Goffmans and Foucaults Views about the Ordering of Social Life - Essay Example

Social order Social order Social order is the process of organizing and ordering social lives, while managing such lives within the society. This comprises the behavior that the society expects of the individual. Besides, social order entails the behavior an individual expects the society to follow. It is crucial to highlight that the society constantly evolves and this changes how individuals articulate their lives towards new expectations. This changes the face and the structure of social order as time changes. Goffman and Foucault’s arguments are similar in terms of contextual analysis while they differ in the definitions of what constitutes order and deviance. Both Goffman and Foucault agree that socialization is not end, but an ongoing process that is open to contextual changes (Silva 2009, p. 315). According to both thinkers, this process is robust and dynamic. This occurs as a society invents the regulating practices by which the individuals are held together. In Madness and Civilization, Foucault asserts that the perception of what entails madness has undergone four stages (Layder 2005, p. 78). In the mediaeval period, the society considered a mad individual almost as a sacred person. In the renaissance period, the society hailed the mad man as a holding a higher form of reason. The end of the seventeenth century saw madness’ delineation from sanity. This saw the start of the detention of the mad in hospitals. The eighteenth century entailed the complete alienation of the mad person. Besides, a psychiatric discourse developed. According to Foucault, the classical era created the rational man by alienating the individuals who did not fit the given ideal of morality and rationality of the period. Erving Goffman and Michel Foucault have overlapping arguments about the concept of total institutions. Goffman discusses total institutions as places that bar social intercourse with the outside world. Goffman was meticulous in his divisions of the five different types of total institutions. For instance, there are institutions established for the care of harmless and incapable people. There could also be institutions for caring for harmful people who are incapable of managing their welfare. In additions, certain institutions are meant for performance of certain tasks. Goffman argued that total institutions thrive on bureaucracy in order to organize a group of people towards meeting certain goals. These rely on guidelines, which may be either harmful or detrimental. Goffman argues that in as much as total institutions divide into different clusters, individuals in such clusters experience demoralization. Goffman argues that while a person enters a total institution with a distinct identity, the institutions participates towards the destruction of such an identity. This causes the coercion to adopt an identity and beliefs that are not in line with one’s original identity. In turn, the individual loses one’s sense of autonomy. On the other hand, Foucault highlights the social significance of the repressive power. Foucault discusses the society as having norms of what entails health, normality, fitness, and intelligence. This explains the disciplinary nature of institutions such as prisons, factories, and schools. He argues that these social structures do not solely exist because of a need towards obedience. In essence, such institutions exist because of a wider move towards social order (Staples, Meegan, Jeffries & Bromley 2012, 98). The society, thus, uses various means of enforcing the order. This could range from systems of examinations to systems of confinement. It is essential to highlight that Foucault merely analyzed such scenarios by maintaining an offhand approach. Unlike Goffman’s critique of total institutions, Foucault merely gave observations of the construction of a modern society. Foucault, as well as Goffman, however disagrees with the enlightenment account of criminal reform. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault interprets the criminal system as a political instrument of establishing order and ensuring conformity to the establishment. The political bodies, therefore, utilize prisons towards controlling the behavior of non-conformists. Both Foucault and Goffman agree that the total institutions tend towards normalizing a person. Goffman states that institutions such as prison and schools guide people towards developing certain ideal behaviors. This ideal set of behaviors becomes a prescription to the rest of the joining individuals in such a system. Foucault also agrees that institutionalization is not a process towards individuality, but rather a process towards normalization and conformity. Foucault, however, argues that this is not only a habit of the five clusters of institutions that Goffman described, but also an inherent tendency of the modern society. The society, thus, develops a surveillance system that creates order in given settings. For instance, surveillance is a means towards elimination of noise in schools. The state of permanent visibility ensures the automatic functioning of the establishment through a desired order. This characteristic is also manifested in undertaking of population statistics, office environments, and hospitals. The government, therefore, only quantifies and categorizes data in order to normalize the society for governance. Both Goffman and Foucault analyze identity and behavior as constructed by the society. In Goffman’s Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life, he utilizes the concept of a theater to describe the different realms of an individuals’ behavior (Layder 2005, p. 138). In stage drama, the front stage is the area where an actor performs what the audience expects. This means that a person, in front of a given group of people, displays behavior that conforms to the expectations of the group. In the back stage, the individual becomes himself and eliminate the roles that one manifests in front of people. This suggests that a person, while away from any social group, adopts the kind of behavior that conforms to the self rather than the behavior that meet desired expectations. This creates an inconsistent character that changes and conforms to different unique situations. Foucault, in his discussion of knowledge, argues that the society misconstrues information in order to assign given identities to people. The individual unfortunately receives the label that society assigns upon a person. According to Foucault, members of a society construct their own perceptions of truth. For instance, gays and prisoners are receptors of the prejudicially assigned identities. For instance, Foucault argues that since the prisoner cannot adapt into normality, his identity is subject to the structure of knowledge that defines him. This occurs as the society characterizes the prisoners as unreasonable, insane, and as killers. This enforced perception eventually stigmatizes the person and alienates one. Foucault argues that in spite of one’s period of existence, misrepresented knowledge labels can be applied towards any minority group. Consequently, the association of knowledge to identity invites discrimination, distinction, and stratification of social groups. In the end, an individual is incapable of living according to one’s own concept of knowledge. An individual remains defenseless against historically prescribed behavior and morals. The segregation of social classes consequently defines the identity of a person. It is essential, however, to note that while Foucault makes his analysis from a minority group perspective, Goffman analyzes the behavior and identity of an average person. Unlike Foucault, Goffman believes that a person may manipulate one’s behavior to fit different perspectives. This is because Foucault sees the individual as tied to the historical hegemony that defines identities. Unless conception of knowledge is restructured, the individual suffers the fate of an assigned identity. Both perspectives, however, coalesce in the fact that a person’s behavior is subject to certain prescriptions of ideal behavior. Goffman utilizes a frame approach in understanding the behavior of social actors. For instance, a game of chess and conference talk entails different behavior patterns. A frame of reference entails the events, objects, behavior, and the related elements that inform the outlook of a given setting. Goffman, therefore, proceeds into describing the layers within which activities operate. A given frame of reference may instigate a related form of behavior. Goffman defines the layers in terms of those that are primary and the others that are secondary. For instance, playing chess may invite the behavior of drinking coffee. Similarly, the behavior of dancing may invite the behavior of flirting. According to Goffman, it is difficult for a behavior to occur free of any interrelationship. Foucault, however, does not describe an organic society. He builds modern societies as lacking a social center that accords unity in behavior. It emerges that while Goffman concentrates on the contextual aspect of behavior, Foucault focuses on the analysis of behavior by making the description of abnormal behavior. This suggests that the society develops conventions by first setting what it considers unpleasant behavior. From this vantage point, the society hails other forms of behavior as befitting of a normal person. This manifests in Foucault’s discussion of madness whereby the society first alienated what it considered elements of unreason. On the other hand, Goffman only describes behavior in terms of the conventions of contexts. Goffman and Foucault shared notable similarities in their arguments about social order. However, while Foucault simply analyzed how social order defines, Goffman defined an ideal system of social order. Foucault and Goffman concur that contexts defines perceptions of ideal standards of behavior. Foucault, in his description of the definition of madness across centuries, asserted that different ages assigned different perceptions to madness. Eventually, the mad person became alienated in the 19th century because of prejudice. Similarly, Goffman presupposes that an individual adapts one’s behavior to the expectations of a given social group. Both intellectuals also agree that the society tends towards normalization as authorities design conventions along which people should be organized. However, while Goffman underrates the essence of total institutions, Foucault highlights the social significance of repressive systems. In this sense, Foucault does not support repressive systems but highlights the role they play in the organization of a modern society. In addition, Goffman utilizes a frame approach to analyzing social order while Foucault analyzes the society as consisting of unrelated fragments. Bibliography Layder, D. 2005, Modern social theory: key debates and new directions, New York, Routledge. Silva, E.B 2009, “Making Social Order”, in Taylor, S., Hinchliffe, S., Clarke, J., & Bromley, S., (eds.) making social lives, Buckingham: Open University Press, pp 303-348. Staples, M, Meegan, J, Jeffries, E & Bromley, S. 2012, “Learning Companion 2”, Introducing the Social Sciences, Milton Keynes, New York, The Open University. Read More