Society as Text: Essays on Rhetoric, Reason, and Reality [Paperback]

Richard Harvey Brown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1992 | ISBN-10: 0226076172 | ISBN-13: 978-0226076171

Brown makes elegant use of sociological theory and of insights from language philosophy, literary criticism, and rhetoric to articulate a new theory of the human sciences, using the powerful metaphor of society as text.

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About the Author

Richard Harvey Brown is professor of sociology at the University of Maryland.

Product Details

• Paperback: 262 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (October 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226076172
• ISBN-13: 978-0226076171
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,501,469 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Emancipating the Polity through a Radical Pedagogy, September 17, 2011

By 

Herbert L Calhoun "paulocal" (Falls Church, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Society as Text: Essays on Rhetoric, Reason, and Reality (Paperback)

This author makes what used to be considered esoteric and radical seem almost commonplace and mundane: that social experience and knowledge are mediated if not entirely produced symbolically through the persuasive use of language.

On the route to the goal of how best to erect an intellectual structure for an "emancipated polity," this author shows us that a radical pedagogy mediated by the persuasive use of symbols through language is a fundamental requirement. However, according to his thesis of "symbolic realism," it is not just the context of communication between "would be leaders" and "followers" that is important, but the very socio-structural foundation of the language used to mediate between theory and action.

Not since Kenneth Burke's "The Philosophy of Symbolic forms", or Hugh Dalziel Duncan's two books, "Symbols in Society," and the seminal, "Symbols and Social theory;" and my favorite, Murray Edelman's "The Symbolic Uses of Politics," have we seen an excursion into the theory that language -- as it is exhibited through communications, philosophy, sociological theory, hermeneutics, literary criticism and rhetoric - can serve as an apt metaphor for social theory and indeed for political and civic culture in society as a whole. My first Phd thesis proposal was an attempt to do something similar to what Brown has done in this book, however, at the time I was "in way over my head" from the beginning, and the proposal properly was summarily rejected.

Here in a much more skillful melding of disparate elements and theories into their symbolic, societal and political forms, the author attempts to return sociological theorizing to a status enjoyed in former times (before the social mechanics: the machinists, organic and structural functionalists; the processors: the structural behaviorialists, social realists systems analysts, and functional theorists got a hold of it), in short at time at when the analysis of rhetorical and textual expressions as well as of political discourse were held in a much higher regard than they are held today.

But his thesis is much more radical than just that of serving up a new way to raise the level of political discourse or as just another more coherent and more sophisticated counterweight to the chaos of post-modern theorizing. Brown believes that the world is not so much "observed" as "read" and thus that not only is knowledge the most powerful social element in the human march towards emancipatory political action, but also that the world of society itself is reducible to symbolically structured forms of knowledge, language and texts. Today this is a commonplace post-modern idea, confirmed through multiple scientific channels. However in 1987 when the book went to press, this was considered nearer the outer fringes of radical academics.

In a heroic effort to convince us that the world is "read" rather then "observed," the author rolls out (rather belatedly in chapter 19) his own theory of symbolic realism. Leaning heavily on Carl Jung, Weber, Marx, Durkheim, Habermas, Simmel and Mead, among others, his theory reminds us that only after focusing on language can we come to realize that individual consciousness and social structure emerged in tandem through "discursive practices," i.e. through intellectual debate and communication that sought to judge the "moral worth, value and importance" of issues of the day.

As social institutions and political discourse, language is the active ingredient that moves us from the intellectual plane to the arena of action (or praxis), and thus provides the synergy between consciousness and objective things, ideals and political goals. It is the "system generator" of intentions and purposeful political structures, and therefore is the critical "driver" and "connector" between human social processes, interactions and consciousness.

Brown's theory, in an intellectual tour de force, goes even further and among other things, attempts to resolve the dualism of human nature, which unreflectively attempts to bisect reality into "things" and "ideas." However, Brown's theory of "symbolic realism" reminds us that this duality at the very least misses the point, and thus is a suspicious if not an entirely unsteady basis for theory formation. Since all human experience and human reality clearly is mediated through symbols, an alternative theory based on them probably is the more efficacious and surely is the more robust route to better understanding of the what lies at the base of our humanity. Moreover, the content of symbols are themselves symbolic actions and other symbolic forms, and are thus tightly interwoven into everything we deem to be social. Even when we think we are "once removed" from the intrinsic meanings of linguistic forms we are not. They are both the carriers of meaning and its contents. In short, they are pure sociation.

Heady stuff probably somewhat dated but in any case not for the faint hearted. Some minimal background work in the sociological use of symbols is required. George Herbert Mead is a good place to begin. Five Stars.