ABSTRACT
Determinism is manifest in Berger's discussion of social roles and role relationships, concepts he discusses with impressive sure-handedness. In Invitation to Sociology and elsewhere, Berger makes as strong and temperate a case for social determinism that one is likely to find anywhere. Modernization has succeeded in what it does best: rationally employing technology-intensive production and bureaucratic rationality to foster material improvements and prosperity. Consistent with his favorite classical theoretical perspective, Berger rejects the notion that free will is chimerical, and that all behavior is socially determined. He acknowledges, however, that there are more than a few sociologists who take the fully deterministic positon quite seriously. Individuals experience the objective facticity of institutions by playing social roles. Roles are primary institutional constituents, and they are created through the same processes of externalization, objectification, and internalization as the institutions they constitute. Berger's insights into what we can expect of sociology are extremely interesting and the product of a keenly insightful sociological consciousness.
