• “The failure to see the world as humanly made is
called reification, which can also be defined
as the tendency to see the humanly made world
as having a will and force of its own, apart
from human beings. ... But if we talk about
technology as if it were a force in its own
right, the people who do the building and
choosing disappear. ... Reification keeps
us from seeing that the force attributed to
technology comes from PEOPLE choosing to do
things together in certain ways.
If we don't see this, we may forget to ask
important questions, such as, Who is choosing
to build what kinds of devices? Why?
How will our society be changed?
Who stands to benefit and who stands to lose
because of these changes? Should we avoid
these changes? Who will be held accountable
if these changes hurt people?”; pp.21-23,
Michael Schwalbe, The sociologically examined life, 1998.
<------------------------------------------------------------------------>
reify [< L. res, thing (see REAL) + FY] to treat (an abstraction) as substantially existing, or as a concrete material object--reification n.
Alfred Korzybski's work maintained that human beings are limited in what they know by
(1) the structure of their nervous systems, and
(2) the structure of their languages.
[pp.21-23]
It is not easy to become and remain mindful of the social world as humanly made. For many reason the social world seems to be "just there," as if no one were responsible for making it. So what? What difference does it make if we forget that the social world is a human invention? The difference it makes is like that between using one's tools with an awareness of what they are good for and letting those tools--as if they had minds and will of their own--take charge.
The failure to see the world as humanly made is called reification, which can also be defined as the tendency to see the humanly made world as having a will and force of its own, apart from human beings. For example, someone might say, “Computer technology is the major force behind changes in our economy today.” In this statement, computer technology is reified because it is spoken of as having a will of its own, independent of human beings. It is technology that appears to make things happen.
"Computer technology," however, is only metal and plastic. People forge these materials, turn them into computers and other devices, and then decide how to put such tools to work. All along the way there are people who choose what to build and how to use the results. But if we talk about technology as if it were a force in its own right, the people who do the building and choosing disappear. It thus seems as if technology is like gravity or the wind--a natural force about which we can do nothing.
Reification keeps us from seeing that the force attributed to technology comes from PEOPLE choosing to do things together in certain ways. If we don't see this, we may forget to ask important questions, such as, Who is choosing to build what kinds of devices? Why? How will our society be changed? Who stands to benefit and who stands to lose because of these changes? Should we avoid these changes? Who will be held accountable if these changes hurt people? Should we decide to use technology in some other ways?
Here is another example of reification: “The market responded with enthusiasm to today's rise in interest rates, although economists predict that this could have unfavorable consequences for employment.” You've probably heard this kind of statement before. It sounds like a report about a flood or some other natural disaster. Yet a market is just a lot people doing things together in a certain way; interest rates established by people; and employment results from choices by employers. Reification makes these people and their choices disappear.
In a large complex society the tendency to reify is strong because it can be hard to see where, how, and by whom decisions are made. And so it is easier to say that technology, the market or a mysterious THEY is making things happen. Even people who ought to know better get caught up in this. When sociologists say things like “Trends in inner-city industrial development are causing changes in family structure,” they too are guilty of reification. Such language again makes it seem as if no one is responsible for choosing to act in a way that hurts or helps others.
Reification thus keeps us from seeing who is doing what to whom, and how, such that certain consequences arise. This makes it hard to hold anyone accountable for the good or bad results arising from their actions. Usually it is powerful people whose actions are hidden and who get off the hook.
Reification can also make us feel powerless because the social world comes to seem like a place that is beyond human control. If we attribute independent force to abstractions such as "technology," "the market," "government," "trends," "social structure," or "society," then it can seem pointless even to try to intervene and make things happen differently. We might as well try to stop the tides. People who think this way are likely to remain passive even when they see others being put out of work, living in poverty, or caught up in war, because they will feel that nothing can be done.
When we reify the social world we are confusing its reality with that of stars and trees and bacteria. These things indeed exist (as material entities) independent of human ideas and action. But no part of the social world does. To reify is to forget this; it is to forget to be mindful of the social world as a humanly made place. As a result, we forget that it is within our collective power to re-create the world in a better way. If we are sociologically mindful, we recognize that the social world as it now exists is just one of many possibilities.
“”
(Schwalbe, Michael, 1956-, The sociologically examined life: pieces of the conversation, copyright © 2008, 2005, 2001, 1998)
(The sociologically examined life: pieces of the conversation / Michael Schwalbe.--4th ed., 1. sociology--methodology., 2. sociology--philosophy., pp.21-23 )
____________________________________
From
Evolving Reactions: 60 Years with March and Simon’s
‘Organizations’
written by Karl E. Weick, University of Michigan
Journal of Management Studies
... ... ...
... ... ...
... ... ...
‘when nouns begin to live their own lives, separated and disconnected from the process that created them. . . (But) nounmaking is an indispensable ingredient for coming to grips with processes, the point being that we make nouns from processes in order to make sense of processes. . . we freeze processes into entities, precisely in order to make sense of the fluid, “real” world’ (Bakken and Hernes, 2006, pp. 1601–2).
REIFICATION
My favourite sentence in the M&S book is this one: ‘The reification of the organization’s conceptual scheme is particularly noticeable in uncertainty absorption’ (p. 165).
Here’s why that’s my favourite. It is a compact description of a cognitive perspective on organizational life. Perceptions are edited into concepts. Concepts edit perceptions. Organizations attempt to constrain decision-making by valuing a handful of concepts (conceptual
scheme); by socializing employees to see the world as embodied in those concepts (reification); and by relying on those reifications to absorb uncertainties for people facing flux
[[ absorptive capacity, defined as the ability of organization to incorporate external knowledge (Cohen and Levinthal 1990).
ability to interpret, apply, and build on this information
ability to convert available external information into internal knowledge.
conditions that facilitate or impede knowledge transfer (knowledge transfer is a form of learning)
source:
A Behavioral Theory of the Firm —40 Years and Counting: Introduction and
Impact
written by Linda Argote
and
written by Henrich R. Greve
Key words: behavioral theory; bounded rationality; search; aspiration levels; organizational learning; routines; innovation
Organization Science
Vol. 18, No. 3, May–June 2007, pp. 337–349
]]
K. E. Weick
Evolving Reactions: 60 years with ‘Organizations’
on behalf of the organization. In the basic M&S argument, inferences are drawn from evidence and the inferences rather than the evidence itself are communicated.
What gets communicated by ongoing reification may seem stable but it is dangerous and can lead to what James (1987) called ‘vicious abstractions’. ‘We conceive a concrete situation by singling out some salient or important feature in it, and classing it under that; then, instead of adding to its previous characters all the positive consequences which the new way of conceiving it may bring, we proceed to use our concept privatively; reducing the originally rich phenomenon to the naked suggestions of that name abstractly taken, treating it as a case of “nothing but” that concept, and acting as if all the other characters from out of which the concept is abstracted were expunged. Abstraction, functioning in this way, becomes a means of arrest far more than a means of advance in thought’ (p. 951). It is these ‘means of arrest’ that establish the stability of organizations but in doing so foreshadow the organization’s diminished adaptation and accelerated decline.
M&S echo James’s commentary when they observe that the technical vocabulary and classification schemes in an organization provide a set of concepts that can be used in analysing and communicating about its problems. ‘Anything that is easily described and discussed in terms of these concepts can be communicated readily in the organization: anything that does not fit the system of concepts is communicated only with difficulty, hence, the world tends to be perceived by the organization members in terms of the particular concepts that are reflected in the organization’s vocabulary. The particular categories and schemes of classification it employs are reified, and become for members of the organization attributes of the world rather than mere conventions’ (pp. 164–5).
In an effort to call attention to reification and reduce it, I naively counselled theorists to ‘stamp out nouns’ (Weick, 1979, p. 44). I wanted descriptions that were more attuned to impermanence and to process, flows, reaccomplishment, and emergence. Misplaced concreteness was the villain. Bakken and Hernes (2006), however, disagreed and returned more to the spirit of M&S by virtue of their close reading of Whitehead. True, there is a danger of misplaced concreteness ‘when nouns begin to live their own lives, separated and disconnected from the process that created them. . . (But) nounmaking is an indispensable ingredient for coming to grips with processes, the point being that we make nouns from processes in order to make sense of processes. . . we freeze processes into entities, precisely in order to make sense of the fluid, “real” world’ (Bakken and Hernes, 2006, pp. 1601–2).
source:
Evolving Reactions: 60 Years with March and Simon’s
‘Organizations’
written by Karl E. Weick, University of Michigan
Journal of Management Studies
doi: 10.1111/joms.12289
56:8 December 2019
<------------------------------------------------------------------------>
called reification, which can also be defined
as the tendency to see the humanly made world
as having a will and force of its own, apart
from human beings. ... But if we talk about
technology as if it were a force in its own
right, the people who do the building and
choosing disappear. ... Reification keeps
us from seeing that the force attributed to
technology comes from PEOPLE choosing to do
things together in certain ways.
If we don't see this, we may forget to ask
important questions, such as, Who is choosing
to build what kinds of devices? Why?
How will our society be changed?
Who stands to benefit and who stands to lose
because of these changes? Should we avoid
these changes? Who will be held accountable
if these changes hurt people?”; pp.21-23,
Michael Schwalbe, The sociologically examined life, 1998.
<------------------------------------------------------------------------>
reify [< L. res, thing (see REAL) + FY] to treat (an abstraction) as substantially existing, or as a concrete material object--reification n.
Alfred Korzybski's work maintained that human beings are limited in what they know by
(1) the structure of their nervous systems, and
(2) the structure of their languages.
[pp.21-23]
It is not easy to become and remain mindful of the social world as humanly made. For many reason the social world seems to be "just there," as if no one were responsible for making it. So what? What difference does it make if we forget that the social world is a human invention? The difference it makes is like that between using one's tools with an awareness of what they are good for and letting those tools--as if they had minds and will of their own--take charge.
The failure to see the world as humanly made is called reification, which can also be defined as the tendency to see the humanly made world as having a will and force of its own, apart from human beings. For example, someone might say, “Computer technology is the major force behind changes in our economy today.” In this statement, computer technology is reified because it is spoken of as having a will of its own, independent of human beings. It is technology that appears to make things happen.
"Computer technology," however, is only metal and plastic. People forge these materials, turn them into computers and other devices, and then decide how to put such tools to work. All along the way there are people who choose what to build and how to use the results. But if we talk about technology as if it were a force in its own right, the people who do the building and choosing disappear. It thus seems as if technology is like gravity or the wind--a natural force about which we can do nothing.
Reification keeps us from seeing that the force attributed to technology comes from PEOPLE choosing to do things together in certain ways. If we don't see this, we may forget to ask important questions, such as, Who is choosing to build what kinds of devices? Why? How will our society be changed? Who stands to benefit and who stands to lose because of these changes? Should we avoid these changes? Who will be held accountable if these changes hurt people? Should we decide to use technology in some other ways?
Here is another example of reification: “The market responded with enthusiasm to today's rise in interest rates, although economists predict that this could have unfavorable consequences for employment.” You've probably heard this kind of statement before. It sounds like a report about a flood or some other natural disaster. Yet a market is just a lot people doing things together in a certain way; interest rates established by people; and employment results from choices by employers. Reification makes these people and their choices disappear.
In a large complex society the tendency to reify is strong because it can be hard to see where, how, and by whom decisions are made. And so it is easier to say that technology, the market or a mysterious THEY is making things happen. Even people who ought to know better get caught up in this. When sociologists say things like “Trends in inner-city industrial development are causing changes in family structure,” they too are guilty of reification. Such language again makes it seem as if no one is responsible for choosing to act in a way that hurts or helps others.
Reification thus keeps us from seeing who is doing what to whom, and how, such that certain consequences arise. This makes it hard to hold anyone accountable for the good or bad results arising from their actions. Usually it is powerful people whose actions are hidden and who get off the hook.
Reification can also make us feel powerless because the social world comes to seem like a place that is beyond human control. If we attribute independent force to abstractions such as "technology," "the market," "government," "trends," "social structure," or "society," then it can seem pointless even to try to intervene and make things happen differently. We might as well try to stop the tides. People who think this way are likely to remain passive even when they see others being put out of work, living in poverty, or caught up in war, because they will feel that nothing can be done.
When we reify the social world we are confusing its reality with that of stars and trees and bacteria. These things indeed exist (as material entities) independent of human ideas and action. But no part of the social world does. To reify is to forget this; it is to forget to be mindful of the social world as a humanly made place. As a result, we forget that it is within our collective power to re-create the world in a better way. If we are sociologically mindful, we recognize that the social world as it now exists is just one of many possibilities.
“”
(Schwalbe, Michael, 1956-, The sociologically examined life: pieces of the conversation, copyright © 2008, 2005, 2001, 1998)
(The sociologically examined life: pieces of the conversation / Michael Schwalbe.--4th ed., 1. sociology--methodology., 2. sociology--philosophy., pp.21-23 )
____________________________________
From
Evolving Reactions: 60 Years with March and Simon’s
‘Organizations’
written by Karl E. Weick, University of Michigan
Journal of Management Studies
... ... ...
... ... ...
... ... ...
‘when nouns begin to live their own lives, separated and disconnected from the process that created them. . . (But) nounmaking is an indispensable ingredient for coming to grips with processes, the point being that we make nouns from processes in order to make sense of processes. . . we freeze processes into entities, precisely in order to make sense of the fluid, “real” world’ (Bakken and Hernes, 2006, pp. 1601–2).
REIFICATION
My favourite sentence in the M&S book is this one: ‘The reification of the organization’s conceptual scheme is particularly noticeable in uncertainty absorption’ (p. 165).
Here’s why that’s my favourite. It is a compact description of a cognitive perspective on organizational life. Perceptions are edited into concepts. Concepts edit perceptions. Organizations attempt to constrain decision-making by valuing a handful of concepts (conceptual
scheme); by socializing employees to see the world as embodied in those concepts (reification); and by relying on those reifications to absorb uncertainties for people facing flux
[[ absorptive capacity, defined as the ability of organization to incorporate external knowledge (Cohen and Levinthal 1990).
ability to interpret, apply, and build on this information
ability to convert available external information into internal knowledge.
conditions that facilitate or impede knowledge transfer (knowledge transfer is a form of learning)
source:
A Behavioral Theory of the Firm —40 Years and Counting: Introduction and
Impact
written by Linda Argote
and
written by Henrich R. Greve
Key words: behavioral theory; bounded rationality; search; aspiration levels; organizational learning; routines; innovation
Organization Science
Vol. 18, No. 3, May–June 2007, pp. 337–349
]]
K. E. Weick
Evolving Reactions: 60 years with ‘Organizations’
on behalf of the organization. In the basic M&S argument, inferences are drawn from evidence and the inferences rather than the evidence itself are communicated.
What gets communicated by ongoing reification may seem stable but it is dangerous and can lead to what James (1987) called ‘vicious abstractions’. ‘We conceive a concrete situation by singling out some salient or important feature in it, and classing it under that; then, instead of adding to its previous characters all the positive consequences which the new way of conceiving it may bring, we proceed to use our concept privatively; reducing the originally rich phenomenon to the naked suggestions of that name abstractly taken, treating it as a case of “nothing but” that concept, and acting as if all the other characters from out of which the concept is abstracted were expunged. Abstraction, functioning in this way, becomes a means of arrest far more than a means of advance in thought’ (p. 951). It is these ‘means of arrest’ that establish the stability of organizations but in doing so foreshadow the organization’s diminished adaptation and accelerated decline.
M&S echo James’s commentary when they observe that the technical vocabulary and classification schemes in an organization provide a set of concepts that can be used in analysing and communicating about its problems. ‘Anything that is easily described and discussed in terms of these concepts can be communicated readily in the organization: anything that does not fit the system of concepts is communicated only with difficulty, hence, the world tends to be perceived by the organization members in terms of the particular concepts that are reflected in the organization’s vocabulary. The particular categories and schemes of classification it employs are reified, and become for members of the organization attributes of the world rather than mere conventions’ (pp. 164–5).
In an effort to call attention to reification and reduce it, I naively counselled theorists to ‘stamp out nouns’ (Weick, 1979, p. 44). I wanted descriptions that were more attuned to impermanence and to process, flows, reaccomplishment, and emergence. Misplaced concreteness was the villain. Bakken and Hernes (2006), however, disagreed and returned more to the spirit of M&S by virtue of their close reading of Whitehead. True, there is a danger of misplaced concreteness ‘when nouns begin to live their own lives, separated and disconnected from the process that created them. . . (But) nounmaking is an indispensable ingredient for coming to grips with processes, the point being that we make nouns from processes in order to make sense of processes. . . we freeze processes into entities, precisely in order to make sense of the fluid, “real” world’ (Bakken and Hernes, 2006, pp. 1601–2).
source:
Evolving Reactions: 60 Years with March and Simon’s
‘Organizations’
written by Karl E. Weick, University of Michigan
Journal of Management Studies
doi: 10.1111/joms.12289
56:8 December 2019
<------------------------------------------------------------------------>
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