Blummer (sociology)

“Imagine an inner dialog of some Northern European who is trying to decide how hard to work, or what to do with their nest egg”(Fancy). “But be sure to frame it in your understanding of symbolic interactionism and the subject- object perspective.”(Fancy). I really have a hard time grasping that subject because it seems just so very distant to how I see the symbolic interactionism. When I look at my paper on the Protestant Ethic, I cannot find a way to describe this quote for this Blumer paper. I will try to explain this from my understanding of Symbolic interactionsim. “Symbolic interactionsim is a sociological perspective which examines how individuals and groups interact, focusing on the creation of personal identity through interaction with others. Of particular interest is the relationship between individual action and group pressures. This perspective examines the idea that subjective meanings are socially constructed, and that these subjective meanings interrelate with objective actions.” (Wikipedia). How do human beings act toward things on the basis of meanings that the things have for them? Well my first inclination includes objects such as physical objects, other human beings, institutions, guiding ideals, and activities of others and such situations as an individual encounters in his or her daily life. An example of this is the attitude each individual has toward a certain object like a wine bottle or a pack of cigarettes. One person might see these objects as causes of cancer and death, whereas someone else might consider these items as just being a part of having a really good time. According to Blumer, these two individuals will act differently toward these items as well. Another example is a kiwi. Well I think kiwi is sweet and tasty while one of my friends thinks kiwi is nasty and furry and she wants nothing to do with it. The reason for her hating this fruit is her allergic reaction to it. So each of us has a different meaning for the same fruit because of the reaction we get from it.

Every day we communicate and interact with others. In each situation we go through a interpretive process to decipher meanings. Even though we might have our own meanings for objects, we have to readjust ourselves to communicate with the other person and the meaning they have for a particular object. For example we might think soda is something that we bake with or put in the fridge to absorb odors when another person might think soda is something that is to drunk. These two meanings could have a lot to do with the persons age. Person (a) could be 22 years old and person (b) could be 6 years of age. These meanings come from interacting in two different environments or as Blumer would say “worlds”. Individuals have to go through an interpretive process in order to come to the conclusion that soda for the 6 year old was pop and that soda for the 22 year old was baking soda.

The theory of