> it's not an aberration, but a facet of social life. group membership
> hinges on learning to identify _as_ a member. and, with AA, they have
> some norms as to what constitutes membership. those who don't live up to
> the norms, drop out. BFD. all he did was show how AA wasn't magic, but
> normal social interaction.
Like I said, he busted down an open door. Whoever thought it was anything else? AA is the harnessing of group norms to firm up the resolution of the individual.
> how do you explain my students' experiences. when they attended with
> parents or friends, they too were subjected to questioning to see if
> they had the telltale signs.
Because AA is for drunks. It's not for friends or family of drunks. Anyone who comes in saying they are really there for their friend is assumed to be fibbing. It's a normal fib; lots of people tell it. And if they really mean it, then they've made a mistake coming, and when they are treated like a lying drunk, they'll leave. Mission accomplished.
> if you're a researcher, and you point this out to people, if you make it
> clear, then why on earth should any AA member, let alone the contact
> persons he asked for permission to study the sites, grill him about his
> drinking habits.
Because they assume he's lying. Otherwise why would he go through the whole rigamarole of asking for permission to enter a group that no one needs permission to enter or leave? What wouldn't he just come in look all he wants? Who could stop him? They assume it must be a ploy, albeit a new one on them. Because certainly if he cared enough to study the group he could see there was no authority who could ever grant such a permission in any meaningful way. It's like asking permission to study anarchists. No matter what the PO might intend, the main thing it would signal to group members is that he didn't understand the group he was supposedly studying.
Of course we know the real reason he's asking permission is because the group that he's socialized into requires it. It's one of the norms of participant observation. But it seems from what you are saying that people socialized into this group are just like people socialized into all other groups: they think their norms are obviously useful and good, and that everyone accepts their validity. And they find it simply inexplicable that outsiders might pay no attention when they invoke those norms as if they meant nothing to them. What? They dismiss my group's sacred norms as if they were empty ritual, and act like I'm lying, and as if their norms defined the situation? That's an act of aggression! Such a reaction in defense of group norms is of course common and understandable. But coming from the community of participant observers, it seems richly ironic and singularly unreflexive.
Most people don't have the faintest idea what a sociologist is. When you tell them you are one, they have no more idea what you're up to than if you told them you were a Zoroastrian.
Someone who comes into a group that is meant only for drunks, and gets treated like a drunk, and then acts like this is in need of explanation, seems to me to have missed some pretty basic points.
Michael