ABSTRACT

Now, although role theory is often cast in an interpersonal framework, there is always the implication that roles are dependent on a larger more inclusive system. If the family is considered as a system of interaction between role-partners, then the form of this interaction is seen as being responsive to the inclusive system. Gerth and Wright Mills employ the role concept as the link between the individual and society. The sociological definition of alienation, anomie, mass society masking, identity, management, and the positing of inauthenticity in human relationships, in itself constitutes a mechanism of fragmentation. Similarly, ‘interaction process analysis’ points time and time again to the way in which certain types of role are manufactured in the course of group interaction. Fragmentation of consciousness is, therefore, apparently dependent on the fragmentation of social processes. It is a by-product of industrialization and, for Karl Marx at least, it is implicit in capitalist development.