p.8 Put simply, human beings in interacting with one another have
to take into account of what each other is doing or is about to do; they are forced to direct their own conduct or
handle their situations in terms of what they take into account. Thus, the activities of others enter as positive
factors in the formation of their own conduct; in the face of the actions of others one may abandon an intention or purpose,
revise it, check or suspend it, intensify it, or replace it. The actions of others enter to set what one plans to
do, may oppose or prevent such plans, may require a revision of such plans, and may demand a very different set of such plans.
p.8 One has to fit one's own line of activity in some manner
to the actions of others.
p.9 One additional feature should be added to round out Mead's analysis
of symbolic interaction, namely, that the parties to such interaction must necessarily take each other's roles.
p.15 the human individual confronts a world that he must interpret in order to act instead
of an environment to which he responds... He has to cope with the situations in which he is called on to act, ascertaining
the meaning of the actions of others and mapping out his own line of action in the light of such interpretation.
He has to construct and guide his action instead of merely releasing it in response to factors
playing on him or operating through him. He may do a miserable job in constructing his action, but he has to construct
it.
p.16 We must recognize that the activity of human beings consists of meeting a flow of situations in which
they have to act and that their action is built on the basis of what they note, how they assess and interpret what
they note, and what kind of projected lines of action they map out.
p.16 Joint or collective action constitutes the domain of sociological concerm... Such
instances of societal behavior, whatever they may be, consist of individuals fitting their lines of action to one
another.
p.17 It is evident that the domain of the social scientist is constituted precisely by the study of joint
action and of the collectivities that engage in joint action.
p.17 In dealing with collectivities and with joint action one can easily be trapped in an erroneous position
by failing to recognize that the joint action of the collectivity is an interlinkage of the separate acts of the participants.
This failure leads one to overlook the fact that a joint action always has to undergo a process of formation... each
instance of it has to be formed anew. Further, this career of formation through which it comes into being necessarily
takes place through the dual process of designation and interpretation that was discussed above. The participants
still have to guide their respective acts by forming and using meanings.
p.20 Thus, the new form of joint action always emerges out of and is connected with a context of
previous joint action. It cannot be understood apart from that context; one has to bring into one's consideration
this linkage with preceding forms of joint action.
p.59-60 The other point is a reminder of the need to recognize that joint action is temporally linked
with previous joint action. One shuts a major door to the understanding of any form or instance of joint action if
one ignores this connection.
p.61 My purpose is to depict the nature of human society when seen from the point of view of George Herbert
Mead.
p.66-67 Symbolic interaction is noteworthy in a second way. Because of it human
group life takes on the character of an ongoing process - a continuing matter of fitting developing lines of conduct to one
another. The fitting together of the lines of conduct is done through the dual process of definition and interpretation.
This dual process operates both to sustain established patterns of joint conduct and to open them to transformation.
p.70 I use the term "joint action" in place of Mead's term "social act." ...Illustrations of joint
action are a trading transaction, a family dinner, a marriage ceremony, a shopping expedition, a game,
a convivial party, a debate, a court trial or a war... Everywhere we look in human society we see people engaging
in forms of joint action.
p.70 Mead saw joint action, or the social act, as the distinguishing characteristic
of society. For him, the social act was the fundamental unit of society. Its analysis, accordingly, lays bare the
generic nature of society.
p.156 conception arises as an aid to adjustment with the insufficiency of perception; it permits new orientation
and new approach; it changes and guides perception.
