Contemporary Social Theory

Social theory as practical life: Charles Lemert
Like Natalie, most people – most of the time – possess a basic social theory,
which they use to orientate themselves to others and the wider world.

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c o n t e m p o r a r y s o c i a l t h e o r y
10
What does it mean to say that the quality of daily life is informed by a
person’s basic social theory? Perhaps we should start with what this
statement does not mean. The notion of a person’s basic or implicit
sociology does not mean that people are necessarily practised in the
scholarly arts of social theory – even though a large number of women
and men who have, say, attended university or college, or read widely,
may have engaged at some point with the social theories of Marxism,
feminism, structuralism or postmodernism. To say that people possess a
basic social theory is rather to underscore that a social agent’s under-
standing of social things plays a facilitative role in the actual production
of social life. Consider again Natalie, who holds that the contemporary
world is not controlled by any single authority or agency. While not
elaborated in any detail, Natalie’s thoughts, beliefs and assumptions
about the multidimensional, chaotic aspects of current social experience
not only reflect themes to be found in current social theory (such as
postmodernism) but actually help serve to constitute the world as
fractured and fracturing. How others in contemporary society understand
and deal with the world at any given time will obviously vary widely. For
some people, the world today involves various high risks. For others, it
might be about thick credit and consumerism. For still others, it is about
growing inequalities between the West and the rest. All such notions
about how society works play a role in facilitating social relations. All such
notions may be found in more sophisticated and detailed forms in
contemporary social theory.
For Charles Lemert, the doyen of contemporary American social theory,
our capacity to imagine social things competently is an essential part of
our practical sociologies. To see the world sociologically is to see it in the
light of its organizing structures and orderings of power. This means
seeing it also in the shadow of its own potential transformation – the
possibility of society lived otherwise. Lemert (2005b: 5) explains our
common social sense for imagining social life competently:
Whenever you enter a room and ‘just know’ you don’t belong there,
when you see a stranger on the subway and understand intuitively
that it is safe to return his not-quite-delivered smile, when you 
are introduced to someone elegantly dressed in a certain way and
know she is not to be called by her first name even if she offers 
it – these are among the evidences for the sociology in each of us.
They may seem to be trivial manners by contrast to the urgency 
of survival through dark nights. And so they are. But, however small,

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