Sociology: ‘The Excitement of Finding the Familiar Becoming Transformed’

“The excitement of sociology is usually of a different sort. Sometimes, it is true, the sociologist penetrates into worlds that had previously been quite unknown to him—for instance, the world of crime, or the world of some bizarre religious sect, or the world fashioned by the exclusive concerns of some group such as medical specialists or military leaders or advertising executives. However, much of the time the sociologist moves in sectors of experience that are familiar to him and to most people in his society. He investigates communities, institutions and activities that one can read about every day in the newspapers. Yet there is another excitement of discovery beckoning in his investigations. It is not the excitement of coming upon the totally unfamiliar, but rather the excitement of finding the familiar becoming transformed in its meaning. The fascination of sociology lies in the fact that its perspective makes us see in a new light the very world in which we have lived all our lives. This also constitutes a transformation of consciousness.” 

– Peter Berger (1963: 21), “Invitation to Sociology” [my emphasis]

This quote is often confused with the twin phrases, “Seeing the general in the particular,” and “seeing the strange in the familiar.” The latter are coined by John Macionis and Ken Plummer in “Sociology: A Global Introduction” (2012 [1997]: 4-5, 5th ed.).

Berger never uses these expressions exactly. Instead, Berger writes extensively about the particularity of perspectives. For example:

“The sociology of knowledge, more clearly than any other branch of sociology, makes clear what is meant by saying that the sociologist is the guy who keeps asking ‘Says who?’ It rejects the pretence that thought occurs in isolation from the social context within which particular men think about particular things. Even in the case of very abstract ideas that seemingly have little social connection, the sociology of knowledge attempts to draw the line from the thought to the thinker to his social world. This can be seen most easily in those instances when thought serves to legitimate a particular social situation, that is, when it explains, justifies and sanctifies it.”

– Peter Berger (1963: 111), “Invitation to Sociology” [my emphasis]

Berger also talks about questioning our senses and perception. For example:

“It can be said that the first wisdom of sociology is this—things are not what they seem. This too is a deceptively simple statement. It ceases to be simple after a while. Social reality turns out to have many layers of meaning. The discovery of each new layer changes the perception of the whole.”

– Peter Berger (1963: 23), “Invitation to Sociology” [my emphasis]

Berger argues sociological curiosity involves discovering “strange pursuits” in the seemingly mundane.

“Let us return instead to the proposition that sociological perspective involves a process of “seeing through” the facades of social structures. We could think of this in terms of a common experience of people living in large cities. One of the fascinations of a large city is the immense variety of human activities taking place behind the seemingly anonymous and endlessly undifferentiated rows. A person who lives in such a city will time and again experience surprise or even shock as he discovers the strange pursuits that some men engage in quite unobtrusively in houses that, from the outside, look like all the others on a certain street. Having had this experience once or twice, one will repeatedly find oneself walking down a street, perhaps late in the evening, and wondering what may be going on under the bright lights showing through a line of drawn curtains. An ordinary family engaged in pleasant talk with guests? A scene of desperation amid illness or death? Or a scene of debauched pleasures? Perhaps a strange cult or a dangerous conspiracy? The facades of the houses cannot tell us, proclaiming nothing but an architectural conformity to the tastes of some group or class that may not even inhabit the street any longer. The social mysteries lie behind the facades. The wish to penetrate to these mysteries is an analogon to sociological curiosity.”

– Peter Berger (1963: 31), “Invitation to Sociology” [my emphasis]