We are indicating that we are under His law. We are confessing that though creation may confuse us, yet He is reliable. We can have understanding. We stand under God's law to do our work. This is what is meant when the bible says that the fear of God is understanding, the beginning of wisdom. We are subject to God's will for His creation. But our understanding of that will, and the way the many creatures therein function, is itself human, a result of human knowing. We are called to formulate our understanding of what this law means for our life on this earth. We are called to live under God's law. This is the beginning of wisdom, the Scriptures tell us, and thus the beginning of wise scientific investigation[3].

Ongoing debate continues about the application of the methods of natural sciences to the study of the human realm. It is assumed that when the term law is used in discussions of social science methodology that a "positivist" approach is being defended. Positivism is that approach to the study of society which considers the standards and procedures used in natural science as the norm for social scientific knowledge. Without such a norm science will supposedly degenerate into opinionated journalism. The classic positivist approach developed a rationale for Sociology as an extensions of the methods of mechanics and physics, applying them to the "social world". Just as biological functioning is considered to be the fact which biology studies, so social functioning is considered to be the fact which Sociology studies. Life is a fact for biology. Society is a fact for Sociology. The focus is different. The methods, so the argument goes, should be the same.

The dominant 19th century view was this positivist vision of the development of the science of society. 20th century Sociology has seen continued and repeated attempts to move beyond positivism. Occasionally there are calls for a "Critical Sociology" which would completely abandon all reference to law. In the physical sciences "law" is viewed as the ideal mathematical explanation against which the results of scientific experiments can be measured. In social science explanation has to be concerned with the systematic representation of the way social actors understand their own social action. "Humanistic" Sociology, as an alternative to positivism, tried to dispense with any view of law undergirding social analysis. Law is an aspect of a social reality which is dynamic and subjective. Law is constructed. Therefore sociology is about the social construction of reality in all of its aspects, including law. The mystery of the human world(s) is found in social theory when it treats humans as subjects, those who actively construct the society in which they find themselves. Humanistic Sociology society aims to be plural; it investigates social worlds, diverse universes of meaning. Society is an inter-subjective fact. The natural scientific focus upon natural law formulates its results by construing nature as object. Social science focuses upon society by facing up to social norms as an inter-subjective reality. The subject (ie the human actor) is the object for social science.

The above paragraph was a brief summation of the 20th century critique of positivism that attempts to move the study of society away from any idea that human actors are subject to a law-order they haven't made themselves. In other words, it involves the rejection of the idea of one law guaranteeing one truth, for an integral and cohering reality. But then the rejection itself takes on a law-like character; and a radical nominalism manifests itself in many competing schools of Humanistic Sociology.

It is true that the difficulty we face has to do with the spiritual character of Sociology. But the inadequate response of the Christian church to what Kant called "the age of enlightenment" is also our legacy. We must be open to learning about the inherited weaknesses of our Christian position because of decades, even centuries, of neglect. Our response needs to deepen our understanding that Enlightenment is every bit as much a religious viewpoint as Christianity, as are so-called "post-Enlightenment" perspectives. Just because our neighbours are Christians who are living by Enlightenment or post-Enlightenment perspectives does not mean the law that we love our neighbour as ourselves has been suspended. Our approach is self-critical and can afford to avoid any dogmatic and unforgiving ideology.

Time and again the non-Christian direction taken by recent social thought is smoothed over, or ignored, by Christians eager to make their contribution on the wider stage. But the fact that Comte, Marx, Nietzsche, Durkheim and Weber, along with their 20th century intellectual offspring, over and over again, painstakingly considered and decisively rejected Christianity is not a peripheral point. It is a datum of decisive significance because such rejection has set the framework within which sociological scholarship has inherited the Enlightenment including the traditions of Enlightenment-critique. This should not lead us to assume that by adopting a so-called post-modern perspective we are closer to a Christian Sociology. A Christian social theory is not any more at ease with post-modernism than it was with modernism; post-modern nominalism is no more a candidate for a truly self-critical science than was modern realism.

This is also why we do not dispense with the term "scientific" for Christian Sociology. The Biblical idea of law, finding its origin and scope in the will of the Creator, has within its purview the entire cosmos and hence sets the context for the entire encyclopaedia of the sciences. A Christian approach to science needs self-critical examination and constant vigilance if its humble subjection to its task is to achieve its goal. In developing a Christian contribution we are vigilant. Neither naturalism, nor legalism nor de-centred post-modernism can be of help here. Christian social theory treats human actors as subjects - we are subject to the Law of God from Whom we gain our true humanity. This then is the source of our definition of subjectivity. Christian social theory is open to the diversity of societal subjectivity in terms of the various spheres of social activity in which we shape and give form to our human responsibility.

We also have to prepare ourselves for the mis-understandings that will come from presenting such an approach. We do so not only to explain our approach to non-Christians; we need to adequately explain our own viewpoint to ourselves. If we cannot explain ourselves to ourselves, we will not be able to explain ourselves to others.

Christian students have to deal with the courses in which they are enrolled. These courses often teach that the study of society is (by definition) either modernist or post-modernist. We have to face up to the struggles between competing viewpoints. All viewpoints strive, in their own way, to shape the future of the discipline - such reconstruction is philosophical and scientific. We should not close off the possibility of learning from any viewpoint, even those who define reform and reconstruction as forms of nihilistic de-construction.

This book is an outline of social theory, an introduction to concepts, a framework from within which sociological questions can be asked. The aim is to point to further empirical investigation and analysis in the field.

Under-graduate study is very often a three-year dance with intellectual confusion. Often it is only when the cacophony fades that the spiritual beat can be discerned much later as an echo. For some the beat only ever comes through loud but not clear. Clarity means committing ourselves to a careful examination of the questions we ask; then we begin to discern how our answers have been loaded with presuppositions.

Definition : THINKING

The act of thinking concerns the way we knowingly reflect upon the world. Being human is inextricably bound up with our thinking activity. Theoretical thinking, thinking about all things, including our act of thinking, is an activity in which we abstract some aspect of the things which we experience in everyday life; we then logically form concepts to discuss as part of a theoretical line of argument. There are at least three questions we can ask about this theoretical mode of thinking, or theorising - how is abstraction possible?; from what standpoint is the abstraction made?; how is the concept formed as part of scientific discourse? These questions need to be asked in an ongoing way as part of our theoretical thinking.