On social facts by Gilbert Margaret

Author:Gilbert, Margaret
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Soziologische Theorie, Theorie, Kollektive Handlung, Gruppe, Soziologie, Soziales Gebilde, Society, Social groups, Sociology -- Methodology, Collective behavior, Social action, Comportement collectif, Action sociale, Sociologie - Méthodologie, Groupes sociaux, Sociologie -- Méthodologie, Sociologie - Methodologie, Sociologie -- Methodologie
ISBN: 0415024447
Publisher: London ; New York : Routledge
Published: 1989-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

VI

SOCIAL CONVENTION

Note 1

Note 2

Note 3

Note 4

Note 5

Note 6

such as: ‘There’s a convention in this department that we dress formally for department meetings’ or ‘In this country there’s a convention that you may use a person’s first mame immediately after being introduced.’ Social conventions would appear to be paradigm social phenomena. As in the previous chapter, I shall not presuppose at the outset the accuracy of conclusions reached earlier. In this case, I shall not take as my brief the working out of an account of social convention that accords with my previous account of a group’s belief or of a social group, and so on. Rather, by starting afresh, I hope to confirm those accounts by showing how, in effect, an initially independent discussion of social convention tends in their direction.

In advance of analysis, there are a number of clear fixed points about social conventions. It will be useful to make something of a list at once, both to clarify the topic and to provide an initial framework for the assessment of proposed analyses. (In what follows I sometimes write of ‘conventions’, simply, instead of social conventions, trusting that the context will make my intention clear.)

Social conventions are undoubtedly both ubiquitous and influential. However local or temporary, they are always forces to be reckoned with. To give some examples: if there is a convention in my social circle that one send one’s hosts a thankyou note after a dinner party, then I court censure if I never send such notes. If I arrive in a country where there is a convention that only close family members ever kiss in public, and I kiss an old friend on meeting her in a restaurant I risk being thought outrageous, alien, insane, or all three. Once I know that there is such a convention in the country where I am living, I have an argument for acting in accordance with the convention, though not necessarily one which will finally dictate how I act. The existence of a convention is, then, apt to encourage conformity to the convention.

Evidently social conventions do not only apply to situations involving people’s ‘social life’ in a narrow sense, to situations such as dinner parties. Social conventions can relate to behaviour in public places, to behaviour at work, at school, in the marketplace; to the behaviour of scholars and scientists, writers, artists, and politicians. They may also reach into the heart of a person’s private life. There can be conventions about when and on what and for how long and with whom one sleeps, about the degree to which one’s home is to be kept tidy, about the appearance of both the front parlour and the back bedroom. In short, there can be conventions relating to practically every activity a person can engage in, and to all aspects of action - to manner, time, location, and so on.

Conventions may differ radically from group to group. In some groups there may be a convention governing behaviour when waiting for a bus, in others there may be no such convention.

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