Antti Gronow & Erkki Kilpinen: Margaret Archer and the Problem of the Under-Socialized Self

Margaret Archer has recently criticized sociology of reducing the sense of self into conceptions of self-hood. She maintains that the self evolves in pre-social praxis and therefore it cannot be based on discourses, for example. According to Archer, George Herbert Mead is a representative of ‘sociological reductionism’ because Mead thought that we are conversing with society when we are engaged in private thought and thus Mead denigrates the private life of the mind. It is true that Mead thought that in order for self-consciousness to develop, i.e. being an object to oneself, one has to ‘take the attitudes’ of others. This does not, however, equal to the repression of the individual by society as Archer seems to think. Mead was talking about the general process of development of the self which is indeed social, as modern studies on the subject confirm. Praxis theories should not shun Mead because as a pragmatist he based all his theories on action processes and this makes him more of a friend than a foe.

The second set of problems has to do with Archer’s conception of internal conversation. She thinks that the ‘me’ and the ‘I’ are autonomous talking partners whereas for Mead they are merely phases of the self. Archer also insists that structural properties are fully realised only when actors consciously deliberate on their projects. In our pragmatist interpretation, the most abiding structures are those that are maintained in habitual action and seldom enter into discourse. Internal deliberations take place when habitual action is inhibited for some reason or another – in which case also public discourse and structural change is probable.