Allan Johnson: A Sociological Analysis

Many sociologists have tried to help us have an understanding of how our lives are lived at the crossroads of individual biography and broader social systems. We all live in a system. Allan Johnson(2008) believes that “we are always participating in something larger than ourselves, and if we want to understand social life and what happens to the people in it, we have to understand what it is that we’re participating in and how we participate in it (Johnson 2008:13).” He explains that sociology is the study of how all this happens and goes in depth to explain different types of social problems. In studying sociology, we are able to make sense of different social structures and how we defines ourselves as human beings.
People play a role in the
Johnson says that “social life is a dynamic relationship between social systems and the people who participate in them (Johnson 2008:14).” It is about the interaction people have with each other and not specifically about the individual themselves. Without the social interactions, it would be hard to identify social systems and define sociology. A crucial point that he highlights is that the “people aren’t systems and systems aren’t people, and if we forget this fact, we’re likely to focus on the wrong thing in trying to solve our problems (Johnson 2008:14).” For example, the positions in families aren’t systems. There is a father and mother figure, but people are just filling in those roles. Families don’t resign themselves or relieve someone of their position like what would occur in a place of work. According to Johnson (2008), a person must be able to accurately identify the social system in which they are playing a role in to behave appropriately to that system (Johnson 2008:15). People playing a role in the system affects two things: the system and how it works, and what
Charles Lemert claims that we agree that structures, including social ones, have at least two defining characteristics. First, they make order out of some set of things. Second, they do this work because they endure for a time, even for a short time (Lemert 2012:125). It is difficult to pinpoint a specific structure that has an impact on us but we are able to gain grasp of what social systems we are a part of. Lemert states that “social structures are organizing, enduring, and generally invisible, but salient, social things we know by their effects (Lemert 2012:135).” There are multiple variables that form our society. Some are easy to detect and others are invisible to a participant. The larger influences in our society hold all the attributes listed by Lemert. As participants, we are always effected by different structures within our society that make up the social systems we live in. Lemert also highlight that power is another factor that works to structure the social worlds in which people live in (Lemert