good luck, you're gonna need it

humans are distinctive because of …

• selfhood and mind

  • they emerge only through symbolic interaction and internalizing the symbol system

    • situates us into our community

children begin to understand their actions draw a response from others

development of reflexivity

3 stages that show how the self develops

• beings to differentiate the self from the other

• understand one’s role and another’s role

  • that they have different roles to begin with

• take on many roles and understand the many roles of others

mind, not brain, becomes enlarged with a richer language system

• fundamentals of who we are comes from language

• greater mental powers

we perform for others

• present certain aspects of ourselves

  • not consciously

total institutions

cut people off from larger society - selected individuals are cut off from the wider society and subjected to administered control

impression management

• present ourselves in a way that benefits us

• manipulate how we display ourselves using expressions given

the “normals” have the power to impose standards and prejudices onto others but…

• everyone (to some extent) has secretes of the self they don’t want to disclose

  • they are stigmatized to some extent

    • live their life in fear and anxiety of the secrets being released

authenticity of the self is usually limited

• impression management is dominant

  • always want to follow the line and appear in a certain way

face is the main front of the person in the interaction

• use certain faces to navigate the situation

• face is front line of interactive contact

interaction order

• different social levels interact with each other (penetrate one another) and influences the micro-level (face-to-face) interactions

• there is an order and structure in interactions

  • rules to follow in social interaction

• we live in a micro level setting, but it’s not the only reality at play

  • meso and macro levels are also involved

  • a hierarchy to interaction

  • humans spend basically all of their time in the micro level, but feel the impacts of the other levels on their social interactions

social science tends to focus on macro level realities, but Goffman focused on the micro-level interactions

• illuminated a new social domain

• reveals the familiar in the language of social science

  • transforms the familiar

people use face work when interacting with others

• learn to do it based on context and socialization to align to the norms and customs

• use it to display a certain self, to control the definition of the situation, to simply get through the interaction

• conditioned by the type of society one lives in to align with the social norms

  • follow the rules of interaction society has developed

people practice norms of tact

failures in face-work is not acknowledged by others to preserve face and avoid making a scene

face only occurs in…

the flow of interaction

only engaged in face-work when encountering others

• triggered by interaction and encounters

• structure face-work in backstage to prepare for the frontstage

failures of face-work

• wrong face

• out of face

• lose face

corrections of face-work

save and give face

defacement

• tearing down or challenging another person’s face

  • going off the line

mutual acceptance of lines

• trying to protect another’s face and the line

  • makes us wonder what the other person is like

    • who they really are

• don’t want to make a scene

• defensive and protective strategies to save faces or lines

Goffman’s focus

interaction, not personality

ritual roles of the self

• a double definition of the self

  • the self is a performance

  • the self is a player in a ritual game that behaves according to the situation

    • we care about the self and how it’s perceived by others

    • sensitive to criticism and feel wounded by it

    • the self feels sacred and we care about how other’s think about us

human nature is not actually human nature

• society need to train people to behave in a certain way and self-regulate during social interactions

• universal human nature is not universal

  • is trained into us by society

    • comes from social rules

• similarities in human behaviour is from society socializing us

• we are taught to have pride in ourselves and be responsible for our self-image (mostly from parents)

  • elements of behaviour is built into the human by society to ensure they can interact with others

• abandons Mead’s idea of the biological I

  • without I, we would have no personality or uniqueness

    • there is something unique in each human (the biological I)

      • the me is what helps us align to social conventions

phenomenology

study of appearances - how the world appears to humans

human consciousness determines how the objective world in perceived

• a person’s consciousness creates their reality

  • how they experience and interpret the world

• our consciousness tells us what the world is

• the world/reality is fluid depending on who is interpreting it

• use intersubjective understandings to construct social reality and operate/interact with each other

  • even with different interpretations/perceptions

• social definitions of reality differs depending on the person

  • a constructed reality

• people live in the mode of the habitual

  • don’t need to think critically about their realities

  • don’t recognize that people around them have the same or different views

• reality is maintained by shared intersubjective understandings that are manufactured

intersubjective understandings

helps us construct social reality and operate/interact with each other, even with different interpretations/perceptions - reality is maintained by these shared intersubjective understandings that are manufactured by society

people live in the mode of the habitual

• don’t need to think critically about their realities

• don’t recognize that people around them have the same or different views

• living on autopilot and not thinking about your world or actions

our definition of reality changes based on context we are in

we maintain and create them with time and repetition - we act based on our definitions of social reality, usually in a reinforcing manner (living habitually)

lifeworld

• world of common sense and accepted perceptions

• the reality is not problematic because it is widely accepted

  • has a naturalness to it and we don’t question or problematize it

• the world we grow up in appears true

  • seen as baseline

  • builds our subjective understanding of the world

  • taken for granted

• scientists have to bracket the shared world

  • see everything as strange and not natural to determine the origins of certain phenomena/processes

scientists have to bracket the shared world

see everything as strange and not natural to determine the origins of certain phenomena/processes

what holds a lifeworld together for its members

the intersubjective character of everyday consciousness - naturalistic attitude

naturalistic attitude by Schutz

• the default human condition because we are socialized in a way that reinforces our reality

  • the reality is made before we are born and we are conditioned to it

Alfred Schutz idea

• people relate to their world through shared knowledge

  • if a certain form of knowledge is more successful, people will being to use it

    • replace old with new

naturalistic attitude tendencies

• reciprocity of perspectives

  • assume those we interact with in our life worlds share our view of reality

    • makes life easy

• objectivity of appearances

  • what appears is real, not a figment of one’s imagination

• typification

  • navigate life by relating present situations to past experiences

    • there is a natural/typical form to each process or ritual

• glossings

  • life world experiences come to us in partial fragments/signs which we interpret as indicators of an unseen complex or totality

reciprocity of perspectives

• assume those we interact with in our life worlds share our view of reality

  • makes life easy

objectivity of appearances

what appears is real, not a figment of one’s imagination

typification

• navigate life by relating present situations to past experiences

  • there is a natural/typical form to each process or ritual

glossings

life world experiences come to us in partial fragments/signs which we interpret as indicators of an unseen complex or totality

if our current worldview collapses, we need to find new meaning

• need to find a new view

  • very difficult and uncomfortable because people and ideas not a part of our lifeworld is strange

    • try to prevent

ethnomethodology

• comes out of phenomenology

• break routines and shared understandings with breaching experiments

  • violating a shared lifeworld

we automatically go along with the lifeworld we are in rather than…

consciously acting in a certain way and thinking about why we are acting that way

can describe and think about new experiences with new words

• opens new realities

• limited language limits range of thought

  • prevents people from challenging authority and their reality

life will break down if we don’t accept the shared script

if we don’t maintain the “naturalness” of the world and if there is no intersubjective understandings

we can disrupt the scene and challenge the definition of the situation

create a new reality

Pierre Bourdieu

• writing about new liberal speak spreading across the globe

  • new terms (ex. globalization, new economy) being pushed and replacing old terms (ex. capitalism)

    • language deflecting reality

      • example of language being used as a weapon to legitimize changes in society

  • new liberal speak as a form of cultural imperialism

    • benefits some places, but harms others

    • packaged as a global consensus/value and that other areas of the globe should accept it

  • symbolic violence

    • make one culture superior to another and make everyone believe it’s true

symbolic violence

• non-physical violence that is exerted subtly, often unconsciously, through cultural norms, language, and social institutions

• mechanism of domination where the subordinate group internalizes the hierarchies established by the dominant group, perceiving them as "natural" or "legitimate"

• economic and social policies are justified and internalized by individuals, even when those policies are detrimental to their own well-being

  • ex. new liberal speak

naturalization of neoliberal capitalism as the world’s destiny

• dominant groups pushing the idea that the world needs one type of system

impact of new liberal speak on social struggles

• neoliberal agenda as an attack on welfare state capitalism

  • austerity policies that cut back on welfare (ex. food stamps) and social services

  • cut off welfare state so government doesn’t need to put money there

    • try to save money, but didn’t because a thriving community brings funding back to the government

• introduce privatization, but profits need to be made

  • risk the efficiency of the system

  • decrease in quality

new liberal speak spreading across the globe

• new terms (ex. globalization, new economy) being pushed and replacing old terms (ex. capitalism)

  • language deflecting reality

    • example of language being used as a weapon to legitimize changes in society

• new liberal speak as a form of cultural imperialism

  • benefits some places, but harms others

  • packaged as a global consensus/value and that other areas of the globe should accept it

• symbolic violence

  • make one culture superior to another and make everyone believe it’s true

push an agenda that benefits global capitalist elites using changes in language

• development of new liberal speak

  • example of language being used as a weapon to legitimize changes in society

• becoming the new lifeworld

  • dismantle old lifeworld and replace with new language

• new languages being pushed changes how people think

  • will believe the transformation is objectively superior and correct

psychological difficulties might develop from the social context

humans are social creates impacted by social reality

freud vs. Marcuse

general repression from hiding desires for society to approve vs. surplus repression, where some societies put more oppression onto the citizens (inequality, where the rich take more from the poor)

question about the future

will the world develop into the spirit of porto alegre or davos?

a lot of human stimuli is culturally coded

• we live in a symbolic world

  • humans interact through exchange of symbols, language being the dominant

action is interaction

even by oneself, they are behaving in accordance to the combination of multiple social factors

2 ontological features of humans in symbolic interaction

mind and self - both activated when interacting

mind

internal conversation - we think using symbols

mind and self will emerge within a social context - comes out of interaction

Mead saying that we are not born with a mind or self, we are born with a body and brain that will become the mind and awareness of self

parents reinforce and punish the self (identity) of a child

child will internalize the meaning system put onto them - biology of the child is trained using symbols

mental life of humans develops from manipulating symbols

gradually learning the symbols to interact with others

humans need to master the symbol system to become a social human being

child picks up the symbol system more, which makes interaction more organized

self according to mead

seeing oneself as an object

stages of the development of the self

• prepatory (imitation)

• play

• game

imitation requires…

• knowledge that someone else is doing something else

  • child recognizes they have a self/their own body

play phase

• hide and seek as a basic form of play

  • hides by understanding they have their own body

  • playing hide and seek effectively requires internalizing two roles

    • seeker and hider

  • sharpening the sense of self-hood by taking on the role of the other

game phase

• child needs to take on roles of multiple people

  • a higher level of interactive complexity

self and mind are both social emergences

social interaction requires a mutual understanding of symbols between people

when self is fully attained

when one can take on the collective attitudes of one’s community or society, what mean called the generalized other - understand that you live in a social context and recognize a general role in other people around you

development of mind and self starts…

when the child starts using symbols to interact with others (ex. language, but can be physical actions) - point meanings to themselves and others

“out of language emerges the field of mind” by mean

mind is filled through the symbol system

mind is an expanding field

can enter into more worlds as one learns more symbols

mind/mental life is…

• bounded and dependent on language

  • has their own nuances and helps the person perceive the world differently

a restricted code for language for the working class kids compared to the complex language of middle class kids

• mental life of human beings depend on whether or not they’ve been raised in rich or deprived environments

  • influences their role in society

    • language as a control mechanism to get you into certain places and exclude you from others

mind in opened once you recognize the logic of the symbol

• needs to cross into symbolic realm or else they are trapped in their biology

• mind and self do not turn on automatically

  • they need to receive/understand the meanings of the symbols

the ability to reflect back on oneself (reflectiveness)

• key aspect of the self

  • requires the consideration of one’s own judgement and the understanding of other’s behaviour

    • understanding of both self and other

• a control for future action

  • figure out what to do later

    • behaviours that are acceptable and unacceptable

can see oneself in other’s reactions

• see their reactions to your behaviours

  • react to those reactions

how social life is formed

through interactions with others

private self

• kept to oneself

• real self

• parts of the self for ourselves

• not really shown to others

  • part of the self that doesn’t show up/is expressed to others

social self

• the self for others

• aligning conduct with social standards

all types of selves are expressed according to specific social contexts

• we are so self-aware, we bring out different types of self at different times

  • know how and when to do so

    • need a core self to know this (private self)

reaching a functional maturity

helps to respond to the generalized other - the internalized, collective set of attitudes, expectations, and rules of a social group that an individual adopts to guide their own behavior

the self shouldn’t be reduced to a complete social construct

• we shift back and forth between the me and I when the situation calls for it

  • live our selves in a temporal frame

  • our selves are not reduced to the demands of the social situation

I

• core nature

• individual being, entity you are

  • impulses, chemistry, mood

• calls out and responds to the me

combination of I and me

creates personality - I determines how you react in certain social situations, me is the expression of this reaction

personality is a combination of…

the entity and the social context

reflective process is…

• the person adjusts their behaviour according to the social context to fit the norms and rules

  • based on what others are thinking about them

acting exclusively on the I

violates social norms and rules

without the interplay between the I and me…

there would be no conscious responsibility or change

over socialization and mass society

• no scope for individuality

• everyone is a part of a larger context

• disconnection from others and difficulties making connections within a larger social context

I is a variable

personality mainly comes from the I - me helps us align to social life

I needs a sense of me to have a sense of responsibility

bring the me into the reflectivity process to figure out how to better align with the social context

main ideas from The Battle of Algiers

• the French impose violence on the Indigenous population, then the Indigenous population uses violence as a means of revolution (for decolonialism)

• women playing a key role in the revolution

  • hiding guns and transporting them across checkpoints

  • dressing up as Europeans to get past checkpoints

• acts of resistance executed by the Algiers, then the French respond with violence

  • reflects the violent nature of the colonial system and how violence is used to create, maintain, and demolish colonialism

a struggle in the souls and minds of the colonized

a violence in colonialism that transforms people’s psyche - mental disorders

colonialism is an interrelated and violent process

the colonizers/colonized and natives/settlers create each other - can’t have one without the other

colonialism is the imposition of foreign domination over Indigenous peoples

is created (ex. military conquests) and maintained (ex. police force, military garrisons) by acts of violence

decolonialization is also a violent process

needs political organization and mobilization of the masses to overthrow the colonizers

colonialism is a “spatial order”/geography

• the colonial world is divided into compartments

  • towns/land for the natives and towns/land for the settlers

    • settlers take the good quarters (ex. light, food, warmth)

    • natives left with the bad quarters (ex. darkness, cold, poverty)

colonialism is based on economic exploitation of the colonies

• colonizers extract wealth from colonized lands and keeps the colonized lands underdeveloped by disrupting their natural processes of transformation

  • creates infrastructure that appear to help the natives, but actually helps the colonizers

    • infrastructure is made to help colonizers extract more raw materials for cheap

religion and colonialism

• settlers using religion to control the minds of the natives

• religion used to calm down the natives

  • has a passive effect

  • discredit the native’s ideas, traditions, and way of life to describe their new ideas and ways of life as positive and helpful

• using the belief systems to get the natives to internalize propaganda

  • using fraud to keep themselves in power

colonialism originates in conquests by the European nations

• capitalistic economies developed and were enhanced by technological/scientific advances, military forces, and transportation capabilities

  • exploitation of the native by the settler done with the technological advancements