Social Structures
Author: Matthew McKenna, PhD Researcher at Maynooth University’s Assisting Living and Learning Institute (ALL), Research Funded through the Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI) Centre for Research Training in Advanced Networks for Sustainable Societies (ADVANCE CRT)
The mission and work of the Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute implements a novel, inclusive, and human-rights based perspective on ‘the development and application of appropriate technologies, person-centred systems and evidence-based policies and laws’. This highly complex and entangled web of social, legal, scientific and philosophical disciplines requires the skills and input from persons and professionals from a hugely diverse array of fields, who all share the common unifying goal of promoting a human-rights based approach to social inclusion, development and technological integration in society. Inclusive social policies and laws play a critical role in ensuring the equitable realisation of these goals. However, in order to challenge and disassemble discriminatory power structures supported by non-inclusive laws and policies inherited from an often problematic and segregated human history, it is imperative that future decisions are made with ‘eyes wide open’ to the role of humanitarian and inclusive discourse. These goals can only be achieved with social awareness and utmost caution to the powers of discourse, and through an understanding of how past wrongs can be repeated when there is collective ignorance towards the immense social influence and symbolic force wielded by language and social interaction.
“Every discourse, even a poetic or oracular sentence, carries with it a system of rules for producing analogous things and thus an outline of methodology”(Jacques Derrida, 1995)
The impression of discourse as described by the French Philosopher, Paul Michel Foucault, perceives discourse as not merely the language of a communication between two entities, which Foucault describes as a “sample”, but rather the greater processes of thought that, in a historical and geographical context, renders particular ideas “sayable” and “thinkable”, whilst regulating those who are thinking and deliberating upon these perspectives. For Foucault, discourse is:
“A group of statements which provides a language for talking about – a way of representing – a particular topic at a particular historical moment… Discourse is about the production of knowledge through language. But… Since all social practices entail meaning, and meanings shape and influence what we do – our conduct – all practices have a discursive aspect” (Stuart Hall, 1997)
Discourse in numerous forms, textual, spoken and otherwise, has occupied a crucial position in defining and shaping the social episteme or core perceptions of the world. The German term ‘weltanschauung’, meaning ‘worldview’, attributed to the philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804), is directly relevant to the topic of discourse. The social weltanschauung of civilisations has been defined by discourse since earliest antiquity, as has the relationship between the individual, the society, and the authority of ruling institutional agency. As a result, discourse has always been predisposed to politicisation and stratification along innumerate social lines and comprises the medium of ideological transmission and circulation within society. To this end, power and discourse entail an interdependent frame of reference for all bodies of agency or governance through which strategic objectives that impact all of society are pursued.
When one engages with written discourse, the key features of each sentence of textual data for a reader comprises the unity, meaning and purpose of the discursive style employed therein. Discourse retains a central and defining role in all areas of society, politics and media, and it moulds attitudinal strands in mainstream society, entailing all of the adherent connotations, biases and perceptions that can manifest as a result. Textual data as a connected discourse entails cohesion, coherence, and an impartment or dissemination of a concept. The examples of politics and the popular media as prominent instigators of discourse, through language, dialogue, text and visuality, offer an appropriate example of the fluidity and complexity of information circulation through modes of discursive mediums. Intolerant discourse has been described by academics as an ancient and traditional method of ‘legitimising’ discrimination through social practice. To this end, the influence of social and political discourses over the drafting of laws and policies has legitimised social discrimination in countless instances throughout human history.
Understanding how discourse or discursive practices influence the power dynamics of the modern world is of critical importance if one is to fully comprehend the interplay between social practices, discriminatory biases and institutional codes and etiquettes. Discourse and social practices influence each other in an increasingly varied and diverse manner, particularly with the advent of advanced digital technologies and online media. Furthermore, institutional practices have often aligned with the contemporary public discourse both historically, and in the present. Power and knowledge represent the facilitator and regulator of social practices, with the discursive activities of discourse taking place within the confines of this shifting medium of collective biases and assumptions.
In the discipline of social psychology, ‘Symbolic Interactionism’ and ‘language’ are enmeshed in their role and functions in interactions in society; through the communications that individuals have with one another.
“Symbolic interactionism is a theoretical perspective in sociology that addresses the manner in which society is created and maintained through face-to-face, repeated, meaningful interactions among individuals” (Carter and Fuller, 2016)
Symbolic interactionism in contemporary social psychology is derived from the work of sociologists Max Weber (1864 – 1920) and George Herbert Mead (1863 – 1931). The structural school draws upon established communal knowledge from civil institutions to deconstruct and understand long-standing sequences and standards of social interactionism at an interpersonal level. Through these interactions, attitudinal strands containing stigmatic opinions and assumptions , can be successfully transmitted between individuals in all levels of society. From institutions of national or international agency to the ordinary streets of towns, and rural communities, social interactionism defines opinions and viewpoints of individuals in all settings. To this end, it affects discourse generation and discursive language, written and spoken, in all domains within society. With respect to law and policy, this form of self-representation in discursive texts can be achieved through the medium of an expository style, often as a subversive by-product within an informational piece of text.
Discourses can discriminate along any lines of commonly defined social differences such as age, ability, race, ethnicity, creed, gender, or sexual orientation, amongst many others. The example of ageism is particularly notorious for how socially ingrained it is in all human societies. It permeates many tiers of discursive output and circulation in society, from law and policy to popular humour, and can manifest in depictions broadcasted in mass-media for societal consumption. Modern sources and generators of discursive media through the internet facilitate the mass proliferation and consumption of information by governmental, civic, private and individual authorship. Ageist discourses are readily accessible in the contemporary online environment where discursive materials such as videos, memes, images and textual data, amongst other forms of information dissemination, are regularly accessed by a younger audience.
Older adults arguably occupy a particularly disadvantaged social position , traditionally defined by reduced autonomy, widespread disempowerment and decreased control of personal affairs, that has prevented their demographic from the enjoyment of the benefits of greater general social awareness of disability and disabling societies through the disassembly of their latent collective discourse-generating capacities. As such, the potential for enhanced self-representation and discourse generation with digital technologies has largely bypassed older adults.
This is further exacerbated through the traditionally limited powers of self-representation of older adults due to wardship models of care and a post-retirement retreat from public life, leading to a lack of cohesive demographic unity as a part of the broader body politic. Old age has arguably been viewed as synonymous to a removal of individual powers of civic and communal agency due to normative ageist perceptions and lack of awareness of the ageing process, further preventing older adults from enjoying powers of self-representation as a wider or more uniform socio-political demographic. This infers a historical, and yet still relevant discourse of ageing, as both a social and individual acceptance and relinquishment of personal autonomy, self-governance, and self-representation, all because of traditional models of old age.
As discourse can subtly advocate and push the source from which it emanates in advancement of self-interest, there is a slow communal awakening to this fact, prompted and encouraged by independent researchers and civil society in collaboration with socially disadvantaged persons. The promotion of more inclusive forms of discursive mediums and output within the framework of the modern EU, has been aided by an active civil society that champion international human rights laws and freedom of speech, whilst also providing critical oversite of legal and policy outputs. Moreover, there is arguably a growing awareness within society that the breakdown of discriminatory discourse can assist in efforts to eliminate older inherited forms intolerant and authoritarian power dynamics created by traditional discourses. Discourse analysis in academic research, alongside policy analysis and law reform, collaboration with disadvantaged persons, and advocacy by civil society that champion discursive freedom through the challenging of social attitudinal perception, plays a vital role in helping to delegitimise institutionalised forms of discrimination.
In conclusion, language and social interaction play a pivotal role in modern high-tech societies, and they assume ever-increasing complexity and present in many forms of discourse generation, transmission, and expression. Thus, it is of critical importance that, in line with the principles of ALL, discourses in all forms are widely recognised as instruments of great social power and agency and, depending on the manner and purpose of their use, they wield the capacity to unite or discriminate. As such, with ‘eyes wide open’ to the power of discourse, society must take full responsibility for the path it ultimately chooses to follow.