On a related topic to the politicians and performance: when I was reading the article “Deference and Maternalism” by Rollins instead of looking just at the case study that was being examined in the piece I thought of how politicians and the electorate fill out both those roles.
The relationships of deference between politicians and their electorates tend to be an attempt at a kind of symmetrical deference. By portraying themselves as the ‘common man’(or woman) politicians are trying to associate themselves with the identities of the people that they wish to garner the support of. This kind of ceremonial activity is usually very different from the way they would act towards the ‘common man’ if they were not politicians. This kind of forced change from asymmetrical deference to an attempted projection of symmetrical deference is very intriguing to me. Many Americans want a president who is like them, as many people said during the 2000 election they would vote for George W. Bush because he was someone “Who they could sit down and drink a beer with.” Aside from the irony of him being a recovering alcoholic, this statement calls into question the idea that rulers should be superiors to the average person.
One of the reasons that I believe Barack Obama was so successful in his campaign for president in this cycle was his fusion of symmetrical and asymmetrical deference. He portrayed himself both as someone who could associate with the average person, but also as someone who is smart and capable, someone who we owe deference to. His sincerity in the moments of symmetrical deference and recognition of general cynicism in the asymmetrical deference situations propelled him forward as both an elite and someone who understand common problems.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Poltics Part 1/Performance and Truth
Politics is performance. We all know this, we all accept it. Despite the knowledge of the performance we still wish to see something else there. We want politicians to show us that they’re not just executing a song and dance in order to impress the public, we wish to see them actually being one of us. We want to see our identities reflected within them.
But is this really possible? Can we see politicians in a true light where they are revealing the groups that they themselves actually identify with rather than who they try to become associated with in order to achieve their certain goals?
It is interesting that if we look at this problem without the cynical light of Goffman telling us that everything is performance then we can never know what the true identity of politicians is. This gives us a cynical view of politicians and politics as merely means to an end without any true identities within themselves. However, if we instead take all (or most) of Goffman to be true then we can instead look at politicians as no more or less performance-oriented than the rest of us. I personally would like to look at politics in the latter view, because in my opinion it makes the whole process more palatable. Additionally I see nothing wrong with viewing all human interaction as performance.
As physical beings our primary(or only, depending on what you believe) way of expressing ourselves is through action. All of our thoughts and our identities that lie within ourselves are just that, within ourselves. There will always be something lost in the translation from mind to mouth and that translation is where our performance lies.
I take Goffman’s idea of performance and look at it as a way of viewing truth. If we are to say that all human interaction is performance then our truths are relative. If we are to say that some human interaction is not performance then there must be some absolute truth that lies behind the interaction that is making it something other than a performance. I don’t even know what we would call a non-performance interaction, perhaps a “true expression” or some such thing. I think what can be said about performance and interaction is that there are absolute truths. However those absolute truths can exist only within us. When we express them through speech, writing, or action we are applying truths to a situation, and in that application we must modify the truths to the scenario.
In short it appears to me that we can have absolute truths within ourselves but not between ourselves and others, much as we might like to believe we do.
But is this really possible? Can we see politicians in a true light where they are revealing the groups that they themselves actually identify with rather than who they try to become associated with in order to achieve their certain goals?
It is interesting that if we look at this problem without the cynical light of Goffman telling us that everything is performance then we can never know what the true identity of politicians is. This gives us a cynical view of politicians and politics as merely means to an end without any true identities within themselves. However, if we instead take all (or most) of Goffman to be true then we can instead look at politicians as no more or less performance-oriented than the rest of us. I personally would like to look at politics in the latter view, because in my opinion it makes the whole process more palatable. Additionally I see nothing wrong with viewing all human interaction as performance.
As physical beings our primary(or only, depending on what you believe) way of expressing ourselves is through action. All of our thoughts and our identities that lie within ourselves are just that, within ourselves. There will always be something lost in the translation from mind to mouth and that translation is where our performance lies.
I take Goffman’s idea of performance and look at it as a way of viewing truth. If we are to say that all human interaction is performance then our truths are relative. If we are to say that some human interaction is not performance then there must be some absolute truth that lies behind the interaction that is making it something other than a performance. I don’t even know what we would call a non-performance interaction, perhaps a “true expression” or some such thing. I think what can be said about performance and interaction is that there are absolute truths. However those absolute truths can exist only within us. When we express them through speech, writing, or action we are applying truths to a situation, and in that application we must modify the truths to the scenario.
In short it appears to me that we can have absolute truths within ourselves but not between ourselves and others, much as we might like to believe we do.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
I <3 how math is everything
Can we look at identity and its complexity in terms of fractals? Not in the sense that they are infinitely repeating as they get smaller and smaller, but it seems that there is no way to nail down a true identity, something that is isolated and defined by itself. The exception to this could be some biological components to identity, ie: gender and race. However these can still be broken down into the circumstances from which they emerged and the socialization that caused one to look upon themselves as boy vs. girl, asian vs. African, etcetera.
Maybe fractals aren’t the best way to look at this. Perhaps its better to visualize identity as something that is more like the way our neurons are connected in our brain. Each one is connected to many others, and though they don’t all touch and interact directly the ripple from one touches all others. In this same way identities can be seen to be not exactly overlapping, but interconnected and reactive to all the other identities that are present within the overarching Self.
Do we use identity as a crutch? Especially in sociology and anthropology identity is used as a reasoning and sometimes justification, for how people act. Isn’t identity just another result of actions of other people in our society and them shaping how they view us and view ourselves? Self-identity surely comes from the synthesis of many outside influences but the identity categorization that places us into groups of generalized others has been used many times to create broad statements about ends, but without talking about origins or means.
Maybe fractals aren’t the best way to look at this. Perhaps its better to visualize identity as something that is more like the way our neurons are connected in our brain. Each one is connected to many others, and though they don’t all touch and interact directly the ripple from one touches all others. In this same way identities can be seen to be not exactly overlapping, but interconnected and reactive to all the other identities that are present within the overarching Self.
Do we use identity as a crutch? Especially in sociology and anthropology identity is used as a reasoning and sometimes justification, for how people act. Isn’t identity just another result of actions of other people in our society and them shaping how they view us and view ourselves? Self-identity surely comes from the synthesis of many outside influences but the identity categorization that places us into groups of generalized others has been used many times to create broad statements about ends, but without talking about origins or means.
Baracking the Vote
These past few weeks have had me make certain decisions about the way I interact with others in the world, how I make my performance and present my Me. For the first time in my life our country is involved in an election that I actually have a strong investment in the outcome either way (at least at the outset, we had no idea how terrible George Bush could be at the beginning). This has energized my political impetus to a large extent and initially pushed me towards being interested in working for the Barack Obama campaign, because he was such a compelling personality and I think is one of the most effective role takers in politics today.
Role-taking and performance in fact seems to be the heart of what politics is, making the entire political work one large sociology case study. In his campaign Obama successfully showed that he could take on the role of average Americans and inspire trust in them because he knew what it was like to be them.
But to get back to my point, after becoming energized about the campaign I had to decide what role I wanted to play. I realized that the identity that I wished to possess most in this period was not one of a participant in the campaign process, but as a participant in the voting process. I have never been so excited or proud to be a voter and I wanted to be able to tell that story about myself, now and in the future, more than being a participant in the campaign. Thusly I have done everything I can to become and informed voter and make my decision according the data that is available.
This is an interesting step for me along the continuum of my political identity. With each major stage in my life I have associated myself with a different political ideology. When I was in high school I was extremely politically active and somewhat radical in my ideology, looking to anarchism or socialism (I saw them as two sides of the same coin) as a solution to our broken democracy. After high school I became disillusioned by the process following the reaction to September 11th and the invasion or Iraq, which caused the onset of political apathy. This identity of apathy was actually wrapped up in a reaction to the identity that many Americans seemed to be holding onto at that point, which was mainly focus on Us vs. Them, for our God against your God, and there’s no middle ground. This kind of belief and identity role scared me to such an extent that I tried to excise the idea of being an American from my mind. I felt that that part of my identity had been hijacked by others, that what I had thought was a significant symbol in my symbolic interaction with others (especially foreigners) had become a very mutable and inconsistent symbol.
In the last few weeks of the election and after casting my vote today I feel exhilaration in my identity. I am a voter, I am an American, I did my constitutional part to bring change to this country and to make the American identity something that I wish to associate with myself. I can only hope that the rest of the electorate also wishes for America herself to act according to her Me instead of her I.
Role-taking and performance in fact seems to be the heart of what politics is, making the entire political work one large sociology case study. In his campaign Obama successfully showed that he could take on the role of average Americans and inspire trust in them because he knew what it was like to be them.
But to get back to my point, after becoming energized about the campaign I had to decide what role I wanted to play. I realized that the identity that I wished to possess most in this period was not one of a participant in the campaign process, but as a participant in the voting process. I have never been so excited or proud to be a voter and I wanted to be able to tell that story about myself, now and in the future, more than being a participant in the campaign. Thusly I have done everything I can to become and informed voter and make my decision according the data that is available.
This is an interesting step for me along the continuum of my political identity. With each major stage in my life I have associated myself with a different political ideology. When I was in high school I was extremely politically active and somewhat radical in my ideology, looking to anarchism or socialism (I saw them as two sides of the same coin) as a solution to our broken democracy. After high school I became disillusioned by the process following the reaction to September 11th and the invasion or Iraq, which caused the onset of political apathy. This identity of apathy was actually wrapped up in a reaction to the identity that many Americans seemed to be holding onto at that point, which was mainly focus on Us vs. Them, for our God against your God, and there’s no middle ground. This kind of belief and identity role scared me to such an extent that I tried to excise the idea of being an American from my mind. I felt that that part of my identity had been hijacked by others, that what I had thought was a significant symbol in my symbolic interaction with others (especially foreigners) had become a very mutable and inconsistent symbol.
In the last few weeks of the election and after casting my vote today I feel exhilaration in my identity. I am a voter, I am an American, I did my constitutional part to bring change to this country and to make the American identity something that I wish to associate with myself. I can only hope that the rest of the electorate also wishes for America herself to act according to her Me instead of her I.
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