Wow...Courier New
doesn't look new at all...whereas 'Symbolic Interactionism' looks new (in the
sense I've never seen the words put together before) and also sounds new (in
the sense I've never heard the words said together before) but in actual fact,
is not all that new itself either. Looking no further than B Roberts'
"Symbolic Interactionism 2: Developments" I have discovered that
there is a fair bit to this concept and the power of the combination of the two
words (once again
being 'symbolic' and 'interactionalism') put together is not only
enlightening but also introduces some fairly normal understandings of everyday
social interactions (see what I did there?).
But what is talked about within the reading isn’t
particularly ground breaking stuff. What seems to be more ground breaking is
the seamless way he manages to turn simple concepts of symbols of meaning into
minefields of theoretical nonsense aimed to frustrate anyone who doesn’t have 6
hours to re-read sentences over and over again to only realise you weren’t
actually paying attention the last 6 times you read it.
So yes, it has been something that I
imagine most people have thought about – context plays a large role within
social interaction and what is considered normal within our society. Further
reading has helped me to consolidate much of what was in the reading to find
that there are 3 main points within symbolic interactionism that I have
summaries into:
People place meaning on
objects/people/things etc. according to how much they value these
things/objects/people. The value one places on such objects/people/things is
the result of their interaction within a society or social context. This
reinforces itself and thus continues the great circle of life…or at least the
symbolic interactionism circle of life. I didn’t really comment much on the
subject…I think they should have somehow incorporated the Lion King into it.
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