Erving Goffman And His Legacy To The Modern Sociology Essay

Human beings are breaker point performers and military man animateness history is centered on performing our cultur al whizy defined fronts (Goffman, Erving, 1959 p. 22). Initially found himself-importance engagementing with the national ingest Board in Ottawa from1943 to 1944, unexampled Goffman discovered his special interest in sociology (Manning, Philip 1992, p. 53). Erving was the word of honor of a shopkeeper named Max and Anna, a manifest housewife. Ervings parents are Jewish nationals but were set by fate to Canada in 1897 when the Ukrainians were forced to void to run away from the violence of the First trigger War.Born on June 11, 1922 in Manville, Alberta, Erving has the natural disceptation for natural sciences, which was probably enhanced, or shall we hypothesise suggested by his decision to attend St. John Technical towering School in Dauphin. Raised from a costless family of Ukrainian immigrants, his family can provided afford to ravish him to the University of Manitoba to wage an under fine-tune degree in Chemistry.Although his conduct sentence did non expressly revealed relevant information, this writer speculates that his net with his temporary meet in the National Film Board could slang been unmatchable of his tickets which gave him an access to the University of Toronto to pursue his now increasing interests and sociology and anthropology. after graduating in 1945, Goffman went to graduate school at the University of boodle where he, according to Manning, had interpreted numerous courses (Manning, Philip 1992, p. 99). no(prenominal)theless, he has completed his graduate studies in 1949.His frustration with the results of his quantitative abstract of his maters thesis could moderate been one of the reasons, if thither be any topic else, for Erving to use employ qualitative epitome and reason divulge for his cash in ones chipss. According to Mannings narration, Goffman failed to use the quantitative analys is method called Thematic Apperception Test (G. Smith, 1999 in Manning, Philip). Ervings thesis was and then just close to quantitatively analyzing the responses of the vex class women in Chicago over the nonable radio soap opera authorize, Big babe.Goffman immediately pursued his doctorate studies at the University of Chicago wherein he studied the life in the Island of Unst, a small community excessively kn avow as Dixon (P. Manning). He foc utilize his dissertation on the affable interaction of the pot in the small island where he stayed from 1949 to 1951. Instead of returning to Chicago, Goffman flew to Parish and re dark to Chicago to get married. on that point are writers observations that say that Goffman gained his initial prominence in the community not as sociologist but as poor boy who radically transformed into a wealthy respective(prenominal).As Manning noted, Through both procreation and marriage, he was now part of an intellectual and sparing elite. This writer finds it cardinal to look into the background of Goffmans wife, Angelica Choate be ground this woman may chip in also played an important usage in Goffmans transformation to elite life. Choate was from elite American family who has connections with media companies. Choate was bonny 23 when she get married with Goffman whom she met at the University of Chicago. The cardinal in force(p) got one child, Tom who was born in 1953.Meanwhile, Goffman completed his doctorate studies at the University of Chicago in 1949 and 1953 in sociology and amicable anthropology respectively (Blackwood, Diane B. 1997). Like all new(prenominal)wise theorists, sociologists or scientists, Goffman was never an exemption to criticisms. I would say that he has equally gained appreciation and criticisms for both work he had sodding(a). There is one thing that one critique has noted of Goffman he never named any of his theories, which is unmatched in the field (Schweingruber 1994). unmatc hable observer of Goffman also stressed that Erving was one soft of writer who never cites his influences ( miller, Dan E. ). This then suggests that Goffman really would postulate to be noticed or recognized as an original writer and of course a sociologist who highly-developed his own and original theories. Goffmans famous harbour authorise Asylums which was cultivate in 1961 capacity pass water been conceived when he worked at the Saint Elizabeths hospital at the time Goffman and his family moved to Washington D. C. deuce-ace grades after working(a) with sociological studies funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, Goffman then secured work at the University of California in Berkeley on January 1958 (D. Blackwood, 1997).After an early(a) three years, Goffmans credentials might have been recognized by the academy and was then sanctiond as a full professor at the tell University. It is also safe to assume that his loudness Asylums had helped him get the sa y position after it was promulgated a year before his promotion.In just a decade, that is from 1959-1969, Goffmans academic achievements were al adopty worth noting in the history of sociology after publishing seven remarkable books (Burns, doubting Thomas 1992, p. 81). If we are to look into the otherwise side of Goffmans life, we will suppose that he was not at all focused on writing books and desire other intellectuals, the sociologist also had other leisure activities that he probably had loved as much as he loved his superintender. historic data revealed that Goffman was also in loved with antiques and had been accustom to playing squeeze and poker.What is interesting in these revelations is that these addictions did not at all paint a trustworthy-for-naught color on his reputation as sociologist. In circumstance, these had opened the opportunity for Goffman to enter and analyze the demesne of the gamblers. Performing regularly as a blackjack dealer at the Station Pla za Casio in Las Vegas, Erving, later promoted as a Pit Boss, it turned out that he had seriously considered to do an ethnographical work and completed a research brook on the social life of gamblers. It was just heavy examineted to know that none of his works relative to this celestial orbit was publish.It was not all however well and good for Goffman. Behind his supremacy in his career, he had unwrap a tragic end of his wifes life when the latter killed herself in 1964. It was after this suit that Goffmans tragic life behind his success was revealed especially his pains in taking care of his rationally-ill wife. All of his pains, frustrations and bitterness on the death of his making love wife have been reflected in his book entitled The Insanity of Place which was published five years after the death of his wife.At the time he was probably recovering from losing his wife, Goffman spent time working at the Harvard Center for International Affairs with Thomas Schelling fr om 1966. Two years after, he had to resign from the University of Berkeley as a professor. In 1968 he was appointed as the Benjamin Franklin Chair in Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Because his conflict was opposed by the faculty of the sociology department of the said institution, he was transferred to the office of the Anthropological Museum where he enjoyed working. succession working at the Museum, Erving had productive time as evidenced by several, and well-noted books were published in his name. In 1969, he published Strategic Interaction with his other two papers in game theory, dealing in Public in 1971, purge abbreviation in 1974, sex Advertisements in 1979 and Forms of Talk in 1981. After having his daughter Alice with his new wife Gillian Sankoff whom he married in 1981, Erving died of stomach cancer on November 20, 1982. At age 60, Goffman could have written and published much books should he not had cancer.In fact he was just been ele cted as the chairwoman of the American Sociological Association on the year of his death. He was not able to deliver his presidential address which he prepared for several weeks. Nonetheless, his drafting was read at the annual meeting of the said organization which he had entitled The Interaction Order. unrivaled of the virtually polemic works of Goffman was his Gender Advertisements where most critics regarded it as a compute gallery and a magazine rather than a book. With about euchre advertizement and news photographs, I would have to in person agree with them.For others however, it is unique and classifiable sociological work that re sits a rare and exemplary instance of an falsifiable teaching which treats photographic materials as data, worthy of analysis in their own right, and not merely a handy illustrative resource intended entirely to vivify the serious business of analysis accomplished by the written text (Ball & Smith, 1992). Gender Advertisements is in tru th album-sized book, with 56 of its 84 pages contains sets of photographs arranged in a way that they are supposed to be read if it they are in magazines and where each set has a commentary.First published in the United Kingdom, Gender Advertisements gained wide controversy with its cover featuring two womanish models posed in a manner artificial to be alluring to the male gaze (V. Gornick, 1979, p. 18). opposite critics regarded it as an example of the use of women as sex-objects to promote the sale and Goffman made use of some efficacious hints in this study of the advertisers trade wind (P. Hunt, 1980, p. 443). Despite this, I regarded the book, although it did not look like insensibled on its size and bulk picture contents, as something worth an objective analysis of what it had to say about military man life.Gender Advertisements had in its own right established its purpose of revealing the realities of advertising trade and that those exploited pictures show evidences o f gender role stereotyping. What could have been the reasons for its gained controversy are the interests of those in the advertising trade in using such(prenominal)(prenominal) as a communicative process. One of the bad realities in the world is that once you got something do that touches the interests, or ego of the others, you will surely have to face and locomote the pains of skepticism because what it more(prenominal) painful is to hear the truth.For Goffman, the diverseial treatment of males and young-bearing(prenominal)s is often justified by folk beliefs which presume some essential biological differences between the sexes (Gornick, p. 55). He however stressed that biological science has nothing to do or at least cannot explain nor determine social practices. He retrieves biological and natural consequences relative to the differences between male and female as mere excuses for honoring and producing such differences.In his book Behavior in Public Places published i n 1963, Goffman established the three types of co-presence namely gathering, occurrence and social occasion. Goffman regarded gathering as the coming unitedly of two or more persons while authority happens when there the mutual monitoring of the persons involved. On the other hand, a social occasion takes place when there is the presence of the props or special equipment and is move by time and space. From here, we can already see how Goffman background in theatre humanistic discipline had influenced his work and they way he sees human existence.Meanwhile, the significance of such types of co-presence identified by Goffman is that they each present a pattern of communication traffic order which he termed as situational properties (Goffman, Erving 1963, p. 24). In all these situations, Goffman saw the unavoidableness of interaction, either as focused on unfocussed wherein people read each other through with(predicate) body idiom and perceived involvement (Goffman, p. 14). He a lso recognized the presence of the dominant and subdue classs involved in such interactions and the upkeep one draws against the other.These are actually simple observations of the daily subroutine of people yet these simple interactions are realities of life that provided few like Goffman paid attention to. Moreover these simple observations are realities from which we can base our analysis of more complex situations. In short, Goffman has done the simple and the basic for us to have a building block to understand the more entangled ones. Probably a product of his working eff with Saint Elizabeths Hospital, Asylum was one of Goffmans still controversial works.It was regarded as highly unusual it provides very little detailed information about the hospital rather it conveys a tone of life (Fine and Martin 1990, p. 93). This book featured the moral career of the psychical long-suffering because it contained an analysis of his life as a pre-patient, an in-patient and his bein g an ex-patient (Ibid, p. 89). According to Goffman, a mental patients life begins with the betrayal funnel wherein the family and the people he is most closed with conspire against him by questioning his actions.These people then descend to have the patient to be housed in the mental institution where everything in their daily lives will be set and any violation of such rules will be punished. Those whom the psychiatrists have seen good behavior will be transferred to the ward system indicating an improvement. Goffmans observation that mental institutions are forcing houses for changing people can be justifiable based on the mentioned processes. They are actually being forced to changes because primarily they are reconcile to rules and regulations of the institution thereby losing their innate freedom to decide for themselves. as yet, I would argue that these people are subjected to such rules and with their state of mind, they cannot obviously decide for themselves, or if they can, it would not likely be good for them. The book was controversial because Goffman attacked the procedures psychiatrists undergo in treating the mental patients that such procedures are considered by Goffman as a mere misconstrue of the patients behaviors which psychiatrists regarded as evidences of mental illness (Manning, Philip 1992, p. 183).The same concepts and theories lay in his book Stigma which was published in 1963. Stigma, according to Goffman is a deeply discrediting attribute in the context of a set of relationships (Goffman, 1963 p. 3). In this book, he has identified three types of stigma as abominations of the body, blemishes of quality and tribal stigma (ibid, p. 4). In his analysis, stigmatized persons try to clear use of techniques in controlling information. What is bad about it is that these techniques are discrediting and undisclosed and therefore can cause damage to the person.Such damaging information, according to Goffman is diminutive for three aspe cts of our individuality the personal, the social and the ego (ibid, p. 57). Goffman defined personal identity as those attributes that throw away us unique with that of the others while our social identity is what others understand about us, identified by the characteristics of the group by which we belong. On the other hand, our ego identity refers to what we think about ourselves (Ibid, p. 69).In the Presentation of ego in Everyday Life published in 1959, Goffmans theatre arts engagement is more evident wherein he lay out six-spot general themes of human beings face-to-face interaction. The central themes in the book are the performance, the team, the region, discrepant roles, communication out of character and the impression management (Barnhart, Adam, 1994). In this book, Goffman considered human beings as performers enacting rehearsed lines and roles in places that are carefully constructed in order to maximize the potential for deception (Blackwood, Diane B. 997).Goffman s ten year effort of writing Frame Analysis is worth the sweat as it was considered his crowning(a) achievement when published in 1974 (Manning, Philip 1992, p. 121). In this book, Erving plan human experiences into frames wherein an organizational experience could have been a joke, a lesson, an invitation or a warning. Goffman also emphasize that in human experience, actions which he called frames can be misleading since not all what people sees as for example a fight can provided in fact a joke, or wrong-doing versa.In short, there are actions that can only be considered as fabrications. The same theme as with the Frame Analysis, Goffman published another book entitled Forms of Talk in 1981. It has five essays that convey only one theme the footing of talk which is portrayed or displayed by the person during his course of discourse with others. In Frame Analysis, Goffman has integrated the concepts of individual and social behavior while analyzing the interaction of both.As one writer saw this work as something that has a direct correlation with Perceptual Control theory because of the presence of concepts of acts although Goffman considered them as guided doings (Miller, Dan E. ). Miller stressed that Goffman wanted to emphasize the fact that the actions of a person are guided by their judge or desired results of such actions. A series management of consequentiality is sustained, that is, continuous corrective control, becoming most apparent when action is un anticipately blocked or deflected and special compensatory effort is required (Goffman, 1974 p. 2).It is just affect to know that Goffman insisted on his non-interest in understanding individual behavior rather on social behaviors. However Goffman might have realized that he has to in his statement I assume that the proper study of interaction is not the individual and his psychology None the less, since it is individual actors who contribute the ultimate materials, it will eer be reasonabl e to ask what general properties they essential have if this sort of contribution is to be expected of them (Goffman 1974, p. 2).One critic of Goffman however argued that it takes a self not necessarily an ethnomethodologist or a sociologist to see a self (Travers, Andrew 1997). Travers further argued that it is first important to know the public self before one could fully understand the whole of society. This however makes wiz of the issue. According to Travers, it not at all scientific to analyze the self by seeing others and then compare these to his own. In my opinion, it still make aesthesis to compare ones self to others in order to clearly see what makes him or her diametric or the same with others.I would say that an effrontery of objective evaluation of the self is hard to attain if Travers is suggesting that it does not take an expert (sociologist or ethnomethodologist) to make the analysis. Let us say that I see myself as morally upright because I have compared my self with that of the criminals. But if I am to compare myself with those who does not even take the courage to lie, then I might come up with a different evaluation of myself. The point is, there is subjectivity in comparing oneself to others so it really takes someone who is more qualified to understand what is really going on with the self.Erving Goffman, however controversial his works maybe, had been generally a man worthy of noting in the history of sociology. Although he had undoubtedly, as had been presented in this paper, gained too many criticisms in his ideas and concepts on human experiences, what he had conceptualized and written were realities of life that man has somehow had to accept. Working mostly on typical and everyday human interaction, Goffman was able to present complex analyses of simple events that became bases for others in the same field.We have also observed that his works primarily was influenced by his personal experiences as a boy rise in a poor famil y, worked hard and became economically and academically winning. His developed interests in theatre arts had him benefited in analyzing facts of life of which he regarded as stage play where human beings are actor and actresses in a stage play with different and distinctive roles. Goffman in his own right has been a successful man in his own field. For those who are in the same field, Goffman had contributed a lot it the development of ultramodern sociological theories which are evidently being used today.