# Quote — Peter Berger, The Social Construction of Reality

> Society determines how long and in what manner the individual organism shall live. This determination may be institutionally programmed in the operation of social controls, as in the institution of law. Society can maim and kill. Indeed, it is in its power over life and death that it manifests its ultimate control over the individual.

- Author: [Peter Berger](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-berger.md)
- Book: [The Social Construction of Reality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-berger/the-social-construction-of-reality.md)
- Page: 202
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_L._Berger#The_Social_Construction_of_Reality,_1966) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-berger/the-social-construction-of-reality/society-determines-how

## More from this book

> A society’s stock of knowledge is structured in terms of what is generally relevant and what is relevant only to specific roles… the social distribution of knowledge entails a dichotomization in terms of general and role-specific relevance… because of the division of labor, role-specific knowledge will grow at a faster rate than generally relevant and accessible knowledge… The increasing number and complexity of [the resulting] sub universes [of specialized knowledge] make them increasingly inaccessible to outsiders.

p. 77 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-berger/the-social-construction-of-reality/a-societys-stock.md)

> Specific procedures of universe-maintenance become necessary when the symbolic universe has become a problem. As long as this is not the case, the symbolic universe is self-maintaining, that is, self-legitimating by the sheer facticity of its objective existence in the society in question.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-berger/the-social-construction-of-reality/specific-procedures-of-universe-maintenance.md)

> Modern science is an extreme step in this development, and in the secularization and sophistication of universe-maintenance.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-berger/the-social-construction-of-reality/modern-science-is-an-extreme.md)