{"id":723,"date":"2012-01-16T02:45:11","date_gmt":"2012-01-16T02:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terrywassall.org\/?p=723"},"modified":"2012-01-16T02:45:11","modified_gmt":"2012-01-16T02:45:11","slug":"socialisation-as-reflexive-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/2012\/01\/16\/socialisation-as-reflexive-engagement\/","title":{"rendered":"Socialisation as reflexive engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EjDtsYtDi9c\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Thanks to Mark Carrigan for bringing this to my attention <a href=\"http:\/\/markcarrigan.net\/2012\/01\/15\/margaret-archer-socialization-as-reflexive-engagement\/\">http:\/\/markcarrigan.net\/2012\/01\/15\/margaret-archer-socialization-as-reflexive-engagement\/<\/a> As he notes, Margaret Archer&#8217;s presentation starts about 8 minutes into the video. Some quick initial notes:<\/p>\n<p>Archer refers to the traditional theory of socialisation as the &#8216;blotting paper model&#8217;. She picks out Parsons for particular condemnation and Mead as the most sensitive to the problems with this model in that he at least recognises that the modern world of globalising capitalism has undercut some of the preconditions for the traditional model to be adequate.\u00a0Her critique rests on the crucial question she claims realists ask as an opening gambit in all their enquiries &#8211; what are the\u00a0necessary\u00a0conditions for something to be the case &#8211; the transcendental argument. She adopts this approach in her critique of the traditional theory of socialisation. What are the necessary conditions for the theory to be correct? Having enumerated these and found them lacking, the theory can be exposed as inadequate.<\/p>\n<p>Under current conditions of globalising capitalism the &#8216;reflexive imperative&#8217; has intensified due to the increased pace of change, particularly since the 1980s. Due to changes in the family\u00a0initially\u00a0but the wider world which growing children and young people enter, the &#8216;communicative reflexive&#8217; &#8211; the socialised individual assumed by the traditional theory &#8211; is now a minority. Two other types of &#8216;socialised&#8217; individuals now predominate &#8211; the autonomous reflexive and the meta reflexive. The first of these is the\u00a0entrepreneurial\u00a0chancer on the lookout to exploit\u00a0opportunities, individualistic, supporter of capitalism and by implication selfish and amoral. \u00a0The meta reflexive is critical of society and hopes for change and is\u00a0constantly\u00a0disappointed\u00a0that it doesn&#8217;t happen. \u00a0Archer says that they tend to become volatile and\u00a0wander\u00a0from job to job. \u00a0These seem to me to be rather overdrawn, at least in the\u00a0presentation. \u00a0There is a forthcoming book. Some\u00a0characteristics\u00a0of the meta reflexive can be seen, for instance, in radical academics and\u00a0employees\u00a0in the public\u00a0sector. Perhaps it&#8217;s best to see Archers&#8217; reflexive types as ideal types.\u00a0\u00a0The fate of the old style communicative\u00a0reflexive\u00a0is uncertain as they are peculiarly unfit for this stage of modernity, their form of socialisation does\u00a0not\u00a0fit current conditions and therefore they potentially become &#8216;fractured reflexives&#8217;. This is a condition where they relinquish a large degree of autonomy. They become passive subjects at the mercy of circumstances that they do not actively engage with to achieve a degree, at least, of self determination.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder how this maps onto Ulrich Beck&#8217;s classification of\u00a0responses\u00a0to risk society &#8211; active\u00a0engagement, resigned acceptance and confused\u00a0denial?\u00a0Perhaps the different sorts of socialisation and forms of\u00a0reflexive\u00a0engagement Archer outlines may lead to differential propensities to fall into Beck&#8217;s categories later in life.<\/p>\n<p>It might be\u00a0interesting\u00a0to revisit Dennis Wrong&#8217;s 1961 article &#8216;The\u00a0Over-socialised\u00a0Conception of Man in Modern Sociology&#8217; \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/pss\/2089854\">http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/pss\/2089854<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Also worth a look may be the chapter of Sennett&#8217;s new book &#8216;Together: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Cooperation&#8217; which appears to be about early years socialisation <a href=\"http:\/\/politics.salon.com\/writer\/richard_sennett\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/politics.salon.com\/writer\/richard_sennett\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>There is a set of notes on another Margaret Archer video I posted earlier <a href=\"http:\/\/terrywassall.org\/2011\/02\/19\/margaret-archer-on-reflexivity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Margaret Archer on Reflexivity<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Mark has also posted some reflections provoked by the &#8216;Socialisation as reflexive engagement&#8217; video at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/markcarrigan.net\/2012\/01\/16\/some-thoughts-on-socialization-and-personhood\/\">http:\/\/markcarrigan.net\/2012\/01\/16\/some-thoughts-on-socialization-and-personhood\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to Mark Carrigan for bringing this to my attention http:\/\/markcarrigan.net\/2012\/01\/15\/margaret-archer-socialization-as-reflexive-engagement\/ As he notes, Margaret Archer&#8217;s presentation starts about 8 minutes into the video. Some quick initial notes: Archer refers to the traditional theory of socialisation as the &#8216;blotting paper model&#8217;. She picks out Parsons for particular condemnation and Mead as the most sensitive to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/2012\/01\/16\/socialisation-as-reflexive-engagement\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Socialisation as reflexive engagement&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-sociology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}