Written By AT:
Symbolic universe is an imaginary phenomenon in our minds, and life, which self creates to our comfort with all of our likings and disliking.
In other words, symbolic universe is an assumption of perfection for us, as we believe in it. In the same manner as a frog thinks about his universe, within the well
Similarly, as the frog believes that there is nothing beyond the walls of a well, and confirms to the enormity of a small universe within the well. There is nothing bigger than the universe, which you can perceive and this disagrees to the idea of something bigger even exists.
Encounters with the reality are usually quite different and sometimes are too harsh when we stand face to face with our symbolic universe. Real world is sometimes cruel and honest, just a tad bit more than our imaginative worlds.
To avoid living in a symbolic universe, or any imaginative world, we must question, each and everything that we see or feel. We must stop being the prisoners of the past and become creators of our own future.
“Burgeon”, and “Lukmann” in 1966 drawing strongly from “Alfred Schultz”, introduced the term “social construction” in a book called “The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge”.
Social construction of reality is a theory of knowledge in sociology and communication that examines the development of jointly constructed understandings of the world that forms the basis of shared assumptions about reality. According to this theory, people and groups constantly interacting in a social system created over
time, create a mental representation of each other's action. And these concepts eventually become habituated into reciprocal roles played by the actors in relation to each other.
When these rules are made available to other members of the society to enter into and follow, the reciprocal interactions are said to be institutionalized in the process. This means that this action is embedded in the society through people's conceptions and beliefs of what reality is; therefore it embeds in the very fabric of the “social institutional framework”. This kind of reality is called socially constructed reality.
“The institutional structures thus created are legitimized by means of a symbolic universe.”
Symbolic universes are a set of beliefs which is aimed at making institutionalized structures plausible and acceptable to the individual, who might otherwise may not understand, or agree with the underlying logic of an institution.
As an ideological system symbolic universe, puts everything in the right place. It provides explanations for why we do things the way we do it, perhaps, moral maxims, wise sayings, mythological religious and theological talks, metaphysical transitions and other value systems are part of the symbolic universe. They are all ways to legitimize the established institutions of society.
Architecture of the third world is more of a symbolic universe, encapsulated and prescribed by the institutions imparting architectural education to the young. Knowledge arrives from first world (western) nations and forced upon the fertile minds while institutionalizing the framework of architectural practice.
The idea of regionalism and architectural diversity perhaps limits itself to pictorial reminiscences of history books. The loss of perspective is too big to comprehend by the fraternity itself and too expensive to be acknowledged by society. As we head for global architectural shifts and styles, we do make the prime sacrifice of regional relevance. The symbolic universes of young minds in traditional ghettos of architecture schools need to be broken and rebuilt with NO RULES only passion.
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