Sociology: Excitment in 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 “Seeing the general in the particular and the strange in the familiar.” The latter is a phrase coined by John Macionis and Ken Plummer in “Sociology: A Global Perspective.”