Order and Change in Blumerian Sociology: Opportunities and Constraints

Abstract

The symbolic interactionists’ focus on the spontaneous aspects of sociality has often been seen by critics as a failure of the perspective to comprehend structure. The article examines this issue through the prism of the problem of social change, that is, the problem of the relationship between order and the process of its transformation. The paper pursues two goals: to distinguish the interpretations of change within the framework of Blumerian sociology; to determine whether interpretations of change provide for the existence of mechanisms to contain them. In order to identify interpretations of change, the theoretical foundations of the symbolic interactionist perspective (self-interaction and non-/symbolic interaction), the Blumerian version of the collective behavior domain (elementary collective groupings of crowd, mass, and public), interactionist macrosociology (the idea of macroorganization as a network of joint actions, fashion theory, and the concept of industrialization as an agent of social change), epistemology (process of concept creation), and ontology (reality as a dialectic of persistence and change) are considered. It is argued that Blumerian sociology exhibits a symmetrical view of the relationship between order and change. Contrary to the cognitivist reading of SI, an important role in Blumerian sociology is played by the complementarity of symbol and affect as mechanisms for maintaining order and initiating change. Symbols and affects can mutually reinforce or block each other’s activity. In all cases, they can act as sources of change and order. The later development of a dialectical ontology of persistence and change captures Blumer’s desire to present the most general and fundamental view of the relationship between order and change. The confrontation of the forces of order and change takes the form of incessant mutual adjustments.