Читать книгу Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 144

Durkheim argued that society has primacy over the individual person as it is more than the sum of individual acts; it has a ‘firmness’ or ‘solidity’ comparable to structures in the material environment. Think of a person in a room with several doors. The structure of the room constrains the range of possible activities. The siting of the walls and the doors defines the routes of exit and entry. Social structure sets similar limits to what we can do, and in this sense it is ‘external’ to the individual. Durkheim (1982 [1895]: 50) expresses the point this way:

When I perform my duties as a brother, a husband or a citizen and carry out the commitments I have entered into, I fulfil obligations which are defined in law and custom and which are external to myself and my actions…. Similarly, the believer has discovered from birth, ready fashioned, the beliefs and practices of his religious life; if they existed before he did, it follows that they exist outside him. The systems of signs that I employ to express my thoughts, the monetary system I use to pay my debts, the credit instruments I utilize in my commercial relationships, the practices I follow in my profession, etc. – all function independently of the use I make of them.

Although this structural perspective has many adherents, it has also met with sharp criticism. What is ‘society’ if it is not the composite of many individual actions? If we study a social group we do not see a collective entity or ‘thing’, just many individuals interacting with one another in various ways. In the same way, what we call ‘society’ is only an aggregate of individuals behaving in regular ways in relation to one another. According to interactionists, human beings have reasons for what they do, and they inhabit a social world constructed by meanings. Social phenomena are not like ‘things’ but depend on the symbolic meanings we invest in them, which means we are not at the mercy of an external ‘society’ but are instead its creators.

Yet the differences between structure and agency perspectives can be exaggerated, and we can easily see connections between them. Social structures do precede and constrain the individual. For example, I did not invent the monetary system I use, nor do I have a choice about whether I want to use it if I wish to have the goods and services money can buy. On the other hand, it is mistaken to suppose that society is ‘external’ in the same way as the physical world. The physical world would still exist if no human beings were alive, but the monetary system would not. Moreover, ‘social facts’ do not entirely determine our actions. I could choose to live without using money, even if it proved very difficult to eke out an existence. As human beings, we can make choices and do not simply respond passively to events.

An antiques and vintage market demonstrates structure and agency in economic exchanges. Buyers are constrained to pay using an established currency (structure), but final prices are not fixed and can be bartered (agency).