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Once I overheard a conversation in a local biker-bar between several of the regulars and a biker-sociologist, or better, a sociologist cum biker. The question was whether, in point of fact (a locution gleaned from PBS docudramas), the scientist refers to the same reality of the social world that appears to your average biker, or your average anyone else, or whether there is more than one reality and if so, whether they are coinciding or separated by a gap and unrelated to each other, or even whether one is an appearance of the other. It was clear that by "average" was understood anyone who had the good fortune not to have a Phd in one or another of the social or natural sciences. The question, moreover, was posed in such a way that, as is generally the case in biker-bars, a yes or no answer was required (the ultimate fate of the Scholastic sic et non). Because there seemed to be neither a yes or a no, the issue was settled in the only way fashionable in a dehumanized, industrialized community: tire irons and chains. Social reality, as it appears to your average biker, prevailed, and the bikersociologist was carried off in a squishing plastic sack to the dumpster across the street.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-015-8931-4_1

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