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Freedom to Perform
Although it focuses on individual action (so it kinda opposes to my structuralist views of the social world), I find Goffman's interpretation of the human action quite interesting. Those of you who have read Erving Goffman know exactly how "catchy" his sociology is, and those of you who haven't...well I can tell you this: you don't have to be passionate about sociology to enjoy reading his books. Basically what he says is this: the social world is one big stage and we're all actors, we play a role, we fake it. Yes...we fake it, I know those are not his exact words but that's what he is trying to say. He makes a very clear separation between the person we truly are inside, the intimate self, and the person who puts on a show once entering the social "stage".
So, life is nothing but one big show, and we perform a double role: we're actors but at the same time we are other actors' audience and we choose (see...here comes the freedom part I don't agree with) which character we want to play. When we're surrounded by people, we start to perform, we either play the role of a student, or a lover, a friend, a daughter...we are always concerned about what others see, and in the role we play we try to manipulate their perception of what's really going on (mostly through language) as we anticipate their actions - symbolic interactionism. I think what he is trying to say is that by playing a certain role, we try to impose to other actors our own definition of how the social interaction should take place, that is why we "invent" our roles as we move along in the play.
Well...what can I say, it's certainly an interesting way of looking at the world around you and I partly agree with him, even if the metaphor is not new (Shakespeare said that life is a stage or something like that). I do agree that we indeed play roles, and some of them are really predictable, but I don't think we choose what role to play, rather the role chooses us. Anyway, one thing I really like in " The presentation of self in everyday life" is when Goffman is trying to identify a few techniques actors use to make their role seem more authentic. One of those techniques is mystification, that is when an actor keeps the distance from his audience, and avoids social contacts on purpose. This way, the audience (that's to say, other actors) see him as unreachable and surround him in a certain aura of mystery...and sometimes the one secret behind all the mystery is that there is no secret.
So, life is nothing but one big show, and we perform a double role: we're actors but at the same time we are other actors' audience and we choose (see...here comes the freedom part I don't agree with) which character we want to play. When we're surrounded by people, we start to perform, we either play the role of a student, or a lover, a friend, a daughter...we are always concerned about what others see, and in the role we play we try to manipulate their perception of what's really going on (mostly through language) as we anticipate their actions - symbolic interactionism. I think what he is trying to say is that by playing a certain role, we try to impose to other actors our own definition of how the social interaction should take place, that is why we "invent" our roles as we move along in the play.
Well...what can I say, it's certainly an interesting way of looking at the world around you and I partly agree with him, even if the metaphor is not new (Shakespeare said that life is a stage or something like that). I do agree that we indeed play roles, and some of them are really predictable, but I don't think we choose what role to play, rather the role chooses us. Anyway, one thing I really like in " The presentation of self in everyday life" is when Goffman is trying to identify a few techniques actors use to make their role seem more authentic. One of those techniques is mystification, that is when an actor keeps the distance from his audience, and avoids social contacts on purpose. This way, the audience (that's to say, other actors) see him as unreachable and surround him in a certain aura of mystery...and sometimes the one secret behind all the mystery is that there is no secret.
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