Everyday Life

Stephen James

Professor Mulliken

English 1113

8 September 2011

The Ordinary World

            Chapter one, Everyday life in Our Weird World, of the book The Virtual Self: a Contemporary Sociology by Ben Agger is about the sociological structure of today’s society. Ben Agger’s main argument of chapter one is a major aspect to a wired sociology.     

Agger introduces his chapter by explaining the worldliness of ourselves through the use of the technologies of today and he states that “The more people know about ephomora- things that come and go – the less they know about what really matters”. According to Agger, Agger believes that the themes of sociology that entail economy, politics and culture and how they impact people’s daily lives are things that we take for granted. In other words, he argues the fact that people normally expect the themes of sociology to impact people’s daily lives when essentially people do not appreciate the sociological themes. Agger argues that sociology entails daily experiences that create who you were and who you are and he uses his own personal experiences to see if he has an everyday life because he makes a simple run to the grocery store an exercise that deals with theory. Agger also evaluates the sociological structure by stating that “I assess the relationship of self and social structure in this unprecedented stage of capitalism” which shows that his view between self and social structure is a major factor dealing with sociological structure.

In the middle of chapter one Agger starts to argue how historical sociological events and theories are important to everyday life. Agger argues that “ Everyday life, is transacted between practical reasons, with pragmatic if not pro competence, who thus renew social structure by in effect, “doing it” “ (22) which simply means that people have the power to make decisions throughout everyday life to make a difference in an impactful way. Agger also points out that capitalism will become a crisis while others may say it will become a success. In addition to Agger's point he evaluates that people tend to depart from politics because of everyday life where he argues that before you make assumptions about capitalism you have to be knowledgeable about historical and social context backgrounds before you can comprehend capitalism issues.

As the chapter begins to end, Agger starts to make arguments that involve socialism and Marxism to convey how they are important to everyday life. Agger has strong beliefs about the importance of Marxism and how it is important to everyday life but he makes it clear that he is not trying to change the readers beliefs to Marxism. Instead he states that he is “defending the concept of everyday life as centerpiece of a weird sociology” (35). Agger also argues the reason why our everyday life is in this wired world by stating that “Everyday life implies on ordinariness corresponding to a mode of consciousness or natural attitude, contrasted with a theoretical attitude that view the taken-for-granted world as strange” (27).

According to Agger, the meaning of chapter one is that there is a relationship between everyday lives and social structure. In support of the relationship between everyday lives and social structure agger states that “The Internet and other Electronic connections that alter the distinction between self and society” (40).

Work Cited

 Agger, Ben. "Everyday Life in Our Wired World." The Virtual Self: a Contemporary Sociology. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. 20-41. Print.