ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE

Caption: This man is a poor player that struts and frets his hour on the stage.

One of the more interesting sociologists of the 20th century was the legendary Erving Goffman (1922-1982) whose best known work is The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, which first came out in 1959.

It's not exactly a barrel of monkeys to read but the El Cabrero was shaken the first time I waded through it. I tend to think of myself as a fairly straightforward person without a lot of pretense. But Goffman makes a pretty convincing case that we're pretty much all acting pretty much all the time.

It's turtles all the way down.

His approach to social interaction has been called dramaturgical, which is a fancy way of saying based on the theater. And we all have a part. According to Goffman,

when an individual appears in the presence of others, there will usually be some reason for him to mobilize his activity so that it will convey an impression to others which it is in his interests to convey.

Sometimes, Goffman says, we are taken in by our own performance. When a person does that, "he can be sincerely convinced that the impression of reality which he stages is the real reality." That's one extreme. At the other end of the spectrum, people may be cynical about their performances and only engage in them to accomplish some specific goal (even if it's amusing oneself). Most of the time, we're somewhere in between.

Sometimes we "act" with more or less sincerity in groups or what he calls performance teams. An example is a group of people in a workplace that serves the public or a couple at a party. Sometimes performances come off smoothly, say when a combative husband and wife appear in public as a happy couple; sometimes performances break down.

Many locations, such as classrooms, treatment rooms, offices, etc. are in effect stages full of props intended to create an impression. Just like any stage, there are front and back regions. In the front region, the performance team confronts the public, while the back region, such as a staff lounge, is a place where people can relax and take off the mask--or at least put on a different one.

The thing that makes reading Goffman a little exasperating is that he seems to think we're all masks all the time with no face behind them. On the other hand, maybe there's something to ponder in the fact that the English word for person comes from the Latin persona, which means a mask worn by an actor.

SUICIDES SURGE FOR MIDDLE AGED AMERICANS. The NY Times reported yesterday some disturbing trends in patterns of suicide:

A new five-year analysis of the nation’s death rates recently released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the suicide rate among 45-to-54-year-olds increased nearly 20 percent from 1999 to 2004, the latest year studied, far outpacing changes in nearly every other age group. (All figures are adjusted for population.)

For women 45 to 54, the rate leapt 31 percent. “That is certainly a break from trends of the past,” said Ann Haas, the research director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Veterans now account for one in five suicides.

This is a sad subject no matter what the age of those involved, but previously more attention has been focused on suicide in the young and elderly.

POVERTY ON THE BRAIN. Here's more about the report on poverty and child development mentioned yesterday. Here's an extract from the Financial Times:

Neuroscientists said many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development. That effect is on top of any damage caused by inadequate nutrition and exposure to environmental toxins.

Studies by several US universities have revealed the pervasive harm done to the brain, particularly between the ages of six months and three years, from low socio-economic status.

It seems to hit language and memory hardest.

IN THE SPIRIT OF FAIR PLAY, congratulations to WV Supreme Court Justice Spike Maynard for endorsing the idea of some kind of committee to oversee recusal decisions made by judges. Maynard was the center of a WV media storm (with some national spillover) when he was photographed with Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship in Monaco after the court agreed to hear a case involving the company.

GOT GOAT? El Cabrero can relate to this one.

BEELZEBUFO!!! We interrupt this blog for an important announcement:

A frog the size of a bowling ball, with heavy armor and teeth, lived among dinosaurs millions of years ago _ intimidating enough that scientists who unearthed its fossils dubbed the beast Beelzebufo, or Devil Toad.

It weighed 10 pounds and was 16 inches long. When this froggie went a courtin', he rode first class.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: If the colon (punctuation mark) went on strike, would this shut down the writing of academic papers and research reports?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

Lately, El Cabrero has been thinking about what people who want a less violent and more just world can learn from studying strategy and the history of conflict, with a special emphasis on the teachings of Sun Tzu.

As mentioned previously this week, there are some areas in which The Art of War and the modern theory of nonviolent action dovetail.

As you might expect, there are also areas where it's a bit murkier. Take this passage from Chapter 1:

Warfare is the art (tao) of deceit. Therefore, when able, seem to be unable; when ready, seem unready; when nearby, seem far away; and when far away, seem near. If the enemy seeks some advantage, entice him with it. If he is in disorder, attack him and take him. If he is formidable, prepare against him. If he is strong, evade him. If he is incensed, provoke him. If he is humble, encourage his arrogance. If he is rested, wear him down. If he is internally harmonious, so divisiveness in his ranks. Attack where he is not prepared; go by way of places where it would never occur to him you would go. These are the military strategist's calculations for victory--they cannot be settled in advance.

Speaking for the moment purely as a martial artist, that's the way you do it.

In karate, for example, you may deliberately appear to leave yourself open to entice an attack for which you are prepared or feint in one or more directions to draw attention away from your main intention.

In judo, you might fake one throw to set up another. In grappling, you never reveal how close you are to tapping out. If someone more powerful than you attacks, the best tactic is to yield to their force and unbalance them.

Common ingredients to all this is controlling the perception of the opponent, applying energy where it has the most effect, avoiding superior force.

In the ordinary scuffles of life and in nonviolent efforts to make a difference, deception is a bad thing. Putting out wrong information can completely discredit a cause. Misleading people to do what you want them to do is not very nice either. Then, as Mark Twain put it,

Always tell the truth. That way, you don't have to remember what you said.

Having said that, however, there is an inescapable element of theater in all social life. The late great sociologist Erving Goffman called it "the art of impression management" in his classic The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and it's something we all do just about all the time.

Most everyone tries to appear at ease when nervous, politely interested when bored, more prepared than we really are, etc. Every coalition in the world tries to present itself as more powerful and unified than it probably is.

And even the most honest people exercise some control over the information they convey. Most people probably wouldn't give bank account or credit card numbers to strangers. Honest coaches don't reveal their strategy to each other during a game.

Nearly every group chooses when and where to release information and what information not to release. Many people wait for the most opportune moment to try to accomplish something. Every rational person engaged in debate on an issue will take advantage of the weak points in an opponent's position given the opportunity.

Finally, to borrow from the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas, there are some situations where what he calls "communicative rationality" can work. Those are situations where all parties have a voice and access to information and decisions are arrived at by agreement. In an ideal world, that would be the norm.

But there are situations in life where one person or group has power over another and isn't interested in listening. Habermas noted that in cases where open and equal communicative action is blocked, people may have to resort to strategic action of some sort until the possibility of communicative action is restored or achieved.

NEEDED: A NEW NEW DEAL. That's the theme of this Washington Post column by Harold Meyerson.

ON THAT NOTE, Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute noted earlier this week that

both hourly and weekly earnings fell in 2007, a sharp reversal from the gains in 2006. After growing by about 2% in 2006, both hourly and weekly earnings fell, after adjusting for inflation, by about 1% last year.

THE LONGEVITY DIVIDE. Also from EPI, the latest snapshot shows that the growing economic divide is reflected in life expectancies. While people are living longer,

the increase in longevity is not balanced across the income ladder. According to a new working paper by Hilary Waldron of the Social Security Administration, a male in the top half of the earnings distribution who turned 60 in 1972 could expect to live 1.2 years longer than one in the bottom half. By 2001, the gap had grown to 5.8 years...

BIG BUSINESS AND PUBLIC TRUST are two things that have very little in common in recent opinion polls.

TWO ON MASSEY. Lawyers in a WV Supreme Court case involving Massey Energy have asked for the recusal of justice Benjamin, who was elected in 2004 with massive support from a 527 supported by CEO Don Blankenship. In a different court, Massey couldn't rely on...uhhh...fortune:

Federal environmental regulators believe a record $20 million fine, new pollution monitoring requirements and the threat of automatic penalties for additional violations will force Massey Energy Co. to change the way it does business.

STOP THE PRESSES!!!! According to this item from Wired Science,

Hungarian researchers have written a program that explains the meaning of dogs' barks.

El Cabrero has been working on similar research and recently cracked the code one sound emitted by the man in the picture. It came out as "Perhaps you would care to play a round of squeaky toy."

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED