The first thing I have to do with this article is provide a little bit of credit and little bit of criticism. First off, credit is due to Zerubavel for using a unique metaphor to describe the concepts of schemas, accommodation, and assimilation. This is generally an over-worked concept and it’s nice to be provided with a unique explanation. However, this is an over-worked concept and reading about it, uniqueness aside, is a little brain numbing.
However, relating the concept of schemas to language usage really grabbed my attention. I am a firm believer in the power of language. My mother taught high school English for 33 years. We read banned books at bedtime. In short, my mom is kind of a bad ass. One of the most bad assed things she taught us, however, was how language can completely construct a world. I believe that language makes “the real world” possible.
Zerubavel discusses language as being socially constructed based off of our desire to assign labels. Unfortunately, Zerubavel has a largely negative view of schemas and sees language as a puppet that aids schemas in their evil plot. Zerubavel says, “Since it is the very basis of social reality, we often forget that language rests on mere convention and regard such mental entities, which are our own creation, as if they were real…”
While I can understand the angst towards schemas, as they do make it possible to group things together unfairly, I would argue against Zerubavel’s view. Schemas, like language, can be used for both good and evil. The user must be very careful in their selections of language and categories. Instead of telling humans the way they have been thinking about the world is a negative thing, encourage the reader to make informed choices. Just because something is a “mental entity”, does that mean it can’t be real?
This is a great point. Yes, we do view our world through specific magnifying glasses that categorize things and separate certain situations and times from others, but I don't know if we could live any other way. Would we prefer to experience the world via mass chaos of perceiving everything all at once without being able to compartmentalize it? I think he addresses this near the beginning of the reading, where he talks about Genesis and says that the only we can perceive anything is by distinguishing it from the "other". I would agree with you that the tendency engrained in us as humans to place everything into "islands of meaning" should not be viewed in a negative way, but we should be able to evaluate our choices of placement and think about whether or not we are limiting our own reality through our placement of meaning.
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