ABSTRACT
The overall production process organizes people according to the same logic that it organizes and assembles component parts. Organization is hierarchical, everyone is replaceable, and transitory social relationships acquire a machine-like character. Berger's formulation of the taking of social roles is, for the most part, conventional but interesting: Roles are socially bestowed, socially maintained through active participation, and they are socially transformed when processes of social change dictate such transformations. The bifurcation and dualism required by the anonymity in dealing with even our best-friend functionaries may be something new devised by Berger to aid his understanding of social relationships. Berger's discussion of the complexity and richness of face-to-face interaction would not be possible without George Herbert Mead's fully developed account of reciprocally taking the role of the other. Language is a coherent sign system, and as such permits the transformation of experience into a generally available object of knowledge.
