AN INTEGRAL VISION OF MAN AND SOCIETY

Orlin Baev

web | Transpersonal psychology. Sacred sexuality

Man in Society

According to sociologist Peter Berger (Invitation to Sociology) society is like a prison, individuals are forced to act according to the rules of the prison, dictated by the institutions and their leaders as well as by individuals in shadow on the top of the pyramid of the social herd. Why herd? Because the difference between herd and society is in that the herd consists of beasts without self-awareness, while society is comprised by intelligent and aware of self and the world beings, i.e., people. Unluckily, nowadays self-awareness of the mass of people is so low, that human socium is explicitly and ironically called sometimes a herd...

Berger uses five characteristics to explain the relation between man and society: 1. Self-situating in society, 2. Means of social control, 3. Social layers - classes, 4. "Definition of the Situation", 5. Institutions.

Self-situating in society: being children we are bread by our parents, school; we trust them unequivocally and in this way society imposes upon us what we can do exactly and what we can't, even what we should think or not; what we could expect from life and what purposes we should have; what our criteria of happiness and success should be. Connection between the new individual (the child) and society is accomplished through multiple rules and norms, which should be kept. Subordination to these rules is accomplish through the means of social control.

Means of social control - social control is being kept by multiple mechanisms which would "drive in the right path" the disobedient members of the herd.

1. Violence - Physical threat and violence.

2. Economic control - keeping the level of poverty of certain members of society or whole groups, countries and continents - guarantees control over them through their limited financial mobility in a world ruled by money. Another instance - fear of rejection or redundancy. Fear that if one does not stick to the enforced schemes or frames of development - education, diplomas, man would be thrown out in the marginal spheres of society.

3. Mental and Verbal Pressure

• Conviction - mental conviction - subordination to social opinion, to "what people might say". Verbal conviction is a way to convince one in the meaning of submission

• Gossips, scorn, mockery, rumors - whether grounded or not - they affect the individual who is different and hurt his sense of herd, his unconscious unity with the group

• Threat to be excluded from the group - this is a stronger form of influence upon the community sense of individual

• Lie and fraud - one could be convinced to keep to a certain pattern of behavior by being lied about. Whole countries if not the whole planet are in the grips and under the control of the fraud of an Establishment, which the common people, even professors and politicians know but little about

4. Ethics, traditions and customs -these are especially strong means because they have innate action, from the perspective of human self-consciousness. They have been imposed through the ages to harness the beastly side in human behavior.

5. Professional norms and behavior

6. Family - society has established the image of a prospering individual who together with the high social status has got a family with children too. If the individual does not match to these frames he is discredited by the social opinion. The individual does everything possible to escape such a discrediting.

Social stratification, classes. In the past social stratification was done according to the divinity of man. A result of this is the class of aristocrats which is still kept in some countries. A typical example of a class society has been India for a long time with classes: Brahmans (priests), kshatrii (military officers and administrators), and неприкасаеми (doing the hardest and most unpleasant work). Today classes are mainly established according to the financial state of their members, no matter the way financial means had been acquired. Classes are basically high, middle and low class (laborers).

Institutions - they regulate and direct human activities; create the illusion, that their imperatives are the only possible reality, they mark in chronological and behavioral sequence human actions. Institutions trace the cherished direction of the average individual; they find inappropriate his right to independent thinking and guarantee the answers to his issues; they provide a pattern of life, for instance, the wish to have family and children, education, property, professional accomplishment. Institutions establish a public example to follow - the idea of a cherished type of man.

In brief, we form our self-consciousness according to our social position, our status in society. This position is kept by the means of social control. Our material existence within the frames of a certain class determines what we can expect from life and our future as well as our goals and the ways to accomplish them. Each class of people keeps up to a certain vision of the world and life and the upper classes dominate over the lower ones. The governors at a high level and the institutions they establish as well as their legal regulations situate human life in narrow rails well trod by our ancestors and thought to be natural for that reason.

Society within Man

As though the fourth chapter about man and society is not depressing enough, in the chapter "Society within Man" the author goes far deeper into the discoveries which are stunning to the average mind. Berger is asking, "If society is similar to a prison, why then so many people so easily and willingly bear its burden?" His answer is that society controls man not only by outer means but it is WITHIN man too and human creatures are something like puppets with illusory freedom and opinion; "Society determines not only what we do, our activities, but also who we are - our mind and essence." In other words, society determines our IDENTITY, our self-consciousness. Why do we submit to this merciless control from within and out? Because most often we want the same thing that society requires from ourselves. We WANT to submit to the rules. They guarantee our sense of safety and spare us the necessity to think and be aware of the world and life as it is. We want to be submissive marionettes of the social mechanism. Our state in society determines who we are and what we are doing in life. In order to explain how this happens, Berger uses three main concepts: 1. Role theory, 2. Sociology of knowledge, 3. Theory of community belonging.

Finally, Berger states that we are not only prisoners of the physical prison of society, and slaves of its rules; but we are also mental prisoners of social control and its structures, which become inseparable from our self and our identity since we introject them within.

Role theory. Role is the expected and cherished responses and reactions to certain expectations and parameters; to frames and norms. The role guarantees a model to the individual according to which he can act in a certain situation. Roles control not only human behavior, but in time they begin to control his thoughts and emotions because human personality turns into the role he plays. People become their roles. Our roles turn into our identity - our social identity. Being born in a certain family, environment, with education and breeding, which the human creatures receive from his background, he is taught also the role which will drive him throughout his life. For example, it is possible that a gypsy seeking food in the thrash bins could have ICQ equal to 179; no one has ever made the effort to study his natural intellect. But the role that was assigned to him, his lack of education, way of survival, his verbal and hygiene culture, the social habits and standards he has formed stamped in him since his childhood, predetermine his future in social stratification. Thus the taught role is being reaffirmed constantly by other members of society - as well as by others playing the same role and those who are assigned a different role and who keep distance or strive towards it (according to its attraction). It is possible for a human being to change roles - Berger calls this process transformation. Transition to more cherished roles is a difficult process, requiring all powers of the individual, while the opposite process of transition to the role of a lower social position is easier but unwanted. The ethimology of the word personality from Latin in its derivative languages is the following: Persona = Mask = Person! Therefore, according to Berger, with whom hopefully we may agree, the person is a mask, a repertoire of roles, a process of performance, identifying and reaffirming in the eyes of people a series of appropriate, expected by them (the social structure) responses and actions. Thus a good part of the so called honesty and sincerity is just an aspect of the role of the one who demonstrates such qualities.

The social structures select those individuals who are appropriate to their functioning and eliminate those who do not correspond to their expectations.

Sociology of Knowledge. According to Berger "Ideas as well as man originate from a certain social milieu." Man thinks according to a certain scheme of perception given him from his background where he was brought up and educated. Thus a certain thought could be followed by the thinking man back to his background. The vision of the thinker depends on his background on the ideas and beliefs transferred to him by his parents, people his age, school, media. A fact is perceived in a certain way by critical mass of respected members of society and this makes it acceptable to the individual who unconsciously accepts the collective vision as true.

Theory of background belonging. Being a member of society a person is always formal or informal member of different groups which form, support and limit his worldview. Sometimes a man strives for another environment. The groups and the environment in which he acts provide him with a pattern according to which he constantly compares himself. The worldview changes with changing the environment, and the group of people who surround him, "Choosing a community, group, background, man chooses the specific world in which he is to live!"

I would conclude that Berger's vision is stunningly real. And still, the need for society is obvious. Human being cannot exist separate from society - it appears to be a group person with his institutions as organs. If a human child is brought up by a wolf's herd, which has happened, even if he has all human abilities, in a couple of years among the beastly environment the process of becoming primitive and turning the human being into a beast becomes inevitable and irreversible. Society need not consist only of unconscious puppets and it is not by all means a prison - why not compare it to a school? Society is a necessary structure and socialization of man is something natural. It is another matter if society where we live is the best example of society and if it is in harmony with Natural and Cosmic laws. It is said that these same leaders of humanity as a whole - those who control the governors of each country through economic manipulations, these same leaders decide for wars, for the winners and losers, for the world policy, the wealth of the countries, their prosperity or poverty. I couldn't argue that those persons are being led by ethical and selfless motives! The Bulgarian proverb claims: "Fish gets rotten from the head on". If the Global Village is ruled by the same individuals who predestine, decide and determine the future of human society, then reality of the present day absurd society - within and out of man - is clear.

Society as Drama

After depicting a gloomy picture of human individual within the social scheme, Berger describes how the same society with its innate and external control can be and should be a трамплин to freedom and even inner ecstasy for each individual who strives for them. The leitmotif is that life is a stage where we play our roles just as actors, but we can perform our repertoire without being absorbed and obsessed by it, but to be instead with constant relation to our true Deep Self. Peter Berger emphasizes that the manipulation of society is possible and necessary to overcome by the Awakened individual, who deserves to be called Man. How can we acquire freedom and happiness?

Freedom as the right of choice

Freedom does not relate to life outside society and does not suppose lack of society but a permanent connection to your own Self, with the Self who is the real player of the series of life and social roles.

The only true freedom we have is our right of choice at every moment of life.Though society strives at limiting and taking away even this original right of ours, the chance for inner choice of direction of thinking and state of mind is always available. Society consists of individuals and much as we depend on it, society is also dependant on ourselves.

The Illusion of Freedom

Often man escapes from society by social disobedience - sabotage to a greater or lesser extend and form - for example, starting from revolutions, through crime and till the everyday skipping some simple social rules and cultural norms. Such forms of protest give their practitioners the sense of freedom.

The Inner Witness

Another form to achieve sense of freedom that is proved to be adequate and applied in integral life within the social frame is the inner detachment. The individual lives in society, plays his roles and responsibilities but just as roles, performs them while within he is staying within the center of his mind, within the Freedom of his infinity. This is not easy to achieve - one should possess a higher level of inner energy in order to get distance from his role, to stay in his inner center keeping his calm and joy in all life circumstances , without his mind being obsessed and overwhelmed by them. Thus one is no more a puppet and he can even manipulate social structures because he obtains clear vision about what is going on in each moment and the system in general.

Ecstasy

Ecstasy seen in daily perspective is this ability to detach from our role, to see it in clear light, not to be overwhelmed by it and to understand that it is not trustworthy and sternly obliging and there are many ways to be performed and changed. We should dissociate from the "malignant belief", i.e., from the complete awareness of norms, rules and formalities of the social structures and institutions and liberate from the inner dependence from them.

Conclusion

In conclusion: society is a necessary and actually obligatory structure of mutual co-existence of human individuals. What makes this structure so depressing and as Sigmund Freud claims, what turns every individual in a neurotic, is the lack of wisdom and knowledge in those who are at the top of the pyramid of this society, who direct or more precisely, manipulate humanity into ways and practices which are not in harmony with the Cosmic Pulse and the laws of being in the broad sense. As the Bulgarian proverb claims, "Fish comes to stink from the head". If the Global village is ruled by those imitations of people who predetermine and choose the future of human societies then the reality of modern society within and outside man becomes clear. Some sociologists and psychologists such as Confucius and Buddha claim that the cause of each human suffering is ignorance - about oneself and about the world we live in. In order that human society be a happy and natural structure, and not a prison, as Peter Berger rightly observed, and in order that man be a conscious creative being as he is predestined to be, instead of a puppet on chains which he is being at present, modern society should get in touch with the Cosmic one. But in case that people cannot even live in harmony with each other and continue separating into tribal structures, named countries, how an they become part of a more extensive and large society - they even deny its existence and know nothing about it. Let us imagine we are at a couple of light years distance from our native beautiful planet - will we identify as Americans, British, Bulgarians or Japanese? Rather we will identify as Earthians, won't we?

© Orlin Baev
© Galina Markina - translated from bulgarian
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© E-publisher LiterNet, 29.12.2010
Orlin Baev. Transpersonal psychology. Sacred sexuality. Varna: LiterNet, 2010.