by ForwardslashTim
Have you ever wondered why people from different backgrounds might react so distinctly to the same situation? These everyday observations highlight fundamental, yet subtle, processes that shape every individual: socialization, social norms, and habitus.
Socialization is that lifelong process through which we absorb the values, beliefs, behaviors, and skills deemed appropriate within our culture. It’s how we learn the way things are done, primarily through our interactions with family, peers, schools, media, and workplaces (Griffiths et al., 2023). Closely intertwined are social norms—the often-unwritten but powerful rules and expectations that guide our behavior in specific social settings. They act as the glue that maintains social order and predictability (Horne & Mollborn, 2020). Crucially, these learned patterns become so deeply internalized that they form what the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called habitus: our ingrained set of durable dispositions, perceptions, and ways of acting. It’s that intangible “feel for the game” of social life—a collection of embodied tendencies, shaped by our social class and cultural experiences, that generates our seemingly automatic responses to the world (Bourdieu, 1984). To understand these three concepts is to recognize the profound, often unseen, ways society molds us.
Considering this, the “Innies” from the Apple TV+ series Severance would likely struggle to fulfill their jobs or evolve socially as they are portrayed. Their unique and limited circumstances would cripple their ability to function in any recognizable workplace environment or engage in meaningful social development. Consequently, the show’s depiction raises important questions about the relationship between identity, socialization, and professional capability.
The series Severance, created by Dan Erickson, presents a chilling exploration of work-life separation pushed to a terrifying extreme. It introduces employees of Lumon Industries who undergo an optional “severance” procedure. This irreversible surgery creates a radical split: an employee’s consciousness is permanently divided between their “Innie” (who exists solely within the workplace, unaware of any outside life) and their “Outie” (who lives in the outside world with no memory of their workday) (Erickson, 2022). For the Innie, the Lumon office is their entire universe; they arrive each morning via elevator with no recollection of their personal identity or experiences beyond the sterile, maze-like corridors. The show builds tension through the profound disorientation and existential dread of the Innies, making it a potent allegory about identity, autonomy, and corporate control in a world where the self can be partitioned (Gergen, 1991).
In this unsettling world, the Innies are presented as fully formed, socially competent employees. They navigate office politics, form friendships, and plot a rebellion. However, when analyzed through those core sociological concepts mentioned above, this depiction strains credulity. Their existence, devoid of any life experience outside Lumon’s hallways, would render them incapable of the nuanced social understanding and practical sense they demonstrate.
Fundamentally, the Innie’s condition represents the most extreme form of inadequate socialization. As George Herbert Mead (1934) argued, the self develops through social interaction and understanding the “generalized other”—the common behavioral expectations of society. The “Outies” have undergone this process; they have families, histories, and a place in the social world. The Innie, by contrast, is born an adult into a vacuum. They have no reference points, no childhood, no experience of any social institution outside of Lumon. Their “generalized other” is limited to the bizarre, cult-like corporate doctrine of Kier Eagan. They would have no framework to understand sarcasm, loyalty, or subversion, as these concepts require a broader understanding of human interaction that they simply could not possess. Their social world would be so narrow that forming a genuine friendship, as Mark S. and Helly R. do, would be psychologically impossible.
Furthermore, without a lifetime of embodied experience, the Innie would lack what Pierre Bourdieu termed habitus: those deeply ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions that operate subconsciously to guide our actions (Bourdieu, 1977). Habitus isn’t intellectual knowledge; it’s a “feel for the game” learned through practice. The Innie is given a manual and a set of rules, but this is explicit knowledge, not the tacit, practical mastery required for basic social navigation. For instance, they would not understand the subtle body language of a conspiratorial glance or the unspoken rules of how to challenge authority without overt insubordination. Their actions would be clumsy, literal, and robotic, not the deft and intuitive behaviors they exhibit. The rebellion they mount requires a sophisticated understanding of power dynamics, secrecy, and trust—all elements of a habitus formed in a rich social world, not a single room.
Finally, their ability to perform their jobs effectively is also questionable. Even the most mundane office work relies on a shared cultural lexicon and common sense, which Harold Garfinkel (1967) referred to as the unspoken background assumptions that make interaction possible. The Innie’s profound ignorance of the outside world—what trees are, what a child’s drawing signifies—would cripple their cognitive and perceptual abilities. They are asked to sort data into emotionally resonant categories like “Woe” or “Frolic” without any experiential basis for these complex emotional states. It’s a logical inconsistency to believe a consciousness could have the cognitive capacity for complex reasoning and emotional intelligence while being utterly devoid of the life experiences that build that very capacity.
In conclusion, while Severance is a brilliant allegory for labor alienation, its portrayal of the Innies’ social functionality is sociologically unsound. Stripped of socialization, denied any development of habitus, and lacking the background knowledge that makes human interaction possible, the Innies would be far more disoriented, dysfunctional, and socially inert than the capable rebels the show presents. They would be less like colleagues and more like newborns in adult bodies, utterly lost in a world they have no tools to comprehend.
References
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Harvard University Press.
Erickson, D. (Creator). (2022). Severance [TV series]. Endeavor Content; Red Hour Productions; Apple TV+.
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Prentice-Hall.
Gergen, K. J. (1991). The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life. Basic Books.
Griffiths, H., Keirns, N. J., Strayer, E., Cody-Rydzewski, S., Scaramuzzo, G., Sadler, T., Vyain, S., Bry, J., & Jones, F. (2023). Introduction to sociology 3e. OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/5-introduction
Horne, C., & Mollborn, S. (2020). Norms: An integrated framework. Annual Review of Sociology, 46(1), 467–487. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-054658
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self and society. University of Chicago Press.