The Syria humanitarian Criss

Sarah Elgohary                  

Egypt inspired the idea of society is not always what it appears to be . I am discovering myself as a person and my family is fun and amazing I love my familyEE  The article by C. Invitation to Sociology Peter L Berger to my understanding is about the structure of society. The main idea Berger was trying to convey was that society is not always what it appears to be. Berger makes a point that reality can be very deceiving. People really need to look deeper into themselves and the world to discover the true meaning life and society. I agree with Berger’s perspective of society, that is one of the reasons I enjoyed reading Introduction to Sociology” by C. Peter L Berger       The article was interesting, and detailed, although the first time I  read the article it was very confusing to me and hard to understand. I had never seen some of the term-* ology in this article before, but it was a new learning experience---I like the Berger explains that society has many different layers and your perception of the world changes as find the true meaning as you peel away the layers like as onion .

A sociologist thinks of society as a large complex of human relationships or as a system of interaction. He gives the example that two people talking on a street corner would not be considered a society, but three people stranded on an island would be. A sociologist uses the term social to describe the quality of interaction, interrelationship, and mutuality.  Two men talking on a street corner is not considered a society, but it is considered social. Society consists of a number of social events like this. Society is a number of complex social events. Social situations are people orienting their actions towards one another.  

Berger speaks of a process of “seeing through” society.  I love the point it is so interesting. He gives an example of a large city with endless rows of houses to explain this.  We must look behind people’s closed doors to really find out what is going on. This is the same thing sociologists must do Berger gives an example of how sociologists “look behind” the facades of a community.  While you could look up the charter to figure out how a community is governed, a sociologist is more concerned with the “informal power structure.” This is a configuration of men and their statutes. A sociologist will “look behind” the official mechanisms that govern the community while insisting there is another level of reality that needs to be investigated. 

Berger also gives another example from the economic world.  A manager at an industrial plant will prepare charts the show how the company is organized and show that every man in the organization has his place.  A sociologist will be more concerned with trying to break through these official versions of reality and try to find out what goes on below with the workers.  One more example is that of the reasons for marrying. A sociologist is more interested in looking beyond “love” and finding out the motives related to the institutional structure that causes people to marry. I liked Berger’s point about marriage. Berger explains that problems that interest the sociologist may not be what other people can problems.  While others think of divorce as a problem and look to the sociologist for a solution, the sociologist understands the sociological problem by understanding what goes on in social interaction. So a social problem is not why things go wrong, but how the whole system works together in the first place. So the social problem in the case of divorce would actually be marriage.  

Berger ends the essay by saying that the sociological frame of reference is always looking for levels of reality other than the official interpretations of society and its goal is to “see through” the facades of society to find out what is really going on underneath it all.