Goffman – Interaction Ritual
Rituals in Everyday Life : Everyday Life as Cult of the Individual
“For example, in polite society, a handshake that should not have been extended becomes one which
cannot be declined.” (Interaction Ritual 28.4)
Many gods have been done away with, but the individual himself stubbornly remains as a deity of
considerable importance. … In contacts between such deities there is no need for middlemen; each
of the gods is able to serve as his own priest. 95
Pre-Introduction
We just finished a segment of the course in which we talked about how various acts of cognition
(perception, attention, classifying, symbolization, remembering, reckoning time) are socially embedded. In
each chapter Zerubavel noted that the process in question did have universal aspects and did have
idiosyncratic aspects, but that between these two was a large socio-cognitive zone.
Consider these snippets from Durkheim:
"Thus the totem is before all a symbol, a material expression of something else, But what?" (236.4)
Totemic principle or god
The clan
"The god of the clan, the totemic principle, can therefore be nothing else than the clan itself,
personified and represented to the imagination under the visible form of the animal or vegetable
which serves as totem."
In The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life Emile Durkheim sets out to find the basis of human religiosity.
Writing in an age of "disenchantment" in which the apparent triumph of science and rationality threatened to
discredit all religion as just so much backward superstition, Durkheim seems to be thinking "but it seems so
real to people – surely it can't be 'just their 'maginations.'"
After an extended examination of other theories about religion he lands on one thing that all religions
have in common : a worldview that contains two distinct sorts of reality – profane things and sacred things.
"Also, in the present day just as much as in the past, we see society constantly creating sacred things out
of ordinary ones" [Durkheim, 1915 #60, 243.8]
Introduction – What is ritual and why so much fuss about it?
Ingredients of ritual (Collins 1988)
1. Group is assembled face to face
2. Participants develop mutual focus and mutual awareness of mutual focus
3. Participants share an emotional mood
4. Intensification takes place (socially induced trance)
5. Social pressures experienced during ritual  moral sentiments  sense of interpenetrating consciousnesses.
Ritual becomes a symbol of the experience. Physical and mental world becomes populated with objects that
symbolize society.
On Face-Work
“For example, in polite society, a handshake that should not have been extended becomes one which
cannot be declined.” (28.4)
Fundamental importance of verifying/confirming that the ritual order is intact or that the ritual code will be supported
and that individuals are upholders of the code as opposed to either being ignorant or disregarding of it. Basic
typification of situations and persons? (cf. “…willingness to abide by the ground rules of social interaction. Here is
the hallmark of his socialization as an interactant.” (31.3) Point is to make interaction safe for feelings and faces.
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1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
DEFINITIONS
a) Face, line, social worth, undertaking,
THE BASIC KINDS OF FACE-WORK
a) The avoidance process (15.3)
i) Dealing with incidents
(1) Deny/overlook – “tactful blindness”
(2) Admit but continue
(3) Turn away / time out
b) The corrective process (19.1)
i) Ritual disequilibrium
(1) Interchange
(a) Offense
(b) Challenge
(c) Offering
(i) Redefinition
(ii) Compensation/punishment/expiation
1. Rehabilitation of one’s “type” – One really is well developed Meadean self
2. Assurance that ritual code is intact
(d) Acceptance
(e) Gratitude
MAKING POINTS – THE AGGRESSIVE USE OF FACE WORK
THE CHOICE OF APPROPRIATE FACE-WORK
COOPERATION AT FACE-WORK
RITUAL ROLES OF THE SELF
a) Double
i) Image pieced together from expressive implications of flow of events
(1) Sacred objects subject to slights and profanation
ii) Player in ritual game who copes dis/honorably, un/diplomatically with judgemental contingencies of
situation
b) Institutional design
i) “…each participant tends to be given the right to handle only those matters which he will have little
motivation for mishandling.” (33.2)
SPOKEN INTERACTION
a) “to be in a state of talk” (watch how we signal who is a member of a given “talking” and who is not and the normative / moral
characteristics of the boundaries around such states and note that this involves who is in as well as who is out and the obligation to
keep the talk in as well as that to keep the listening out).
b) “occasion” as a naturally bounded unit (35.8)
i) “Rules”
(1) Once approached one must accede to protect face of approacher
(2) In conversation one must demand only amount of attention appropriate to one’s social worth
ii) Reciprocal relation of face and interaction – sometimes you can save one only by losing the other (39.5)
c) Cf. (40.4) “Too little perceptiveness, too little savoir faire, … person comes to be a real threat to society…. To
much perceptiveness, too much pride … person becomes thin-skinned … too much savoir-faire … too
socialized ….” How does this fit in with Davis and Schmidt’s ideas about the obnoxious and the nice?
FACE AND SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS (41)
a) Goal is to get into and out of social encounters without changing relationship between interactants or without
disturbing expected trajectory.
THE NATURE OF THE RITUAL ORDER
a) More accommodative than competitive. Goffman calls logic used to think about other types of social order
"school boy" – very Catholic : work hard to get ahead, obey the rules or risk punishment. Society runs an
easier game, Goffman suggests.
Whatever his position in society, the person insulates himself by blindnesses, half-truths, illusions, and
rationalizations. He makes an "adjustment" by convincing himself, with the tactical support of his
intimate circle, that he is what he wants to be and that he would not do to gain his ends what the
others have one to gain theirs. And as for society, if the person is willing to be subject to informal
social control – if he is willing to find out from hints and glances and tactful cues what his place is,
and keep it – then there will be little objection to his furnishing this place at his own discretion, with
all the comfort, elegance, and nobility that his wit can muster for him. … Social life is an uncluttered,
orderly thing because the person voluntarily stays away from the places and topics and times where he
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is not wanted and where he might be disparaged for going. He cooperates to save his own face,
finding that there is much to be gained from venturing nothing. (43.6)
b)
Roman Catholicism
The liturgy
Cultic worship is so universal in religion that some historians of religion define religion as
cult. Cultic worship is social, and this means more than a group worshiping the same deity in
the same place at the same time. Cult is structured with a division of sacred personnel
(priests) who lead and perform the cultic ceremonies for the people, who are in a more
distant relation with the deity. The sacred personnel are designated by the choice and
acceptance both of the deity and of the worshiping group. The words and actions of the
cultic performance are divided into roles assigned to the leaders and to the worshipers. It is
the tendency of cultic worship to replace spontaneity, which it once had, with set and even
rigid forms of words and acts. These are preserved by tradition, and they generally have a
sacredness that is based on the belief that the directions for cultic worship came ultimately
from the deity.
"Roman Catholicism" Encyclopædia Britannica Online. <http://www.eb.com:180/bol/topic?eu=117869&sctn=11>
[Accessed 24 February 2000].
Collins on Goffman [Drew, 1988 #58]
Entire structure of society upheld by rituals.
Structure is ritually stratified.
Self is socially enacted through rituals on frontstages, supported by backstages.
Regionalization of the self.
Hierarchy of frontstages.
Even most intimate situation still has ritual structure to it.
Rituals create a temporary cult
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Face-Work, Deference, and Demeanor
For example, in polite society, a handshake that should not have been extended becomes one which
cannot be declined. (Interaction Ritual 28.4)
Whatever his position in society, the person insulates himself by blindnesses, half-truths, illusions, and
rationalizations. He makes an "adjustment" by convincing himself, with the tactical support of his
intimate circle, that he is what he wants to be …. And as for society, if the person is willing to be
subject to informal social control – if he is willing to find out from hints and glances and tactful cues
what his place is, and keep it – then there will be little objection to his furnishing this place at his own
discretion, with all the comfort, elegance, and nobility that his wit can muster for him. … the person
voluntarily stays away from the places and topics and times where he is not wanted and where he
might be disparaged for going. He cooperates to save his own face, finding that there is much to be
gained from venturing nothing. (43.6)
Many gods have been done away with, but the individual himself stubbornly remains as a deity of
considerable importance. … In contacts between such deities there is no need for middlemen; each
of the gods is able to serve as his own priest. (Interaction Ritual 95)
Journal Exercises
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Catalog conversational disbandment lines and techniques
Catalog things that are “perceived” but not “noticed” during interaction
Examples of using face-work to leverage social worth
e.g., it’s rude/tacky to do what I did in handing out photocopy without holes or proper citation.
What kinds of pauses are acceptable in what kinds of circumstances? What do different kinds of pauses mean?
Face-to-Face, phone calls, email messaging.
Turn taking, interruption, etc.
Paper Topics
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Gender and Face-work
Face-Work On-Line – Applying Goffman’s Ideas to Listserve “interaction”
Speaking Up: On the Interactional Risks Associated With Opening One’s Mouth and How Social Institutions
Minimize These. Cf. The insurance industry and the invention of the corporation.
“The safety of solitude and the danger of social encounters”
An analysis of the relationship re-affirming function of greetings and farewells in love letters (or business letters or
casual encounters around campus)
Concepts, Words & Phrases
Boner
Brick
Considerateness
Diplomacy
Face
In face / out of face
Definition of the situation
Role
Faux pas
Gaffe
Hints and innuendo
Line
Noblesse oblige
Occasion
Poise
Savoir faire
Second order tact
Social worth
Tact
References
Collins, Randall. 1988. “Theoretical Continuities in Goffman's Work.” Pp. 41-63 in Erving Goffman :
exploring the interaction order, edited by Paul Drew and Anthony Wooton. Cambridge: Polity.
Drew, Paul, Erving Goffman, and Anthony Wooton. 1988. Erving Goffman : exploring the interaction
order. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Durkheim, Emile, and Gn. 1915. The elementary forms of the religious life. London: Allen & Unwin.
Goffman, Erving. 1967. Interaction ritual; essays in face-to-face behavior. Chicago,: Aldine Pub. Co.
Goffman, Erving. 1981. Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
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