On+Face-Work

· We get emotionally attached to our “face” · We can have “involvement in the face of others” (339) such that their loss of face is felt as our own (341). · Our face in a given situation reflects past situations; thus one acts with consideration of future interactions with the same people. · One can be “in wrong face” or “out of face” (I didn’t fully understand the distinction between the two) when one’s positive self-evaluation is challenged by the situation (339). · When “in face,” one feels confident and assured (339); when in wrong face or out of face, one feels “ashamed and inferior” (340). These feelings may be exacerbated by the belief that others see one as flustered (340). “Poise” is the ability to avoid becoming obviously “shamefaced” in such situations (340). · Ordinary rituals such as greetings and farewells are intended to maintain face and thus perpetuate social relationships (340-41). · In a strong social relationship, members look out for the face of others and trust each other to do so (341). Goffman also makes several less obvious points about the nature of face being a characteristic not of individuals but rather of relationships: · “It is the rules of the group and the definition of the situation which determine how much feeling one is to have for face and how this feeling is to be distributed…” (339). · Face “is diffusely located in the flow of events in the encounter and becomes manifest only when these events are read and interpreted for the appraisals expressed in them” (339). · “Face depends on “an idea about [one]self, and ideas are vulnerable not to facts and things but to communications” (341). Of course, it is the individual who has face or loses face, but this occurs only as the product of interaction, of the judgments of others in the interaction, and of social norms (my interpretation). Goffman then steps back from the micro level of interpersonal interactions and comments on the “nature of the ritual order” (341). Face does not follow what he calls the “schoolboy model” (341) in which status is earned through an honest effort. Instead, face is often maintained by the avoidance of situations that threaten it, by the tact of others, and sometimes through self deception (341). Face is a “truce … made with society” (341) and if society’s rules are violated, others may simply withdraw contact with the offender rather than punishing him or her (342). The reader might hear echoes of Freud as Goffman comments that “societies everywhere, if they are to be societies, must mobilize their members as self-regulating participants in social encounters” (342). The individual “is taught to be perceptive, … to have pride, honor and dignity, to have considerateness, to have tact and a certain amount of poise” (342). Therefore, “Universal human nature is not a very human thing. By acquiring it, the person becomes a kind of construct, built up not from inner psychic propensities but from moral rules that are impressed upon him from without” (342). Durkheim’s notion of society as an entity beyond merely a collection of individuals is also echoed here. || = = = = = = = = = = = =
 * =Title= || "On Face-Work" ||
 * =Author= || Erving Goffman ||
 * =Date= || Feb. 9, 2011 ||
 * =Summary By= || Suzanne Ghais ||
 * =Summary= || To a considerable extent, Goffman merely makes explicit the everyday usage of “face” in the sense of “saving face” or “losing face.” Face is defined as “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself” (338). He proceeds then to make a number of points about face which most of us haven’t thought about consciously but which nonetheless ring true according to our ordinary day-to-day social experiences:
 * =Discussion points= || This excerpt begs several questions (though they are perhaps answered in the larger text from which it is extracted—namely //Interaction Ritual//, 1967). How exactly are the social norms that are reflected in face propagated? How do they change? To what extent are they held in common? What is the relationship between face and conflict? Goffman describes a largely cooperative, peaceful world in which people conspire to cover over their own and each other’s gaffes, embarrassments, and failures in order maintain their own and others’ face. What disrupts this conspiracy? What happens when people’s expectations about others’ cooperation in this are not fulfilled? ||

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