Sociology is the systematic study of society and social interaction. In order to carry out their studies, sociologists identify cultural patterns and social forces and determine how they affect individuals and groups. They also develop ways to apply their findings to the real world.
Understanding the relationship between the individual and society is one of the most
difficult sociological problems, however. Partly this is because of the reified way
these two terms are used in everyday speech. Reification refers to the way in which
abstract concepts, complex processes, or mutable social relationships come to be
thought of as “things.” A prime example of this is when people say that “society”
caused an individual to do something or to turn out in a particular way. In writing
essays, first-year sociology students sometimes refer to “society” as a cause of social
behavior or as an entity with independent agency. On the other hand, the “individual”
is a being that seems solid, tangible, and independent of anything going on outside
of the skin sack that contains its essence. This conventional distinction between
society and the individual is a product of reification in so far as both society and the
individual appear as independent objects. A concept of “the individual” and a
concept of “society” have been given the status of real, substantial, independent
objects. As we will see in the chapters to come, society and the individual are neither
objects, nor are they independent of one another. An “individual” is inconceivable
without the relationships to others that define his or her internal subjective life and
his or her external socially defined roles.
The problem for sociologists is that these concepts of the individual and society and
the relationship between them are thought of in terms established by a very common
moral framework in modern democratic societies, namely that of individual
responsibility and individual choice. Often in this framework, any suggestion that
an individual’s behavior needs to be understood in terms of that person’s social
context is dismissed as “letting the individual off” of taking personal responsibility
for their actions.
Talking about society is akin to being morally soft or lenient. Sociology, as a social
science, remains neutral on these types of moral questions. The conceptualization of
the individual and society is much more complex. The sociological problem is to
be able to see the individual as a thoroughly social being and yet as a being who has
agency and free choice. Individuals are beings who do take on individual
responsibilities in their everyday social roles and risk social consequences when they
fail to live up to them. The manner in which they take on responsibilities and
sometimes the compulsion to do so are socially defined however. The sociological
problem is to be able to see society as a dimension of experience characterized by
regular and predictable patterns of behaviour that exist independently of any specific
individual’s desires or self-understanding. Yet at the same time a society is nothing
but the ongoing social relationships and activities of specific individuals.
Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World
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