The Presentation of Self: criticism and preliminary evaluation

Up to the time of completion of this thesis, an extensive critical academic discourse is provoked by The Presentation of Self (for an overview of the discussion see, for instance, Manning 1992 or Fine and Smith 2000). However, I will briefly outline only some of the major points of criticism because they can be generally applied to most of Goffman’s work,

including his ritual approach to face work, which will be discussed in the following section.

The bulk of the contemporary criticism of The Presentation of Self addresses its apparently cynical view of face-to-face interaction. Gouldner, in particular, accuses Goffman of moral relativism and of attempting to “shatter conventional cultural hierarchies“ (Gouldner 1970, 2000: 245). The discomfort Gouldner, but also other scholars (e.g. O’Neill 1972;

Sennett 1974) express about a sociological perspective that subversively questions

established hierarchies, social structures, and culturally standardised roles is now generally interpreted as rearguard action against the rising postmodern paradigm in the social

sciences (Elliott 2007: 42). In this context, the umbrella term ’postmodernism’ is used in Tseelon’s (1992, 2000) general sense as a shift of paradigms from objectivist, universalist, essentialist positions to subjectivist, relativist, constructionist viewpoints in the Humanities.

With respect to the concept of the self, this notion of ’postmodernism’ also implies the tendency toward fragmenting and the emphasis on the personal narrative (cf. Sections 5.2;

5.3). Tseelon (2000: 10) considers Goffman a proponent of this shift from an essentialist

’Cartesian’, modern self to the ’post-Cartesian’, postmodern self. Thus, Tseelon writes about Goffman’s notion of self:

It is a transient self which is situationally and interactionally defined; a social product which does not have existence outside an interaction. It does not rely on a dualistic image of the self but is anchored, instead, in a metaphysics of surface: an interplay of images, of signifiers with no underlying signifyers, a text with no ‘reality’ behind it.

(Tseelon 2000: 11)

Tseelon is certainly accurate in designating Goffman as an avant-garde proponent of a shift towards postmodernism. Goffman’s view of the interactionally-constituted public self does indeed correspond to the current interactionist and social constructionist views on identity construction (cf. Gergen 2001; Sections 5.2 and 5.3). He breaks with the objectivist ideas of reality and with the universalist concept of morality that his contemporaries (such as, for instance, Gouldner) still hold dear. Further, he does turn toward a partly anti-essentialist surface model of self which implies that the public self is a co-constructed reality of its own, regardless of individual judgements of congruity.

However, I disagree with Tseelon as to the degree of Goffman’s radicalism. I have explained above that according to The Presentation of Self it is only the public self that is interactionally co-constructed. The private self, on the other hand, is assumed to be a solid ontological essence. The notions of frontstage and backstage correspond to this distinction, which suggests that there are times when interactants perform and times when they feel free to express their ’real’ private selves. Goffman, it seems, was on the verge of developing a

’postmodern’, constructionist approach, but at the same time, he maintained some elements of ’modern’ essentialism. Therefore, in my view, Goffman is not a representative of

postmodernism per se, but he must be regarded as one of its pathfinders in the social sciences. Nevertheless, his concepts are applicable in a constructionist frame of thinking, as I will further point out in Section 5.3.

As far as the alleged cynicism of the dramaturgical approach is concerned, this reproach is certainly not in line with the tone of the book. Rather, Goffman shows an interest in the psychological states of the performers:

Behind many masks and many characters, each performer tends to wear a single look, a naked unsocialized look, a look of concentration, a look of one who is privately engaged in a difficult, treacherous task.

(Goffman 1959: 235)

As is evident, Goffman sympathises with the interactant, who has to skilfully master the requirements of a social order that he/she may sometimes very well experience as cynical him/herself. Goffman does not deny the importance of moral conventions to social

interactants or to society at large. He simply treats morality as part of the stage scenario and

not as an overarching, universal category. In relativising social values in this way, he antedates another crucial feature of contemporary postmodern thinking (Tseelon 2000: 10).

The second major point of criticism that has been brought forward against the dramaturgical approach concerns Goffman’s methodology. In brief, the problematic aspects throughout Goffman’s work are firstly his management of concepts and secondly his

management of data (cf. Williams 1988, 2000: 80). The structure of Goffman’s texts indicate clearly how bulky can be his systems of analysis. His classifications are often

heterogeneous, they are not coherently presented, and they touch very different levels of analysis.

Manning (1992: 15) remarks that Goffman uses three different methods: extended metaphors, unsystematic observation, and systematic observation (ethnography). This mix of methods leads to a wild classificatory accumulation of metaphorical extensions,

psychological motives, communicative habits, tactical strategies and goals, exceptional borderline cases, social psychological principles, implicit rules, and so on. Often Goffman does not present linear arguments, but circles around certain recurring issues, without settling them conclusively. Another issue, apart from Goffman’s imprecision, is his refusal to limit the range of his classifications with respect to common associations. In effect, this means that “commonsense concepts and their associate clusters of meanings are permitted to enter the theoretical vocabulary without apparent care“ (Williams 1988, 2000: 80).

The next methodological shortcoming of Goffman’s work lies in his data management.

Schegloff, the foremost living representative of Conversation Analysis, criticises Goffman’s approach rigorously for its lack of empirical coverage (Schegloff 2000: 186).¹⁴ The

heterogeneity of the material used by Goffman, “participant observation field notes;

newspaper clippings; sections of fictional accounts; and many more scraps“ (Williams 1988, 2000:82), is noteworthy; and it raises the question of whether any systematic outcome may be gained from such “unsystematic observation“. In the case of The Presentation of Self it can be concluded that this is not in fact possible. Schegloff (1988, 2000: 190) also criticises Goffman’s use of invented examples; his refusal to analyse recorded data (Schegloff 1988, 2000: 189); his tendency to employ examples merely as illustrations for single points, rather than for exhaustive analysis; and his refusal to make his data available for competitive discussion (Schegloff 1988, 2000: 188). Williams (1988, 2000) makes a solitary argument for Goffman’s method, calling it ‘articulation’ in Baldamus’ (1972: 295) sense and defining it as

"an analytical process whereby an initially vague and vacillating image of a complex framework is perpetually refined so as to produce an increasingly definite and stable structure“ (Williams 1988, 2000: 84). However, it is doubtful that the outcome of Goffman’s

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14 Schegloff’s criticism addresses not primarily the ’dramaturgical Goffman’, but mainly the later Goffman (1988, 2000: 179). However, the methodological problems mentioned apply to The Presentation of Self in the same manner.

spiralled discourse can be called either definite or stable. Rather, he seems to strive to make sure that his frameworks remain vague and vacillating, which lends a great deal of originality and attraction to his writings, but certainly does not improve their methodological quality.

From a linguistic point of view, one of the most substantial problems in The

Presentation of Self is that Goffman’s account of self-presentation hardly relates to language.

Fundamentally, Goffman (1959) treats language as a mere vehicle for social interaction, instead of recognising its central constituting role in the construction of meaningful social identities. However, an analytical approach to self-presentation must concentrate on the locus in which it occurs. Thus, the central unit for the linguistic analysis of self-presentation is authentic conversation; therefore, in several aspects of my approach to face work (cf.

Sections 5.2; 5.3; 5.8; 14.1), I will depart from Holly’s (1979) linguistic advancements of Goffman’s concept of ’ritual interchanges’, i.e. face-related sequences.

Another critical aspect is Goffman’s use of the extended dramaturgical metaphor. It certainly makes sense to consider some aspects through a dramaturgical lens. Metaphors highlight some aspects of things whilst hiding others (cf. Lakoff and Johnson 1980). The theatrical metaphor can serve as a model for some aspects of self-presentation. For

instance, there are obvious parallels between a stage performance and self-presentation with respect to the requirement of consistency and coherence, and with respect to the evaluation of the performance and to the self-presentation respectively.

On the other hand, some aspects cannot be sufficiently explained by means of

metaphors. For example, in the case of the stage metaphor, the question arises of why social life should be a theatre play in the first place. Also, while the distinction between frontstage and backstage and between formal and informal registers intuitively seems to make sense, I have indicated that backstage behaviour is also governed by dramaturgical principles (and incidentally, at times also by formality). From this discussion, the analogy to social interaction has been laid bare. In short, there is only so much systematic extension a metaphor can bear before it loses its explanatory appeal. In the case of the classifications developed in The Presentation of Self, at many points the metaphorical categories are somewhat forced upon the objects of analysis.

Interestingly, Goffman is the first to concede that he has overcharged the

dramaturgical metaphor.¹⁵ On the last pages of The Presentation of Self, in his conclusion, he writes:

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15 Manning (1992: 44ff) shows that Goffman was initially more positive about the validity and the scope of the

stage metaphor, as shown in the 1956 edition of The Presentation of Self. Thus, it is only in the 1959 reissue that self-critical comments like the one quoted above qualify Goffman’s approach. According to Manning, a “second Goffman ’voice’ sets in here, performing a turn towards scepticism and questioning the smooth workings of the ’two selves’ within individuals. Now Goffman acknowledges that the dramaturgical metaphor is ‘of limited use‘“ (Manning 1992).

An action staged is a relatively contrived illusion and an admitted one; unlike ordinary life nothing real or actual can happen to the performed characters (...). And so here the language and mask of the stage will be dropped. Scaffolds, after all, are to build other things with, and should be erected with an eye to taking them down. This report is not concerned with aspects of theater that creep into everyday life. It is concerned with the structure of social encounters (...).

(Goffman 1959: 254).

Thus, Goffman explicitly abandons his entire approach in the end, and he turns to the ritual metaphor and the face metaphor as different perspectives on what is essentially the same field of interest.