Methodological Individualism

136 Society as subjectively meaningful interactiondepicts society as ‘a network of interacting individuals – with its culture – therelated meanings and values by which individuals interact’ (1972: 13). In theintroductory contribution to another reader on symbolic interactionism BernardN. Meltzer suggests that ‘human society rests upon a basis of consensus, i.e., thesharing of meanings in the form of common understandings and expectations’(1967: 8). The clearest and most elaborated statement of symbolic interactionismas an intersubjectivist theory of society is probably to be found in Joel M.Charon’s Symbolic Interactionism (1979: ch. 11). Charon bases his view of societymainly on the writings of Blumer, but also on those of Shibutani, Strauss andMeltzer. Society is characterised by two things: symbolic interaction and cooperation.‘Society, then, is defined here as individuals in symbolic interactionwith each other, aligning their acts, and acting cooperatively to resolve problemsin situations’ (p. 161).The year after Charon’s book was published, there appeared another bookwith the same concise title, Symbolic Interactionism (1980), by Sheldon Stryker, butwith a different message. Stryker tried to launch a more structuralist version ofsymbolic interactionism. In order to do so, he had to return to the pragmatist rootsof symbolic interactionism and to replace Blumer by Ralph Turner, as the mostimportant figure in recent symbolic interactionism. The main interest of Turnerhas been in a theory of collective behaviour, but he has also made an importantcontribution to sociological role theory (Turner, 1956; 1962; 1978). Like Goffman,Turner has been interested in the difference and interrelation between role andperson, and, especially, in the process of role-taking, first anlysed by Mead. I havenothing to object to Stryker’s attempt to create a more structuralist traditionwithin symbolic interactionism – the conditions are at hand – but the fact remainsthat there is a more well-known individualist tradition in symbolic interactionism,associated with Herbert Blumer, Anselm Strauss, Tamotsu Shibutani and others.This tradition has created an individualist theory of society which, like that of theearly Simmel, is both intersubjectivist and interactionist. The combination ofthese elements, may be represented as in Figure 5.1. (Horizontal arrows representintersubjectivism and vertical arrows represent interactionism).Figure 5.1 Society according to symbolic interactionism