Talk:Social world

Weltanschauung

Two comments...

(1) "The phrase world view (or in German, weltanschaung) can also be used in the same way..."

weltanschauung (two u's)

That assumes that a world view is necessarily shared with other people, so that it is an essential part of a social world view. But surely it is possible for unusual people to produce their own idiosyncratic world views which are not part of a social world. No?

Holy cow, Larry! You posted these comments almost before i created the page! ;-) Seriously, that limitation is worth noting in the article, but most contemporary users of the concept do indeed make that assumption. In fact, it is in the study of the distinctive social worlds of what you term 'unusual people' that the concept has really come into its own in recent decades.

(2) There is another problem with this. The definition offered says a social world is "a broadly relational concept...to indicate any particular system or network of social knowledge, awareness and relations." I notice that people (and hence, society properly speaking) are not included in this definition. But the next sentence goes on and asserts that people and other items are included in social worlds: "Thus, when someone refers to 'my social world' they are ordinarily indicating an entire set of people, places and things that includes the people they know or have known in the past..."

The question is: does a social world include collectively-held norms, ideas, etc., as the definition states (this could be the same as a weltanshauung), or does it include "people, places and things" that are known (this could not be the same as a weltanshauung)?

I think this needs to be clarified. --Larry Sanger 15:43, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I would have thought it went without saying that it is people who have relationships, attitudes and awareness, but apparently not. That's easily remedied. On the other hand, as we've discussed before, your conception of society as expressed here in the parenthetical (and hence society properly speaking) is most definitely NOT shared by many of the most frequent users of the concept of social world for the very reason cited in your first point. Many would argue that the exclusive nature of the social worlds of the New York "400" and of Whyte's Street Corner Society render the notion of a larger, more encompassing "society" bound together by collectively-held norms that embraces them both either trivial or incoherent. (What "collective-held norms" were evident in the reactions of black and white social worlds to the O.J. Simpson trial, for example?) I'm not asking you to agree or disagree; I'm just trying to render the concept as accurately as i can.

Roger Lohmann 16:32, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I don't mean to disagree specifically with any of that. I was making a philosophical point. I'm just saying that there is a difference between a collection of people, on the one hand--by whatever shared beliefs, relations, or however they are identified--and an "abstract" world view, that arbitrary people from around the world might subscribe to. I might share a similar world view to Chang in China, though we have don't run in the same social circles at all. It seems to me that sets of ideas are very much distinguishable from the people who hold them, and whether certain social relations do or do not exist between the people is logically independent of whether they have similar world views. So my main question here is: what ultimately constitutes the social world, is it a specific group of people or instead a set of ideas? Or is it both?

Can your 'philosophical point' be distilled into a paragraph to add to the main article? I continue to be concerned that so much really meaty stuff (like this) is discussed on the talk pages and forums but doesn't get into the main articles or subpages. Only the really sophisticated readers are going to figure this out and read the talk pages also. I can try to translate your point into the article, but I'm not sure I see all of the ramifications you do, so it would be better coming from you.

I wonder, are you (or the sociologists who talk about this) making an assumption that, just because people happen to travel in the same "social circles," they will all or mostly share the same "world view"? Surely there are coherent groups of people who exhibit great variation in weltanshauung--say, a chain gang of prisoners who have worked together for the last 10 years, know each other well, and in some sense make up a coherent group. Or think of a tightly-knit church congregation, with healthy variety in political views...or the regular Citizens of CZ. On the common usage of the phrase, would such groups make up "social worlds" or not?

Early on in most ethnographies that is an issue, but in most cases, the answer is no, that assumption doesn't hold up. It is usually resolved in terms of a (potentially very lengthy) cycle of minority-world views within minority-world views within minority world views, etc. (Thus, the Muslim community in the U.S. has a world view very different from the 'mainstream society' (whatever that may be determined to be), but within that world (Shiia and Sunni - just to mention two have very different world views, and within each of those, minorities, e.g., the radical fundamentalist clerics have still different world views. The current stub on jihad for example, is going to have to deal with all of those different social world views at some point.

One of the most important differences here is between conflicts in social world view that may be meaningful only within the group or subculture, and those shared with the outside world. Thus, certain decisions and actions currently being made by the Shakers in Pennsylvania in response to their problem kids are literally "world-view shattering" from their standpoint, and rather ho-hum to those in the surrounding communities and a matter of complete indifference to that fictional creature "the average American".

I ask these questions mainly out of philosophical interest. The whole topic strikes me as mainly about how we should think of social groups... I am curious if the phrase "social world" is freighted with potentially controversial conceptual baggage (e.g., that I might want to disagree with). --Larry Sanger 17:33, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Could be, but we can't be doing original research to resolve such questions here, but only neutrally reflecting the current state of knowledge in this area. Thus, our approach to such matters should be only to fully and fairly reflect the issues and concerns. Again, could you add anything on what you see those controversies as being? (This might be an excellent start for a Debate Guide page.)

Roger Lohmann 14:31, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

imagined communities

I wonder how Benedict Anderson fits into this term. I'll get out Anderson and Berger and Luckman this afternoon and see how I can contribute further. --Joe Quick 13:39, 7 May 2009 (UTC)