Our thoughts are generally taken up with the minutiae of our everyday life. We threat or rejoice about our health, our wealth, our love lives, our families, our holidays, and even our sports teams. Likewise, we have a tendency to explain problems or achievements as being caused by the actions of individuals or specific groups.
On missing out on the last parking spot, our first response may be to curse the lucky sod who beat us to it, a secondary thought might condemn the council for failing to provide more spots. It is rarer that we allow ourselves that more detached perspective in which we consider trade-offs between pedestrianisation, housing, and environmental outcomes, for example. The great privilege of being a Sociologist is having the time and space to research issues at the societal level. If nothing else, I hope that all of the graduates from the University’s Sociology degree (which I coordinate) go out into the world with the ability to take the mental leap from the personal to the societal.
A famous Sociologist called Robert Putman argued that involvement in voluntary organizations – from the Chamber, to trade unions and bowling clubs – also allows us to better appreciate issues at the societal level. Putman fully understood that each association necessarily came from a particular perspective, yet saw that it was the dialogue between these associations which created civil society, independent of the two poles of power in the modern world; big business and government. Putman feared that as membership of such associations started to wane our communities would stop feeling like our own. I fear he has been proven correct.
We once believed that the internet might become a virtual town square in which every citizen had a voice in social and political debates. Yet it seems that discussing issues in the disembodied realm of the internet, disconnected from the imperative to find practical solutions, does not encourage us to see the perspective of others in the same way as membership of real world associations does. Whilst we cant solve all the worlds ills, we can do our bit to ensure Chichester has a strong and vibrant civil society in which citizens, whether through the Chamber or other associations, are part of the dialogue of what kind of city we want to live in, and how to best achieve this.
Dr Steven Donbavand is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Chichester. If you would like to contact him, please email [email protected]
