Compare and contrast the views of Goffman and Foucault on how social oreder is produced.

Throughout Peter Kivisto’s book Social Theory: Roots & Branches, he talks about the numerous different perspectives which essentially help distinguish our overall understanding of the contemporary

The idea of not expecting too much led to Goffman adopting a naturalistic view of social

Social order, the fundamental concept that outlines the way that social structures and cultural aspects like beliefs and values come together in order to maintain order in a society. Both Vedic India and Ancient China established a stratified structure that served as an outline to maintaining social order within their civilizations. Those that were in the high class had their spot at the top of the pyramid while others like the working class were at the lowest of the pyramid.

“A picture is made up of so many square inches of painted canvas; but if you should look at these one at a time, covering the others, until you had seen them all, you would still not have seen the picture. There may, in all such cases, be a system or organization in the whole that is not apparent in the parts. In this sense, and in no other, is there a difference between society and the individuals of which it is composed; a difference not residing in the facts themselves but existing to the observer on account of the limits of his perception. A complete view of society would also be a complete view of all the individuals, and vice versa; there would be no difference between them.” Charles Horton Cooley, in “Human Nature and the Social Order”.

Both Simmel and Goffman have greatly contributed to the development of the sociological investigation of human interaction and experiences, they have taken a science that was not easily understood and brought it to the center of attention. While using different methods to ultimately obtain an understanding of how society functions, whether it be on the individual level or the as a group interplay.

It is in this manner that social order is disrupted (Ferrante, 2014, p.

Interaction is an important concept in sociology, and it has been studied from multiple different perspectives. Both Erving Goffman and Arlie Hochschild have made notable contributions to the sociological study of interaction. According to Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, interaction can be explained through a dramaturgical model. Within the dramaturgical model, interactions are portrayed as performances, as if a particular social environment is a stage, and the people in that social environment are actors (Goffman). Erving Goffman’s sociological interpretation of interaction is extended by Arlie Hochschild in her piece Feelings Management. Hochschild focuses specifically on performances that are put on in the workplace. Acting in the workplace has become a necessity in the service industry because in many cases, people must act warm and welcoming in order to keep their jobs. This method of acting happy and upbeat in the service industry is called emotional labor. However, as Hochschild explains, emotional labor can cause a strain on service workers, especially when they must act cheerful, even when they feel upset and distressed. The discrepancy between a person’s true emotions and their feigned emotional state is known as emotive dissonance. Continued emotive dissonance can lead to spillover, in which a person’s true emotions come out because they can no longer hold back these emotions. Though emotional labor began in the workplace, Hochschild

Simmel’s major contribution to sociology resides in his concern with the basic forms of interaction. Unlike Mead and Pareto, Simmel is hard to follow because he jumps from topic to topic, from the micro to the macro and from the historical past to contemporary situations in his time. But in the end, his goal is similar to all other theorists: to explain many empirical events with a few highly abstract models and principles. (Turner P. 287)

David Harvey’s piece on The Political Economy of Public Space explains the ‘kind of association or even identity that has been forged between the proper shaping of urban public space and the proper functioning of democratic governance’. He uses as an example the intriguing designs of Haussman’s boulevards and environments in Paris during the Second Empire. This public space sets a new stage of hope or Coalition and a ‘boundary between the public and the private spaces’. The design was to promote political agenda into the public collective nonetheless dictate and regulate how the spaces were used. I’d like to think of this boulevard as an instrument that reshapes an urban context constantly like when I walk through the streets of 125th street,

Examine the view that Erving Goffman’s work focuses on forms of social interaction but ignores social structure.

First, the proper order requires the everyday matters of the human life are fulfilled: simply put, survival and smooth cohesion. In order for a state/nation to be said that it is in a proper order, it needs its members to be satisfied with the materials that can be afforded by each members. Overall wellbeing of the people is crucial to achieve the necessary peace for the nation to thrive; people may look the other way to only

“Foucault’s work gave the terms discursive practices and discursive formation to the analysis of particular institutions and their ways of establishing orders of truth, or what is accepted as ‘reality’ in a given society” (Goldberg). Discursive formations display hierarchical arrangement and are understood as reinforcing certain already established identities or subjectivities- in matters of sexuality, status, or class for example. These dominant discourses are understood as in turn reinforced by existing systems of law, education and the media”. Foucault’s work is to show that members of society such as intellectuals, “are implicated in discourse and in the discursive regimes or systems of power and regulation which give them their livelihoods

Sandra Bartky begins her piece by explaining Michel Foucault’s ideas about modern power dynamics. Unlike in the past, power in modern society focuses not only on controlling the products of the body but, rather, on governing all its activities. In order for this power to continue, people are disciplined into becoming “docile bodies” which are subjected and practiced (Bartky, 63). This discipline is imposed through constant surveillance in a manner similar to the Panopticon. Inmates in said prison are always visible to a guard in the central tower, so they mentally coerced into monitoring their own behavior. In the same way, individuals become their own jailers and subject themselves to the society’s whim due to being in a “state of conscious and permanent visibility” to its all-seeing eye (65). Bartky, however, breaks from Foucault’s theory by claiming that there is a clear difference in the disciplines imposed on men and women that are ignored in the latter’s writings.

As society has progressed, Foucault explains, these practices have expanded into other institutions such as hospitals, schools, prisons and asylums. Bentham’s Panopticon embodies such disciplinary

Both Goffman and Foucault want to understand how social order is made, and they both look at bigger ways in which to understand it. However, Goffman focuses on society at a micro level, to help him understand the bigger picture of how social order is created. His work is very much centred on the individual. Goffman believes that social order is created by everyone’s individual actions. He likens people’s everyday interactions to a stage, where the front of stage is where people put on ‘performances’ to meet the demands of maintaining social order, and backstage as a place where an individual could let go of that (Silva, 2009, p.317). Foucault looks at the micro level, but also sees the big picture, the macro level of social order. He claims that social institutions (schools, workplaces, families), have a certain knowledge and power over an individual, and it is by using that power that social order is created, through the discourse of creating rules and regulations. (Silva, 2009, p.319). By concerning himself with people who have