Does The Symbolic Interactionism Explain Anything Sociology Essay

Does The Symbolic Interactionism Explain Anything Sociology Essay Symbolic interactionism is a major theoretical perspective in sociology regarding intrasocial human behaviour. While Hurbert Blumer coined the term in 1937, its conception traces back to the nineteenth century; notably, in the American philosopher and sociologist George Mead [from The Chicago School] through to the pioneering Erving Goffman (Farganis, 2008). Although never formally categorized as a symbolic interactionist, Goffman hugely shaped the perspective as one of its main practitioners (Marshall, 1998). Symbolic interactionism primarily concerns small-scale human interactions, from Meads inception to Goffmans subsequent transformations. The principal issue is whether the system explains human phenomena from an individual scale of human psychology to the broad, macroscopic scale of societies and its questionable success in doing so, or indeed in explaining other phenomena. Fundamentally, the concept of symbolic interactionism is bipartite: interaction and symbolic (Carter, 2011). The former is the interaction between individual people and these relationships operative mechanisms. The latter refers to both the generation and interpretation of peoples social signals; from their facial expressions down to their choice of attire (2011). As a theory, the perspective examined the meanings and familiarities between human interaction at a micro-sociological level and in a very interpretative manner; the development of the self within the social realm (Mead, 1934). According to Mead, human experience could not be relegated to individual psychology alone, but analyzes experience from the standpoint of communication as essential to the social order (1934; 401). The ideas were antithetical to that of Descartes famous cogito ergo sum (1641), in which the self was seen as distinct and its existence was indubitably true independent from the body and Goffmans idea o f the social realm. Symbolic interactionism was thus an implicit reaction against a classical conception of man as individually responsible and essentially noble; the new sociology placed human beings in an inherently social context. Mead, and his continuation from Goffman, characterizes the self in two parts: the I and the Me (1934). The I was the response of an individual to the attitude of others, whilst the me was organized set of attitudes of others that the individual assumed (2001). Symbolic interactionism sought to explain how human beings and the self-understood interactions between one another and its negotiation of the world around them. In Salernos mind, Goffman perceived the individual as nothing more than a cog responsible for the maintenance of the social world by playing his or her part (2004, 184). Goffman is not discounting the importance of the individual; for him, society was the micro-level interactions between humans, and most importantly, could not exist witho ut them. Essentially Goffman characterises society as a macroscopic emergent property of microscopic interactions. This is literally true insofar as there is no independent soul or spirit to society except simply the aggregate of its members; nevertheless, this lack of large-scale theory exposes symbolic interactionism as fundamentally unambitious in explaining that elusive concept, society, as opposed to simply a large agglomeration of connected individuals. The question of symbolic interactionisms explanatory power remains unanswered. The next portion of this essay shall focus specifically on The Presentation of Everyday Life (1959); Asylum (1961); The Interaction Ritual (1967); Forms of Talk (1981) and will dissect Goffmans explanation of society. The idea of face work (1967) was crucial to understanding the complexities of symbolic interactionism in day-to-day cultural settings. It provided an in-depth description and a new insight into the presentation of self in everyday life (Carter; 2011). Goffman principally exploited the concept of dramaturgical metaphor, in which human actions are contextualized in time, place and audience (Goffman, 1967) and used a theatrical metaphor to extend this theory, emphasizing the view that interaction between people was a literal performance, moulded by the audience and surroundings. For Goffman, day-to-day life was impression management (1967). Harking back to Goffmans earlier work, the existence of these performances did not wane with ill mental health on the contrary illustrated in Asylum (1961). Everyday social life was a game, involving strategic interactions and moves. Robert Carters example of a teacher/pupil relationship in the classroom illustrates that Goffmans symbolic interacti onism provides detailed insight into everyday life and explains the meanings behind even mundane scenarios: the teacher uses the strategic interaction of walking around, looking at (the pupils) because otherwise I dont know whether the pupils are concentrating (2011). The significant social interactivity of teaching as opposed to manual labour, say strengthens this example. However, teachings relatively strict formality and explicit hierarchy is a particularly codified example of social interaction, unlike informal socializing and its unspoken rules; indeed, the symbols, whether they be the school bell or the teachers register, have very clearly prescribed roles, and consequently symbolic interactionisms claim that individuals prescribe meaning to their worlds objects loses its profundity of individual semiotic creation when that meaning is given, even forced, on them. For Goffman, all social interactions revolved around the concept of a front and back region (1959). Continuing the theatrical metaphor, he posited a divergence of the front self from the back self. The front acts as a vehicle for self-promotion and to define the situation for those who observe (1959; 22), in the same vein as an actor builds a facsimile of another persons social role. The back region is effectually where ones identity can reveal all the hidden and private traits, unavailable to view by society (2008; 372). The game of life, a process whereby the self was at odds with their audience reciprocally giving off false evidence and trying to uncover the truth (1969) reflects an a common psycho-social dichotomy of inner and outer worlds, but Goffman fails to adequately explain the dialogue between the two. He explores the game by expanding its breath by introducing teams (1959) extending his work to group dynamics; individuals bonded by reciprocal dependency and accomplishme nts rely firmly on cooperation and the maintenance of a group appearance (1959; 79); success lies unequivocally in unanimous action and demeanor; disagreements and digression are only seen in the back. Divisions between the team and its viewers was described as an audience segregation (1959; 137) allowing teams to manipulate their front to the demands of unique audiences. Thus, ideological altercations do not damage the team per se more importantly, they continue impression management, maintaining a constant collective face out of many competing individual interests. The front-back bifurcation, nonetheless, is highly dependent on situation. Using the example of real actors rather than metaphor, back-stage for the actor is still his front. Another example: A teacher who retires from his frontstage performance in class to the backstage of the teachers room, is, from another perspective, still frontstage, since he does not recount his blunders in class to his colleagues. From this perspective, indeed, the situation in class is backstage. (Anthrobase) Specifically, the audience dictates behavior; fellow colleagues, in the realm of back-stage turn into another audience against which to shield when personal embarrassment is mentioned. Indeed, were the metaphor consistently and somewhat cynically applied, human beings are always disguising true feeling, and thus it is impossible for an external observer to actually access the back-stage. Goffman purports that some public actions are distinct from audience segregation, while still performance: they are ritual. Ritual means playing oneself (1967; 32). For Robert Carter, ritual and game are not mutually exclusive to the individual psyche, often generating real tension: Life as a game implies that youve actually seen it as a game; and once you see something as a game, you can no longer perform it ritually because youve understood that it is a game. (2011) In essence, it makes the distinction between gives and give off signs game playing versus ritual, respectively. Overall, while he was not formally a symbolic-interactionist, Goffmans work clearly shows the hallmarks of casting social interaction as a subtle web of symbols, and inner and outer being. He provides some limited explanation for the importance of meaning to asking, what is social? Previous works by Weber, although considering meaning essential to the question, never formulated a cogent argument as to why it was so. On the other hand, Goffmans dramaturgical approach saw meaning as such i.e., the object of throught, arises in experience through the individual stimulating himself to take the attitude of the other in his reactions toward the object (Wallace and Wolf, 202). In this respect, his works have succeeded where Webers fell short. Admittedly, the criticisms of symbolic interactionism are relevant later on; to insinuate that Goffmans work explains nothing can be considered as cynics front[!] Nevertheless, despite its merits, Goffmans works on the self overlook its fundamental flaws in application. In The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life, Goffman asserts the view that all individuals play the game, hiding true intentions within the guise of the front. If true, then humans are inherently Machiavellian beings posing behind dishonest masks, precluding the potential for altruism and solidarity. Goffman is implicitly denying the very social conditions of being human. His supporters counter with the view that characterising role-playing as immoral or dishonest is naÃÆ'Â ¯ve: What distinguishes the honest from dishonest performers, is not the need for rehearsals and performance, but rather: a) whether the performers are socially authorized to play the roles and b) the attitude of the performers toward their own roles (Meyrowitz in Riggins, 1990; 70) It is true that a performance does not infer dishonesty per se; however, the inability to distinguish an actors true honest from dishonest performance seems to nullify Goffmans response to this issue; admittedly, this is predicated on a particularly ends-driven pseudo-consequentialism, that only an individuals end actions matter, rather than his internal psychological processes producing those. Goffmans work in Asylum (1961) specifically on The Moral Career of the Mental Patient (1959) attempted to dissect the nature of marginalized individuals in society, isolated from general society. His study sought to uncover how the incarcerated and practitioners created meaning during their interactions and how their presentation and construction of self was formed. Like The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life, the Asylum followed Goffmans game and ritual concepts, although the situational environments were significantly different: to start, asylums were total institutions (1961) in which people were cut off from wider society and restrictively subordinated under their handlers. Moreover, the struggle for identity in a closed and draconian total institution sees the mortification of self (Goffman; 1959). Incarcerating mental patients implied an unacceptably incompetent front, and the inability to observe standard properties on the outside (Giddens 1987; 130). It is thus cl ear that for asylums to function as reforming institutes, it had to threaten a whole complex of practices whereby actors are able to demonstrate both to others and to themselves their competence as agents [sic.] (1987; 129). For Goffman, mental patients went through three self-explanatory stages: prepatient, inpatient and ex-patient (1959). Robert Carter purports that asylums often entailed a surprising reciprocal relationship in vulnerability: as patients are stripped of rights and free will and relegated to enforced infantilism (Giddeos, 1987) and effectively lose their identity, so too do the asylum and psychiatrists, in imposing their own definition of what a patient is (2011), suffer a vulnerability. During his stay at the asylum, appropriately adopting a front as a pseudo-employee, Goffman sought to modify the populist theories surrounding mental institutions of curing illness. Goffman wanted to expose and understand the gap between the work that the staff do and what they sa y are trying to do (Weinstein, 1982; 268). In many ways, his studies provided key tools to the field of social care; according to Weinstein, his work has been cited in legal cases predicated on the care of mental patient, as well as applications in health policy (1982; 267). However, although Goffman intended to provide meaning for human interactions in the asylum as well as in everyday life his work was still criticised. Critics of symbolic interactionism often attack Goffmans micro-sociological approach as fundamentally flawed in prescribing a grand theory of society. The perspective is seen to be overly impressionistic (Hawaii; 1) in its research methodology as well as being wholly unsystematic to the point of chaos (Psathas 1980; 53) Its highly subjective and qualitative methods, and the interpretative nature of the dramaturgical approach, mean that its application is limited to small-scale interactions. Any macroscopic extension highlights the shortcomings of Goffmans work; his theorems are often limited to specific and present moments and entail relatively little developments of concepts which can used transsituationally (Psathas, 1980; 54). Effectively, it lacked cross-cultural analysis and universality (Comp, 3) and ergo could not adequately describe the massed hoi polloi. Moreover, given the limitations in Goffmans approach across regional boundaries, any historical comparative analysis was, and still is, impossible. However, Richard L. Lanigan states that Goffmans work in Forms of Talk do not necessarily relegate his holdings to that of solely micro-sociology. Goffmans work on a radio audience gives a holistic collective entity that at the very least is preconceived to be an aggregate displaying group typicalities in society (Riggins, 1990; 122). Nevertheless, Lanigans support of Goffman does not invalidate the point that Goffmans dramaturgical was inadequate for achieving a social science of social actions due to his lack of rigorous method and empirically interactional phenomena (Psathas, 1996; 11). However, Goffmans work in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life can stretch to macro-sociological readings. In Barnharts model, the contextualizing of Goffmans writings with other thinkers (opens) a beneficial link between micro- and macro structures of society becomes visible. (n/a ; 5). Linking Goffman to Durkheim, Barnharts critique suggests that his work has significance at both micro and m acro levels of society, namely in the concept of spontaneity. As Goffman sees its relevance to the aspect of a true and uncontrived performance of the spontaneous actor, Durkheim entertains the idea of the macro-sociological model of spontaneity (1984; 313). The concept linked both scopes of sociology and reaffirmed the notion of truth in contemporary social organizations (Barnhart, n/a; 5). It therefore rebutted the claim that Goffmans work lacks macroscopic application and cannot explain large-scale pheonomena. However, attempts by Goffman supporters eventually trail off. According to Giddens, Goffman managed a strict separation between his work and that of sociologists interested in the macro-structural properties of social systems; to compound, he resolutely refused to do so (Giddens 1987; 131). Criticism of Goffman does not end there: Riggins contends that Goffmans writing often descends into a stylistic merger of scholarly monograph with the novel or with journalistic accounts (1990; 65). Not only was Goffmans work as a macro-sociologist completely void, his critics went on to attack even his writings on micro-sociology stating that his works were descriptive rather than prescriptive. John Lofland suggesting that Goffman was more concerned with labeling, defining, and characterizing types of behaviors (sic), roles, events, and rules than with showing logical connection among the types (Riggins, 66). Works such as The Presentation of self in Everyday Life often espouse ideas that are somewhat innate to the workings of modern society; to suggest that some men conceal lust for underage girls or suppress their desire to release bodily fluids in a social setting is fundamentally intuitive. They seek to preserve their status in society but not openly admit to be a pedophile or c hurlish, respectively; they have made the trade-off in the psychological effort of self-control and the social benefits of not admitting such inadmissible desires. If Goffmans opponents seem overly zealous, even his advocates, such as Randall Collins, admit that he fails to push on through to full possession of the theoretical territories he has reconnoitered (1980; 206). His works descriptive nature leaves little room for explanatory theory; by failing to explain the true mechanisms of social interaction, he fails in evaluation and analysis. Goffmans symbolic interactionism and the dramaturgical approach are sociologically inadequate. Its micro-sociological approach limits itself to small intimate groups and lacks cross-cultural universality, and even in its own sphere is insufficient; while exploring previously uncharted scholarly realms, such as in asylums, Goffmans work tends to open up the surface of immediate relevance (Collins, 1980: 175) but presented countless observations and few integrated theories (Meyrowitz in Riggins, 1990; 65). Symbolic interactionism is useful in characterising meaning and superficial behaviour, but fails to rigorously justify itself in phenomenologically-grounded investigations, relegating itself to being thoroughly interesting rather than thoroughly theoretical (Riggins; 1990, 65). Goffman failed to construct an overarching paradigm for human beings and their civilization, instead content with a mass of disjointed bits; thus he remains more a footnote of description than a titan of theor y.