Socially Constructed Reality and Meaning in Notes from Underground Essa

Socially Constructed Reality and Meaning in Notes from oppositionJust as the hands in M.C. Eschers Drawing reach both create and are createdby each other, the identity of gay and society are mutually interdependent. According tothe model described in The Sacred Canopy, nib Berger believes that hu manhoodkind outsideizesor creates a social realness that is in turn objectified, or accepted by him as real. Thissociological model creates a useful framework for understanding the narrators rejectionof ultimate world or truth in Fyodor Dostoevskys Notes from Underground. The realityin which the narrator tries to live in part II, and the reality that he rejects in part I, areboth created and, as such, are at long last meaningless. The underground mans refusal toobjectify social reality causes a feeling of meaninglessness and raises a fundamentalquestion of purpose that confronts people of all dispositions.Bergers theory is based on a dialectic relationship between man and society. Toexplain his theory he defines one-third terms. Externalization is the ongoing outpouring ofhuman being into the world. Objectivation, the attainment by the products of this activityof a reality that confronts its original producers as a facticity external to and other thanthemselves. Internalization is the reappropriation by men of this same reality,transforming into structures of the subjective consciousness, (Berger 4). He believes thatsociety is a wholly human invention created by mans tendency to externalize. Thiscreated entity is then objectified by man, giving society and its features the mien oftrue reality. His newly created reality then acts upon and shapes man throughinternalization. Man, his identity... ...fulfills his societal roles. Chernyshevskys utilitarian is happywhen individual needs are met. The man of consciousness can be happy, even if hishappiness comes from the rejection of happiness altogether. at that place is no superiorhappiness there is no superior typecast of fulfillment. The individual achieves these ends byacting individually. No hand can subjugate drawing, and man finds completeness when hefulfills the purpose that he has drawn for himself.Works CitedBerger, Peter L. The Sacred Canopy Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion.New York moxie Books, 1990.Escher, M.C. Drawing Hands. Cover of Norton edition of Notes from Underground.Katz, Michael R., ed. Notes from Underground. New York W.W. Norton & Company,2001.Chernyshevsky, Nikolai. What Is to Be Done? Katz 104-123.Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Notes from Underground. Katz 3-91