Chapter 1 Toward a Sociology of the Absurd

A new wave of thought is beginning to sweep over sociology. Aspects of the wave have been given an assortment of names- "labeling theory," "ethnomethodology," and "neo-symbolic interactionism"-but these do not cover its entire range of critique and perspective. A new name must be found to cover a conception which presents not only a unique perspective on conventional sociology but is also a radical departure from the conventional.

We feel an appropriate name is the Sociology of the Absurd.

The terra "absurd" captures the fundamental assumption of this new wave: The world is essentially without meaning. In contrast to that sociology which seeks to discover the real meaning of action-a sociological reality, such as the functional meaning of social behavior-this new sociology asserts that all systems of belief, including that of the conventional sociologists, are arbitrary. The problems previously supposed to be those of the sociologist are in fact the everyday problems of the ordinary person.' It is lie or she who must carve out meanings in a world that is meaningless. Alienation and insecurity are fundamental conditions of life-though they are experienced differently by individuals and groups-and the regular rehumanization of humankind is every person's task.

The Sociology of the Absurd draws its philosophical inspiration from existentialism and phenomenology. The works of Edmund Husserl are particularly crucial to its originating ideas.' Moreover, the interpreters of Husserl-especially Alfred Schutz' and Maurice Merleau-Ponty-are major sources of intellectual perspectives, fundamental concepts, and promising insights. On the basis of its debt to phenomenology and existentialism the Sociology of the Absurd might be called an existential phenomenology for sociology.

From existentialism the Sociology of the Absurd derives its emphases on human freedom and the life-long process of "becoming"; on the nexus between the reality which is "out there" and the human who is thinking, feeling, apprehending "inside" a body; and on tile broader view of a human as an integral being, composed not only of cogilo, but also of feeling, sensing, and apprehending. Finally, on the basis of existentialist thought the Sociology of the Absurd restores individuals to their rightful place as the principal agents of action, the central subjects of sociology. Together with Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Jaspers, the sociologists of the new wave seek to place humanity at the center of study-as it already is in fact at the center of thought and action .°

From phenomenology, the Sociology of the Absurd derives its emphasis on certain aspects of human activity, such as intentionality, consciousness, and subjective meaning. 1-ouman intentions, contrary to the position of the behavioral positivists, are definable to both social actors and their observers, not by some special technique possessed solely by experts or mystics, but rather by means of the most ordinary-but as yet not fully understood-mechanisms of perception carried on in everyday life.` Human consciousness should be the principal object of study in sociology, and this has been suggested in the work of Max Weber and in the early formulations of Parsons' theory of action.' But methodological problems restricted research, and it has not yet excited the intellectual interest it deserves.

Phenomenology, and especially existential phenomenology, appears to have laid the basis for a solution to the methodological problem of subjective knowledge and objective existence, and in this the new sociology finds a grounding for new research. As Tiryakian has observed, existential phenomenology "seeks to elucidate the existential nature of social structures by uncovering the surface institutional phenomena of the everyday, accepted world; by probing the subterranean, noninstitutional social depths concealed from public gaze, by interpreting the dialectic between the institutional and the non-institutional..."e

Now what specifically is the nature of human action from the viewpoint of the Sociology of the Absurd? Action consists of the pursuit of ends by social actors capable of deliberating about the line of activity they undertake and of choosing among alternatives to the same end. This does not mean that humans always precede action by deliberation. This is manifestly not the case. What it does mean is that they are capable of giving an account of their actions either as preactivity mental images of the action, its consequences and meanings, or as post hoc retrospective readings of completed acts. As images either before or after completion, these constructions emerge as statements made by the actors which give meaning to their actions.9 These constructions are not unintelligible to others. Most important, these statements constitute the actual meaning, though not necessarily the cause, of these actions, and thus are the basic data of the new sociology. Instead of adopting an undisguised skepticism of what humans say-a skepticism deeply rooted in the positivist and behaviorist traditions-the Sociology of the Absurd rejects the question of the truth value in face of the significance of the meaning value of these statements. In this respect the new sociology draws on yet another new intellectual strand, that introduced by the ordinary language philosophers who now contribute so much to linguistics and psychology. 10

It follows from the emphasis on freedom and becoming in existentialist thought that human action should be considered, as Parsons once put it, (voluntaristic."' Without this idea of voluntarism, human activity would be "mere behavior."' z Instead, in concert with Parsons' early view of the theory of action," the sociologist of the Absurd sees activity in discernible units of action-episodes, encounters, situations-to which the actor gives meaning; meaning beyond merely the sense of a set of physical objects. Thus humans are not necessarily the creatures of social or psychological forces-class, caste, race, or deep-lying unconscious states-which determine their behavior in the situation. The age-old problem of freedom versus determinism is not a problem of objective philosophy but rather of the actor's construction of reality, his or her image of freedom and constraint. The Sociology of the Absurd conceives of humans as being constructed and of constructing-social reality in every situation. From this point of view mental illness, for instance, is a social construction, not an absolute, unambiguous disease.

If life consists of encounters, episodes and engagements among persons pursuing goals of which they are consciously aware, or about which they can be made aware, then it appears that the fundamental structure of human action is conflict. This is true even if individuals are pursuing the same ends, since each is out to maximize his or her own interests. Thus, even two lovers in an erotic embrace, as Simmel once noted,' S may be regarded in conflict since each may be seeking to outdo the other in demonstrating affection or providing the other with feeling. If one begins with the conception of human action as interpersonal conflict, two important implications (for theory) follow. The first concerns the kind of model of interaction most useful for the analysis of the social world; the second is the heuristic model of humanity most fruitful for the analysis of interaction.

Concerning the first, it seems that a genre model is most suited for the analysis of interaction as our conception of the game model derives from the conception of a goal-seeking, voluntaristic, intentional actor. It follows from these characteristics that in any engagement he or she will employ, more or less consciously, stratagems and tactics to attain the end intended. It also follows that others participating in the engagement may be viewed as allies, opponents, or neutrals according to the goal sought and the means employed. The game model, we hold, is fruitful for the analysis of all social interactions, but it is especially so for the study of problematic statures, such as homosexuals, paranoids, minorities, and the stigmatized in general. In the following essays we have emphasized the game model, including a discussion of the nature and types of games, the role of game-strategy behavior in understanding the sick and stigmatized, the relation of spatial considerations to game strategies and personal identities, and the type of character and self presentation associated with strategies and tactics.

With regard to the second, the Sociology of the Absurd assumes a model of humans in conflict-with others, with society, with nature, and even with themselves. Even though much of sociology has refused to adopt this conception. It recommends itself as the most powerful heuristic device for the study of man-insociety." In passing it may be noted that the recent findings in animal ethologyespecially the works of Konrad Lorenz' e - lend a curious kind of support to our conception. More significant, however, are the fruitful settings for intellectual problems provided by the adoption of this model. By beginning with the assumption that social life is one of conflict, it follows that every social situation is problematic for those involved. With this model the sociologist must continually search for mechanisms that permit the production-and reproduction in a continuous series of engagements-of stable, uniform and persistent interaction." Thus the sociologist is induced by this model to persistently try and solve the riddle that originally set the discipline in motion: how is society possible? The sociologist must view humankind as the maker and remaker of social existence, as the producer and reproducer of stable engagements, as the architects of society and the ever-renewed social order.

The Sociology of the Absurd does not aim at building a "social system." Indeed system building would go against the grain. This new sociology is perhaps best characterized as a conceptual style of theoretical ideas and sensitizing concepts tied together not by logic or system, but rather by the underlying existential phenomenological assumptions stated above. In this respect it is worth contrasting the Sociology of the Absurd with functionalism. z°

The Sociology of the Absurd stands in opposition to functionalism on five major contentions. First, functionalism is interested in understanding human action in terms of forces unperceived by the actor. Functionalism assumes a determined world inhabited by creatures who are for the most part unaware of the forces that shape their destinies and who live by the illusion and self-deception of their own imagined freedom. The Absurd, on the contrary, holds that there is an existential continuum between freedom and determinism constructed and reconstructed by the social actors individually or in concert. Thus some people are more free than others; some are more constrained than they know. The Absurd is concerned with every person's intentions and consciousness, with each's "felt" state of freedom or fatalism, and with the consequences that flow therefrom.

Second, functionalism holds that the various parts of society are nonarbitrary since they contribute to the integration of the whole. The Absurd, on the other hand, holds that all elements of society are arbitrary. These elements have no fixed, stable, and irreducible meaning. They certainly are not part of an organic system with a builtin end purpose-homeostasis. This imagery of society which functionalism inherited from Aristotle and his followers lends itself to the radical separation of events from processes, and in many cases to a peculiar sociological emphasis on processes detached from events or particular episodes. z' The Absurd emphasizes the individual and the episodic-the event-and perceives this as the factor emerging from the participants' social construction of reality.

Third, functionalism regards the social order as rooted in a basic interdependence and cooperation. As the functionalists see it, humans, through the socialization process, internalize norms, and fit into roles. These roles, in turn, are meshed together to form interlocking role-sets, or institutions. Aside from our disagreement with the empirical validity of this interpretation (we believe, for example, that society in the modern complex world is better described as a collection of conflicting subcultures," which in their relations manage to maintain some pattern of stability by the employment of social mechanisms as yet imperfectly understood by sociologists), we hold that the functionalist perspective is heuristically weak because it begs the basic question for which sociology was founded. By assuming cooperation and interdependence a priori, by pressing society on to a teleological Procrustean bed, by conceiving of society as an organism or a mechanism, functional theory cannot make the social order problematic; it can assume that society is possible but not discover how it is possible.

Fourth, because functionalism sees persons as determined creatures played upon by forces largely seen "as through a glass, darkly," it opts to study them from the point of view of the observer. Functionalism pays little attention to the perceptions made by human beings about their own activities. Rather it regards these as founded on ignorance of the real forces that shape human action." The Absurd on the other hand rejects the a priori existence of a determined world discoverable by sociologists. It regards people as an actors who builds up actions on the basis of their goals and of continuing attempts to define and redefine the situation. Thus, the social world is studied from the point of view of the actors who construct it.

Finally, functionalism postulates a common value system in society. We hold, on the other hand, that in modern complex societies there are few if any common, binding values. Values and norms are pluralistically applicable on the basis of situations, persons, and titnes. Thus what is crucial is the definition of the situation. And this definition is not simply "given." Rather, it is a bargain struck for the time being by the participants in the episode. For values to be employed, for norms to be operational, there must be "negotiation" of situations and identities, and obviously the participants have significant stakes in this negotiation. Only when these interactants are agreed upon who they are and what they are do they give and receive accounts-excuses and justifications-the linguistic devices that shore up fractured social situations.

Because we cannot assume value consensus, we have a second reason for supposing the social world to be problematic. Every investigation carried out under the aegis of the Sociology of the Absurd is approached with a sense of astonishment that a social order exists. The puzzle, the mystery of how social order somehow emerges from the chaos and conflict predicated by the inherently meaningless is the motive for the studv of social phenomena.

Much sociology has been motivated by social meliorism. Although we might laud the endeavors to improve the world, and certainly recognize the multi-faceted problems in modern societies, for several reasons we cannot subscribe to the thesis that social engineering or social change is the primary objective of the Sociology of the Absurd. First, no sociological enterprise directed at healing the social ills, improving the body politic, or salvaging cultural remnants can approach the subject from the standpoint of the Sociology of the Absurd. A consciously naive but intellectual inquiry into how social order is possible supersedes questions of policy and priority in such a manner as to make the latter not only irrelevant but also a hindrance to the research endeavor.

Second, once sociologists consciously adopt meliorism as their principal objective, they seek to influence policy-makers. Influence requires a rhetoric calculated to convince those in power that one has both the appropriate ideas and the techniques with which to make the studies that are convincing to policy makers. Thus, the policyoriented sociologist is more likely to be inclined to low-level theorizing, quantification, axiomatic system building, and whatever other rhetorical stratagems are likely to be persuasive.

Finally, sociological meliorism is a contradiction of the nature of humanity and society as assumed by the Sociology of the Absurd. Meliorism, were it to be the aim of sociology, assumes that sociologists are philosopherkings, or to put it more accurately, philosophers of the people and advisers to the kings. 'File sociologist of the Absurd is simply an observer of the social scene and thus does not suffer from the conceit and arrogance of the social engineer who would reshape the world according to what lie or she lays down as "objective" ethics.

It follows from this, however, that the sociologist of the Absurd can make sound observations and reflections in the freest of societies. Such a society is not one in which the practicing social scientist is restricted in the opportunities for observation. This does not mean a society devoid of privacy, but one in which the sociologists takes chances to see what they can see, observing the nooks and crannies, crevices and interstices as well as the broad range of open spaces and public situations. A society marked by police regulation and extensive sumptuary legislation is unlikely to produce much good sociology, just as it is unlikely to produce much excellent art or literature.

It would be untrue, however, to say that restricted societies are unamenable to sociological inquiry. The sociologist of the Absurd must be a careful observer in any situation, making awareness and exact description of the political, legal, social, and moral restraints on the individual a part of the task. He, or she, must, insofar as possible, apprehend the exact definition the individual has of his or her own freedom and of the constraints upon it in every encounter, so that part of the description, locates the person precisely in the continuum between humanism and fatalism. He, or she, must uncover ideology and utopia in each person, wish and transfiguration in each situation. The sociologists of the Absurd, by their very description of society, by their everlasting unfolding and illumination of the modes and styles of social order, can summon human beings to build the world of their dreams, but they cannot build it for them.

Although the Sociology of the Absurd is a new wave, it grows out of contemporary issues and new ideas in other arenas of progressive thought and action. Undoubtedly one of the most important of these is the Theatre of the Absurd, a school of dramatic thought limned by such names as Beckett, Ionesco, and Genet. Indeed our definition of tile Absurd derives from Ionesco's in his essay on Kafka: "Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose .... Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless."

If the Theatre of the Absurd illustrates the meaninglessness of the world, the Sociology of the Absurd describes humanity's constant striving for meaning in the face of the faceless Monolith. The Sociology of the Absurd emphasizes the episodic in every life; it deemphasizes, though it does not discount, the predecessors and successors of contemporary man. It sees humanity as Simmel saw some men and Carnus saw all men-as strangers. Thus Simmel wrote:

If wandering is the liberation from every given point in space, and thus the conceptional opposite to fixation at such a point, the sociological form of the "stranger" presents the unity, as it were, of these two characteristics .... The stranger is thus being discussed here, not... as the wanderer who comes today and goes tomorrow .... He is fixed within a particular spatial group, or within a group whose boundaries are similar to spatial boundaries. But his position in this group is determined, essentially, by the fact that lie has not belonged to it from the beginning, that he imports qualities into it, which do not and cannot stem from the group itself."

A world that can be explained by reasoning, however faulty, is a familiar world. But in a universe that is suddenly deprived of illusions and of light, man feels a stranger.' His is an irremediable exile, because he is deprived of memories of a lost homeland as much as he lacks the hope of a promised land to come. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, truly constitutes the feeling of Absurdity.

Simmel characterizes the stranger as an awe-inspiring, fearsome contributor; Camus as a victim of the irrelevant past and unpromising future. The sociologist, seeing the stranger, emphasizes the problematic nature of his or her existence. Essentially a contemporary, the stranger must struggle to establish the meaning of each new moment, even if only to get through it and be confronted by the next moment, and the next. Further the stranger must sort out relationships, appropriately sharing affections between strangers and siblings, acquaintances and lovers. Annoyed by the importunity of unwarranted fellowship; estranged by the coldness of unrequited affection; threatened by the powers of the mighty; frightened by the terror of the unknown; and doomed by the inevitability of death, always the stranger is confronted with life-things, events, people-which demand responses, require interpretation, cry out for meaning. Thus the Sociology of the Absurd studies the existential being, the creature who strives after sense in a senseless world.

The development of the Sociology of the Absurd has just begun, and it is impossible at this time to predict its future. But it is worthwhile to review its intellectual past, identifying its principal predecessors and acknowledging the more prominent of its contemporaries. The most important precursors of the Sociology of the Absurd are Machiavelli, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, and Alfred Schutz. Its principal contemporaries are Erving Goffman and Harold Garfinkel. Edmund Husserl, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Ludwig Wittgenstein have given it philosophical inspiration. Our task will not be to review the perspectives of these men, but rather to show what aspects of the work of its initial forebear - Machiavelli-have contributed to the growing body of thought on the Absurd.