Lyman e Scott, A Sociology of The Absurd (1989)

A SOCIOLOGY OF THE ABSURD
SECOND EDITION
THE REYNOLDS SERIES IN SOCIOLOGY
Larry T. Reynolds, Editor
by GENERAL HALL, INC.
A SOCIOLOGY
OF THE ABSURD
SECOND EDITION
Stanford M. Lyman
Robert J . Morrow Eminent Scholar in Social Science
Florida A tlantic University
Marvin B. Scott
Professor of Sociology
Hunter College, City University of New York
Foreword By
Rom Harre
Linacre College, Oxford
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A SOCIOLOGY OF THE ABSURD
SECOND EDITION
GENERAL HALL, INC .

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Copyright © 1989 by General Hall, Inc.
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Contents
Foreword by Rom Harre vii

Preface - x
Part One: Introduction 1
} Toward a Sociology of the Absurd 2

Niccolo M ac hiavelli (1469- 1527) 9
Part Two: Scene 21
2 Territoriality 22
The Types of Territories 22 , T erritorial E ncroachment 27 , R eaction to
Encroachment 29 , R eaction to the A bsence of Free Space 32 , Conc lusion
33
3 Time Tracks 35
Analytic Features of Time Tracks 36 , Time Trac k M ovement 41 , Time
Panic 46, Conclusion 49
4 Adventures 51
Part Three: Agent 60
5 Freud, Mead, Goffman 61
6 Stage Fright and the Problem of Identity 69

The D ramatic Frame and Stage Fright 71 , The Stage as an Environment 74 ,
Audience Stage Fright 79 , Stage Fright in Everyday Life 81 , Coping
Strategies 85 , Conclusions 87
7 Coolness in Everyday Life 90

Conclusions 95
8
Paranoia, Homosexuality,
and Game Theory 98
The Game M odel 98, Conc lusion 109
Part Four: Agency 111
9 Accounts 112
Types of Accounts 1 13, H onoring Accounts and Background Expectancies
120, Linguistic Styles and Accounts 123, Strategies for Avoiding Acc ounts
126 , Negotiating Identities and Accounts 127 , Conclusion 131
1Q Accounts, Deviance, and Social Order 133

When Is an Act D eviant? 134 , The G eneral N atur e of Accounts 135 ,
Interaction as Game B ehavior 137, Face Games 140, Accounts,
Pluralism, and P ower 149 , Conclusion 152
Part Five: Purpose 156
11 Game Frameworks 157

A Game Typology 16 1 , Conclusion 178
Part Six: Extroduction 181
12 A Sociology of the Absurd Revisited 182
Part Seven: Appendices 191
Appendix I: The Marquis de Sade and the Quest

for the Nonabsurd 192
Sade and the Absurd 192 , Rebellion and the Nonabsurd 194 , Conclusion 197
Appendix II: Power, Pluralism, and Order 198

Pluralism and the Sociology of the Absurd 200, Conclud ing Remarks 203
Notes 204
Index 241
Foreword
New waves of thought have an odd habit of starting at many d ifferent

points at once. L onely innovat ors suddenly find t hemselves among a great
company of like-minded persons, to whom they have never spoken or writ
ten before. This fact d eserves our astonishment. How is it possible? The
new view of the meaning of Wittgenstein's philosophy, 1 the c ritique of
social psychology by the new postpositivist philosophy of science, and now
the sociology of t he absurd makes just suc h a convergence, and one par
ticularly worthy of our surprise and interest. I had read , and been delighted
by a paper called "Account s . "2 H ere was soc ial science d one for tl].e first
time in a way whic h theoretical considerations had made me suppose to be
correct .
Chance enabled me to c ompare my reasons, deriving from t he failure
of logical posit ivism as a philosophy of science, with Lyman's and Scott's
ground s for t heir innovatory att ack in "Accounts." My reasons and their
grounds were enormously d ifferent , t hough our conclusions were mutually
supporting in an astonishing way. Does this make the convergence more
significant? Only a new epistemology of the absurd could answer that q ues
tion. Yet the fact of the convergence of many lines of t hought in these fields
is indubitable.
For L yman and Sc ott s ociety is a structure of relat ionships which is
essentially linguistic , and whic h is ephemeral in t he sense that it is always
constructed anew. It is not a matrix within which men move, nor a system
of c auses actuating them in ways of which they are unaware. Life is a se
quence of episodes, in whic h people achieve some measure of understand
ing, and influence, but which has no independence, and, in a sense, no ex
istence. Much of the capability which a man exercises in his relationships
with others comes and goes from episode t o episode. All this implies a
wholly new view of human nature, whic h is paradoxically, the common
view. Men are not c hemicals wit h fix ed powers and capabilities, explicable
by reference to fixed natures. They are not like elemental gases , whose
behavior c an be represented by funct ions of independent parameters. The
sociology of the absurd repudiates the atomist ic , parametric view of human
beings as a tool for understanding their social interactions.
Scientists need not produce laws as a result of their studies. They might,
instead, in s ome fields , be the en trepreneurs of understanding . The upshot
vii
viii A SOCIOLOGY OF THE ABSURD
of an investigation might be a set of concepts with whic h episodes c an be

understood. The use of the concepts may provide no general knowledge, no
expectation of future behavior. But it may make each episode intelligible in
itself. Perhaps the creation of such a conceptual scheme is the pr oper ambi
tion of social sciences. In their idea of the "game" model , and particularly in
their paper , "Accounts , " Lyman and Scott are generating and studying in
telligibility, understanding and the like. H er e is one of the places of the in
teraction of the new sociology with contemporary Oxford philosophy, since
one of the results of that movement has been a delineation of systems of con
cepts actually in use in and among men for understanding and describing
what is done by themselves and other s . A nd for c ommenting upon those
doings. "Accounts" studies, in a preliminary way, the cruci al socio
linguistic mechanisms for rendering behavior intelligible. The sociology of
the absurd can have no other ambition but to add to the tools of intelligibility.
L ooking at interactions as a game is a contribution to "accounting. " From
this point of view, a soc ial scientist is no more than the c hief negotiator in
the game of life . He has seen more, suffered more, and, through his profes
sional training, he has had more vicarious experience, but his role lies inside
the episodes he makes intelligible.
Getting inside human situations has been called "participant observation, "
but, in a way, that is not what Lyman and Scott have in mind, though they
use the phrase. For that phrase connotes a mode of participation which is
self-conscious, a false entry into alien ways of life . W hat the new sociology
and social psychology r equir e are the skills of novelists, poets and
playwri ghts. They demand the power to live with some awareness of the
situations, negotiations, linguistic interactions, changing capabilities and
powers, through which one lives. It is the art of standing aside from one's
own life that provides the material . The genius of G o ffman, to whom
Lyman and Scott rightly and frequently refer, is the capability to see his
subjects as he sees himself. But our interaction with our human environment,
and our very identifications of such features of our lives as our emotional
state, are linguistically mediated. To learn the name of a feeling is to
become capable of exper ienc ing it, to learn a mode of assessment of our
situation among people is to acq uire a cer tain situation amongst people. So
we return to the central place of language in human life .
The reader of this book will fi nd n o sociological theory here, that i s , no
hypothesis as to the hidden causes of social fact and social change. In conse
quence, the role of expe riment in the sociology of the absurd is wholly different
from its role in the mythical and hence unrealizable sociologies of the
parametric, atomistic model. The laboratory is but another situation, and the
experiment but another episode, within which the "scientist" dwells, negotiating
his own identity and providing his own excuses and justifications. And all he
gets back in response are the excuses and justifications of hi s subjects.
Foreword ix
The realization of t hi s t ruth has been the source of the fi nal strand in
the sociology of the absurd t o which I would like t o d raw attenti on, namely,
its connection with the barbarously named ethnomethodology of Garfinkel.
Only in cri sis and s ocial breakd own are tacit conventions revealed . As I
would li ke to say, s ocial life has somet hing of the character of a ritual,
though a ritual for which no definitive liturgical texts can be found . "To
garfi nkel" i s to behave i n a socially outrageous fashion, so as to provoke in
those i nvolved a realizati on of t he liturgical structure of the normal
episode. But the d rastic c haracter of the episodes to which the founder of
ethnomethod ology has given his name i s really no part of the soci ology of
the absurd. We can come to see what roles we play and the rules to which we
tacitly subscribe, and even to recognize our expertise in presenting ourselves
in various ways , in an awareness of the ordinary course of li fe .
One misses certain influences that might be here, particularly that of
Lorenz. But this is the first book of the new sociology . A corresponding
social psyc hology is now t o be looked for.
R om H arre
Linacre College, Oxford
Preface
The "Sociology of the A bsurd " is a new approach to the fu ndamental

question that fi rst animated sociological inquiry: H ow is social order possible?
In contrast to the evolutionist and functionalist perspectives, we envisage social
order in the meaning social "actors" attach to events, persons, self, and others.
The Sociology of the A bsurd introduced in this book is both subj ective and
rigorous, empirical and yet devoid of the dehumanizing effect of mathe
matical representation.
We have taken a second look at our work in the "extroduction" that
concludes this edition of A Sociology of the A bsurd. T here we respond to
c ritics and locate our position in the landscape of current sociological
theorizing. Finally, the "extroduction " briefly disc usses the relation of the
A bsurd to the d ramatistic framework that provides the rationale for
restructuring the order of the essays.
H ere we wish to state our justific ation for re-issuing A Sociology of the
A bsurd. It is simply this: we believe that sociology today is not in need of
theory, but rather of c larifying concepts . We are weary of theoretical
worldbuilders who strive to construct logical d esigns that weave together all
components of the social fabric . We thought system building might end
with Talcott Parsons , but it appears plus ra change . .. .
Erving Goffman, we believe, had it right when he said ( A sylums , xiv):
"I think that at present, if sociological c oncepts are to be treated with affec
tion , eac h must be traced bac k to where it best applies , followed from there
wherever it seems to lead , and pressed to disclose the rest of its family. Bet
ter, perhaps, di fferent coats to clothe the child ren well than a single splen
d id tent in which they all shiver." Current sociological theory has consisted
of efforts at tentmaking; A Sociology of the A bsurd, in c ont rast, attempts
to clothe the child ren.
Since we are opposed to sociological theory bec oming an ex ercise in
system building, we prefer to think of this work as a "methodological
sc heme" for provid ing an adequate (or "good enough'') d escription of the
acts that compose the d ramas of everyday life. F ollowing Kenneth Burke,
the terms that are necessarily involved in the description of action - "scene",
"agent", "agency", and "purpose" - provid e t he containers for the concep
tual c lothes . F or the most part, the essays are organized under these
d ramatistic terms . F irst we consider "scene , " whic h refers to the spatial and
x
Preface xi
temporal d imension of actual experience; t h e scene, in short, is spatialized

time. For analytic clarity we have separated the scenic elements: fi rst we
deal with space (as a sense of place or "territory'') and then with "time" (as a
sense of the flow of experience in some direction, which we c all "time
tracks'') . Space and time are brought together in the notion of "adventure, "
the ex perience o f non-ordinary spac e and time.
Next we focus on the "agent, " the performer of the action, who is c on
ventionally referred to as the "actor." Typically, when the terminology of
the "actor" is employed it c onnotes someone who is playing a role in a
drama written and directed outsid e of his or her c onscious reach. In the
theories of Freud, G . H . M ead, and E rving Goffman we find three models
relevant to this problem of c onsc iousness and performance. Freud's un
conscious, viewed d ramatistically, is the backstage of the mind, and its con
tents are best understood as the discourse of the other. As soon as these
contents become obj ects of "self-indic ation, " in the sense employed by
Mead, the actor c an mobilize for a self-presentation. The strategies and tac
tics of self-presentation put us in the domain of G offman's formulations,
which we have closely followed in our discussion of the agent. Our c hapter
on "Stage Fright and the P roblem of Identity" deals most directly with the
issues faced by the social actor in situations of heightened consc iousness .
Our chapter on "Coolness in Everyday Life" raises the issue of "character,"
which is viewed as a feature of the scene, not the personality. (A s Goffman
epigramatically put it: "Not men and their moments ; rather moments and
their men. ") Character is something gained or lost in a situation, and rooted
in the need to praise or blame ourselves an d others. Although actors are
conscious that they are more than the roles performed in given situations,
they may feel that in certain situations they are ex press ing true character.
Our discussion implies that character always remains a product of a situa
tion, since only in situations c an it materialize. The c hapters in this section
focus on the actors' awareness that others are watching their performances .
Sensitivity to the gaze of others, however, is not randomly distributed.
Rather, certain categories of people are especially conscious that audiences
are watching their performances; and this is sue is ex plored in our essay
"P aranoia, H omosexuality, and Game Theory, " whic h is also an implicit
commentary on the F reudian concept of Guilt.
The agency of human action is talk. A sociology of the absurd, some

what distinctively, identifies the notion of agency with "accounts. " We hold
that "accounts" are the most prominent agency (or means) employed by
humans to confirm their ind ividual selfhood whenever this bec omes prob
lematic. In conflict (the province of all studies of the "absurd'') talk has the
specific function of "accounting" for any disruption of the conventional,
the ordinary, or the taken-for-granted. Thus in this section we inc lude two
xii A SOCIOLOGY OF THE ABSURD
chapters that deal with talk as the central agency through which account
ability of action takes place.
Finally, we conceptualize the notion of "purpose" in terms of "Grune
Frruneworks. " We suggest that a set of grune rules regulates the mobilization
of the self in its pursuit of ends . We ideal-typically codify t.hese frameworks
in our essay, but as typologies they are open to modification, revision, or
substitution. Our claim is that game frameworks are implied in all social in
teraction, and being sensitive to their effects on individual conduct is one of
the requirements for an adequate description of any strip of action.
As we stated in our Preface to the first edition, the papers presented

here have been read by and discussed with a great many colleagues, and our
debt to them is beyond payment. Moreover, some of those with whom a
brief, intense conversation later resulted in improvement of our work have
been obscured by faulty memories and thus will go unsung, though their
ideas are not forgotten. We are especially grateful to Erving Goffman
whose brilliant monographs on social relations and human behavior are
both an inspiration and a challenge, and whose critical advice at nearly
every stage of this work added immeasurably to its quality. That small
fraternity of scholars known as ethno-methodologists - Harold Garfinkel,
the late Harvey Sacks, Aaron Cicourel, and Jack Douglas - have influenced
us directly and by example. We are also indebted to the late Donald Ball
and to A . J . Vidich for his critical reading and other helpful assistance at
various stages in the manuscript's development. At a late stage in the
manuscript's development we were aided considerably by discussions with
Rom Harre of Oxford University. Joyce Scott deserves a special word of
thanks for both her instrumental and expressive contributions to the present
work.
Portions of this manuscript appeared in Social Problems, The A merican
Sociological Review, The Journal of Health and Social Behavior, and
Sociology and Everyday Life (edited by Marcello Truzzi, Englewood Cliffs,
N . J . : Prentice-Hall, 1 968) to whose editors we gratefully acknowledge our
appreciation for permission to reprint them here.
Three essays (chapters 4, 5 , and IO) and one of the appendices did not
appear in the first edition. For permission to reproduce them here, we are
grateful to Oxford University Press, Basic Books, Inc. , and Charles Merrill
Publishers .
S.M.L.
M.B.S.
PART I:
INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1 Toward a Sociology of the Absurd
A new wave of thought is beginning to sweep over sociology. Aspects

of the wave have been given an assortment of names- "labeling theory, "
"ethnomethodology," and "neo-symbolic interactionism" - but these do
not cover its entire range of critique and perspective. A new name must be
found to cover a conception which presents not only a unique perspective
on conventional sociology but is also a radical departure from the conven
tional.
We feel an appropriate name is the Sociology of the Absurd.
The term "absurd" captures the fundamental assumption of this new
wave: The world is essentially without meaning. In contrast to that
sociology which seeks to discover the real meaning of action - a socio
logical reality, such as the functional meaning of social behavior - this new
sociology asserts that all systems of belief, including that of the conven
tional sociologists, are arbitrary. The problems previously supposed to be
those of the sociologist are in fact the everyday problems of the ordinary
person. It is he or she who must carve out meanings in a world that is mean
ingless. Alienation and insecurity are fundamental conditions of life - though
they are experienced differently by individuals and groups - and the regular
rehumanization of humankind is every person's task.
The Sociology of the Absurd draws its philosophical inspiration from
existentialism and phenomenology. The works of Edmund Husserl are par
ticularly crucial to its originating ideas . 1 Moreover, the interpreters of
Husserl - especially Alfred Schutz2 and Maurice Merleau-Ponty3 -are major
sources of intellectual perspectives, fundamental concepts, and promising
insights. On the basis of its debt to phenomenology and existentialism the
Sociology of the Absurd might be called an existential phenomenology for
sociology.
From existentialism the Sociology of the Absurd derives its emphases
on human freedom and the life-long process of "becoming"; on the nexus
between the reality which is "out there" and the human who is thinking,
feeling, apprehending "inside" a body; and on the broader view of a human
as an integral being, composed not only of cogito, but also of feeling, sens
ing, and apprehending. Finally, on the basis of existentialist thought the
Sociology of the Absurd restores individuals to their rightful place as the
principal agents of action, the central subjects of sociology. Together with
2
Toward a Sociology of the Absurd 3
Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Jaspers, the sociologists of the new wave seek to
place humanity at the center of study - as it already is in fact at the center of
thought and action. 4
From phenomenology, the Sociology of the Absurd derives its emphasis
on certain aspects of human activity, such as intentionality, consciousness,
and subj ective meaning. Human intentions, contrary to the position of the
behavioral positivists, are definable to both social .actors and their
observers, not by some special technique possessed solely by experts or
mystics, but rather by means of the most ordinary - but as yet not fully
understood - mechanisms of perception carried on in everyday life. s Human
consciousness should be the principal object of study in sociology, and this
has been suggested in the work of Max W eber 6 and in the early formula
tions of Parsons' theory of action. 7 But methodological problems restricted
research, and it has not yet excited the intellectual interest it deserves.
Phenomenology, and especially existential phenomenology, appears
to have laid the basis for a solution to the methodological problem of sub
jective knowledge and obj ective existence, and in this the new sociology
finds a grounding for new research . As Tiryakian has observed, existential
phenomenology "seeks to elucidate the existential nature of social struc
tures by uncovering the surface institutional phenomena of the everyday,
accepted world; by probing the subterranean, noninstitutional social depths
concealed from public gaze, by interpreting the dialectic between the in
stitutional and the non-institutional. . . "8
Now what specifically is the nature of human action from the viewpoint
of the Sociology of the Absurd? Action consists of the pursuit of ends by
social actors capable of deliberating about the line of activity they under
take and of choosing among alternatives to the same end. This does not
mean that humans always precede action by deliberation. This is manifestly
not the case. What it does mean is that they are capable of giving an account
of their actions either as preactivity mental images of the action, its conse
quences and meanings, or as post hoc retrospective readings of completed
acts. As images either before or after completion, these constructions
emerge as statements made by the actors which give meaning to their ac
tions . 9 These constructions are not unintelligible to others . Most impor
tant, these statements constitute the actual meaning, though not necessarily
the cause, of these actions, and thus are the basic data of the new sociology.
Instead of adopting an undisguised skepticism of what humans say - a
skepticism deeply rooted in the positivist and behaviorist traditions - the
Sociology of the Absurd rej ects the question of the truth value in face of the
significance of the meaning value of these statements. In this respect the
new sociology draws on yet another new intellectual strand, that introduced
by the ordinary language philosophers who now contribute so much to
linguistics and psychology. 1 o
4 A SOCIOLOGY OF THE ABSURD
It follows from the emphasis on freedom and becoming in existentialist

thought that human action should be considered, as Parsons once put it,
"voluntaristic. " 1 1 Without this idea of voluntarism, human activity would
be "mere behavior." 1 2 Instead, in concert with Parsons' early view of the
theory of action, 1 3 the sociologist of the Absurd sees activity in discernible
units of action - episodes, encounters, situations - to which the actor gives
meaning; meaning beyond merely the sense of a set of physical objects.
Thus humans are not necessarily the creatures of social or psychological
forces - class, caste, race, or deep-lying unconscious states - which determine
their behavior in the situation. The age-old problem of freedom versus
determinism is not a problem of objective philosophy but rather of the ac
tor's construction of reality, his or her image of freedom and constraint.
The Sociology of the Absurd conceives of humans as being constructed
and of constructing - social reality in every situation. From this point of
view mental illness, for instance, is a social construction, not an absolute,
unambiguous disease. 1 4
If life consists of encounters, episodes and engagements among persons
pursuing goals of which they are consciously aware, or about which they
can be made aware, then it appears that the fundamental structure of
human action is conflict. This is true even if individuals are pursuing the
same ends, since each is out to maximize his or her own interests. Thus, even
two lovers in an erotic embrace, as Simmel once noted, 1 5may be regarded in
conflict since each may be seeking to outdo the other in demonstrating af
fection or providing the other with feeling. I f one begins with the concep
tion of human action as interpersonal conflict, two important implications
(for theory) follow. The first concerns the kind of model of interaction
most useful for the analysis of the social world; th� second is the heuristic
model of humanity most fruitful for the analysis of interaction.
Concerning the first, it seems that a game model is most suited for the
analysis of interaction as our conception of the game model derives from
the conception of a goal-seeking, voluntaristic, intentional actor. It follows
from these characteristics that in any engagement he or she will employ,
more or less consciously, stratagems and tactics to attain the end intended.
It also follows that others participating in the engagement may be viewed as
allies, opponents, or neutrals according to the goal sought and the means
employed. The game model, we hold, is fruitful for the analysis of all social
interactions, but it is especially so for the study of problematic statuses,
such as homosexuals, paranoids, minorities, and the stigmatized in general.
In the following essays we have emphasized the game model, including a
discussion of the nature and types of games, the role of game-strategy
behavior in understanding the sick and stigmatized, the relation of spatial
considerations to game strategies and personal identities, and the type of
character and self-presentation associated with strategies and tactics.
Toward a Sociology of the A bsurd 5
With regard to the second, the Sociology of the Absurd assumes a

model of humans in conflict - with others, with society, with nature, and
even with themselves. Even though much of sociology has refused to adopt
this conception. 1 6 It recommends itself as the most powerful heuristic
device for the study of man-in-society. 1 7 In passing it may be noted that the
recent findings in animal ethology - especially the works of Konrad
Lorenz 18 - lend a curious kind of support to our conception. More signifi
cant, however, are the fruitful settings for intellectual problems provided
by the adoption of this model. By beginning with the assumption that social
life is one of conflict, it follows that every social situation is problematic for
those involved . With this model the sociologist must continually search for
mechanisms that permit the production - and reproduction in a continuous
series of engagements - of stable, uniform and persistent interaction. 1 9
Thus the sociologist is induced by this model to persistently try and solve the
riddle that originally set the discipline in motion: how is society possible? The
sociologist must view humankind as the maker and remaker of social ex
istence, as the producer and reproducer of stable engagements, as the ar
chitects of society and the ever-renewed social order.
The Sociology of the Absurd does not aim at building a "social system."
Indeed system building would go against the grain. This new sociology is
perhaps best characterized as a conceptual style of theoretical ideas and sen
sitizing concepts tied together not by logic or system, but rather by the
underlying existential-phenomenological assumptions stated above. In this
respect it is worth contrasting the Sociology of the Absurd with func
tionalism. 20
The Sociology of the Absurd stands in opposition to functionalism on
five maj or contentions . First, functionalism is interested in understanding
human action in terms of forces unperceived by the actor. Functionalism
assumes a determined world inhabited by creatures who are for the most
part unaware of the forces that shape their destinies and who live by the illu
sion and self-deception of their own imagined freedom. The Absurd, on the
contrary, holds that there is an existential continuum between freedom and
determinism constructed and reconstructed by the social actors individually
or in concert . Thus some people are more free than others; some are more
constrained than they know. The Absurd is concerned with every person's in
tentions and consciousness, with each's "felt" state of freedom or fatalism,
and with the consequences that flow therefrom.
Second, functionalism holds that the various parts of society are non
arbitrary since they contribute to the integration of the whole. The Absurd,
on the other hand, holds that all elements of society are arbitrary. These
elements have no fixed, stable, and irreducible meaning. They certainly are
not part of an organic system with a built-in end purpose - homeostasis.
This imagery of society which functionalism inherited from Aristotle and
his followers lends itself to the radical separation of events from processes,
and in many cases to a peculiar sociological emphasis on processes detached
from events or particular episodes . 2 1 The Absurd emphasizes the individual
and the episodic - the event - and perceives this as the factor emerging
from the participants' social construction of reality.
Third, functionalism regards the social order as rooted in a basic in
terdependence and cooperation. As the functionalists see it, humans,
through the socialization process, internalize norms, and fit into roles.
These roles, in turn, are meshed together to form interlocking role-sets, or
institutions. Aside from our disagreement with the empirical validity of this
interpretation (we believe, for example, that society in the modern complex
world is better described as a collection of conflicting subcultures, 22 which
in their relations manage to maintain some pattern of stability by the
employment of social mechanisms as yet imperfectly understood by soci
ologists), we hold that the fu nctionalist perspective is heuristically weak
because it begs the basic question for which sociology was founded . By
assuming cooperation and interdependence a priori, by pressing society on
to a teleological Procrustean bed, by conceiving of society as an organism
or a mechanism, functional theory cannot make the social order prob
lematic; it can assume that society is possible but not discover how it is
possible.
Fourth, because functionalism sees persons as determined creatures
played upon by forces largely seen "as through a glass, darkly," it opts to
study them from the point of view of the observer. Functionalism pays little
attention to the perceptions made by human beings about their own ac
tivities . Rather it regards these as founded on ignorance of the real forces
that shape human action . 23 The Absurd on the other hand rejects the a
priori existence of a determined world discoverable by sociologists. It
regards people as an actors who builds up actions on the basis of their goals
and of continuing attempts to define and redefine the situation. Thus, the
social world is studied from the point of view of the actors who construct it.
Finally, functionalism postulates a common value system in society.
We hold, on the other hand, that in modern complex societies there are few
if any common, binding values. Values and norms are pluralistically ap
plicable on the basis of situations , persons, and times . 24Thus what is crucial
is the definition of the situation. And this definition is not simply "given ."
Rather, it is a bargain struck for the time being by the participants in the
episode. For values to be employed, for norms to be operational, there
must be "negotiation" of situations and identities, and obviously the par
ticipants have significant stakes in this negotiation. Only when these in
teractants are agreed upon who they are and what they are do they give and
receive accounts - excuses and justifications - the linguistic devices that
shore up fractured social situations .
Toward a Sociology of the A bsurd 7
Because we cannot assume value consensus, we have a second reason

for supposing the social world to be problematic. Every investigation car
ried out under the aegis of the Sociology of the Absurd is approached with a
sense of astonishment that a social order exists. The puzzle, the mystery of
how social order somehow emerges from the chaos and conflict predicated
by the inherently meaningless is the motive for the study of social phe
nomena.
Much sociology has been motivated by social meliorism. 2 5 Although
we might laud the endeavors to improve the world, and certainly recognize
the multi-faceted problems in modern societies, for several reasons we can
not subscribe to the thesis that social engineering or social change is the
primary obj ective of the Sociology of the Absurd. First, no sociological
enterprise directed at healing the social ills, improving the body politic, or
salvaging cultural remnants can approach the subject from the standpoint
of the Sociology of the Absurd. A consciously naive but intellectual inquiry
into how social order is possible supersedes questions of policy and priority
in such a manner as to make the latter not only irrelevant but also a hin
drance to the research endeavor.
Second, once sociologists consciously adopt meliorism as their principal
objective, they seek to influence policy-makers. Influence requires a rhetoric
calculated to convince those in power that one has both the appropriate ideas
and the techniques with which to make the studies that are convincing to
policy makers . Thus, the policy-oriented sociologist is more likely to be in
clined to low-level theorizing, quantification, axiomatic system building, and
whatever other rhetorical stratagems are likely to be persuasive. 26
Finally, sociological meliorism is a contradiction of the nature of
humanity and society as assumed by the Sociology of the Absurd. Meliorism,
were it to be the aim of sociology, assumes that sociologists are philosopher
kings , or to put it more accurately, philosophers of the people and advisers
to the kings. The sociologist of the Absurd is simply an observer of the
social scene and thus does not suffer from the conceit and arrogance of the
social engineer who would reshape the world according to what he or she
lays down as "objective" ethics.
It follows from this, however, that the sociologist of the Absurd can
make sountl observations and reflections in the freest of societies. Such a
society is not one in which the practicing social scientist is restricted in the
opportunities for observation. This does not mean a society devoid of
privacy, but one in whicq. the sociologists takes chances to see what they can
see, observing the nooks and crannies, crevices and interstices as well as the
broad range of open spaces and public situations. A society marked by
police regulation and extensive sumptuary legislation is unlikely to produce
much good sociology, j ust as it is unlikely to produce much excellent art or
literature.
It would be untrue, however, to say that restricted societies are un

amenable to sociological inquiry. The sociologist of the Absurd must be a
careful observer in any situation, making awareness and exact description
of the political, legal, social, and moral restraints on the individual a part of
the task. He, or she, must, insofar as possible, apprehend the exact defini
tion the individual has of his or her own freedom and of the constraints
upon it in every encounter, so that part of the description, locates the per
son precisely in the continuum between humanism and fatalism. He, or she,
must uncover ideology and utopia in each person, wish and transfiguration
in each situation. The sociologists of the Absurd, by their very description
of society, by their everlasting unfolding and illumination of the modes and
styles of social order, can summon human beings to build the world of their
dreams, but they cannot build it for them.
Although the Sociology of the Absurd is a new wave, it grows out of
contemporary issues and new ideas in other arenas of progressive thought
and action. Undoubtedly one of the most important of these is the Theatre
of the Absurd, a school of dramatic thought limned by such names as
Beckett, Ionesco, and Genet. Indeed our definition of the Absurd derives
from Ionesco's in his essay on Kafka: "Absurd is that which is devoid of
purpose. . . . Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental
roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless."27
I f the Theatre of the Absurd illustrates the meaninglessness of the
world, the Sociology of the Absurd describes humanity's constant striving
for meaning in the face of the faceless Monolith. The Sociology of the Ab
surd emphasizes the episodic in every life; it deemphasizes, though it does
not discount, the predecessors and successors of contemporary man. It sees
humanity as Simmel saw some men and Camus saw all men - as strangers.
Thus Simmel wrote:
If wandering is the liberation from every given point in space,

and thus the conceptional opposite to fixation at such a point, the
sociological form of the "stranger" presents the unity, as it were, of
these two characteristics . . . . The stranger is thus being discussed here,
not. . . as the wanderer who comes today and goes tomorrow . . . . He is
fixed within a particular spatial group, or within a group whose bound
aries are similar to spatial boundaries. But his position in this group is
determined, essentially, by the fact that he has not belonged to it from
the beginning, that he imports qualities into it, which do not and can
not stem from the group itself. 28
And Camus:
A world that can be explained by reasoning, however faulty, is a

familiar world. But in a universe that is suddenly deprived of illusions
and of light, man feels a stranger. His is an irremediable exile,

because he is deprived of memories of a lost homeland as much as he
lacks the hope of a promised land to come. This divorce between man
and his life, the actor and his setting, truly constitutes the feeling of
Absurdity. 29
Simmel characterizes the stranger as an awe-inspiring, fearsome con

tributor; Camus as a victim of the irrelevant past and unpromising future.
The sociologist, seeing the stranger, emphasizes the problematic nature of
his or her existence. Essentially a contemporary, the stranger must struggle
to establish the meaning of each new moment, even if only to get through it
and be confronted by the next moment, and the next. Further the stranger
must sort out relationships, appropriately sharing affections between
strangers and siblings, acquaintances and lovers. Annoyed by the impor
tunity of unwarranted fellowship; estranged by the coldness of unrequited
affection; threatened by the powers of the mighty; frightened by the terror
of the unknown; and doomed by the inevitability of death, always the
stranger is confronted with life - things, events, people - which demand
responses, require interpretation, cry out for meaning . Thus the Sociology
of the Absurd studies the existential being, the creature who strives after
sense in a senseless world.
The development of the Sociology of the Absurd has j ust begun, and it
is impossible at this time to predict its future. But it is worthwhile to review
its intellectual past, identifying its principal predecessors and acknowledg
ing the more prominent of its contemporaries . The most important precur
sors of the Sociology of the Absurd are Machiavelli, Max Weber, Georg
Simmel, and Alfred Schutz. Its principal contemporaries are Erving Goff
man and Harold Garfinkel. Edmund Husserl, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice
Merleau-Ponty, and Ludwig Wittgenstein have given it philosophical in
spiration. Our task will not be to review the perspectives of these men, but
rather to show what aspects of the work of its initial forebear - Machiavelli -
have contributed to the growing body of thought on.the Absurd.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI (1469-1527)
For the past five hundred years Machiavelli has received a bad press.
Shakespeare called him the "murderous Machiavel," outdone in planned
villainy only by the unredeeming evil of the Duke of Gloucester. Leo
Strauss referred to Machiavelli as anti-Christian and a teacher of evil. 30
And Bartholemew Landheer defines Machiavellianism as "the doctrine of
the state as an institution of brute power."3 1 Yet, Maurice Merleau-Ponty
begins his perceptive essay on Machiavelli with the probing question, "How
could he have been understood ?"32
10 A SOCIOLOGY O F THE ABSURD
Machiavelli's infamy rests largely on his best known work, The Prince. 3 3
This book may b e (and has been) read a s a handbook o n how t o fool friends
and influence people, a sort of Dale Carnegie for rogues. Public life,
Machiavelli argues, consists largely of deceptions, lies and broken prom
ises. Since ordinary people tend not to think in terms of multiple realities,
they can be made to believe in illusions which are mere chimeras and
calculated performances.
If one were to search for that arena of social conduct that best epitomizes
the essence of life, one would find it - according to Machiavelli (and later,
reasserted by Freud) - in eros. The erotic relations of man and woman are
the paradigm of all social relations . For Machiavelli man is in a potential
,,
relationship between the world's fortu na and his own virtu. "Virtu, as
Hannah Arendt has noted, "is the response summoned up by man, to the
world, or rather to the constellation o f fortuna in which the world opens
up, presents and offers itself to him, to his virtu."34 And as Machiavelli
points out, "Fortune is a woman, and if you wish to master her, you must
strike and beat her, and you will see that she allows herself to be more easily
vanquished by the rash and the violent than those who proceed more slowly
and coldly. "3 5 Machiavelli here sounds much like his disciple, the Marquis
de Sade. For both, love is not only the three-fold syndrome of deceptions,
lies, and broken promises, but more fundamentally a relationship of
domination and subordination. In a love relationship one party imposes his
or her will upon the other, and the other submits. Moreover, love has a
game-like quality, involving covert conflict and clandestine deception so
that, as Willard Waller - a modern Machiavellian in our sense - has described
it, love takes on the characteristic of pluralistic ignorance, setting forth a
fundamental condition for game-theoretic analysis:
A and B begin an affair on the level of light involvement . A becomes

somewhat involved, · but believes that B has not experienced a cor
responding growth of feeling and hides his involvement from B, who
is, however, in exactly the same situation. The conventionalized "line"
facilitates this sort of "pluralistic ignorance, " because it renders mean
ingless the very words by means of which this state of mind could be
disclosed. 3 6
One of Machiavelli's contributions to the Sociology of the Absurd is

his understanding that, as with love, all human relations have the qualities
of a game. Although ordinary people might not perceive this ubiquitous
quality, the prince has to do so in order to persevere. Thus, Machiavelli is
not as opposed to humane qualities as some have supposed. Rather, as
Merleau-Ponty has observed, 3 7 he qualifies his humanism with a percep
tion of the forms in which these qualities may be realized or subverted.
Machiavelli writes, "a prince should seem to be merciful, faithful, humane,

religious, and upright, and should even be so in reality; but he should have
his mind so trained that, when occasion requires it, he may know how to
change to the opposite."3 8 The prince must have that situational hyper
consciousness, which, we have elsewhere noted, is the requirement of a true
game-strategic player in life. 3 9
Perhaps the most important of Machiavelli's contributions t o the Soci
ology of the Absurd is his understanding that theory and method are not
unrelated activities. Although some earlier admirers of Machiavelli have
credited him with being the father of social science and one of the first users
of historical method, these two compliments are undeserved. 40 However,
Machiavelli has been unusually neglected for his perceptive commentary on
the similarity between the artist and the theorist, and in particular his im
plicit suggestion of the inextricable linkage between methods employed and
theories adduced. 4 1 Like the painter who can look up from the valley to
perceive the mountain or down into the plain from a high peak to see the
valley, the social theorist must have an optimum distance from the subj ect
in order to see it accurately. 4 2 It is not dispirited "objectivity, " as the term
today is vulgarly employed, that Machiavelli advocates, but rather a pas
sion chastened by the perspective of unalloyed clarity. His social theorist is
neither king nor commoner, but something in between - an observer who
adopts the stance appropriate to the subject matter at hand. Machiavelli
might rightfully be credited with a fleeting but fundamental recognition of
the positive functions of marginality4 3 for social observation and also with
some awareness of that method appropriate to the Sociology of the Absurd
participant observation. 44
Machiavelli developed his methodology further in his H istory of Flor
ence. In this methodology we find all the elements of the modern Sociology
of the Absurd: the perspective of optimum distance, the empathic iden
tification with each of the persons in an encounter in terms of their respec
tive environments, a non-ideological stance, and the game model of social
interaction. As Wolin has described his methodology:
Machiavelli's technique was to set out a situation where conflicting

class interests were involved, and then, through the mouth of some
partisan spokesman, proceed to argue the best case possible for each
interested group. Regardless of the party, whether proletarian or
patrician, the versatility of the new science enabled it to enter im
aginatively into any particular position, analyzing the problems as
they appeared from that perspective and indicating the course of ac
tion which would satisfy the interest in question. . . . It is easy to see
from this why many critics have argued that Machiavelli fallaciously
assumed international politics to be simply a chess game . . . . But one
might also suggest that this was inevitable, given the versatile and
detached quality of the new science: for the essence of chess is that it is
a science applicable to either side of the board. This can be put
another way by saying that the vantage point which Machiavelli sought
for political theory was to come from its being inspired by a problem
orientation rather than an ideological orientation. A problem has
several facets, an ideology a central focus . 4 5
The stance taken b y Machiavelli's social theorist suggests the principal

assumption of the Sociology of the Absurd - that the world has no objective
meaning. One can study the social world from the point of view of the
superior or the subordinate; of the lover or his mistress; of the bourgeoisie
or the proletariat; of management or labor; of the deviant or the person
who labels him or her deviant, and so on. What is important is that one
should have a perspective, but the particular perspective employed is irrele
vant to the rectitude of theorizing. One can make true statements from any
perspective, including those not consonant with any available ideology.
But a familiar objection to this might be raised: Doesn't a particular
perspective distort the reality under consideration? Surely there is a distor
tion in the perspective of the labelled deviant, as much, perhaps, as that in
the person doing the labelling. Is it not necessary to find some objective
perspective so that the social scientist can obtain the essential meaning of
the social world and the connecting links in social relations? Virtually all the
classical and contemporary theorists searched for the obj ective meaning
and connecting threads of human relationships . For Adam Smith, they are
tied together by an "invisible hand"; for the French philosophes, by the in
eluctable laws of progress; for Marx, by the locomotive of history; for Merton
by functional interdependencies.
For Machiavelli, in contrast, all such ideas about the structure of the
world are as illusory as the fortresses with which fearful princes deluded
themselves into a false sense of security. 4 6 Machiavelli, we believe, is the
father of the Sociology of the Absurd because of his insistence on the essen
tial meaninglessness of the world and his perception of how most people
impute a meaning to their illusions, that is, construct social realities out of
the shreds and patches of their experiences and memories. 4 7
Machiavelli's conception o f man's response once he has recognized that
the world is meaningless is not that of Camus' anti-hero, who gives up his
vale of tears in a brave act of suicide, or Joseph Heller's anti-hero, who
engages in puckish black humor and a hedonistic destruction of shibboleths. 4 8
As the world reveals its arbitrariness, as fortuna unfolds before man, he in
creases his commitment to its challenge, his intense interest in its investiga
tion, his desire for action. That, we believe, lies behind the activities of the
sixteenth century Calvinists described by Weber.49 The Calvinist concep-
ti on o f life and afterlife revealed a God who ruled the universe arbitrarily
and without counsel or advice, or subjection to the pleas of those over
whom he exercised his maj estic authority. Calvinists responded to this not
by resignation, suicide, or hedonism, but rather by an intensive search for
signs of their election or damnation, signs of that over which they had no
control whatsoever. Weber thus suggested that when the world reveals its
meaninglessness, those who discover this plunge into a course of action,
undertake enormous risks, enter into a world of adventure which creates
meanings out of the void, the discovery of which originally set them in mo
tion.
Another precursor of the Sociology of the Absurd, Simmel, perceives
the adventure in the same light. 5 0 The adventure exists outside routine time
and place, is disconnected from everyday affairs. In its periodicity and
episodes, the adventure gives zest and meaning to life. Simmel's disciple,
Robert E. Park, points out that modern urbanites are confronted by such a
variety of rapid social changes taking place before their eyes that meanings
are no longer stable. s 1 As a result people search everywhere for adventure,
thrills, novelty. In the process they break down the old forms of social
organization and create new meanings.
If there are no immutably stable reference points in the social order,
then the obvious place to begin the construction of a social theory is with the
nature of man himself. And here we will employ male imagery, recognizing, of
course, that a female discourse on the same subject would be different. We
begin with man's two most salient characteristics: he is an animal; and he is
capable of symbolic reflection. As an animal, man is fundamentally sexual, as
Freud has argued so convincingly; he is possessed of aggressive impulses, as
Lorenz has shown us in his pan-zoological studies 5 2 ; and he is inclined to
possess and dominate territory, as Ardrey, drawing upon a range of
ethological investigations, has pointed out . 5 3 In short, man is a naked
ape. 54 Of course man is different from the other animals. He is, in Marston
Bates' phrase, a "glutton" and a "libertine"; that is, he seems to be more sex
ual, more aggressive, and more insatiable in his desire to possess things and
dominate people.
More important, the fundamental difference between man and beast is
that the former is gifted with imagination and the mechanism - language
by which he can symbolize and communicate his desires, feelings, and
·
thoughts. With his imagination he not only constructs social life, but also
multiplies his wants, enhances his desires, and pictures his possibilities . In a
sense, his imagining power makes him insatiable, for he is always capable
of conj uring up new images of those things he does not possess or control.
Man is constantly moving, searching for obj ects to fulfill his desires, be
they sexual, aggressive, or territorial. But the supply always seems to be
limited. This, properly, is the starting point of all investigations. Man's
searching interest in domination and control puts him into conflict with
other men. This conflict would be a war of all against all unless some kind
of order were established. The fundamental sociological question is that
posed by Hobbes and reiterated by Simmel: How is social order possible?
From the point of view of humanity this question can be rephrased:
How can people obtain what they want without suffering terrible losses,
defeats, subjugation, or death? For Machiavelli man gets what he wants
through virtue. Virtue is the character that man summons up in the face of
the world. One of the most important elements of virtue is "respect. "
Machiavelli's Prince i s a guidebook for the establishment and maintenance
of respectability. That Machiavelli should be concerned with respectability
may seem strange. But the strangeness dissolves when we consider that
respectability is more a function of appearances than realities, more a con
sequence of what is seen than what is known. As Machiavelli put it, " . . . for
mankind in general judge more by what they see than by what they feel,
every one being capable of the former and but few of the latter. Everybody
sees what you seem to be but few really feel what you are: . . . " s s
For human beings then, achieving ends involves managing appearances.
Instead of an open presentation of self, there is the masked exhibition of per
sona. Masks are the faces we assume appropriate to the situation. The ability to
adopt an appropriate face, and to drop it or change it as exigencies require
is not equally distributed among humankind. For Machiavelli it was a
marvelous gift if a commoner possessed it, but a requirement for a prince.
Modern sociology and world realities have gone further. Robert E. Park
recognized that wearing a mask with ease was often a function of cultural
orientation. 5 6 Blacks in America have found that not merely maintenance
of status but preservation of life itself is at stake when one must mask
realities with appearances. 5 7 The physically disabled and morally
disreputable must somehow manage a respectable appearance from out of
their spoiled identities . s 8 Modern society has democratized Machiavelli's
morality. s 9 Today every man must be a prince - and, perhaps, every
woman a Machiavellian princess.
Two maj or lines of thought flow from Machiavelli's recognition of the
primacy of appearances- over reality. The first is found in the work of a
modern student of virtu, Erving Goffman. Goffman's social actors, like
Machiavelli's prince, live externally. They engage in a daily round of im
pression management, presenting themselves to advantage when able, res
cuing what they can from a bad show. Their everyday life consists of in
teraction rituals, employing deference and demeanor, saving their own and
someone else's face, inhibiting actions that would spoil the fun in games,
being intimate when occasion demands, maintaining distance when prox
imity would be unwise, and in general being continuously alive to the re
quirements of behavior in public places . 6 0
Machiavelli's prince and Goffman's social actor have n o interior

specifications . Rather, situations specify them. Or, as Goffman has put it,
"not men and their moments. Rather moments and their men. "6 1 Machia
velli is not opposed to the humane qualities in humans - indeed he states
that princes should possess them. But a person's success arises not from the
presence or absence of humanity, but rather from the strategic employment
of appearances. In short, it does not matter whether people are virtuous;
what counts is whether they can appear to be so when it matters.
Shakespeare, through the lips of the archvillain of all literary time, placed
the persona ahead of the self, the performance ahead of the reality, and in
doing so captured the general qualities appropriate to Machiavelli's and
modern society:
Why I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
And cry "Content" to that which grieves my heart
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions . . . .
I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,
Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,
And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.
I can add colours to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
It is this imagery, misunderstood, that leads to the humane scholar's
condemnation of Machiavelli. But this is surely to misread not only
Machiavelli, but Shakespeare as well . Shakespeare employs the art of feign
ing and impression management not only in his character Richard III but
also in some of his most heroic figures. Hamlet is perhaps the most outstand
ing, a man who in pursuit of j ustice in a corrupt kingdom, at first feigns
madness, masks his unfilial feelings, and pretends coldness toward his
betrothed, and, despite his artfulness, wreaks havoc in the very process of
gaining his end. And in this we find Machiavelli's fundamental point. Life
is chancy and, even if a man be suited to his time, fortuna may turn against
him. Far in advance of the modern revision of the debate over freedom and
determinism, 62 Machiavelli saw that humanity was neither free nor fated,
but only what it and particular situations demonstrate its condition to be. "I
judge," Machiavelli wrote in discussing this age-old debate, "that it may be
assumed as true that Fortune to the extent of one half is the arbiter of our
actions, but that she permits us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little
less, ourselves ."63 Against Fortune's demanding control, Machiavelli poses
an actor's potential use of the best of stratagems . As Merleau-Ponty has
observed this is a humanism of freedom, suitable not to a utopia but to the
problematic realities of worldly affairs:
If by humanism we mean a philosophy of the inner man which finds

no difficulty in principle in his relations with others, no opacity what
soever in the functioning of society, and which replaces political
cultivation by moral exhortation, Machiavelli is not a humanist. But
if by humanism we mean a philosophy which confronts the relation
ship or man to man and the constitution of a common situation and a
common history between men as a problem, then we have to say that
Machiavelli formulated some of the conditions of any serious human
ism. 64
Goffman has also explored Machiavelli's second sense of virtu. The se
cond meaning of virtu, the Greco-Roman sense of the term, refers to valor,
strength and manliness. In this sense to be virtous is to be forthright,
courageous, and bold. For Latins it is summed up in the term machismo.
This kind of virtue finds its principal form in the voluntary effort to subdue
fortune. It involves what Goffman calls action. 65 The opportunities for ac
tion provide the situations in which men can demonstrate character. Ac
tion, in the fullest sense, calls for courage, carrying on a line of action in the
face of perceived danger; gameness, sticking to an activity despite setbacks,
pain, and exhaustion, by sheer grit; integrity, resisting the temptations of
more profitable inducements which, if accepted, would thwart one's
original aim; gallantry, the maintenance of manly courtesy in the midst of
conflict; and composure, the maintenance of emotional control, poise, and
self-possession in the face of challenges to these emotional states . 6 6
However, if character is a function of action situations, men who find
themselves outside the action realm are under challenge to prove what is not
readily demonstrable, while those immersed in action are required to con
tinuously demonstrate what the occasion demands.
Although, as Machiavelli knew, the two senses of virtu are not mutually
exclusive, their forms may appear separately or even as alternatives to one
another. Thus for Machiavelli a prince might obtain his kingdom by strength
and valor, but maintain it by establishing respectability. For those without
the capacity to establish respectability, valor and strength may be an effec
tive substitute. Of course the appearance of valor is often enough of a
substitute for the real thing to be efficacious. And one of its most salient
characteristics is that element of composure once associated with sophisti
cation and the blase appearance, today called keeping "cool . "67 This aspect
of character is part of the qualities of an action situation and yet one that
can be created, staged, or generated to produce character. Thus children ex
hibit,poise by maintaining a casual appearance while riding a merry-go-round,
college administrators maintain an outward calm in the face of attacks by
militant students, and adolescents establish character by cool composure in
the heat of a "rumble. "
For some people, however, life presents the peculiar problem of allow
ing few opportunities for a show of respectability or valor. These are the
people without the opportunity to exercise virtu, the hostages to fortune.
As Machiavelli has written, "Fortune . . . displays her power where there is
no organized valor to resist her, and where she knows that there are no
dikes or walls to control her. "68 Such people are the oppressed, the down
trodden, the people who walk in despair. But there are more. Shakespeare
has created the minor characters, the archetypical ones are Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern, whose lives are but reflections of the actions or commands of
others. Such persons live in an anomic world, not knowing whether life is a
function of chance, opportunity, or fate. They have their entrances and
their exits, but these are determined and involuntary - all else is waiting and
wondering. 69 The modern Sociology of the Absurd widens the scope of its
dramaturgic net to include not only the star performers and their exercise of
virtu, but also the minor players and their hopeless victimization by fate.
Goffman also has adopted the specific unit of investigation derived
from Machiavelli's conception of social life - the episode. Since the world is
created anew is each encounter, it is precisely these engagements that form
the comprehensible units for sociological investigation. Machiavelli in
dicated this in his discussion of the relationship between the prince's suc
cess, the spirit of the times, and fortune:
I say that we see a prince fortunate one day, and ruined the next,
without his nature or any of his qualities being changed . . . . [T] he
prince who relies entirely upon fortune will be ruined according as
fortune varies . I believe, further, that the prince who conforms his
conduct to the spirit of the times will be fortunate; and in the same
way will he be unfortunate, if in his actions he disregards the spirit of
the times. For we see men proceed in various ways to attain the end
they aim at, such as glory and riches : the one with circumspection, the
other with rashness; one with violence, another with cunning; one
with patience, and another with impetuosity; and all may succeed in
their different ways. 7 0
From this perspective we can see that in analyzing occasions and en
counters, moral norms on their own are meaningless and arbitrary. Any
other set would do. The specific morality that emerges is a case of interplay
between human nature, the meaning of the situation, and chance. This in
terplay is the focus of study - not the interior specifications o.f humankind,
alone; or the external real meaning of the situations, alone; or the chance
probabilities, alone. Thus, it is the episode, which comprehends all three,
that must, in all its complexity, be the proper focus of study.
But an obj ection might be raised. Doesn't this weight the study on the
side of the over-dramatized image of man? 7 1 Does not Goffman's social ac-
tor possess too much input of dramatic finesse, strategic ingenuity and tac
tical genius to be a proper model for humankind? Has not Goffman, in swing
ing the pendulum away from Parsons' over-socialized view of man, 72 moved
too far in the direction of an over-dramatized image of man? 7 3 We would
not presume to answer this question for Goffman, but instead would only
point out that Machiavelli's concept of man-in-episodes takes account
precisely of this all-too-human problem. It is not that all people are clever
calculators constantly matching wits with fellow humans, or that they all
boldly stride out with stratagems to challenge fate. Rather they succeed or
fail according to whatever they can do and its effects on situation and
chance. As Machiavelli put it:
This also causes the difference of success; for if one man, acting
with caution and patience, is also favored by time and circumstances,
he will be successful; but if these change, then will he be ruined,
unless, indeed, he changes his conduct accordingly. Nor is there any
man so sagacious that he will always know how to conform to such
change or times and circumstances; for men do not readily deviate
from the course to which their future inclines them; and, moreover, if
they have generally been prosperous by following one course, they
cannot persuade themselves that it would be well to depart from it.
Thus the cautious man, when the moment comes for him to strike a
bold blow, will not know how to do it, and thence will he fail; while if
he could have changed his nature with the times and circumstances,
his usual good fortune would not have abandoned him. 74
Thus Machiavelli saw that failure might be founded on the sense of

continuity, a person's unchanging nature, which could not respond effica
ciously to the times or the situation . Machiavelli's social actor is not devoid
of history, memory, or biography, as some critics of episodic analyses have
supposed. The episode does not arise full-blown without connections to
past or future. Rather, an actor brings to it his or her memories, perceptual
apparatus, and wishes, hopes and dreams. And if actors have no particular
wishes or goals in an episode, they may j ust muddle through it, piecing it
together as they go, and, perhaps, not reflecting too much about it.
The second line of thought that follows from Machiavelli's emphasis
on appearances, engagements, and the interplay between human nature,
the situation and fate, is "ethnomethodology" - the sociological approach
associated with the work of Harold Garfinkel . 75 Ethnomethodology is a
new - and for many, strange7 6 - approach to the analysis of social phe
nomena. The rather inelegant term refers to the study of the procedures
(methodology) employed by everyday actors (ethnics) in their efforts to
meaningfully cope with the world. Otherwise put, it seeks to give an organized
account o f the routine grounds for everyday action. Although Garfinkel

has not acknowledged any influence from Machiavelli and derives his con
ceptualizations from the sociological philosophy of Alfred Schutz, 77 ethno
methodology starts with the same assumption that informs the Sociology of
the Absurd and owes its intellectual origins to Machiavelli's view of the
world: Nothing in the social world has an inherent meaning. Meaning con
sists only of that which is imputed by people to persons and objects, as they
go about their daily lives trying to make sense of the world.
Ethnomethodologists contend that the subj ect matter of sociology is
not some "raw" reality "out there," whose nature the sociologist discovers
by the methods of natural science. Rather, the subject matter of sociology
consists of the way people in the world have constructed and continue to
construct the "out there. " Hence, unlike the conventional sociologist who
routinely employs the "established" concepts of the discipline - age, sex,
race and class - and who regards social facts - education, ethnicity, and
suicide - as unambiguous, the ethnomethodologist would insist that any
usage of these concepts or recognition of these facts should correspond to
the use that ordinary members of society make of them. Any explanation in
terms of categories intelligible solely to sociologists is not valid.
Ethnomethodologists have employed some of their best efforts in a
critique of the conventional sociologists' use of official statistics . 7 8 To the
extent that the sociologists accept these statistics as symbols of the "raw"
reality which they wishes to understand, they fail to grasp the fundamental
issue of the meaningless world . Thus suicide rates are not raw data; they are
constructions of realities made by officials who must categorize dead
bodies . 79 The first order of business, then, in a sociological analysis of
suicide, is the discovery of how a corpse becomes a suicide. Despite the
many sociological studies of suicide, this prior task has hardly been under
taken. 80
The ethnomethodologist neither takes the world for granted nor imposes
any a priori categories upon it. Instead, he, or she, insists that the world be
treated as problematic. One starts by making the world strange. 8 1 Making
the world strange is the most efficacious way of getting to the "background
expectancies" of everyday life - what Durkheim called the non-contractural
conditions of contract. These understandings underlie the social world and
are pushed to the back of human consciousness until something happens -
a nasty surprise - which brings them to the forefront of awareness. The
background expectancies are demonstrable by experiments which violate
the conditions of trust that circumscribe human affairs. Trust is a readiness
to act in the face of the omnipresent ambiguity and vagueness of meaning in
the belief that things will become comprehensible. The background expec
tancies and conditions of trust constitute the general parameters with which
one may analyze the episode. Thus, ethnomethodology provides not only a
critique of conventional sociology but a specification of the elements needed
to study the basic unit in the Sociology of the Absurd.
The most appropriate way to gather data for use in studies of the Absurd
is by unobtrusive observation of natural settings or by examining reproduc
tions of natural settings - movies, taped conversations, and so on. Just as
Machiavelli's prince is best studied in his everyday situations, so today's
democratized prince (or princess) cannot really be comprehended by survey
research. 8 2 Such must be studied in their natural habitat - the world, that
senseless void where they continuously strive for meaning, undertake ac
tion, wreak havoc, and, in the very processes of so doing, recreate again
and again. It is the meaningless-world-made-meaningful which is the
strategic research site for the Sociology of the Absurd .
PART II:
SCENE
Chapter 2 Territoriality
All living organisms observe some sense of territoriality, 1 that is, some
sense - whether learned or instinctive to their species - in which control
over space is deemed central for survival. 2 Although humankind's domina
tion over space is potentially unlimited, in contemporary society it appears
that people acknowledge increasingly fewer free territories for themselves. 3
Free territory is carved out of space and affords opportunities for idio
syncracy and identity. Central to the manifestation of these opportunities
are boundary creation and enclosure. This is so because activities that run
counter to expected norms need seclusion or invisibility to permit unsanctioned
performance, and because peculiar identities are sometimes impossible to
realize in the absence of an appropriate setting. 4 Thus the opportunities for
freedom of action - with respect to normatively discrepant behavior and
maintenance of specific identities - are intimately connected with the ability
to attach boundaries to space and command access to or exclusion from ter
ritories .
In American society where territorial encroachment affects nearly all
members of society, certain segments of the population are particularly
deprived, namely, Blacks, women, youth, and inmates of various kinds.
With these categories in mind, this paper reintroduces a neglected dimen
sion of social analysis important to understanding deprived groups .
Our strategy is twofold: first, to bring together under a new set of
organizing concepts the notions of types of territory, types of territorial en
croachment and types of responses to encroachment; and second, to specify
the reactions of spatially deprived groups .
THE TYPES OF TERRITORIES
We can distinguish four kinds of territories, namely, public territories,

home territories, interac tional territories and body territories.
Public Territories
Public territories are those areas where individuals have freedom of ac
cess, but not necessarily of action, by virtue of their claim to citizenship. 5
22
Territoriality 23
These territories are officially open to all, but certain images and expecta
tions of appropriate behavior and of the categories of individuals who are
normally perceived as using these territories modify freedom. First, it is
commonly expected that illegal activities and impermissible behavior will
not take place in public places . Since public territories are vulnerable to
violation in both respects, however, police are charged with the task of
removing lawbreakers from the scene of their activities and restricting
behavior in public places. 6
Second, certain categories of persons are accorded only limited access
to and restricted activity in public places . It is expected, for instance, that
children will not be playing in public playgrounds after midnight; that
lower class citizens will not live - although they might work - in areas of
middle class residence; and that Blacks will not be found leisurely strolling
on the sidewalks of all White neighborhoods, though they might be found
laying the sewer pipe under the street.
Since the rights of such discrepant groups to use these territories as
citizens sometimes contradicts the privileges accorded them as persons,
such territories are not infrequently the testing grounds of challenges to
authority. The wave of sit-ins, wade-ins, and demonstrations in racially
segregated restaurants, public beaches, and schools constitutes an outstand
ing recent example. Informal restrictions on access to public territories
often violate unenforced or as yet untested rights of citizens. Since the in
formal delineation of some of these territories implies the absence of certain
persons, their presence stands out. Police frequently become allies of locals
in restricting citizenship rights when they remove unseemly persons from
territories which they do not regularly habituate, or when they restrict cer
tain categories of persons to specific areas. 7
Public territories are thus ambiguous with respect to accorded free
doms . First, the official rights of access may be regularly violated by local
custom. Second, status discrepancy may modify activity and entrance
rights. For example, the ambiguity in the distinction between minors and
adults is a source of confusion and concern in the regulation of temporal
and access rights to those whose status is unclear. Finally, activities once
forbidden in public may be declared permissible, thus enlarging the freedom
of the territory; or activities once licit may be proscribed thus restricting it.
Hence display of female breasts is now permitted in San Francisco night
clubs, but not on the streets or before children. Nude swimming enj oys
police protection at certain designated beaches, but watching nude swim
mers at these same beaches is forbidden to those who are attired. Smoking
cigarettes, cigars and pipes is subj ect to spatial restrictions or forbidden
altogether in some public restaurants and on airplanes, but drinking
alcoholic beverages in these same places has not been restricted in quite the
same way.
Home Territories
Home territories are areas where the regular participants have a

relative freedom of behavior and a sense of intimacy and control over the
area. Examples include makeshift club houses of children, hobo j ungles,
and homosexual bars . Home and public territories may be easily confused.
In fact "the areas of public places and the areas of home territories are not
always clearly differentiated in the social world and what may be defined
and used as a public place by some may be defined and used as a home ter
ritory by others. "8 Thus, a home territory that also may be used as a public
one is defined by its regular use by specific persons or categories of persons
and by the particular "territorial stakes" or "identity pegs" that are found in
such places. The style of dress and language among the patrons at a bar may
immediately communicate to a homosexual that he has arrived in a home
territory, while a heterosexual passerby who pauses for a drink may be
astonished or outraged when he is accosted for sexual favors from the
stranger seated next to him. Large-scale clandestine brotherhoods indoc
trinate their members in secret codes of dress and demeanor so that
regardless of their later travels they can unobtrusively communicate their
fraternal identity and ask for assistance from one another in otherwise
public places . Home territories sometimes enjoy a proactive status, beyond
the presence of their inhabitants, in the form of reserved chairs, drinking
mugs, signs or memorabilia that serve to indicate special and reserved
distinctions.
Home territories may be established by "sponsorship" or "coloniza
tion. " An example of the former is found in the merchant emigrants from
China who established caravansaries in certain quarters of Occidental cities
which served as public trading establishments but also as living quarters,
employment agencies, meeting places, and courts for their Landsmiinner. 9
Colonization occurs when a person or group lays claim to a formally free
territory by virtue of discovery, regular usage, or peculiar relationship.
Thus certain restaurants become home territories to those who are impressed
with their first meal there; to those who eat there on specific occasions, such
as luncheons, birthdays, or after sporting events; and to those who are in
timate with the staff.
Loss of home status may be occasioned by the de�th or resignation of a
sponsor, by violation of the previously established usages, by rej ection, or
by conquest. Erstwhile "regulars" at a bar may discover they are no longer
warmly greeted nor eligible for a free drink when the proprietor dies or
when their patronage becomes irregular. Homosexuals may desert a "queer
bar" when it becomes a place which heterosexuals frequent to observe de
viant behavior.
Territoriality 25
It is precisely because of their officially open condition that public

areas are vulnerable to conversion into home territories. The rules of open
ness are sufficiently broad and ambiguous so that restrictions on time,
place, and manner are difficult to promulgate and nearly impossible to en
force. Armed with a piece of chalk, children can change the public sidewalk
into a gameboard blocking pedestrian traffic. Despite building codes and
parental admonitions youngsters convert abandoned buildings or newly
begun sites into forts, clubs, and hideaways. 1 0
But children are not the only colonizers on the public lands . Beggars
and hawkers will stake out a "territory" on the sidewalks or among the
blocks and occupy it sometimes to the exclusion of all others similarly
employed. The idle and unemployed will loiter on certain streetcorners,
monopolizing the space, and frightening off certain respectable types with
their loud, boisterous, or obscene language, cruel j ests, and suggestive
leers . Members of racial and ethnic groups colonize a portion of the city
and adorn it with their peculiar institutions, language, and rules of
conduct. 1 1 Ethnic enclaves, like certain notorious homosexual bars and
prisons on open-house day, are often "on display" to non-ethnics who thus
grant legitimacy to the colony's claim for territorial identity.
Among the most interesting examples of colonizing on the public lands
are those attempts by youths to stake out streets as home territories open
only to members of their own clique and defended against invasion by rival
groups. Subject always to official harassment by police and interference by
other adults who claim the streets as public territories, youths resolve the
dilemma by redefining adults as non-persons whose seemingly violative
presence on the youths' "turr• does not challenge the latter's proprietorship .
Streets are most vulnerable to colonizing in this manner and indeed, as the
early studies of the Chicago sociologists illustrated so well, streets and knots
of juxtaposed streets become unofficial home areas to all those groups who
require relatively secluded yet open space in which to pursue their interests
or maintain their identities . 1 2
Interactional Territories
Interactional territories refer to any area where a social gathering may

occur. Surrounding any interaction is an invisible boundary, a kind of
social membrane. 13 A party is an interactional territory, as are the several
knots of people who form clusters at parties. Every interactional territory
implicitly makes a claim of boundary maintenance for the duration of the
interaction. Thus access and egress are governed by rules understood,
though not officially promulgated, by the members .
Interactional territories are characteristically mobile and fragile. Par

ticipants in a conversation may remain in one place, stroll along, or move
periodically or erratically. They may interrupt the interaction only to
resume it at a later time without permanently breaking the boundary or
disintegrating the group. Even where "settings" are required for the interac
tion, mobility need not be dysfunctional if the items appropriate to the set
ting are movable. Thus chemists may not be able to complete a discussion
without the assistance of a laboratory, but chess players may assemble or
disassemble the game quite readily and in the most cramped quarters.
Similarly, as long as Blacks were chattel slaves, slaveholders might move
them anywhere where their services or appearance were needed.
The fragility of interactional territories is constantly being tested by
parvenus and newcomers. The latter, even when they possess credentials en
titling them to entrance into the interactional circle, break down ongoing
interaction and threaten it by requiring all to start over again, end it instead
and begin a new subject of common interest, or disintegrate. 1 4 Parvenus
are a greater threat since their presence breaks the boundaries of the interac
tion and challenges the exclusiveness of the group. They may be repulsed,
or accepted fully, though the latter is less likely than the granting of a "tem
porary visa, " i.e., rights to interact for the instant occasion with no promise
of equal rights in the future.
Body Territories
Finally, there are body territories, which include the space encompassed
by the human body and the anatomical space of the body. The latter is, at
least theoretically, the most private and inviolate of territories belonging to
an individual. The rights to view and touch the body area are of a sacred
nature, subject to great restriction. For instance, a person's rights to his
own body space are restricted where norms govern masturbation, or the ap
pearance and decoration of skin. Moreover, rights of others to touch one's
body are everywhere regulated, though perhaps modern societies impose
greater restrictions than others . 1 5
Body territory is also convertible into home territory. The most com
mon method is marriage in a monogamous society in which sexual access to
the female is deemed the exclusive right of the husband so long as he exer
cises propriety with respect to his status. Ownership, however, is not
necessarily or always coterminous with possession, so that sexual rivalry
might continue illegitimately after a marital choice has been made and erupt
in trespass on to the husband's sexual property. 1 6 Under situations where
women are scarce, such as nineteenth-century overseas Chinese com
munities in the United States, sexual property was institutionalized through
Territoriality 27
organized prostitution, and the few Chinese wives among the homeless men
were carefully secluded. 1 7
Body space is, however, subject to creative innovation, idiosyncracy,
and destruction. First, the body may be marked or marred by scars, cuts,
burns, and tattoos. In addition, certain of its parts may be inhibited or
removed without its complete loss of function. These markings have a
meaning beyond the purely anatomical . They are among the indicators of
status or stigma. They can be signs of bravado, as was the dueling scar
among German students, or of criminality as is a similar scar on Italians
and Blacks in America. Loss of an eye may prevent one's entrance into den
tal school, but at least one clothing manufa.cturer regards one-eyed men as
status symbols for starched shirts. Tattoos may memorialize one's mother
or sweetheart as well as indicate one's seafaring occupation.
The human organism exercises extraterritorial rights over both internal
and external space. In the latter instance the space immediately surrounding
a person is also inviolate. 1 8 Thus conversations among friends are
ecologically distinguishable from those between acquaintances or strangers.
A person who persists in violating the extraterritorial space of another of the
same sex may be accused of tactlessness and suspected of homosexuality,
while uninvited intersex invasion may indicate unwarranted familiarity. 1 9
Moreover, eye contact and visual persistence can be a measure o f external
space. Thus two strangers may look one another over at the proper distance
but as they near one another propriety requires that they treat one another
as non-persons unless a direct contact is going to be made. 20
Control over "inner space" is the quintessence of individuality and
freedom. Violations of "inner space" are carried out by domination, rang
ing in intensity from perception of more than is voluntarily revealed to per
suasion and ultimately hypnosis . 2 1 Demonstration of idiosyncracy with
respect to '.'inner space" is exemplified by the modifications possible in the
presentation of self through the uses of the several stimulants and depres
sants.
TERRITORIAL ENCROACHMENT
We can distinguish three forms of territorial encroachment: violation,

invasion, and contamination.
Violation of a territory is unwarranted use of it. Violators are those
who have repulsed or circumvented those who would deny them access.
Violators are also by virtue of their acts claimants in some sense to the ter
ritory they have violated. Their claim, however, may vary in scope, intensity,
and obj ective. Children may violate the graves of the dead by digging "for
treasure" in the cemetery, but unlike ghouls, they are not seeking to remove
the bodies for illicit purposes. Some territories may be violated, however,
merely by unwarranted entrance into them. Among these are all those ter
ritories commonly restricted to categorical groups such as toilets, harems,
nunneries, and public baths - areas commonly restricted according to sex.
Other territories may not a necessarily be violated by presence but only by
innovative or prohibited use. Thus, some parents regard family-wide nudity
as permissible but hold that sexual interest or intercourse among any but
the married pair is forbidden. Interactional territories are violated when
one or more of the legitimate interactants behaves out of character. 22
Invasion of a territory occurs when those not entitled to entrance or
use nevertheless cross the boundaries and interrupt, halt, take over, or
change the social meaning of the territory. Such invasions, then, may be
temporary or enduring.
Contamination of a territory requires that it be rendered impure with
respect to its definition and usage. Cholera may require that a portion of
the city be quarantined. In a racial caste society the sidewalks may be con
taminated by low caste persons walking upon them. Home territories may
be contaminated by pollution or destruction of the "home symbols". Or
thodox Jews may destroy their dinnerware when an unwary maid has ac
cidentally mixed the milk and meat dishes. Heterosexuals who regularly
congregate at a bar sometimes discontinue their patronage when known
homosexuals begin frequenting the bar. (This example illustrates a con
tinuum in the process of territorial encroachment from invasion to con
tamination.) Interactional territories may be contaminated by sudden
odors, especially if they emanate from one of the interactants, or by in
discreet language, e.g., obscenity, among those for whom identification
with such language constitutes a loss of face or a reduction in status. 2 3
Contamination of bodily territories occurs whenever the immediate
space of or around the body is polluted. The removal by bathing of material
involuntarily attached to the skin constitutes a ritualized purification rite of
considerable importance in industrial societies. 24 However, body space may
be contaminated in many ways, by smell, look, touch, and by proximity to
contaminated persons or things. The sensitivity with respect tO touch il
lustrates the complex nature of this contamination and also its peculiarly
social character. The rules regarding touch are highly developed in
American society and are clear indicators of social distance between in
dividuals and groups. 2 5 Typically older people can touch younger ones, but
suspicions of sexual immorality modify such contacts . Women who are
friends or relatives may greet one another with a light kiss (commonly called a
"peck") on the cheek, but not on the lips. Men who are long absent may be
greeted by male friends and relatives with a hearty embrace and a touching
of the cheeks, but the embrace must not be overlong or tender. Indeed,
"rough-housing, " mock-fighting, and pseudo-hostility are commonly
Territoriality 29
employed in masculine affective encounters. Touch which would otherwise

be contaminating is exempt from such designation when it takes place in
situations of intense social action, e.g., on a dance floor, or in situations
when the actors are not privileged to interact, e. g., crowded buses. At other
times bodies contaminated by impermissible contacts are restored to their
pure state by apologies.
Body space may be contaminated by a kind of negative charismatic
contact whereby objects which, though neutral in themselves, carry con
taminating effect when transferred directly to the body. Thus a comb or
toothbrush may not be lent or borrowed in certain circles since to use some
one else's tools of personal hygiene is to contaminate oneself. Typically
when clothing, especially clothing that will directly touch the skin, is lent, it
is proper for the lender to assure the borrower that the apparel is clean, and
that it has not been worn by anyone since its last cleaning. 26 A more striking
example involves the rule of some shops forbidding Blacks from trying on
clothes - their skin being regarded as a source of pollution. Similarly,
drinking from the same glass as another is discouraged as a matter of
hygiene among the middle class and as a source of pollution if it occurs
among persons of different races or castes .
REACTION TO ENCROACHMENT
We have already suggested that something of a reciprocal relation ex

ists between the territorial types . For example, a public swimming
pool - while officially open to all persons - might be conceived by certain
regular users as an exclusive area. Strangers seeking access by virtue of their
diffuse civic rights might be challenged by those whose sense of peculiar
propriety is thus violated . Such a confrontation (sometimes called "when
push meets shove") could result in retreat on the part of the party seeking
admittance, flight on the part of those favoring denial, or strategy and tac
tics on the part of the contending parties to expand the area of legitimate ac
cess on the one hand, and withhold entirely or restrict the meaning of entry
on the other.
Of course, the occupants of a territory may extend its use to others
whose presence is not regarded as a threat. The most common situation is
that in which common usage will not destroy or alter the value of the ter
ritory.27 When public territories have been colonized by users who do not
fully monopolize the space, who embroider it by their presence, or whose
occupancy still allows for other public and colonizing usages, the colonists
will not be seriously opposed . Delinquent gangs who often define the streets
of a neighborhood as a home territory do not usually regard the presence of
local adults and children as an encroachment on their own occupancy. Un-
warranted intrusion on interactional territories may be countenanced if the

unwelcome guest indicates his or her willingness to be present on this occa
sion alone with no future rights of reentry, or to listen only and not to inter
rupt the proceedings. Bodies usually invulnerable to feel and probe by
strangers may be violated if the act is defined as physically safe, socially ir
relevant, or emotionally neutral. Thus, female nurses may massage their
male patients with mutual impunity, and striptease dancers may perform
unclothed upon a raised stage out of reach of the audience. 28 However, all
such contacts will tend to be defined as territorial encroachment when the
claimants threaten obliteration, monopoly, or fundamental alteration of a
territory. Under these conditions, the holders of territory are likely to react
to unwelcomed claimants in terms of turf defense, insulation, or linguistic
collusion.
Turf Defense
Turf defense is a response necessitated when the intruder cannot be

tolerated. The animal world provides a multitude of examples which are in
structive with respect to the human situation. 29 Here we may be content,
however, to confine ourselves to the human scene. When Chinese mer
chants sought "colonizing" rights among the urban merchants of San Fran
cisco, they were welcomed and honored. A few years later, however, the ap
pearance of Chinese miners in the white Americans' cherished gold fields
called forth violent altercations and forced removals. 30 In contemporary
American cities delinquent gangs arm themselves with rocks, knives, tire
irons, and zip guns to repel invaders from other streets. 3 1 Among the
"primitive" Kagoro the choice of weapons is escalated in accordance with
the social distance of the combatants; poison spears and strategems are
employed exclusively against hostile strangers and invaders . 3 2
Turf defense i s a n ultimate response, however. Other more subtle
repulsions or restrictions are available to proprietors wishing to maintain
territorial control.
Insulation
Insulation is the placement of some sort of barrier between the oc

cupants of a territory and potential invaders. The narrow streets, steep
staircases, and regularized use of Cantonese dialects in Chinatowns serve
notice on tourists that they may look over the external trappings of Chinese
life in the Occidental city but not easily penetrate its inner workings .
Distinct uniforms distinguishing status, rights, and prerogatives serve to
protect military officers from the importunities of enlisted men, professors
Territoriality 31
from students, and doctors from patients. 3 3 Bodily insulation characteristi

cally takes the form of civil inattention and may be occasioned by a subor
dinate's inability to repel invasion directly. Another common form of in
sulation involves use of body and facial idiom to indicate impenetrability. It
may be affected by the use of sunglasses, 34 or attained accidentally, by dint
of culturally distinct perceptions of facial gestures, as, for example, often
happens to Asians in Western settings . 3 5 1t can also be attained by conscious
efforts in the management and control of the mouth, nostrils, and especially
the eyes . 3 6
Linguistic Collusion
Linguistic collusion involves a complex set of processes by which the

territorial integrity of the group is reaffirmed and the intruder is labeled as
an outsider. For example, the defending interactants may engage one
another in conversation and gestures designed to so confuse the invaders
that they responds in a manner automatically labeling them eligible for
either exclusion from the group or shameful status diminution. In one
typical strategy the defending interactants will speak to one another in a
language unfamiliar to the invader. Ethnic enclaves provide numerous ex
amples . Jewish and Chinese storekeepers will speak Yiddish and Can
tonese, respectively, to their clerks when discussing prices, bargaining
rights, and product quality in the presence of alien customers. Blacks may
engage one another in a game of "the dozens" in the presence of intruding
whites, causing the latter considerable consternation and mystification . 3 7
And teenagers develop a peer group argot (frequently borrowed from Black
and Rock musician usages) which sets them apart from both children and
adults, and which, incidentally, is most frequently cited as proof for the
claim that a distinctive youth culture does exist in the United States .
In another recognizable strategy, the participants continue to engage

in the same behavior but in a more exaggerated and "staged" manner.
Mood and tone of the voice are sometimes regulated to achieve this effect.
Thus, persons engaged in conversation may intensify their tone and include
more intra-group gestures when an outsider enters the area. Professors may
escalate the use of j argon and "academese" in conversations in the presence
of uninvited students or other "inferiors. " Homosexuals engaged in flirta
tions in a "gay" bar may exaggerate their femininity when het�rosexuals
enter the establishment. Such staged displays call attention to the exclusive
culture of the interactants and suggest to the outsider that he or she is bereft
of the cards of identity necessary to participate.
REACTION TO THE ABSENCE OF FREE SPACE
There are some segments of society that are systematically denied free
territories. One outstanding example is that of lowerclass urban Black
youth. Their homes are small, cramped, and cluttered and also serve as
specialized areas of action for adults; their meeting places are constantly
under surveillance by the agents of law enforcement and social workers;
and, when in clusters on the street, they are often stopped for questioni llg
and booked "on suspicion" by the seemingly ever-present police. 3 8
What is the condition of Black youth in particular appears to be an ex
aggerated instance of the trend with respect to denial of freedom among
youth in general. Thus it has been suggested that youth are adrift some
where between humanism and fatalism, i.e. , between situations in which
they feel they have control over their destinies and those in which such con
trol is in the hands of forces outside youth's individual direction and in
fluence. 39 In such a situation one response is to seek to maximize the area of
freedom, the situations in which one can exercise liberty and license, the
times one can be cause rather than effect. Among lower-class youth the car
ving of home territories out of the space provided as public ones is common
and has already been noted. Note also, however, the frequency with which
youth-created home territories are subject to invasion, violation, and con
tamination and the relative vulnerability of youth home territories to such
encroachments.
Exercising freedom over body territory provides a more fruitful ap
proach to those for whom public territories are denied and home territories
difficult or impossible to maintain. The body and its attendant inner and
external space have an aura of ownership and control about them that is im
pressed upon the incumbent. The hypothesis we wish to suggest here is that
as other forms of free territory are perceived to be foreclosed by certain
segments of the society, these segments, or at least those elements of the
segments not constrained by other compelling forces, will utilize more fre
quently and intensively the area of body space as a free territory. Three
forms of such utilization are prominent: manipulation, adornment, and
penetration.
Manipulation rests upon the fact that the body is adj ustable in a
greater number of ways than are positively sanctioned and that by modify
ing the appearance of the self one can establish identity,_and flaunt conven
tion with both ease and relative impunity. Thus children, separated from
one another for being naughty and enjoined from conversation, may sit
and "make faces" at one another, conforming to the letter of their punish
ment but violating its principle. Teenagers, denied approval for the very
sexual activity for which they are biologically prepared and also enclosed
more and more from private usage of public territories for such purposes,
Territoriality 33
have developed dance forms which involve little o r n o body contact but are
nevertheless suggestive of the most intimate and forbidden forms of erotic
interaction. Further, male youth - enj oined from verbal scatological forms
by customs and by rules of propriety - have developed a gesture language
by which they can communicate the desired obscenity without uttering it.
Adornment of the body is another response. 4 0 By covering, uncover
ing, marking, and disfiguring the body individuals can at least partly over
come whatever loss of freedom they suffer from other encroachments.
Both the French "bohemians" of the nineteenth century and the disaffected
American Black youths of the twentieth have exhibited themselves as "dan
dies, "4 1 while the ascetic Doukhobors of British Columbia disrobe entirely
and in public when challenged by authority. 4 2 Body space may also be at
tended by filling in the apertures in nose, mouth and ears by rings, bones,
and other emblematic artifacts; by marking upon the skin with inks and tat
toos; and by disfigurements, scars, and severance of non-vital members .
An alternative mode of adornment, that appears to be directed definitely
against elements of the core culture, is the refusal to use instruments of per
sonal hygiene. We have already noted how these instruments acquire a
peculiar aspect of the personal charisma of the user so that people do not
customarily borrow the comb, toothbrush, and razor of another unless the
contamination that occurs thereby is neutralized. Here, however, adorn
ment occurs by simply not washing, combing, shaving, cutting the hair, etc.
Like public nudity this form of assertiveness and reaction to oppression has
the advantage of inhibiting a like response among those who are offended
by the appearance created thereby, but, unlike stripping in public, the added
advantage - in many but not all instances - of being legal.
Penetration refers to the exploitation and modification of inner space
in the search for free territory. One might hypothesize that the greater the
sense of unfreedom, the greater the exercise of body liberty so that penetra
tion is an escal �ted aspect of manipulation and adornment. There is, as it
were, a series of increasing gradations of body space. The ultimate effort is
to gain freedom by changing one's internal environment. The simplest form
of this is cultivating a vicarious sense of being away, of transporting the self
out of its existential environment by musing, daydreaming, or relapsing into a
reverie. 4 3 However, voluntary reorganization of the inner environment can
be assisted by alcohol and drugs. Contemporary college youth sometimes
partake of hallucinogenic and psychedelic drugs in order to make an inner
migration (or "take a trip" as the popular idiom has it) .
CONCLUSION
The concept of territoriality offers a fruitful approach for the analysis

of freedom and situated action. Although the early school of ecology in
American sociology provided a possible avenue for this kind of explora

tion, its practitioners appear to have eschewed the interactionist and
phenomenological aspects of the subject in favor of the economic and the
biotic. Nevertheless, much of their work needs to be examined afresh for
the clues it provides for understanding the nature and function of space and
the organization of territories. Similarly, the work done by the students of
nonhuman animal association provides clues to concept formation and sug
gestions for research . Here we may mention several potentially fruitful
areas. The first involves cross-cultural studies of territoriality. Such studies
would attempt to describe in greater specificity the constituent features of
types of territoriality, the ways in which they vary, and their interrelation
ships . Using a cross-cultural perspective would also serve to specify generic
forms of reactions to territorial encroachment and to establish how certain
contexts predispose one type of response rather than another. A second
area of research would focus on a variety of deviant behaviors (e.g., crime,
juvenile delinquency, drug addiction) with the purpose of understanding
the part the territorial variable plays in the etiology of such behaviors.
Finally, we may suggest that micro-sociological studies of territoriality
which are perhaps more amenable to rigorous research design - may be extra
polated to an analysis of macro-sociological inquiries, especially in the
realm of international affairs.
Chapter 3 TIME TRACKS
Humankind's mortality forces it to organize and allocate its energy ac

cording to that most scarce resource - time. 1 Social and cultural conventions
carve out time segments from the raw, existential world, providing direction
giving tracks of meaning upon which people travel through life. Human ex
istence is in effect a journey upon a complex network of time tracks.
Time tracks are temporal periods employed by individuals, groups,
and whole cultures to designate the beginnings or the termination of things.
To take a culturally specific example, the span of life and its benchmarked
periods such as childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age are time
tracks experienced as part of the human condition in the Occident.
The time track concept presupposes that social actors conceive of periods
as characterized by a dominant event or type of event, activity or type of ac
tivity, thought or category of thought. Thus, American historians have
treated the twelve-year period from 1 865 to 1 877 as The Tragic Era, 2 and
they have apparently accepted F. Scott Fitzgerald's announcement that the
Jazz Age, which had begun with the May Day riots of 1 9 1 9, had come to a
close with the stock market crash of October, 1 929. 3
But time tracks are not the sole possession of historians nor do they
arise only in the creative imagination of perceptive writers. One of the ubi
quitous dimensions of ordinary life, they are recognized as maj or elements
of careers, as crucial factors in family life, and as routine parts of everyday
occasions. Moving from one track to another is sometimes celebrated by a
rite of passage; travelling along others is sometimes abruptly halted. Some
people know just what time tracks they are on, how long they last, and
when to change from one to another; others are startled by their discovery
of a track, ignorant of its length, and confused about change. In any case,
since social behavior takes place on time tracks, any social system may be
conceived as an arrangement of time-specific activities .
Briefly put, our purpose is to present the maj or analytical features of
time tracks and to suggest a conceptual scheme for their study. Hopefully,
this preliminary enterprise will sensitize future researchers to the historicity
of social phenomena, the rhythms of activities, and the tempos of life. Time
tracks are both retroactive and proactive. They provide circumscriptions of
the past and post markers along the future. They mark the passages : life,
history, and civilizations.
35
ANALYTIC FEATURES OF TIME TRACKS
In thinking about "time," we have found two pairs of sensitizing concepts

useful - "humanistic-fatalistic" and "continuous-episodic. "4
The first pair of concepts to be examined measures events and their
passage along a humanistic-!atalistic dimension. 5 By humanistic time
tracks we refer to the complex subj ective experience that activities are
governed by personal decision, are entered into with a sense of mastery or
control, and are exhibited through self expression. By fatalistic time tracks
we refer to the subjective experience that these activities are matters of
obligation or compulsion, are outside the active domination of the social
actor, and are vehicles of coercive or conformist rather than individual ex
pression . . Social arrangements generate the experience that is defined as
humanistic or fatalistic.
Persons on fatalistic time tracks find themselves suffering the inconve
niences of time. Activities in which they are involved seem like slavery.
Terms like "rat race, " commonly applied to obligatory activities in
bureaucratic settings, apprehend the subj ective sense of fatalism sensed in
some occupations . While all individuals may experience events or activities
fatalistically sometimes, certain segments of society are more likely to
perceive their very existence in fatalistic terms. In original Calvinism, as
Max Weber pointed out, life itself was defined as predetermined by God's
will; neither man's deeds nor his wishes could change the inevitable out
come. 6 Apart from the belief in fatalism derived from cultural definitions
are situations and settings that tend to induce the same subjective sense. The
urban black poor, inmates of various kinds, and persons in disastrous but
unbreakable marriages are but some of the most noticeable social groups
that experience their life situations as fatalistic.
One response to the anxious and frustrating awareness of being on a
fatalistic time track is the attempt to gamble with fate by seeking to alter the
seemingly inevitable. This involves the conversion of fatalistic to
humanistic time tracks . In general, the individual will attempt to be placed.
In a particular relation to time - a relation in which he or she can subjectively
experience both personal freedom and active control over events. One
manifestation of this phenomenon involves taking risks. Flaunting fate and
history's directive, a man or a woman may allow the free play of impulses to
disorganize the predicted, frustrate the dictated, or wreak havoc in the
ordered world. Thus, the fatalistic adolescent abandons his destiny to a
rumble; the frustrated middle-class youth tests the limits of mind and body
with powerful drugs; the inmate challenges the powerful staff to a fight;
and the wife trapped in a "hollow shell" marriage takes a lover, or in
desperation attempts suicide.
Time Tracks 37
Much activity undertaken by those on fatalistic time tracks is defined

by others as deviant behavior. This behavior, however, may be viewed as
the conversion of anxiety-ridden fatalism to "courageous" humanism. The
"little man" who robs a bank seizes the initiative from destiny. For robbing
a bank activates the community. The robber provides a cause for activity on
the part of others and thus converts himself from obj ect to subject, from
puppet to puppeteer. In general any infraction invites a counteraction7 -
and this counteraction is the very evidence needed to know that, for the mo
ment, one controls destiny.
Adventures - bankrobbing is an extreme example - are relevant for the
analysis of humanistic-fatalistic time tracks because of the unique manner in
which they relocate individuals in time and because they provide unusual
opportunities for the reduction of alienation. 8 One especially important ele
ment in the adventure is its absolute separation from linear time and inter
connected events . The adventure, as Simmel has observed, "is independent
of the 'before' and 'after'; its boundaries are defined regardless of them. "9
Because of this fundamental disconnectedness, because of its existence in
time and space sui generis, the adventure functions as a relief and respite to
those on fatalistic time tracks. For its duration, the individual is freed from
the dictated importunities of time, subj ected to his or her own abilities,
recreated as a potential master of the scene. Adventures thus make poten
tial heroes of "little people, " offering opportunities for enterprise and skill
that fate has otherwise proscribed.
The adventure, unlike the seeming continuity of the rest of life, col
lapses the scene of action in time. Nowhere is this illustrated better than in
gambling, a species of the adventure that throws further light on its peculiar
qualities. In contrast to most of life's endeavors, the gambler challenges
fate and experiences the outcome within the same spatio-temporal episode.
The crucial point here is best seen if we compare the temporal qualities in
the challenge of undertaking a new occupational career with those of
undertaking a bet on a horse. In the former instance the resolution of the
gamble may not be realized for many years; 1 0 in the latter, it is realized in
less than two minutes . Five hundred dollars might be a month's wages, but
a two-dollar bet on a promising daily double might earn an equivalent
amount in a moment. 1 1 Gambling also involves a peculiar combination of
chance and rationality not found in the same corelationship in everyday
life. Thus, there is a rationality in gambling that suggests a peculiar sense of
mastery and control. 1 2 On the other hand, gambling provides the oppor
tunity for an individual to draw chance from its apparent inaccessibility and
harness it to his or her private ends. 1 3
In general, persons who sense they are on humanistic time tracks ex
perience life as exhilarating and euphoric; those on fatalistic tracks, as
deadening and distasteful. The latter will seek humananization in some
form. Treated as a phenomenon of modern times, adventurous activity has

been simultaneously democratized and delegitimized ever since Calvinism
imposed its puritanical doctrines on work and self. 1 4 Since then adventures
are, in a general sense, achieved only vicariously in fantasy and fiction, or
accepted when they occur among ordinary men as unexpected premiums in
an otherwise humdrum life, as unusual opportunities for self-expression.
The second maj or dimension we refer to as continuous-episodic time
tracks. The everyday phrases "long term" and "short term" apprehend some
elements of this time track dimension. In general we may say that the length
of a time track is inversely proportional to the pace of behavior associated
with it. Thus, the occupational career is associated with a long term ac
cumulation of merits and skills, a slow but steady building up of confidence
and socio-occupational adeptness, and an inhibition of excessive spon
taneous emotionality. By contrast episodes are characterized by an intensity
of activity, a relaxation of controls and vigilance, and more frenetic
behavior. The distinction can be seen if we compare the amorous affair
with marriage.
A romantic affair has an episodic quality about it quite unlike mar
riage. "To be a lover is easier than to be a husband, " wrote Balzac. "For it is
far more difficult to show intelligence every day than to make pretty
speeches from time to time." Love, as Simmel reminds us, encompasses a
twofold aspect of the erotic. "It displays two standards of time: the momen
tarily climactic, abruptly subsiding passion; and the idea of something
which cannot pass, an idea in which the mystical destination of two souls
for one another and for a higher unity finds temporal expression . " 1 5 The
man who has made a career out of fleeting, intense, but short-lived affairs
with women employs the rhetoric of a never-ending love in order to secure
his immediate interests. Thus we learn that Casanova recorded in his
memoirs that he had intended to marry one or another of his many
mistresses . But Simmel interprets this as but his immersion in the "rapture
of the moment, " an involvement that was so engrossing that "he wanted to
enter into a future relationship which was impossible precisely because his
temperament was oriented to the present. " 1 6 The erotic moment, its flushed
excitement, its beginning and end in a single episode, its promise and
realization experienced in a single time period, stands in sharp contrast to
marriage with its career-like duration and manifold aspects beyond the
purely erotic.
Life is experienced as being both continuous and episodic. In one sense
episodes punctuate continuous time tracks, providing them with benchmarks,
calamities , surprises, beginnings and terminations.
Given these preliminary remarks, we may now detail certain other
analytic features of time tracks.
Time Tracks 39
To begin with, all time tracks are governed by norms of pace and se
quence. Sometimes these norms are enforced by nature. An airplane pilot,
for example, must go through a set of intervening steps between the time he
sights the field and lands the plane. A failure at any point in this intervening
sequence might lead to incontrovertible consequences. A less stringent but
similar situation may arise in the advanced stages of courtship. A woman
may demonstrate that she loves a man by permitting, at his request, sexual
relations . Despite her permissive contentions, she may suddenly deny him
sexual access because she had failed to take intervening contraceptive
precautions . Such a denial, at a strategic j uncture in their relationship,
could - in the absence of an efficacious excuse - lose the man forever.
Courtship provides many illustrations of the operation of norms of
pace and sequence. As two people become attached to one another the fre
quency of their meetings is expected to increase, the quality of their mutual
involvement is expected to grow, and the nature of their intimacies escalate.
Thus in the early stages of courting the couple may attend to a ritual of din
ing, dancing and, at first, light petting. Later, if the courtship is mutually
gratifying, the preliminaries may be dispensed with and heavy petting
resorted to from the beginning of each encounter. 1 7 Petting itself calls for a
carefully handled progressive sequence, beginning first with hand-holding,
moving on to kissing, and then extending to more intimate embraces, in
cluding the handling of private parts. Heavy petting may later become the
play preceding intercourse. To exercise the pace too rapidly or to skip early
stages is - at least among middle-class Americans - to risk being labeled a
boor, ineligible for future entree into polite society.
Norms of pace and sequence can also be seen operating in the area of
race and ethnic relations . The second generation of every immigrant group
is expected to do better than its parent generation. Groups or segments of
groups that have collectively failed in upward mobility suffer from the
frustrations of "timetable failure. " 1 8 The consequences of this sense of
failure are varied . One result that has been made visible by the recent
movements for desegregation in largely Polish and other Eastern European
neighborhoods in midwestern cities is direct and violent aggression against
other minority groups that appear to be surpassing them too rapidly. 1 9 In
American race relations as in courtship there is apparently a perceived pace
and sequence in which both movement that is too rapid and movement that
is too slow are regarded as untoward and unacceptable.
Individuals who violate norms of pace and sequence in face-to-face
relations are often labeled "mentally ill. "20Psychiatrists have categories for
speed problems . Slow speech and body movement are taken as symptoms
of depressive states, while the opposite behavior pattern is evidence of a
manic condition. In evaluating speed of action as a sign of mental illness,
the social situation is taken into account. An impression of severe mental
illness is given, for example, "by the patient who is on the grounds when it
begins to rain and who, unlike others caught outside, does not walk faster
or pull his clothes more tightly about him. Since he does not have a fitting
concern for his own physical welfare, it is an open question as to just what it
is he is concerned with. "2 1 Other instances of pace disorientation indicate
that social and historical contingencies make an important difference in
designating such activity as normal, religious, or pathological. The steps of
current dances in America resemble the dancing manias of the sixteenth
century, but to do the former is not to open oneself seriously to the charge
of collective madness. Rolling on the floor to the shouts and chants of cer
tain religious groups is a sign of heavenly possession; similar behavior in a
grocery store or a court room is testimony to insanity. Glossolalia among
pentecostalists is revered; among school children, it is a sign of severe
speech disorder. In short, the physical pace of body movement and speech
may be rated, contextually, according to its proximity or departure from
acceptable norms . Sometimes being physically out of step is being
psychologically out of step as well.
Norms of pace and sequence are frequently related to age-specific ac
tivities . For example, most industrial cultures suppose that people will enter
school, complete their education, and get married within a certain age
period. Although the exact age for any of these may not be specified an age
range is recognized beyond which completion of the activity becomes either
problematic, remarkable, a sign of deviance, or irrelevant for measurement
of success. In the occupational sphere certain notions of when people are
promising, up-and-coming, and has-beens are established by age or age
ranges . An obvious example is the case of the professional athlete - boxer,
football player, baseball player. For a while he occupies the status of a
"comer" or a "promising rookie"; soon his designation - if be succeeds - is
shifted to steady performer or star. But at a certain age (usually, but not
always, by the late 30's) he is regarded as an old man of the game. He has
come to the end of his occupational time track.
Age is also a crucial consideration in the career lines of many women.
The flight attendant, the fashion model, and the chorus girl - each knowing
that she has only a few years to display her bodily talents to best advantage,
finds herself being continually subj ect to marriage proposals. Should she
turn down such proposals while still in a position to gain "exposure" to
perhaps more rewarding marriage prospects? If she delays too long in ac
cepting a proposal she runs the risk of coming to the end of her career with
neither a saleable talent nor a secure marriage to see her through her less
pulchritudinous years .
Age-specific consideration are particularly relevant to certain occupa
tions that place a premium on precociousness. In certain career lines there
are widespread beliefs about the crucial importance of establishing ability
Time Tracks 41
at an early age. I t i s held, fo r example, that Olympic swimmers, mathemati

cians, jockeys, and virtuoso violinists must demonstrate considerable skill
in childhood or not be considered potential "greats" in their respective
fields .
Among the many features of time tracks mention must be made of their
degree of determinateness and indeterminateness. A jail sentence, a hitch in
the army, and a college curriculum have high degrees of determinateness.
Usually they are specified as having a particular temporal length, or the
time-activity ratio is so evident that anyone can plan with a high degree of
certainty on how long the activity will take or how long one must wait for
the end . On the other hand, when the j udge metes out an indeterminate
prison sentence, when the army command decides that military service will
extend for the duration of hostilities, or when the requirements for college
matriculation change annually, the respective parties to these arrangements
experience a sense of temporal unpredictability.
Determinateness is a feature of any time track when the notion of a
"deadline" is invoked. Deadlines themselves have a flexibility which often
involves crucial decisions by the relevant social actors . Thus, a newspaper
must be "put to bed" at a certain hour to meet the afternoon edition, but if a
reporter shows up after the deadline with a "scoop" a decision has to be
made whether the presses should be stopped. On the other hand, some
deadlines are irrevocable. A bet on a horse must be placed before the horses
break through the barrier. A player with a "sure thing" who arrives at the
window after the horses have begun to run is simply "shut out" by the
automatic locking of the mutuel machines . Still other deadlines are socially
understood to be more flexible than they appear. A military ultimatum to
an enemy to surrender by a certain time or face attack, or a statement by a
suitor that he will give a woman exactly one year to fall in love with him
before breaking off relations entirely are deadline threats that may not be
taken at face value. The situation here is usually that of a specialized infor
mation game wherein the participants on each side will seek out indepen
dent evidence to confirm or deny the stated meaning of the threat. 2 2
TIME TRACK MOVEMENT
Movement on time tracks may be analyzed by reference to the actions

and beliefs associated with entering and terminating such tracks and with
"side-tracking" and "switching tracks. "
One issue that arises with respect t o entering (or serving out) a specific
time track is the actor's knowledge that he or she has done just that. Institu
tionalized time tracks are distinctive in that the individuals are usually
unambiguously informed that they have entered into (or failed to enter into) a
temporal sequence of activity or activity states . The annual birthday party

informs the middle-class child that he or she has entered into a new age
specific status; the commitment ceremony initiates the time track for the
mentally ill; and the trial, jury decision, and sentence begin the time track
for the prisoner. Some time tracks, however, are suddenly thrust upon per
sons without ceremony or prior information. The man who wishes to
change j obs but then discovers he has been contributing for years to a non
transferable pension fund finds that he has been on a time track that he can
leave only at considerable financial cost . More dramatic time-track
disclosures occur when a doctor informs his patient that he has only six
months to live, or when a woman tells her lover that in eight months he will
be a father.
Just as entering a time track may or may not be governed by ritual or
information so also termination is sometimes marked by finalizing
ceremonies . In the life-death time track the funeral is the usual terminating
ritual. This ritual is crucial in providing the connecting link between the end
of secular time and the beginning of sacred existence.
Other time tracks also have terminating rituals. Retirement from gainful
employment in the white-collar occupations is usually ceremonialized by a
luncheon and a token of appreciation. Tokens of course are important for
their symbolic content; and transfer of tokens often indicates termination of
the relationship, as when the fiancee returns the engagement ring, or when
the soldier-turned-pacifist sends his military decorations to the government.
Time tracks differ with respect to the strict liability in role performance
demanded of persons who have j ust entered or are about to leave. Women
entering marriage are at the outset permitted many failures in the kitchen
and in bed, but as the marriage goes on performances in both areas are ex
pected to improve and mistakes are less often overlooked. By contrast, the
army recruit is early required to give maximum effort to discipline and
military etiquette; however, toward the end of his hitch he is granted more
leeway. Early excellence is apparently required in time tracks that take up
less than the whole of one's life, that are risky and connected to tasks
governed by technique and intelligence, and that are subj ect to public
scrutiny. Time tracks that encompass life itself, that are not so risky but
rather involve a diffuse and untechnical orientation, and that are subj ect to
private judgment seem to encourage gradual adjustment rather than instant
mastery.
Still another element in the termination of time tracks involves the in
stitutionalized modes of suspending rules that have previously been binding.
The condemned prisoner, despised during the course of his imprisonment, is
allowed to select a gourmet dinner and permitted certain other final re
quests on the eve of his execution. In some legal and social circles the words
of a dying man are granted a greater measure of credence than at any other
Time Tracks 43
time in his life and his wishes and testament are given considerable weight.
And on such social occasions as card parties, the last hand of poker is often
settled by innovative game-specific criteria, and the players. relax their
usual role vigilance by betting poor hands. 23
We may note finally that persons at the end of time tracks are some
times called upon to mobilize maximum control over self. A most dramatic
illu&tration is found in public executions. On such occasions an extra
ordinary display of appropriate character may recoup a lost moral identity.
Thus both kings and killers are constrained to display aloof detachment or
joking light-heartedness at the execution block . Death conduct in general is
of such a morally significant nature that those who go to their deaths with
cheerfulness and equanimity are often honored for lightening the emotional
load on those who must witness their death and remember it. 24 Termina
tions of time tracks can be distinguished, then, according to those that end
with passive acquiescence and little expressive activity on the part of the ter
minating party, or those that call upon him or her to display a character or
"face" suited to the situation.
Between the entering and terminating of time tracks are periods we
may call "side tracking." Three types of side tracking are prominent: waiting,
time out, and withdrawal.
Waiting periods may be cyclical or linear. Cyclical periods are repetitive
intermissions between a single type of activity. A remarkable example is
provided by certain unemployed urban black men who bide their time until
Thursday night, typically the suburban black maid's night off, whereupon
they drive to the railroad station, pick up one of the maids, and enj oy a
night of revelry and profit. 2 5 The period between these Thursday nights is
defined as "dead" time - a period of social inactivity. On a macrocosmic
level, cyclical waiting may be sensed by the assimilated members of society
who carefully observe benchmarks along the several trajectories toward
assimilation traversed by different ethnic groups in order to know j ust when
occupational equality and personal intimacy may be granted to each group
with social impunity. 2 6
Linear waiting consists of a long stay in a state of meditative quies
cence or anxious inaction until something expected occurs . For those who
believe that earthly existence is but a prelude to a more meaningful afterlife,
life itself may be experienced as nothing more than a linear waiting period.
Some of the problems and processes of linear waiting are exemplified in the
attitudes and actions of those who expect a millenium.
The problem of the meaning of innerwordly life and historical events
for those awaiting a millenium is dramaturgicaly depicted in Clifford
Odets' Waiting for Lefty and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. In the
former, a play produced in 1 93 5 , a group of factory workers are waiting for
Lefty, the chairman of their strike committee, to come and tell them what
to do. While waiting each man recounts his biography, telling how he came
to his present social position and indicating more or less uncertainty with
respect to action or quiescence. A representative of management argues
against any untoward deeds, but others wonder whether they should wait
any longer since Lefty may never come. Lefty, symbolically representative
of both the inevitable revolution and the revolutionary leader, eventually is
found dead, and the workers are then galvanized to action. In true secular,
chiliastic27 form they shout that only one course is available now: "strike,
strike, strike! "2 8 If strident action on behalf of the inevitable outcome is one
way to assuage doubt and make proper use of otherwise dead time for some
on the waiting list of fate, others are moved to regard the whole of life as
meaningless. In Beckett's Waiting for Godot, two tramps, waiting for their
appointment with the never-defined Godot, talk on and on, argue, joke,
but "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful. "29 As Mar
tin Esslin30 points out, "The subj ect of the play is not Godot but waiting,
the act of waiting is an essential aspect of the human condition." But if fate
is uncertain, if grace is not necessarily attained by good work or deeds, if in
deed fate itself is problematic, then waiting is absurd and the activities
undertaken while waiting for the inevitable are equally absurd. Life is
meaningless, a cruel j oke, and perhaps afterlife is a chimera or an equally
cruel j oke. Godot may never come. But still Estragon and Vladimir wait.
To realize the totality of their absurdity would be too horrible to con
template. And if the future is both inevitable and ungovernable, one way to
resolve both the terrible realization of life's meaninglessness and the awful
but unknowable end is unmeditative routine; unreflective activity - a
plunge into ceaseless motion that keeps man from thinking too much about
what is past and what is to come. 3 1
Beneath the awful contemplation of fateful waiting are the more mun
dane waiting periods on career and situational time tracks. Illustrations of
these are found everywhere, and here we need but mention the familiar idea
of being frozen in rank, trapped on a seniority list waiting for one's superior
to die or retire, and - in situational time tracks - waiting for the next hand
to be dealt in a game of cards, waiting for the movie to end so that serious
petting may begin on a date, and so on.
A second type of side tracking is the phenomenon of time out. Time
out refers to a respite in activities related to a specific time track, a period
when rules and roles related to that track are relaxed or revoked . During
this time-specific state contradictory or irrelevant behavior may be carried
out with impunity. 3 2 Gaines of all kinds are characterized by either for
malized or informal periods in which game play is suspended and unrelated
activities or relaxation permitted; the same is true for work in modern set
tings , institutionalized in the coffee break. On the lifetime track the adven
ture, as Simmel defines it, is a time out period.
Time Tracks 45
Of course time out on one kind of activity signals time in on another.

Time out is used to differentiate the serious from the droll, the sacred from
the profane, the impersonal from the intimate. And thus time out may in
clude a switch in time tracks from the long-term to the episodic, from one
kind of episode to another, from the fatalistic to the humanistic, and so on.
Joking relationships and episodes illustrate the temporal change from one
kind of activity state to another. In some social circles card playing requires
a ruthless attention to the game throughout the play; but between deals
players may relax their role seriousness and tease one another, relate anec
dotes, and engage in other irrelevant and unserious acts . 3 3
A third type o f side-tracking i s withdrawal. Withdrawal refers t o acts
of persons or groups who voluntarily retire from the time tracks they are
traversing. Looked at from the point of view of the society in which they
live, those who withdraw are challengers to social stability and the greater
their degree of social visibility the greater their threat. The classic instance is
the loving pair, who, should they become too involved with one another,
withdraw from social responsibilities. Libidinal withdrawal and its societal
dysfunctions are one of the classic explanations for the incest taboo. 34 The
loving pair are a greater threat when they form the primary unit of an ex
tended kinship complex that requires diffuse mutual responsibilities, and
for this reason, romantic love is discouraged in such units . 3 5
Further features of withdrawal and its threat t o social order are in
dicated if we compare societal attitudes toward the "primitive" and the
"hippie. " When Europeans came in contact with Africans and Indians they
designated them "primitives" and "savages" and imputed to them the char
acteristics of promiscuity, license, and amorality - the very characteristics
which were feared and envied among themselves . 36 Savages threatened
European civilization in that their alleged emphases on the subterranean
and forbidden features of Western culture might tempt talented men to
abandon the burden of civilization for the freedom of native life. Individual
instances of men "going native" - the case of Gauguin is an outstanding ex
ample - were sufficiently prevalent to keep alive the fear that the West
would be drained of its talented men . 3 7 Cloistered withdrawal, on the other
hand, is always less of a threat to the social order since those who take this
step are removed from public view and presumably exercise less of an induce
ment to those who remain within the mundane world. But public monastic
ism - withdrawal from culturally prescribed activities unaccompanied by
physical removal - challenges the social order itself by its high visibility. In
this sense the recent "hippie" revolt, characterized by a refusal to carry out
even the minimal requirements of the Protestant ethic concomitant with
"colonization" on public territories, provides a threat and a seduction to
social order similar to that of the "primitive" two centuries removed. 3 8 And
thus we find police and other agencies seeking to limit hippie activity or
remove them altogether from the social scene. 39 Withdrawal involves a

kind of social regression, 4 0. and when it occurs, efforts will be made to bring
back the individual or group that strays off the beaten path.
Withdrawal and the adventure have certain characteristics in common.
Both proceed outside of given time tracks removing the person physically or
vicariously from his spatio-temporal surroundings . 4 1 Moreover, either
might proceed from the same kind of evaluation of ongoing social
events - that they are distasteful or boring. However, withdrawal and the
adventure have at least one difference in orientation: Withdrawal tends to
move people inward and to localize their action; the adventure radiates out
ward and broadens the field and its consequences.
Sidetracking is often the motivation for switching time tracks. Switch
ing tracks is facilitated when two or more tracks come in tandem and may
be thought of as manifest and latent time tracks. For example, the
policeman in following his own career comes into regular contact with
criminals and their stratagems; moreover, because of his knowledge of the
law and the mechanisms of detection employed by the police he may come
to believe in his own ability to mastermind the very type of crime he is sup
posed to prevent and switch from a career of law enforcement to one of
lawbreaking. Similarly, flight attendants can easily become drug smug
glers; accountants, embezzlers; and postal carriers, runners for the numbers
racket.
Perhaps some of the most clear-cut examples of track switching are
found in the "bridging" occupations, such as servant, soldier, and sports
man - which provide through work experience "the conditions and oppor
tunities for involvement from one occupation or cluster of occupations to
another."42 The butlers in nineteenth-century England, and perhaps high
ranking domestic employees everywhere, were in a position to acquire
knowledge, tastes, and secrets, enabling them to transfer from formal service
to innkeeping, sponsorship in business enterprises, or formal partnership in or
unofficial control over the estates they managed. Similarly, the military of
ficer moves from formal retirement in middle age to advising a munitions
firm, and the professional athlete becomes a sportscaster, or opens a
restaurant that trades on the owner's fame.
TIME PANIC
Time panic is produced when an individual or a group senses it is coming

to the end of a track without having completed the activities or having gained
the benefits associated with it, or when a routinized spatio-temporal activity
set is abruptly brought to imminent closure befo re it is normally scheduled
to end.
Time Tracks 47
Episodic time panics are brought into being by a sudden catastrophe

that threatens either damage or destruction to the immediate situation, or
to life itself. Common among the former are all those slips, gaffes, boners
and errors emanating from either the actor or audience, which interrupt a
performance and threaten to discredit it. Self-rescue from such situations
requires adept impromptu management combined with masterful savoir
faire. These abilities are characteristic of experienced stage performers,
comedians, and sophisticates everywhere, and are usually signs of moral
worth. Beyond threats to self and situation that remain entirely encap
sulated within the original situation are those which threaten life or limb.
Fires in theaters, stock market failures, and invasions without warning
because they threaten not only the immediate situation but also careers,
plans, and human existence - often generate a profound sense of time
panic. 43 For those in such situations it is the manifest realization of the
shortness of time combined with the externally imposed necessity of
unplanned acting that apparently coalesces into the kinds of behavior we
ordinarily associate with panic in general. 44
Another kind of episodic time panic occurs in those cultures that re
quire persons, upon coming into one another's view, to acknowledge in
stantly by word or gesture their exact reciprocal status relationship. Japan
is one such culture of this type in which individuals, upon meeting one
another and even, sometimes, upon passing in the street, must signal by the
temporal length and physical depth of their respective bows exactly what
relation they bear to each other according to age, sex, occupation, and
heritage. 4 5 The calculation must take place instantly and must rate the
relative merits of each of the status criteria. No time is permitted to sort out
the relative weights of the criteria, and eyes are expected to be kept down
during the bow so that either mutual monitoring or gleaning of clues is
socially prohibited. Yet it is a sign of boorishness to make an incorrect
calculation and bow too low or not low enough, or remain stooped too long
or not long enough . A related kind of time panic is experienced in America
when one party to an encounter, characterized by rhythmic exchanges of
"cutting" repartee, is unable to respond at the pace the occasion demands.
Momentary speechlessness is recognized by all present as a "loss" in the
engagement. Panic is experienced at the very moment in which the response
should occur, further unnerving the already disconcerted speaker so that
his verbal response, when it actually does occur, nakedly reveals the loss of
composure and face.
The instances of the Japanese bow and the rhythmic retort illustrate
another feature of some time track terminations, namely, the characteristic
of the "last chance. " Last chances may be terminal and final, or recurrent,
and structured to reoccur with each "play" of the particular time track. In
any game, for example, the last event may be sensed by players and spec-
tators as a last chance, but each new game permits that last chance to occur
again. However, any sense of the last chance brings about either a steeled
burst of emotional and physical control (e.g. , when a tiring boxer prepares
himself for the tenth round) or an abandonment of caution and calculation
and the taking of reckless risks (e. g. , when soldiers, hopelessly out
numbered, charge their opponents) .
Many occurrences of time panic may be analyzed in terms of the
"Rebecca, " "Cinderella, " and "Dracula" syndromes . By these we refer to
panics generated by knowledge that the unchangeable past, the temporally
specific future, and the spatio-temporally specific situation, respectively,
impose unavoidable deadlines upon social actors. The Rebecca syndrome
(so-called from the novel by Daphne du Maurier) refers to the belief that
one's right to occupy a position (for instance, that of a second wife) is con
ditional upon living out the promise of the previous incumbent - a person
who is now dead or absent, but whose ideas and activities exercise an inor
dinate influence on current affairs and whose wishes, yearnings, and goals
must be brought to fruition.4 6 Panic may set in when the surrogate "Rebecca"
begins to feel that she cannot fulfill her obligations in the time allotted to
her, and that she will thus soon fo rfeit her right to that position. Examples
of this phenomenon are not only found among second wives, but also in
social movements, when the charismatic leader who roused the people to
action against inj ustice is replaced by the bureaucratic official who must
carry forward the former's promises .
If panic sets in because of imposition from the past for those suffering
as "Rebeccas, " it is the imminent future deadline that threatens a Cinderella, 4 7
and a need to be at a certain place by a specific time that threatens those on
a "Dracula", cycle. 48 Some statuses are limited to a certain time period so
that their validity expires when the period is over. Persons in rented or bor
rowed clothing provide an example; so long as they keep their attire they
may give off the status associated with it. But should the time for its return
coincide with a crucial moment of impression management, time panic may
set in. Similarly, a person disguised as someone else may be discovered if he
does not carry off his purpose before those in a position to unmask him ar
rive, or before his makeup wears off because of natural decay. 49 As the
time for discovery comes closer and closer with the proposed deed still un
completed, panic may set in. Finally, consider the case of the excessively
self-conscious crippled, maimed, or otherwise disfigured person who tem
porarily hides his stigmatic appearance in the unlit movie house, enjoying
the film in the security that darkness provides, until a glance at his watch
tells him that in one minute the picture will end, lights go on, and his
deformed body be on public display. In his panic at the imagined imminent
shamefulness of self-display he may behave in such a manner as to call even
more attention to himself than his appearance alone would have aroused.
Time Tracks 49
The Dracula syndrome is an extension of that described under the Cin

derella rubric. Here not only time but place and ritual state count as well.
Colostomy provides a nice example, since persons so afflicted must
periodically retire to a private place for physical repair or suffer possible
degradation and embarrassment. Similarly, persons whose protection from
social importunities is secured by uniforms and other visible status symbols
such as nuns, priests, military officers, and psychiatrists in asylums - may
suffer a peculiar panic when they find themselves suddenly vulnerable
because they are in mufti and separated in time and space from their
uniforms . Finally, the secretive drug addict in need of a "fix" may suffer
terrible panic when, trapped in a situation permitting no escape, he realizes
that what has begun as only a gnawing feeling from within will soon give
way to uncontrollable emotional states and physical symptoms indicative of
his hidden affliction. Persons who are on the "Dracula" track experience
"life on a leash"5 0 since their movements and engagements must constantly
be modified by the need to return to a private place for physical repair or
social restoration.
CONCLUSION
Time tracks are products of cultural definitions ; they conceive of life

as divided into temporally specific, qualitatively different event activities .
Some of these tracks are institutionalized so that knowledge of them is part
of any socialized individual's taken-for-granted world. Thus in any society
we may speak of an officially approved time track cycle. In Occidental
cultures since the sixteenth century there is a sense of socially preferred tem
poral divisions between work and leisure, education and career, unserious
ness and gravity. Social time, as Sorokin and Merton observed more than
fifty years ago, "in contrast to the time of astronomy, is qualitative and not
purely quantitative. " Its qualities "serve further to reveal the rhythms,
pulsations, and beats of the societies in which they are found"5 1
Time tracks signal their point of departure and termination with some
socially imbued occasion. Thus an education in medicine is begun with ad
mission to a medical school and a commitment to spend four years as a stu
dent and apprentice practitioner. It is closed with a graduation ceremony
and the awarding of the title "doctor" to those who have successfully carried
out the commitments. The terms "premed, " "medical student," "intern, "
and "resident" represent career stations on a linear time track which break
calendar time into a set of time-specific activity stages leading to the ter
minal stage "doctor. "
To understand the temporal outlook o f any social actor one must com
prehend which time track he or she is on and how that track measures the
flow of time. The overseas Chinese soj ourner conceives of time in terms of
the years during which he must labor in the alien country in order to save
enough money to rej oin his wife in the home village . In calendar time this
might be from two to sixty-five years. For the contemporary Greek peasant
the social calendar defines the period from sunup to sundown as work time;
the period after sundown as time for gossip, visiting a coffeehouse, or ar
dent political debates. 5 2 For the "groom" who lives and works at the race
track time "is measured not by the calendar but by the racing season. The
past is punctuated by the emergence of a great horse, and the benchmarks
of the passing of time are referred to as 'the year of Whirlaway, the year of
Citation,' and so forth."5 3 For the peoples of a pluralistic society there is no
set clock; rather there are several personal and social calendars measuring
the passing of life.
Moments of time are experienced as qualitatively uneven. Some are
critical; others routine. Some are short and pleasurable; others long and
filled with pain or anxiety. Some are full with a concretely identifiable
plenitude; others are stretches of empty duration. Some are the stuff of the
active life, goal-oriented, and instrumental in the attaining of an objective
or expressive of mood or feeling; others are devoid of activity or feeling, a
mere filling in between eventful moments. Thus time tracks divide life into
feeling-activity states, and provide for humankind the crucial elements of
action or inaction in their broadest sense.
Chapter 4 Adventures
If modern societies are characterized by a peculiar malaise - alienation

and loss of community - the adventure forces the issue onto a new plane.
Indeed, one may study the adventure as a phenomenon of all societies and
also as a structure of social life that illuminates the peculiar alienation
characteristic of a particular society.
In an adventure there is, in place of the involuntary routinization of
time, a voluntary departure from the mundane world. Space is reorganized
and reconstructed in an adventure so that its essence is experienced in the
open territories, interstices, or reconstituted areas of the ordinary world.
Finally, manner ( or "selr') is inverted or perverted: the adventure permits
people to assume new identities, adopt different styles, improvise on un
tried themes, and in general, to prove untested mettle. 1
Perhaps the maj or source of alienation and loss of community in the
Western world is the institutionalization of the value of "pecuniary utility,"
that is, the value that assigns human worth according to the production of
salable goods or services and the representation of accumulated income. An
activity is prized or degraded in accordance with its monetary worth, its
financial payoff. In principle, any activity may be worthwhile provided that
it is worth money, but almost no activity is intrinisically valuable. Hence,
people cannot find their own worth within themselves, nor can they take
fulfilling pride in the production of their own works unless these works also
have an additional market value. Human identities are formally acknowledged
as legal statuses that are stratified in accordance with occupational roles,
but beyond these there exists the vast realm of feelings, activities, actions
of selves - that receive no official acknowledgment, no public notice, no
societal legitimation. In this realm, humankind wanders between deviance
and respectability, searching fo r a sense of true self, an attachment to
others, a fulfilling relationship, and a zestful existence.
Industrial life tends to force the division of life into public and private
spheres. It is in the former that people experience most completely what one
acute observer called "urbanism as a way of life." There one senses, some
times with excruciating pain, and other times with unrelieved boredom, the
segmentation of self. The public sphere evokes superficiality, ensures
anonymity, and encourages a transitory character to social relations. In the
realm of public life, one engages in a presentation of self and a representation
51
of others . The everyday world is received in the form of information rather

than experience, news rather than events, appearances rather than realities.
And because of this humankind experiences itself in public as members of a
lonely crowd. Adopting the behavior appropriate for public places, perform
ing "interaction rituals, " and, finally, exercising "role distance, " one seeks
ever to assure oneself and others that there does exist a unique self beneath
the facade required by public rules, social roles, and short-term relation
ships . In the world of his or her occupational and workaday peers, an ur
banite is sophisticated but detached, blase but lonely, cheerful but insecure.
But the private realm holds out both promise and privilege. The
private world of an individual is carved our of the time and space left be
tween public shifts. In a culture that officially lauds pecuniary worth,
private life is relatively "free" from both surveillance and intrusion, provided
that it does not interfere with one's own or another's public domain. If
humanity is alienated from self and others in the public realm, it can, ideally,
make up for this in its private world. In its primordial arena - the mind,
with its independent thoughts, free-floating streams of consciousness, and
flights of fantasy - the private world permits unmediated intimacy between
individual and self. In addition to the recessed seclusion of the inner mental
states are those aspects of life that are reserved from public scrutiny - the
worlds of friends, family, and recreation. This world is also one of leisurely
hobbies, unremunerative specialities , guarded secrets, and potentially
discrediting deviancies . It is in the private sphere, then, that persons are
more likely to conj ure with time, space, and self. Through this conjuring,
one escapes the ordinary world and emerges from the mundane impotency
of everyday life to the extraordinary potency of a transcendent existence.
In the adventure, a person may disconnect himself or herself from the
conventional time of the ordinary world. Adventures fall outside the tem
poral domain of regular activity, beginning in terms of their own essential
definition, being carried on according to intrinsic rules, and concluding
relative to their own tempo.
Adventures start and end with staccato notes. In contrast, routine life
moves from episode to episode as in a symphony, each one marked by the
ending of one melodious strain and the beginning of another. Routine life
falls into a context of continuities; adventures are cut off from the en
tanglements of and connections to everyday life. The adventure occurs
precisely when the continuity of life is purposefully disregarded, accidentally
disrupted, or abruptly halted altogether. Thus the adventure permits the
temporary cessation of inner-worldly time-consciousness and introduces, in
place of that, a temporal world of its own affirmative powers.
Since adventures occur outside of linear time, they are outside of
history, and the adventurer becomes the true ahistorical figure. The adven
ture thus frees the individual from the terror of history's dictates - dictates
A dventures 53
that foreclose individual action in the name of history's own inexorable

force - and permits one to pit his or her strength and virtue against fate's in
calculable challenge. The adventurer lives in an eternal present cut off from
past and future. And thus the particular adventure, like a work of art,
stands over against life, and - in its own crowded state of intense action - is
a microcosm of life itself.
The adventure has also a quality of otherworldly space about it . Just as
one's adventures carry a person outside mundane time, they also permit
him or her to alter or abolish profane territory or enter into areas never
discerned. Transformation of space arises when people or situations make
it possible to modify or revoke the rules that prevail vis-a-vis any spatial
configuration. Thus, in any single episode of life, the spatial arrangements
have a certain definition, a "givenness" that presents the appropriate setting
for the sanctioned activity. According to the understandings that prevail
among all socialized persons present at the occasion, the territorial plan, the
physical obj ects present, and the social usage of any and all of those objects
and spaces constitute criteria for understanding what is going on, what is
supposed to happen, and what aspects of the environment may be disat
tended. Transformation constitutes a resetting of the stage, so to speak,
converting irrelevant objects into utilities, ignoring reserved spaces, and
treading upon sacred areas . In sum, adventures have as one of their most
singular qualities the capacity to relocate people with respect to time and
space.
Character is both created and tested in adventure, and it offers the op
portunity for the fo rging of new identities and the realization of hidden
aspects of self. In a sense adventures are the property of the youthful, for
they evoke the spirit and carefree quality of youthfulness among all who
partake of them regardless of age. Yet not all who wish to experience the
thrills of an adventure can do so because there are constraints - moral,
spatial, and · temporal - that limit opportunities and enforce routine. But
the search for excitement is endemic, and it finds its most contemporary ex
pression in the sexual adventure.
Sex is always potentially adventurous because it uniquely combines
physiological stimulation with social risks and psychological thrills. In sex
activities persons may experience all the elements of danger, fun, and play.
The unique mixture of sexual ability and social situation is a true challenge
with problematic outcomes. An amorous man may have carefully planned
a secret assignation, secluded himself and his paramour from suspicious
neighbors, established a sensual and romantic setting, and excited the ob
ject of his interest to open desire, only to discover that he is unable to have
an erection. Moreover, the fatefulness of such a situation may, if revealed,
extend beyond the amorous adventure to the whole of the man's life, expos
ing him to shame, ridicule, and loss of status. On the other hand, a dextrous
and skillful performance in a sexual encounter can earn a man or a woman

covert but valuable proactive rewards: a secret reputation as a lover or as a
person who enjoys all the imagined benefits of the single status although
married.
The "affair" - clandestine sexual intercourse by a couple, one of whom
is frequently married to someone else - is, in a sense, the paradigm case of
the adventure. The affair is the adventure par excellence precisely because
in it there come together all those dichotomous elements of life - virtu and
fortuna; conquest and concession; force and grace; tangential situation and
centrality of existence; momentary passion and permanent love. By com
bining the ordinarily uncombinable - by bringing together the momentary
pleasures of pure eroticism with the potential of an all enduring passion, by
synthesizing the peripheral aspects of life with its primordial wellsprings, by
pitting the purely unique elements of a man's or woman's abilities against
both fate and favor - the affair becomes the synthesis of euphoria and
thrills, dangers and excitement.
In traditional monogamous societies only courtship precedent to mar
riage gives a man the legitimate chance to experience the sense of conquest
over a woman, a sense of his own amorous abilities vis-a-vis his male com
petitors, and a sense of his own triumph over fate. After marriage has been
consummated the pursuit is over, the romantic impulse loses its strength,
and erotic love gradually gives way to companionate conj ugality. The af
fair, however, permits a reconstitution of this pre-marital adventure. In the
affair man again resumes his original Machiavellian stance, employs virtu
against an inscrutablefortuna, and proves once again the power of his own
skills. Such is also the case for a woman so involved.
The affair is a unique constellation of domination and subordination.
Typically it endows one party, usually the man, with the originating and
calculating moves and the other party, usually the woman, with those of
response and concession. The whole panoply of aggressive play is opened
up to the man - attack, courtship, caj olery, and violence. Moreover, the af
fair is the game par excellence of information control. It involves the man in
deceptions, lies, broken promises , in calculated presentations of self and
unwitting ploys of bad faith. The latter are also features of a woman's role
in an affair, but her unique capacity is that of granting concessions, bestow
ing favors, becoming an available piece of sexual property. Officially a
woman is passively receptive and accepting of the happiness the amorous
affair brings her. But it is precisely in this sense that she obtains valuable
rewards and exerts subtle but powerful controls on the affair. The quality
of the affair arises not merely out of the conquest by the man and surrender
by the woman, but far more significantly out of the intensity, duration, and
sensuality that emerges in the synthesis of successful aggression and accept
ing acquiescence.
A dventures 55
Every erotic experience has a n element of fate i n it - an element that

transcends the synthesis of the loving pair and reacts back upon their ex
perience - providing it with unexpected qualities. Because men associate
success with their own skills, they are wont to fail to give proper credit to
fortune in their affairs. In an erotic affair love itself falls outside the do
main of something that can be earned, acquired, extorted, or bargained for.
In recent sociological theory, love tends to be regarded as a conse
quence of exchange. But love appears to be more of a gift of fortune. Love
is not something that is purely an exchange between two parties ; rather it is
something that may arise spontaneously. To embark on an affair is to gam
ble on fortune's favors. Whether fortune will smile on the amorous couple
is what makes the affair a fateful adventure for both of them. Lovers are
gamblers.
The affair offers in itself satisfaction for a general gnawing need at the
same time that it detaches its participants from the linearity of their respec
tive lives. Among the married the impulse to romanticism does not merely
die out as the institution of marriage routinizes conjugality among its in
cumbents; rather it lives on, perhaps finding no outlet with a spouse but
yearning for expression nevertheless . Among the unattached the wish for
love and erotic experience is of course very strong, and, if they are youthful,
perhaps at its peak of expressive desire. Thus the erotic and romantic are
central in life. But the affair, with its necessary seclusion, clandestine
meetings, and brief encounters, is seemingly cut off from all other aspects
of life. In meeting a timeless need, and yet existing at the periphery of every
day life, the affair becomes the essence of the adventure's dialectical rela
tionship with history and biography - it is vital yet cutoff, a part of life that
is, necessarily, removed from life's routine.
There is yet another sense in which the affair becomes the model of the
temporal dimension of adventure. The love affair simultaneously involves
two standards of time - the momentary and climactic and the durationally
permanent. The former is realized in the soaring heights and then abruptly
subsiding passion; the latter in its intimate connection to that which is cen
tral and private to the whole of life, the satisfaction of a life-urge for
romance and response. Because its synthesis of momentous and monotonous
time has collapsed, the affair holds more significance for its participants
than mere accidental interruptions of routine. It is at once outside of and in
timate with personal biography; it is an experience that not only thrives on
its own content but also holds out unknown proactive consequences.
Joyous moments produce momentary joys . Romantic interludes may be
preludes to a new life.
Although the love affair is perhaps the archetypical sex adventure, it is
by no means the only one. In addition to the affair, the sex adventure can
occur with persons of the same sex, with fetishist activity, and in solitary ac
tivity that produces erotic fantasy.
Homosexual activity in most countries in the Western world is almost
always dangerous, usually exciting, enormously risky, and generally secret.
To be a homosexual is to be a deviant and to bear a stigma, but it also is to
live, willingly or not, a life filled with adventure. The essential problem for
a secret homosexual is information control. He must be able to manage ap
pearances in such a manner that he continuously hides his actual sexual in
terests in the presence of heterosexuals, while he must be able to mobilize
his sign equipment to communicate his identity to other homosexuals. His
life, then, takes on the character of practiced espionage, scrutinizing others
in order to fathom their scrutiny of him, cueing in fellow homosexuals to
his own interest in them.
Homosexual liaisons are typically of short duration, episodes in an
otherwise uneventful life. They constitute in the maj ority of cases a
momentary departure from respectability, a short trip into a deviant in
terlude. As such they have some of the character of the love affair already
described. But there are important differences . Sex and affection are more
separated in the homosexual "one-night stand" or "tearoom trade" than
they are in the heterosexual affair. The men who agree to a homosexual
tryst might remain unknown to one another throughout, thus combining
the most intimate of acts with a relationship of strangers . In this unique
synthesis of intimacy and impersonality, the homosexual encounter brings
together that which is ordinarily uncombinable in everyday life. The
homosexual couple share the most private of knowledge about one another
and yet do not know each other. Strangers and lovers, they experience the
momentary climax of erotic passion and then depart to their respective
routine lives without promise of return. For the secret homosexual, life is an
agonizing search for relief from an adventure thrust upon him by custom
and circumstance. So long as the stigma must remain secret and so long as
sexuality is only legitimate in heterosexualforms, this search can never end.
The homosexual community apparently offers a partial alternative to
this painful and dangerous sexual adventure. By announcing his member
ship in the society of homosexuals, usually in the form of making his debut
(or "coming out" as homosexual argot puts it), the agonizing denial of his
sexual identity is ended, and the new member of the community may then
be privy to its basic knowledge and customs. Some of the personal risks are
then obliterated, and the secret knowledge and special language of the com
munity is quickly learned. Moreover, information control is increased,
since the homosexual underground's "grapevine" is now channeling info r
mation to the once isolated "queer. " In this sense, some of the dangers are
reduced and some of the zest of homosexual life is lost. Yet there still re
mains the necessary secrecy in the "straight" world, the risk of arrest and ex-
A dventures 57
posure at "gay" community institutions, and the personal excitement and

angst experienced in the search for a true and lasting response. Entrance into
the homosexual community does not constitute a complete escape from the
agony and ecstasy of the homosexual adventure.
The sex adventure is not always real. For some it is only vicarious, lived
out in the imagination, realized in fantasy, or experienced in solitary seclu
sion. Masturbation, pornography, and voyeurism constitute the principal
(although by no means the only) forms through which vicarious sexual
adventures occur. Masturbation offers the most facile form of sex adven
ture because very little preparation or education is required, desperation
need not be taxed to the limit, and seclusion for the act is simple to obtain.
Truly a "crime" without a victim, masturbation perhaps provides the best
sexual outlet when partners are unavailable. Moreover, like humdrum fac
tory work, masturbation may be accomplished while the imagination is free
to wander. Flights of erotic fancy, imagined sexual encounters, and the
most forbidden of thoughts may be vicariously realized. In the moments
that occur between the beginning masturbatory act and the final pleasureful
orgasm, a man or woman can conj ure up the most wonderful phantasma
goria! experiences, soar from the routine world of ordinary sexuality to the
heights of a but-dreamed-about sensual paradise, and, in general, escape
from the spatio-temporal, linear-historical, institutionalized-sexual worlds
into one of pure fancy, of exotic and erotic delight. As an adventure,
masturbation holds out promise to all who are afflicted with loneliness,
separated from sex partners, or desirous of an otherworldly eroticism.
Pornography is a catalyst to sexual imagination, and, in turn, to the
mental states appropriate to masturbation. It may also stimulate other
forms of sexual activity or be enj oyed for its own intrinsic qualities. Perus
ing pornography provides one with both a literary experience and an
aphrodisiac, a combination not otherwise likely. For those who are
foreclosed from sexual variety, inhibited by fears of exposure, or shamed
by the possibility of humiliation before others who are more capably erotic,
pornography provides a sexual outlet and a sure adventure. In the erotic ex
ploits of storied heroes and victims, a reader can forge a vicarious self and,
in the continuing availability of the literature, realize that secret self again
and again without moving from an easy chair.
One step beyond reading pornography is the dangerous adventure of
voyeurism. Whereas in both the flights of fancy that accompany masturba
tion and the empathic identity reformations that arise out of reading por
nography there is a purely solitary character to the activity, in voyeurism
there is the daring employment of involuntary and unwitting others for
one's sexual enj oyment. In this kind of activity there is both necessary
preparation and great desperation, thus making it into both a true delin
quency and a real adventure. "Piking" (as voyeuristic observation of sex
acts is called among its regular practitioners) requires special equipment

telescopes, pinpoint flashlights, special shoes - and a knowledge of the
·
city's trysting places and an unusual capacity for stealth. Sexual excitement
is purchased at an enormous risk, for apprehension in the act of observing
others is not only a crime, but a serious breach of social custom.
Sexuality lends itself to adventure in yet another sense. The fetishes
provide eroticism with a variety of forms, many of which go beyond the do
main of law and custom. In some cases, sex activities are derived from ex
otic customs such as revealed in the Kama Sutra, Burton's ethnography of a
male bordello in Karachi, or the history of Chinese footbinding, a curious
erotic custom of the Orient. Sexual fetishes may also be obtained from ex
ploiting pleasure or pain and can be experienced vicariously in the writings
of the Marquis de Sade.
What makes sexuality a permanent source for daring experimentalism
is its inextricable connection with the most private of possessions, the body.
The body is ever with us but mysterious, an anatomical counterpart to the
sociological stranger. We experience its reality while we form images of it
and its possibilities . Although we may not explore its interior and cannot in
spect its full surface without the aid of mirrors, we nevertheless are con
stantly limited by its limitations, aided by its capacities . "The strangeness of
the body," observed Kaspar Naegele, "thus provides interesting balances
for the sense of intimacy that we also develop toward it . Only the individual
can fully know his own pain or pleasure. " 2
It is the possessory privacy of the body and the customary seclusion of
the acts that can be accomplished by direct application of certain of its
organs and functions that give its incumbent both exclusive use and ex
perimental possibilities . The body surface constitutes a free territory with
respect to which any individual may engage in exploitative action. Hidden
behind the closed doors of an ensured domestic privacy, a man or woman
may discover that the body, with its inextricable connections to eroticism, is
the arena for idiosyncratic practices, innovative activities, and thrilling
adventures . Always present, yet separable from the routine of his life, the
body remains both the first and last refuge for eudaemonistic expression.
As life becomes more routine, the desire for adventures increases. At
the same time, modern technology releases more and more energy for con
sumption rather than production. The result is the existence of a great
quantity of eudaemonic energy seeking release and finding expression in a
Dionysian quest, which culminates in the restless search for adventure and,
particularly, sexual adventure. Modern society has experienced the triumph
of routinization in everyday life. And with this triumph more and more
people seek release from their routines, escape from mundane time, and
transport into the realm of dramatic adventure and innovative self
realization. Indeed it is just the bureaucratization of everything, the disen-
Adventures 59
chantment of the world, the achievement of a seemingly universal rationality

that has, in a dialectical sense, generated the conditions fo r the emergence
of an ubiquitous search for adventure.
PART III :
AGENT
Chapter 5 Freud, Mead, Goffman
The dramatistic approach 1 to the study of social life has important and
deep roots in modern psychology and sociology. Much could be said on this
subject, but we will limit ourselves to illustrating the dramatistic elements in
the works of Sigmund Freud, George Herbert Mead, and Erving Goffman.
In each of the works of these important figures, the drama of life - as the
theatre of the unconscious, the theatre of the conscious mind, and the
theatre of self-presentation, respectively - is successively presented in terms
of scenes, actors, and scenarios . And the dramas that these theorists depict
are often enough tragedies, comedies, or grotesqueries .
In the works of Freud, Mead, and Goffman, taken in this order, we find
the presentation of a succession of backstages to the frontstage drama of
everyday life. For both Freud and Mead, the mind is conceived as a place
where dramas take place precedent to and as a cause for action; for Goff
man, everyday actions are conceived as the frontstage from which people
might unmask the identity that has been prepared in the backstage hidden
from public view .
A dramatistic orientation pervades nearly every aspect of Freud's work. 2
His concepts are sometimes derived from the characters in Greek tragedies,
his methods include a theatrical framework in which the therapist acts as
playwright and critic to the patient's life drama, and his therapy requires
that the psychoanalyst act as clandestine director of the tacit drama of
transference. But perhaps his greatest contribution to the theatrical
perspective was the one that animated his theory of mind. Synthesizing the
necessity of science with that of the tragic and the dramatic, Freud peopled
the mental stage with actors whose characters are drawn from real life: an
id, blind, energic, pleasure-seeking; a superego, both priggish and punitive;
and an ego, caught up in the wars of id and superego, attempting to win by
tactics that mitigate the assault of the id - d en�l, projection, reaction
formation, and so f orth - and divert the energy of b oth superego and id to
its own uses. In the work of Freud we have a grand theatre with but a single
decomposed character in a drama of universal proportions . Striking a
balance between character and neurosis, Freud employs the dramatistic
technique, which was to be quintessentially fulfilled in the plays of Samuel
Beckett - the decomposition of the psychic parts of a person, presented as
61
separate characters in the fo rm of a play. (Such a play is technically referred

to as a "monodrama. ") 3
Freud's dramatic understanding led him t o assert a relationship be
tween play, language, daydreams, and fantasies . 4 Play, Freud argued, was
typically a child's activity consisting of an imaginative "rewriting" of the
reality of the world. Play differed from reality only in the sense that it refused
to accept the pre-"given" status of objects and persons and insisted on bor
rowing them from their contexts and setting them in new ones . Although
Freud did not push his analysis to a dramatistic suspension that would
render reality an accomplishment of human action in the same manner as
the play of the child is the accomplishment of a young "playwright," he did
see how the writer - in much the same way as a child - employs language to
create a world of fantasy invested with considerable affect but sharply
distinguished from reality. In doing so he pointed to the creative functions
of language in implementing a play. "Language, " he wrote, "designates cer
tain kinds of imaginative creation, concerned with tangible objects and
capable of representation as 'plays'; the people who present them are called
'players. ' "5 Daydreams constitute a form of wakeful playwrighting, a con
tinuation of child's play; in the adult, however, these "plays" are performed
on a mental "stage" where they can be enjoyed by an audience of one - who, in
addition to being the sole spectator, combines in him- or herself the roles of
producer, director, and scenarist. The fantasies of the adult are performed
on a stage hidden from public view because they are, in the literal sense of
the term, "obscene", that is, offensive to modesty and decency, and, thus,
they require a private showing.
Whereas Freud conceived of mental life as enacted on three "stages"
(the unconscious , the preconscious, and the conscious) and performed by
three "actors" (id, ego, and superego - who enj oyed quite distinctive rights
to perform on the respective stages), Mead6 conceived of mental life as a
generalized monodrama and specific naturalistic dramas . Mead's
monodrama (to be discussed later) has but two actors, the "I" and the "me. "
The naturalistic dramas are rehearsals , revisions, and remembrances of ac
tual (i .e. , real-life) performances. As such they stand in relation to an actual
performance as a pre-text stands to a text . They are models for and of ac
tion. Their existence in the mind is temporal, that is, they are "performed"
before, during, or after an actual scene in real life.
There is a parallel between certain dramatists' notions of pre-text1 and
Mead's conception of mind . The dramatist conceives of the written scenario
of a drama as the pre-text of the actual stage performance, designated the
text. Mead conceive of "mind" as a pre-text of social action. just as a play's
scenario is a guide to action but not a surrogate for it - requiring, as it
always does, that the actors "interpret" the written action - so also is the
"drama" enacted in Mead's theatre of mind the pre-text of the actual drama
Freud, Mead, Goffman 63
performed in the external reality of everyday life. The playwright (and the
critic who restricts his efforts to written texts rather than actual perfor
mances) maps the parameters and possibilities of action but not the actual
nuances and modes by which that action may be carried out. And just as
some playwrights attend the performances of their own plays and rewrite
the scenario in accordance with their new interpretation of the drama as
performed, so also social actors "attend" the performance of their own acts
and "rewrites" the mental "scenario" they had developed prior to the exter
nal performance.
Mental life, as conceived by Mead, requires the skills of a playwright, a
director, an actor, a cast of players, an audience, and a critic. The "selr'
combines all of these in itself, but they are analytically distinct. As
playwright, the "selr' exploits its capacities and needs to determine how best
to achieve its desires and also endows other selves with character, motiva
tion, and various capacities to establish the "plot" of the next "scene." As
director, the "selr' "stages" the "scene" in "the theatre of the mind," which is
to the theatre of reality what New Haven is (or used to be) to New York Ci
ty, that is, the "place" where the drama is perfected before the performance
that really counts. As actor, the "selr' imaginatively performs in the scene,
which has been prefigured, and interacts with the other "performers" who
are part of that scene. As cast of players, the "selr' imaginatively acts out
the roles of all the other players in the scene. As audience, the self, watches
the entire s� ene it has writ�e� , directed, and i � hich it acts as a � erfor�er
.
of a requ1s1te role. As a cnt1c, the "self, " evaluates the scene, decides on its
efficacy, morality, and potential, and, when satisfied, sends it out to per
form in the theatre of reality. It also j udges the actual performance and
decides on the best performance. The theatre of the mind thus presents
three kinds of naturalistic drama: those about to be enacted in the theatre of
life; those in the process of being enacted in that theatre; and remembered
texts of plays already performed.
A special word must be added about the relationship of the drama in
the theatre of the mind (the pre-text) to the drama in the theatre of life (the
text). In the former there appears a dramatic construction of a possible
social reality in which the self convokes real persons from its own life drama
and endows them with personalities, motives, manners, styles, and inten
tions and places them in the scene about to be actually enacted. In the latter,
however, the performing self discovers that it is no longer the sole director
of the scene. Other performers, who of course are also playwrights, directors,
actors, audience, and critics of their own "pre-texts," are competing with it
for sole domination of the scene. This discovery of less than absolute control
over the scenes of life's dramas requires in turn that the critic-performer
director revert back to the task of playwright. As the scene unfolds in reality,
it must be rewritten. The revised scenario aligns the playwright's activities
with those of the other playright-actors. Eventually the "pre-text" coincides

with the "text."
Logically speaking, a second kind of drama must go on, simultaneously
with the first, which actually makes the first possible. This is Mead's
monodrama. It is similar to the drama presented by Freud, and written by
Samuel Beckett (in such works as Waitingfor Godot and Endgame) , in that
it presents characters constitured from the decomposed elements of a self.
This monodramatically bifurcated self appears, analytically, as a pair of ac
tors performing solely for the benefit of the person. As Mead designates
them, the "I" and the "me" compose the two characters . The two form part
of an inextricable whole that can only be distinguished by seeing each as
players in an endless drama - the drama that makes human life distinctively
human. The "I" is elusive, idiosyncratic, unpredictable, and - perhaps
worst of all - unable to be apprehended except as a memory. Although its
actions take place in a permanent present tense, it is known only as a
remembered part of the past. The impulsive "I" is always acting up or acting
out, but it is j ust as constantly being held in check by the "me." The "me" is
visible, conventional, predictable, and always available.
The relationship between the "I" and the "me" composes the most
general outline from which any particular naturalistic pre-text may be writ
ten. The "I" is endowed with all those elements that lend themselves to sur
prise, creativity, novelty, and the unusual. It is the presence of the "I , " not
only in the thinking self but in all possible other thinking selves, that makes
the dramas of life zestful, rich with the possibility of the unexpected, and
full of unforeseen developments. It is the presence of the "me" - again not
only in the thinking self, but supposedly as part of all other selves - that
gives to life's dramas their routine, conventional, and predictable qualities.
"I" and "me" are locked together in a struggle that is best characterized as
"antagonistic cooperation . "
The drama enacted b y the " I " and the "me" has elements of tragedy,
comedy, and farce. It is most often like a Punch and Judy show: the "I"
seizes upon a situation in an innovative, odd, and unique way, and - just as
it is about to carry it off - is cut down by the "me," who checks the im
pulsive "I , " reorganizing the activity in an acceptable presentation. Occa
sionally the "I" is able to get away with its plan, and then the "me" accepts it
and integrates it with its ow,n already established stock of thoughts and pro
j ects, thus robbing it of its novelty. The "I" in turn - although perhaps
.
elated over its victory or dejected over the fact that what was once an in
novation is now a convention - is forced to reach into its bottomless bag of
tricks to find another innovation and, thus, prepare itself for the next situa
tion. Life, as Mead sees it, is something like the play Till Eulenspiegel, and
both end when the ever-present trickster - the "I" - is extinguished by
death.
In sum, then, Freud and Mead have given the regions of the mind some
thing of the status of New Haven and summer stock with occasional touches
of "off- and off-off Broadway" to boot. The theatres of the mind, which
they have discovered, described, and criticized, are places where potentially
real performances are conceived, staged, rehearsed, and perfected before,
during, and after a live performance.
When we turn to the work of Erving Goffman - and we refer particularly
to his seminal The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life - we find a reversal
of thought. Goffman has moved the theatre of performance out of the
"head" and into public places. He has argued that it is only from the theatre
of daily life drama that human beings (social actors) can derive and uncover
one another's mental life.
The everyday and matter-of-fact concern that ordinary people have
with one another is, as Goffman conceives of it, a concern for "self. " That
is, each person, as he or she goes about everyday life, is interested in un
covering the actual, real, and authentic "selr' of the other. (For facility of
expression the following will be expressed in the masculine voice, but note
that application is to both genders.) At the same time, he believes that he
should so present himself (i . e. , his own self) to obtain whatever it is that he
currently desires. Human relationships, thus, take on the quality of a mas
que. Each person, so to speak, outfits himself (i.e. , "fits" his external ap
pearance) with a persona. This persona, in turn, is taken to reveal a self ap
propriate to the occasion, but at the same time it hides a self that, if revealed,
might inhibit, embarrass, or thwart his purpose. Further, since every per
son is aware that this condition of personification is, paradoxically, the
basic condition of social man, each will seek to aid, abet, subvert, or
frustrate the presentation of the other's performances according to his own
inclinations, needs, and desires. Thus, life proceeds like a drama in which
each person is actor, director, audience, and critic for himself and, in his
relation to others, who are seen as having the same capacities. But, in Goff
man's dramaturgy, the ultimate aim of the naturalistic dramas played out in
the theatre of reality is to uncover the hidden drama, and the real actors, in
the secret theatre of the mind.
If we analyze Goffman's dramaturgy, as such, we will perceive that life
itself is conceived as a tragi-comedy embodying an almost infinite variety of
dramas of Sartrean "bad faith. " But where Sartre sees bad faith in moral
terms and condemns it, Goffman seems to see that a brooding and suspicious
sense of inauthenticity is the basic condition of performative human ex
istence. Trust, then, arises out of the successful presentation of self, obtain
ing as it does, a suspension of disbelief in the authenticity of the performer
and a willingness to accept the visible persona as congruent with the visible
"face. "
Since each person knows that every person is engaged in a dramatic

presentation of self (which may or may not be the "true" self), a basic sense
of distrust pervades all relationships, ab initio. Unmasking another is a
common but not universal condition of the daily human masquerade. The
process of unmasking involves something with which veteran actors are
familiar: the attempt by a curious member of the audience to catch them
offstage in order to see "who they really are." In the same manner, ordinary
people try to catch one another "offstage" - that is, outside the realm where
their regular presentation of self occurs - in the hopes of glimpsing the real
self. And, j ust as experienced actors can frustrate the attempts of annoying
voyeurs by acting their part even in the dressing room or on the street, so
also the individual who suspects that he is being scrutinized when he is sup
posed to be unaware, may organize his "offstage" performance to represent
precisely what it did "onstage. " Aware of the dramatic capabilities of
another, the seeker after the "true" self may escalate his methods of in
telligence. This, in turn, may lead the "concealer" to enhance his repertory
of covering performances. In such situations life takes on something of the
character of an Agatha Christie mystery, a Shakespearean comedy, or a
Sophoclean tragedy. Unraveling the "truth" become an all-consuming pas
sion, and the seeker after truth becomes obsessed by his particular form of
theoria.
The drama of personifications, however, may involve an actor in some
thing other than removing the persona from another. Certain performances
require one to sustain the "face" or character presented by someone else,
even if it is faulty or poorly enacted. As depicted by Goffman, these include
team efforts, mutually supportive interchanges, and the protection and
management of one's own or another's spoiled or spoilable identities. In the
most general sense, the social contract - society itself- rests ultimately on
the tacit agreement of individuals to suspend disbelief in the inauthenticity
of one another's basic characterizations. The acceptance of normal ap
pearances as representative of what they express is the necessary condition
of routine audience participation. And a routinized audience reaction keeps
the play from falling apart or being withdrawn altogether.
In Goffman's life dramas, individuals are not only one another's audi
ences, but they must act, direct, and criticize as well.
As an actor, an individual engages in a presentation of a self, reveals its
(and, therefore, presumably his own) character, and demonstrates the extent
of his attachment and commitment to the identity in question and his own
performance in it. Acting in everyday life requires spontaneous involve
ment in the scenes that reality provides , and, in the process, it calls for a
careful modulation of tone, timbre, and tension. In some instances an in
dividual feels the need to perform in a role and yet to disengage himself
from all that is implied by it. The skills for this, as well as the many other
kinds of acting by human beings, are differentially distributed. Thus, some

people seem never able to appear as more than imposters, while others seem
always to be successful in becoming whomever their performance promises
to reveal. Most individuals fall somewhere in between; they perform well on
some occasions, whereas on others they desperately need the luck that is
supposed to be evoked for the stage actor when his friends tell him to
"break a leg."
As a director, each person seeks not only to cast his own role in life's
drama but also the roles of his fellow "actors" as well. His ability to do so
depends in great measure on the forcefulness of his own persona and the
capacity with which he can call out in others just those personae that aid
him in his own performance. Of course each person in an encounter may be
seeking to direct the scene, and, when this is the case, a conflict is more than
likely. Identities may have to be transformed, other identities converted, in
hibited, degraded, or even destroyed. Eventually an accommodation may
be reached, but if it is reached, it is but a precarious truce and is subject to
renegotiation and even further conflict. The director of the scenes in every
day life is thus caught up in the conflict that must ensue when each actor
claims the right to direct as well as perform in his own life-drama.
As a critic each person is in a position to observe and evaluate his own
and others' performances. This certainly includes the audience function,
already alluded to, of unmasking a performer, but it goes further. A critic
might note the degree to which any performer in a human drama suffers
from stage fright, handles the "props" appropriate to the role he or she is
performing, observes the stage presence required of the characterization,
and performs in accordance with general requirements and various ranges
of the characterization.
In sum, Goffman's dramaturgy focuses on social reality as a theatre of
performances available for study by social scientists and for ever-present
watchfulness by the social actors themselves. The dramaturgical perspec
tive suggests that the consciousness of life as theatre is an empirical - and
problematic - feature of the social actor's own perspective. It is the or
dinary person who, as a routine matter, performs and has to evaluate
other's performances as well. It is the ordinary person who, at least occa
sionally, experiences as such the dramatistic elements of his or her own ex
istence. And it is the ordinary person who believes he or she must
distinguish between "mere" appearances and "actual" reality.
People catch a glimpse of the theatrical nature of life when the spon
taneity of their own or someone else's performance goes awry, when they
suspect that the persons before them are "merely" acting, when they suffer
"stage fright" before or during an important occasion, when they believe
there is a "backstage" whereon the "frontstage" performance they are cur
rently watching has been prepared, or when they discover that in "casting"
their own or others' "roles, " they have made a mistake. Note, then, that
when people experience a suspension in their own belief in the naturalism or
"authenticity" of the performance put on by themselves or others they ap
proach a phenomenological understanding of the dramatic fundament of
human existence. These suspensions, however, which occur fo r ordinary
people in some situations of everyday life, are not usually taken to be a clue
to the phenomenology of human existence itself, but rather to be an ex
posure of the "fraudulence" and "bad faith" of certain others .
The social actors' problem, in sum, is one of either authenticating,
having doubts about, or refusing to believe in the sincerity of the perfor
mances that are constantly being put on by others and by themselves. The
sociological problem is to uncover the nature and operations of dramatic
practices in everyday life, to analyze how individuals and collectivities go
about "writing," "casting," "performing in," "interpreting," and "criticizing"
one another's life dramas. In these terms both social actor and sociologist
may theorize and, in doing so, assume the rank of the theoria.
Chapter 6 Stage Fright and the Problem of Identity
"All the world's a stage" has become a sociological as much as a Shake

spearean observation for describing the nature of social life. And yet,
curiously, the dramatic stage is virtually unique as the one area of social life
where the potentially treacherous task of sustaining a reality is a conscious
concern, and where the dangers of failure are so omnipresent that the par
ticipants continually suffer from acute anxiety. If in fact all the world were
a stage, it would be a tale told by an idiot - a world of Hobbesian disorder.
Consider a world where the following experiences were permanent
features of everyday life. Referring to his own performance anxiety,
violinist Mischa Elman describes stage fright as "a consciousness of one's
own limitations, at a moment when limitations of any sort place a barrier
between what one wants to do and what one can do. " 1 And actress Gertrude
Lawrence reported on her own stage fright by noting: "These attacks of
nerves seem to grow worse with the passing years. It's inexplicable and hor
rible and something you'd think you'd grow out of rather than into. "2
Stage fright is manifested in forms familiar to the ordinary human as
well as the actor in terms of motor and emotional disturbance. 3 Goffman
provides a fairly complete inventory of the phenomenon in his discussion of
embarrassment:
Blushing, fumbling, stuttering, an unusually low or high-pitched

voice, quavering speech or breaking of the voice, sweating, blanching,
blinking, tremor of the hand, hesitating, or vacillating movement,
absentmindedness and malapropisms . . . here are also symptoms of a
subjective kind: constriction of the diaphragm, a feeling of wobbliness,
consciousness of strained and unnatural gestures, a dazed sensation,
dryness of the mouth, and tenseness of the muscles. 4
Although embarrassment and stage fright are closely related as to the

physical symptoms each produces, they differ analytically. Embarrassment
occurs spontaneously when an individual's identity claims unexpectedly
come under attack. 5 Stage fright, on the other hand, is generated in one of
two ways : knowing in advance that a situation will open one to total inspec
tion of self, or anticipating that a slip or flaw will suddenly thrust one into a
position that invites challenges to a claimed identity, or both.
69
The phenomenon of stage fright highlights a fundamental problem of

ordinary social interaction, namely, the problem of sustaining an identity. 6
And the dramatic stage provides the paradigm case of this problem.
Onstage, an actor may portray Winston Churchill, Jesus or Abraham .·
Lincoln. Although the audience is aware that such a portrayal is "only" an
impersonation, the spectators sharpen rather than relax their critical
faculties and the smallest discrepancy between the ideal and the actual
presentation is evaluated negatively. Below the surface of the audience's
manifest consciousness, there seemingly bubbles a deep-seated resentment
at the sight of a person claiming to be someone else. If this claim is going to
be made, the audience seems to be saying, then the claimant had better be
beyond reproach in his or her representation. And this attitude is prevalent
not only with respect to the dramatic stage but also in everyday life.
In everyday life people frequently make claims (or are thought to be
making claims) to being certain kinds of persons . In a typical case, the in
dividual succeeds in carrying the burden of proof to substantiate the claim.
But if a challenge to one's identity claims is anticipated, the condition for
stage fright is activated. Thus, fellow interactants often constitute an au
dience possessed of powers of scrutiny and j udgment, powers that might be
applied to a person's identity claims with damaging results.
In everyday life a system of rules governs the operation of social in
teraction. These rules are understood by ordinary persons as the "recipes
for-living" that "everyone knows. "7 Among these rules are those of rectitude
and relevance which indicate j ust what is proper and officially noticeable
during the course of any interaction and just what is improper and irrele
vant . One such rule involves norms of tact. Thus , when an individual makes
a slip or commits a boner or a gaffe, the partners in the interaction disattend
from these minor failings, make light of them, or accept without criticism
an apology offered. Without such exercises of tact social interaction would
be a treacherous state of affairs, always fraught with potentialities for
unrelieved embarrassment, destruction of the mutually established sense of
reality, or unresolvable questions of identity. In short, without such rules,
humans would be immobilized for interaction in ordinary life. 8
As adults , humans need little instruction in these rules. Rather, they
serve as "background expectancies" or the taken-for-granted features of
everyday life that are known in common by all bona fide members of the
society. Such rules are problematic for children and often unknown to
aliens, who in the processes of socialization and acculturation come to
adopt and employ them as part of their own routine perspectives and as
signs that they are indeed becoming full-fledged members of the society.
Continuous violation of such rules by a person might earn him or her a label
"troublemaker," or a stigma "Don't invite him; he always makes me uncom
fortable," or render him eligible for clinical investigation. Onstage,
Stage Fright and the Problem of Identity 71
however, such rules are relaxed, and individuals may legitimately become
engrossed in slips that destroy the projected reality.
The dramatic stage is operating properly when its inhabitants suc
cessfully communicate to an audience a contrived construction of reality
the plot. The theater, unlike a confidence game and many small group ex
periments, demands that the audience engage in a voluntary deception: "the
actor acts what he is not and the audience knows this."9 However, the au
dience exacts a heavy price for this self-deception - nothing less than role
perfection itself. "If the actor is good, he must be able to convince both au
dience and himself of the reality of his performance. When he succeeds, all
ties to such non-play realities as his other roles are cut off, and he has reached
the highest achieveinent of his profession. " 1 0Although role segmentation
appears to be a feature of all urban industrial societies, 1 1 nowhere is it
perfected so well as on the dramatic stage, where for the duration of the
performance, and sometimes beyond, actor and character must merge.
Within the framework of the theat,rical stage, then, slips and flaws are
seriously attended; and unlike most offstage encounters in everyday life,
performances are expected to occur with qualities of perfection not or
dinarily achieved. Since total congruency is assumed as the definition of the
theatrical situation, the rules of tact and disattendance prevailing under or
dinary conditions are revoked and rules requiring perfection substituted.
And since stage actors know that they will be judged in accordance with
these extraordinary rules of conduct during a performance, they ate ap
prehensive.
Our contention is that stage fright arises precisely from the fact that
the contrived performance differs from ordinary life in one crucial respect :
the rules requiring tact and disattendance from slips are revoked, and thus
the actor must mobilize that perfection of verbal and muscular control not
usually expected in everyday life. In short, by studying the dramatic
stage - its characteristics and its attendant anxieties - we can call attention
to its equivalents in ordinary life to learn more about the conditions that
generate stage fright in normal relationships .
THE DRAMATIC FRAME AND STAGE FRIGHT
The theater provides and demands a frame of meaning 1 2 whereby the

audience engages in voluntary self-deception. Once the audience enters into
this frame, it will - for the duration of the performance - accept as real the
events portrayed within the frame.
There are virtually no limits to the self-deceiving reality that the au
dience will accept once it has entered the dramatic frame. Thus, an "unworthy
scaffold" is transformed into the battle grounds of Agincourt, and we ac-
cept for a time the reality construed for us by the speaker of the prologue in
Henry V :
Think when w e talk of horses, that you see them,

Printing their proud hoofs i' th' receiving earth:
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our Kings . . . 1 3
Limitations on the dramatic frame, then, are not set by the imaginative
capacities of the audience. Rather they are set by the scenario itself. The
scenario sets the limits within which the actors conduct themselves.
Necessarily, the scenario requires a compression of time and space so that
the duration and place of the drama can be enacted in a few hours on a
stage. Onstage the entire range of action is admitted into the frame of
meaningful events . Every gesture - a scratch, a tic, a lurching forward - is
open not merely to observation, but more importantly to interpretation.
Each action, verbal and physical, is an element of dramatic reality being
communicated during the performance.
From the point of view of the audience each actor is negotiating the
identity of a character. The audience is in a state of hyper-consciousness,
which alerts it to scrutinize each gesture for its apparent and subtle
characterological meaning. Detecting some element of puzzlement or in
congruity, the audience is triggered into an even more enhanced state of
watchfulness.
One slip or small mishap can weaken the entire dramatic reality, leav
ing the audience tense. The audience is aware of frame danger and waits for
rescue, or a failure of rescue, to occur. During this period, some in the au
dience may give audial recognition to their state of awareness by "flooding
out, " laughing, gasping, or catcalling. Once a slip occurs, the actor is tensed
and his heightened anxiety can lead to j ust what he does not desire - yet
another slip. That is, audience tenseness can be communicated to the per
formers leading to a further raising of anxiety levels and more errors. Thus
the very first slip must be .avoided. The requirement for mobilization of self
to avoid the first slip is what lies at the heart of stage fright.
Otherwise put, the stage requires what we shall call the "rule of con
gruency." According to this rule each act and obj ect present in the perfor
mance must be accounted for in terms of that performance. 1 4 Each actor
must be on guard to communicate in character, while the audience gleans
character identity from each staged action or interprets some of them as
noticeable and disconfirming slips.
The theatrical frame, we are suggesting, has certain properties that
lend themselves to both actor and audience becoming spontaneously
engrossed in errors and mishaps. Aside from the rule of congruency, con
sider that what happens onstage is knowingly rehearsed. The audience's an-
ticipation of a perfect performance is rooted in the everyday expectation

that when people can rehearse what they are going to do, they ought to do it
better than under conditions of spontaneity. The preacher in his pulpit, for
instance, is expected to perform better under this circumstance than when
appearing in ordinary encounters. The opportunity to practice in private
what will be performed in public is assumed to provide the occasion
wherein perfection will be assured.
Actors themselves recognize the value of rehearsal in reducing the
chance for errors onstage and in discovering for themselves the identity of
the character to be portrayed. Lynn Fontanne reports that after the regular
rehearsals at the theater, she rehearses again at home with her costar hus
band Alfred Lunt:
[We] work and work at home and slowly you get into the
character of the person you are playing - the walk, the gestures . . .
gradually I become more and more acquainted with her and then as
the days go by I sink deeper and deeper into her, discovering traits and
things about her I did not know existed when I began to rehearse. 1 5
An even more extreme version of the actor's attempt to merge himself

with the character to be portrayed is found in the example of Edwin Booth.
He would not only mentally construct exactly how the character looked and
felt but also how the other characters looked and felt. When portraying
Shylock, a particularly difficult role for which he worked years to master,
he could not stand to have the actress playing Jessica standing in the wings
within his range of vision:
I go into that scene with a clear picture of Jessica. My own flesh

and blood has betrayed me . . I am deserted . . . I am hopeless - alone.
.
I charge my voice with Skylock's agony, and then look up and see
you - my daughter - standing [in the wings] before me, come back to
me. My picture breaks up ! I lose the scene ! 1 6
And Sidney Poitier forces himself to study the social, economic, reli
gious, political and psychological background of a character in order to ap
pear spontaneous. Speaking of the school of acting he subscribes to, he
reports that
instead of employing the Stanislavsky Method for two hours a night

in a theatre, I employ it for two or three months in the preparation of
that work, so that when I go on the stage, or in front of a camera, my
function becomes organic and instant and natural, spontaneous and
full, because I have a frame of reference for every want, every need,
every desire that is registered on my emotion boards. 1 7
For all its vaunted virtues, however, rehearsal does not eliminate stage
fright. Seasoned actors as well as neophytes suffer from pre-performance
anxieties, a fact which sometimes comes as a shock (as well as a source of
stage fright itself) to new thespians . Thus Gladys Swarthout recalls her first
case of stage fright arising out of her discovery of pre-performance anxiety
on the part of a basso of considerable renown:
I was cast as Siebel in "Faust, " opposite Chaliapin's Mephisto;

and waiting in the wings to go on for the Garden Scene. I saw
Chaliapin pacing the floor, ashen green under his make-up, and
moaning to himself. I thought, of course, that the great basso was ill,
and hurried to summon the stage manager. He laughed at me.
"Ill? " he said, "He's not ill; he's nervous. He gets like that every
time, j ust before he goes on. Half dead of stage fright. " 1 s
That frequency of performance alone does not eliminate stage fright

suggests that we must look further into the nature of stage performance to
ferret out the complex etiology of this phenomenon.
THE STAGE AS AN ENVIRONMENT
The stage is determinedly eventful: it is a particular form of interaction

in which the location of persons and obj ects is fixed by pre-established
rules. Because the stage is, in this sense, an ecological environment, its rules
of relevance differ from that of ordinary life. We may distinguish the
crucial relevances for the stage under the headings "territories," "props" and
"body. " 1 9
Territories
Staged dramas require that the actor performs in the most dramatically
advantageous position available to the character that he is portraying. Or
dinary life is never quite so exacting; an everyday encounter or considerable
emotional significance may proceed without perfected locations for each
interactant. On the stage, however, location is so important that chalked
spots are often written on the stage floor to cue the actors to the proper
position. Failure to position oneself properly or inability to move with poise
to the right place at the right time are sources of anxiety for actors and
causes for mirth or other frame-destructive reactions on the part of the au
dience.
The stage presents actors with an ecological problem only occasionally
encountered in everyday life: namely, onstage the actor must sustain the
relationship required by the plot of the play between him/herself and the
other characters - while simultaneously communicating to the ever
watchful but nonparticipating audience. The actor's precise location on the
stage is thus often crucial. Not only must s/he talk to the conversational
partner of the scene, but also audibly and visually for the audience to see
what s/he means. Since not only sound but also facial gesture (and especially
that of the eyes and mouth) communicate, the actor has to be both audially
and visually available to the audience. Stage fright in this sense occurs when
an actor imagines that s/he will - or in fact does - commit an ecological
faux pas and is unable immediately to rescue the self from the damage.
Props
The stage is an arena of illusion in which both actors and audience

agree to accept what is on the stage as actually being what it represents for
the duration of the performance. Thus the "box" composed of wood, metal
and wire represents the rooms of Willy Loman's home in Arthur Miller's
Death of a Salesman. But it is precisely because the stage has transformed
wood and wire into a temporarily working representation of reality that
stage performances are hazardous. Ordinarily a door can be slammed
without the walls of the house collapsing, stairs can be ascended without
giving way beneath the weight of the person upon them, and ceilings can be
expected to retain their horizontal stability at their pre-established height.
On the stage, however, none of these can simply be taken for granted. The
actor portraying the outraged husband may be expected to storm out of the
room, slamming the door behind him, and leaving his wife weeping; but the
slammed door should communicate only his anger, not sound the death
knell of the house itself. The illusion of the prop-contrived reality must be
maintained throughout the performance. Actions that suggest or reveal the
actual nature of the props constitute frame destruction of the most ir
retrievable sort. To destroy the illusion here is to destroy all.
The problems related to managing prop failure are greater today than
in the past. Until the middle of the nineteenth century stages were almost
entirely set by elaborately painted wings and drops. But thereafter the so
called "box" setting supplemented or replaced wings, introducing an in
terior setting composed of three walls and a ceiling and giving the illusion of
an actual room. 20 The painted wings and drops undoubtedly. left more to
the imagination and taxed the transformation capacities of the audience
more than the "box." But with the stage settings coming more and more
closely to approximate a taken-for-granted reality, the failure to use those
settings properly and the ever-present possibility of accidents threaten to
break up an illusion that is too well established. Thus, the technological and
artistic advances in setting the stage impose an even more precarious fragility
on the illusion at precisely the moment that it becomes most realistic.
Destruction of what the audience could easily see was make-believe did not
destroy as much as the collapse of the absolutely correct imitation decor
which the audience admired as "real . "
A word must b e said about furniture and identity. Furniture i s in
timately connected with the life-style and self-image of the person who
owns it. Even in everyday life stumbling over one's sofa, slipping on one's
rug, or falling down one's staircase are sources of embarrassment, involving a
symbolic discreditation of one's own identity.
But on the stage an unexpected fall is more than a momentary loss of
poise or a mildly disconfirming note of self. To the audience such an act
ought to communicate something, and if it is the actor's rather than the
character's clumsiness that has been displayed, the character suffers a
severely damaging blow. If the fall cannot be immediately integrated into
the play the audience will either recognize it as a slip and react accordingly,
or await the revelation of the message that the fall telegraphed. In everyday
life a host may laughingly apologize to his guest for stumbling over his own
footstool, and regular interaction may then proceed as if the incident had
not occurred. But even if an actor successfully ad libs to cover for his
carelessness to save the immediate scene, the audience is likely to glean an
unintended clue to the character that he is portraying, a clue which they
believe ought to have some future payoff. Thus stage actors must develop
motor controls onstage of a much higher order than those required off
stage.
Besides such fixed props as doors and walls, movable objects (or chat
tels) present a source of danger· not usually experienced in everyday life. In
every social situation there is some kind of equipment to manipulate. Or
dinarily the ability to start or stop, move, or control the action of the equip
ment regularly associated with one's environment is a signal of self. In this
respect social actors formulate at least two general but extreme orientations
toward the equipment one regularly handles: first, there is a high order of
skill presumed to lodge in the individual primarily because of the frequency
with which he handles the item; or second, there is a very low order of skill,
approximating motor incapacity or extreme clumsiness and also indicating
a character type which seems unable to master the mechanical world . And
for most persons, it is believed, the handling of everyday pieces of
equipment - automobiles, cigarette lighters, ashtrays, keys and coins - falls
into a broad middle range, efficient enough to admit of being able to
operate in the modern world with only occasional flaws and failures.
On the stage, however, handling movable and mechanical equipment
presents problems far more extraordinary than their offstage counterparts.
Objects that are to be picked up, moved, discovered, or destroyed must be
available for use at the correct time and in the right place. While in an actual
living room the search for an ashtray or a notebook might not interrupt
ongoing proceedings , a similar search onstage - unless part of the
plot - must not occur. Indeed, should an object necessary to the plot of a
play be misplaced, the actor must not only make do without it but also con
trive a suitable subterfuge to avoid audience awareness of the error. Stage
fright with respect to props may take the form of motor incapacity. The
normal musculature appears to be frozen, and the actor is immobilized. Or
s/he might get an attack of "the shakes, " preventing appropriate handling
of quite ordinary items, such as cigarette lighters, glasses, or telephones .
Immobilization or shakiness may accelerate and exacerbate the original
fear so that the anticipated flaw becomes realized. This in turn may
generate a generalized fear which creates the very conditions for continuous
errors and heightened fears .
Onstage, even clothing can serve as a source of danger. All clothing
worn on the stage is officially a costume, that is, a garment appropriate to
the character portrayed and not necessarily suitable to the actor wearing it.
The actor must solve the problem of suiting the manner of its wear to the
character, not to him/herself. In everyday life, of course, clothing can
come undone, tear, or - by body movement - conceal or disclose aspects of
the body and emotional states. Onstage the actor must keep clothing under
perfect control not only in the ordinary sense of wear and tear, but also in
the manner of its display.
When everyday dress in a society changes so that one kind of costume
is relegated to "costume drama" and no longer worn otherwise, the
vulnerability of actors to errors in its wearing increases. Thus the wearing of
armor, chain mail and helmets in contemporary performances of Shake
spearean dramas presents problems of stylistic and muscular control over
the worn material which in everyday life is not part of the actor's repertoire.
Body
In addition to the perfection of stage location and the handling of

props, the actor has to control all those physical and vocal peculiarities that
in everyday life are part of his/her own personal character, but which may
be intrusive or discrediting to the character s/he is portraying onstage.
Thus in everyday concerns the frame of self-presentation assumes a
wide variety of imperfections that are disattended, especially if they are ir
relevant to the central features of one's role performance. A doctor's ner
vous tic is ruled out as irrelevant to his performance in removing a wart
from the patient's foot; a lawyer's obesity bears no relation to his defense of
an accused shoplifter; and a physics teacher's limp does not prevent him
from lecturing on astronomy. But the nervous tic of the stage doctor, the
excessive weight of the stage lawyer, and the limp of the stage professor are
rich in inferential meaning - which the audience expects to be revealed to
them. The doctor's nervous tic is but an external sign of his evil designs ; the
lawyer's fatness indicates a generally jolly disposition temporarily held in
abeyance as he manfully defends his client; the professor's limp will even
tually "explain" his interest in space exploration, a compensation for
mobility interference on earth.
In short, to present a visible imperfection without explanation is to
create frame confusion in the story line. While such imperfections may be
tolerated as such during the early portions of the drama, if they remain
unexplained (or uninterpretable) at the end, audiences will experience a
sense of incompleteness, mystification, or even fraud: the imperfection was
presented; therefore, it should have been accounted for in the drama.
Although in everyday life people will accept (albeit grudgingly
sometimes) that looks deceive, an audience will not so easily acquiesce to
that proposition. Type casting meets the audience's desire to have congruency
between appearance and reality. And this includes, of course, congruence
in the relation of feigned appearance and the final curtain revelation of who
the character "really" was.
The history of acting is replete with limitations of body. Edwin Forrest,
whose massive, muscular physique gave him a Herculean appearance chose
roles suited to that body type. In contrast, Edwin Booth, a man of graceful,
slender physique, rejected the physically demanding roles chosen by Forrest
fo r those that were endowed with an intellectual, spiritual or poetic quality.
Booth aptly summed up the limitations of body type on acting when he
remarked, "It is rather safe to assume that actors establish their school upon
their physique - for one must cover up what one cannot physically do. " 2 1
A special case o f complex and confused relationships between physical
appearance and social reality arises in racially conscious societies. In the
past American Black actors have been relegated to a large assortment of
stereotyped "Negro" roles . Blacks who wished to widen their repertoire and
to include traditional "white" roles had to leave the country for such oppor
tunity, 2 2 or might "pass" as whites if they were sufficiently light-skinned.
But when racial barriers are relaxed the appearance of Blacks in conven
tional white roles sometimes occasions mirth or amazement. Thus a Black
child, upon seeing a Black Santa Claus for the first time, remarked to her
mother: "That sure is a funny Santa Claus. I mean he's not white. "23
Special problems of performance anxiety - relating to identity, stereo
types and social consequences - face Black actors in times of transition in
racial relations. These problems and anxieties, though probably affecting
the performance, extend beyond it into controversies over what kind of
status visibility Blacks should exhibit on stage and screen. Thus Hattie
McDaniels replied to an attack on her for accepting Hollywood roles as a

domestic: "It is better getting $7 , 000 a week playing a servant than $7 a
week being one. "24 And Black film star Sidney Poitier has been accused of
building his successful career by sacrificing his screen sexuality and manliness
(and by symbolic extension, the manliness of all Black males in America). 25
The portrayal of racially stigmatized people by members of their own racial
group results in anxieties having to do with appropriate and socially tactful
(and also tactical) representation.
Beyond physical appearance and the control of physical or cultural
stigmas is body movement itself. Onstage the body must be in readiness to
act the part, and perfect control of its movements must be maintained
throughout the performance. In everyday life individuals can retire from
the social scene to restore or repair the body and then return to regular ac
tivities. For actors onstage, however, this can only be done surreptitiously
and at some hazard to the play itself. In addition, offstage, the movement
of arms, legs, head and trunk need not be in perfect coordination with the
role being enacted; onstage, it must be.
AUDIENCE STAGE FRIGHT
Kingsley Davis tells the story of a mother who, after viewing a college
play in which her daughter had a part, was asked how she enjoyed the play;
she responded by saying that she was too worried over her daughter's
presence onstage to pay any attention to the play. 26 In other words, a member
of the audience was experiencing stage fright.
Audience stage fright arises from a sense of fusion of personalities or
the imputation of representational character to a particular performance.
Persons involved in intimate relations may experience stage fright when one
member of the group must perform alone. The fusion of identities that
characterizes their intimacy lends itself to an altruistic expression of fear for
the other's performance. This empathic anxiety is likely to occur whenever
intimate groups are physically or socially copresent before a hyperconscious
audience but unable to assist one another. Thus the parent who must watch
his own child witness death unaided for the first time, the reluctant pimp
who listens silently to his favorite whore's screams as she is being roughly
handled in the next room by a sadistic customer, and the friend who intro
duces a parvenu into a new circle may experience a special form of empathic
audience stage fright .
Persons bearing tribal stigmas27 or under some form of collective op
pression are likely to regard any one of their number as a symbol for the
whole group. For such persons any public performance by a group member
is a potential source of embarrassment or even danger and is thus likely to
generate in them a special form of audience stage fright. 2 8 A tradition of

prejudice and discrimination undermines a sense of absolute individualism
that a member of the oppressed group might otherwise have developed. The
result is a kind of collective psychic disadvantage that finds its most acute
form in anxious self-consciousness whenever a fellow member is in the
limelight.
In America the psychically underprivileged groups include Jews,
Blacks and homosexuals. Hence we sometimes find Jews wondering anx
iously if it's "good for the Jews" if a Jewish family signals its middle-class
status by celebrating Christmas or j oining the Unitarian church;29 Black
college presidents wincing with excruciating social agony when Black
students sit at the gate of a university munching watermelon; 30 and covert
homosexuals manfully attempting to hide their embarrassment when a
wrist-flapping fairy minces in public . 3 1
Another kind o f audience stage fright arises when the audience becomes
apprehensive that it will unceremoniously be converted to performers . In
recent dramatic innovations - plays such as Peter Weiss' Marat/Sade - the
audience is threatened by the performers' movements between acts and may
sense that it might be made part of the drama itself. 32 This makes for both a
more zestful night of theater and heightened audience uneasiness. A similar
kind of uneasiness prevails when night club comedians famous fo r their
sharp and incisive repartee move into an audience and engage individuals at
random in witty but cutting conversation. Comedians of this type generate
a pervasive fear among certain members of the audience that they are
helplessly trapped while being looked over for j ust those traits that make
them an easy mark for the j ester's mirth. It is this sense of social nakedness
combined with knowledge of being scrutinized that transforms the au
dience members into stage performers and generates performance anxiety.
Common arenas for audience anxiety are all those settings in which a
person of authority is privileged to command instant public performances
from any one of an aggregate of underlings. School-teachers, for example,
sometimes discover or create enormous performance anxiety among their
pupils by looking them over carefully and then calling upon one to recite. 3 3
Typical of the reactions of persons experiencing this kind of stage fright is
an attempt - often unsuccessful - to appear nondescript, coupled with an
anxious desire to be invisible. 34 Audience anxiety of the type herein described
is often apprehension of an impending and involuntary degradation
ceremony. 3 5
Audience anxiety i s also generated b y watching what i s morally unwatch
able. Some persons, having attended a dramatic presentation of Eugene
O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?, or Michael McClure's The Beard, experience acute self
consciousness combined with intense anxiety. These plays present elements
o f life that are so deeply personal that one has the feeling that he i s an un
witting witness to scenes that should remain private.
Offstage the same feelings are experienced when individuals find
themselves observers at a ceremony that propriety demands should be con
ducted without any others present than the participants. A sense of
heightened, anxious self-consciousness occurs, for example, when a dinner
guest finds himself privy to a heated quarrel between the host and his wife.
Again, as when at certain plays , he feels he shouldn't be there at all. But the
fact that one is present during an unwatchable encounter creates a dilemma
of choice over discreet departure or delicate deportment. Any act during
such a situation constitutes an interference in the ongoing quarrel - even a
polite, "Excuse me, I think I'll be going," has the disadvantage of convert
ing the self-conscious observer into a performer in the very social drama
from which he wishes to withdraw. Silent inaction, however, is also
disconcerting; in such situations one cannot escape the feeling that everyone
present should be accounted for, and is, in fact, somehow performing
anyway (or about to perform), albeit inadequately and without rehearsal.
The stage fright described here is that experienced by a person who, from
the point of view of the quarreling couple, may be receiving non-person
treatment, but who finds this role situationally and emotionally uncomfort
able.
A related form of audience anxiety arises among persons watching
pornographic films. The scenes depicted on the screen are those for which,
when performed offscreen, no witnesses are morally permitted. The ques
tion causing alarm and acute self-consciousness in the audience is how to
behave in the presence of activities which are, like intimate family quarrels
and defecation, socially defined as unwitnessable. Audience activity here
usually constitutes an arduous attempt at calmness and composure.
Sometimes special coping mechanisms will be employed as when, fo r exam
ple, a person sensing impending loss of self-control will stammer out a light
joke, or will attempt to shift the meaning of the cinematic event from the
erotic to the technical or scientific, commenting on the anatomical elements
or sociological significance of the film. Anxieties are likely to be even
greater if the film showing is designed as a test of moral character, as it
often is during college fraternity initiations, and the all-male audience
knows or fears that composure wili be tested by a command to stand as
soon as the film is over.
STAGE FRIGHT IN EVERYDAY LIFE
Stage fright is likely to be a feature of a situation during the critical

performance of a claimed identity. Typically the occasion for this is a
testing situation in which the identity claimed will be recognized and

legitimated by persons in a position to provide some reward or payoff, such
as admission into the circle of those who have established their claim to the
identity, a new job or promotion, or the hand of a woman in marriage. Persons
about to perform at such times not infrequently experience stage fright,
even if the task itself is one with which they are quite familiar and is one
which they perform with skill and savoir-faire on non-critical occasions .
A nice example is provided in the fear evinced by a prize-winning
teenage black poet, performing for the first time before a Southern white
audience at a house party:
Toward the end of the long afternoon, it was proposed that the young
writers read their poems. Once again I was plunged into sweaty
palmed agony. My torment only increased as the first two readers
read their poems like seasoned professionals, or so it seemed to me.
When my turn came I tried to beg off, but the additional attention
focused upon me only increased my discomfort and I plunged in, at
first reading too fast and almost inaudibly but finally recollecting
some of the admonitions my teacher had dinned into my head in pre
paration for "recitations" before Negro school and church audiences
as far back as the second grade. I had not realized how long a poem it
was when I was writing it and I was squirmingly conscious of certain
flaws and failures which had never before loomed so large. 3 6
Critical performances are usually those that test the relationship be
tween rehearsal and stage performance. Off the dramatic stage they include
the first full-fledged engagement of a person with the activities with which
he or she identifies . For an entrepreneur the test is whether he or she can ac
tually meet the first payroll; for a doctor, whether he or she can diagnose the
first patient; for a young husband, whether he can sexually satisfy his new wife.
When the critical performance occurs in the presence of higher-status
others, the lower-status person is likely to experience anxiety over whether
and in what manner s/he should acknowledge the real differences that
distinguish the higher-status person. The problem is further complicated
when the higher-status person commands the status inferior to, in effect, be
"at ease. " In such situations the status inferior tends to experience a kind of
"frame confusion" whereby s/he is never sure whether the inter acti on is
something other than what the status superior says it is. Thus when a
monarch goes among his people and urges them to honestly tell him their
grievances, when a school principal invites the students in for a "gloves off'
chat, or when the colonel requests that his lieutenant candidly evaluate the
colonel's battle plan - in each situation, the status inferior experiences
uncertainty, anxiety and identity confusion .
On some occasions the tables are turned and higher-status persons are
critically tested in the presence of inferiors. Such occasions generate a par
ticularly acute anxiety since the performance occurs before an attentive,
even hyperconscious audience, seeking to discover a single flaw by which
they can discredit not only the performer himself, but also the status group
which he represents and, by extension, the entire social order.
At such times the performer experiences an excruciating awareness
that upon his shoulders, for a few moments, there rests history itself.
George Orwell, serving as a British colonial officer, describes such an occa
sion when, one day, he realizes that he must resolutely and without sign of
fear and in full view of the subject people kill an elephant that had gone on
a rampage:
Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the
unarmed native crowd - seemingly the leading actor in the piece; but
in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of
those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the
white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He
becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure
of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life
in trying to impress the "natives, " and so in every crises he has to do
what the "natives" expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face
grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. A sahib has got to act
like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and
do definite things. To come all this way, rifle in hand, with two thou
sand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, hav
ing done nothing - no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh
at me. And my whole life, every white man's life in the East, was one
long struggle not to be laughed at.
The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong
those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled
. . . And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them
would laugh. That would never do. 37
Besides critical performances and interaction with status superiors and

inferiors, problems of stage fright emerge during "first time" situations .
That is, some performances must be carried off smoothly without prior
rehearsal. The problem for those engaged. in the activity is how to give off
an air of dexterity and grace without having had any experience.
Consider a child's attendance at his first horror film when accom
panied by "sophisticated" peers who have seen such films before. The boy's
fear is specifically stage fright rather than general anxiety because he is con
scious of being under careful surveillance by his friends who he believes are
seeking to uncover, beneath his air of carefree nonchalance, some sign that
he is in fact the cowering child they suspect. His voice, manner, gestures
and style will be carefully studied for j ust those flaws that throw into relief
his suspected "real" identity. Any incongruity - a trembling hand, for ex
ample - may mar his performance and undermine his identity claim. Similar
anxieties and their attendant interactional features are found among those
viewing for the first time pornographic films.
While many activities combine first time performance with expecta
tions of skill and savoir-faire, we must distinguish between those that are
linked by knowledge and rehearsal to be followed by a testing performance
and those for which knowledge is available but practice forbidden. Thus, as
an example of the first point, lawyers with first cases have not only their
general law background but also experience in moot court. But at least two
activities often require smooth performances with no previous experience:
surrendering one's virginity and death. Each is, so to speak, for the first and
last time . 3 8
Yet the manner of the performance is crucial since upon it may hang
the fate of a relationship or the moral history of a life. Although virginity
may excuse a bride from skill in her first attempts at sexual intercourse, ap
prehension and fear may be taken as a sign of lack of love or as indif
ference. Where virginity is culturally important, a woman undergoes stage
fright precisely because of the special scrutiny with which her wedding night
performance will be judged.
Death, too, often invokes an unrehearsed performance3 9 before doc
tors, executioners, relatives and history. In other words, in the moments
before it occurs a person may become frightened not only at the prospects
of what death itself entails, but at the meaning of his or her own terminal
performance. Executions profoundly tax the principal actors' capacities to
cope with performance anxiety. The noble bearing of a condemned man
j ust before his execution may win him plaudits that outweigh the heinous
crime for which he has been sentenced. 4° For some men, then, nothing
becomes them like their deaths, and their fears over j ust this may generate
stage fright. Thus persons condemned to hang sometimes express fear that
the loss of sphincter control concomitant with rope strangulation is too em
barrassing to bear.
Certain roles - fo r example, the "understudy" and the parvenu - are
vulnerable to the plight of stage fright to the extent that they share struc
tural similarities with "first time" situations . The understudy, both onstage
and in everyday life, is aware that many stand ready to challenge her cre
dentials to give a performance. Thus, when a substitute teacher appears,
students become active in testing the credibility of her identity claim. And
to buoy up the stage confidence of the substitute teacher, the school prin
cipal and others make special efforts to reassure the "understudy" of her
capacities to handle the situation. Among professional actors, the ritual

everywhere is to offer the understudy moral support and boost confidence
with flowers and good wishes to "break a leg . "
Stage fright over claimed identity also arises for parvenus . Parvenus,
aware of the precariousness of their identity claims, will frequently plan or
search for coping mechanisms that hide their identity-betraying stage
fright. Moreover, societies in which traditional values or legal norms are in
transitional or fluctuating states provide numerous situations for trying out
new identities under hazardous conditions. First-time users of marijuana,
for example, who are not familiar with or sure about the emotional control
measures available to them when high, fear that their mental state will be
visible to disapproving non-users . 4 1 In general, contemporary society is
systematically producing a vast assortment of parvenu statuses, making
stage fright a more common problem in everyday life. 4 2
COPING STRATEGIES
With respect to stage fright, three general kinds of coping strategies are
available. First, there are those strategies that prevent stage fright from
emerging. Here is the place for rehearsals and practice. But we have already
noted that in some situations - executions, wedding nights for virgins, and
so on - no practice can occur and thus, in the absence of this coping device,
we may expect some overt evidence of stage fright. Aside from rehearsals,
stage fright may be nipped in the bud, so to speak, by anxiety-reducing
redefinitions of the performance situation. Nudist camps, for example, try
to relieve patrons and visitors of undue concern about their unclothed state
by establishing rules prohibiting staring, sex talk, body contact, and nude
dancing . 4 3
The second kind of strategy for coping with stage fright is that which
contains it and prevents it from erupting into behavior that may disrupt a
performance or discredit the identity of the performer. One technique for
reducing the effects of stage fright on performer and audience is for the per
former to disarm both by lightly calling attention to his or her own anx
ieties. Thus, the new bank manager, making his maiden speech before the
toastmasters' club, may begin by saying that his knees are knocking so loudly
that he wonders if his voice can be heard. Other small, self-deprecating
remarks by speakers act to reduce tension and save face by inviting au
dience sympathy.
A related coping device is the performer's employment of a con
federate to buoy up sagging stage confidence. The simplest example is that
in which a mother or tutor instructs a novice performer to fix his gaze on
her all during the performance with an implied promise that a confidence-
maintaining countenance will be returned throughout. A more subtle

employment of the same technique is the use of a friend as an agent of silent
collusive communication in moments of stress, so that the anxious per
former knows that there is at least one person in the audience who by his
facial expression and eye contact will supply him or her with moral support.
Beyond interpersonal techniques are all those physical obj ects that
may be used to hide the presence of stage fright from an audience. A lectern
prevents the audience from seeing the trembling hands and quivering knees
of the public speaker. Some lecturers confess to an inordinate anxiety
whenever they know that they will have to perform without the protections
afforded by this wooden barrier. In a similar sense a teacher may be relieved
of the anxiety that her pupils are allowing their eyes to wander to the body
regions exposed to them when she sits behind her desk by having the front
of the desk covered; but a young mini-skirted lady may suffer in silent
agony when she is afforded no equal protection at a cocktail party and must
remember to always cross her legs when seated. The presence or absence of
a screen by which a performer may hide the most manifest signs of his or
her own anxieties or those portions of the anatomy which when scrutinized
subject him or her to embarrassment constitutes a maj or element in the
generation or inhibition of stage fright itself. 44
A third kind of coping strategy involves employing rescue devices
when stage fright has manifested itself in such a manner that the perfor
mance has been disrupted. Sometimes the restorative measures are not
employed personally by the immobilized performer, but by fellow per
formers or the audience. Thus when one stage actor has "frozen" and can
not carry off the part, another actor may quickly construct lines to "save"
the scene. Similarly, in a wedding ceremony, the usher whose hands are
trembling so that he cannot light the altar candles may be assisted by a
priest, altar-boy, or guest. At times the entire audience restores the con
fidence of a totally frightened performer by a spontaneous sympathetic ap
proval. A remarkable exhibition of this occurred in the film Tales of
Manhattan when the overweight novice orchestra conductor, frightened
about his own debut, ripped his tuxedo jacket in the first raise of the baton.
Totally demoralized he sat down at the podium and wept, until the swallow
tailed audience silently removed their own j ackets and urged him by their
applause to begin again.
The experienced actor knows that he or she can often rescue a poten
tially disastrous scene by an ad lib, a j oke, or some other hasty but effective
scissors-and-paste over the cracked theatrical frame. Indeed, it is for this
reason, probably, that experienced stage actors suffer less anxiety over their
own stage fright than the tyro performer or neophyte. The experienced ac
tor, however, may be motivated by concerns other than the salvage of a
scene when he or she employs ad libs and new constructions within the char-
acterological portrayal. To begin with, such an actor m ight ad lib to add

zest to the performance. If lines are too well anticipated, an actor learns,
the performance may become flat.
Beyond the attainment of zest, ad libs and improvisations may be used
to test the poise of fellow actors during the course of the drama itself. Ex
amples of such situations are the stage Romeo who whispers to Juliet that
she has bad breath or who bites her lip in the tragic kissing scene; the stage
Peter who proclaims, sotto voce, that the matzo is stale while accepting the
dramatic communion in the Passion Play; or the "j oke" said to be con
tinually employed by Caruso in Madama Butterfly of concealing a raw egg
in his palm before shaking hands with his costar.
Ad libs and other innovative activities on the stage, then, can have a
variety of functions beyond that of saving the performance. They can in
dicate an actor's poise under pressure, a test of his or her sang-!roid
("coolness, " to use a contemporary idiom) . 4 5 In this sense, ad libs and im
provisations on the stage can be a cause for as well as a rescue from slips
and errors. And the actor who must anticipate a personal ability to present
or respond to the unexpected onstage, can suffer stage fright therefrom.
The actor knows he or she must put on a performance for fellow actors as
an infrastructure to the performance put on for the audience; that is, a
frame of action is placed within the larger frame of dramatic presentation.
In terms of its total consequences, to fail in the inner frame may be quite as
disastrous as to fail in the outer one. In short, coping devices are often two
edged swords.
CONCLUSIONS
Within the framework of the theatrical stage, slips and flaws are
seriously attended, and unlike most offstage encounters in everyday life,
performances are expected to occur with qualities of perfection not or
dinarily achieved. Since total congruency is assumed as the definition of the
theatrical situation, the rules of conduct prevailing under conditions of
fragmented congruency - that is, the rules of conduct to which ordinary
persons ordinarily subscribe - are revoked and rules requiring perfection
substituted instead. And since stage actors know that they will be judged in
accordance with these extraordinary rules of conduct during a perfor
mance, they are apprehensive. Consequently, the actor, as Sir Alec Guin
ness has observed, is totally exposed: "He's vulnerable from head to toe, his
total personality is exposed to critical j udgment - his intellect, his bearing,
his whole appearance. In short, his ego. "46
Stage fright is also a phenomenon of everyday life. We may expect
stage fright to emerge whenever an event or perfo rmance itself is important.
Importance is usually socially defined although there are idiosyncratic

variations and individual innovations in the defining process. In general,
however, we may expect that j ockeys will experience greater performance
anxiety when riding in the Kentucky Derby than in ordinary races; that a
Jewish mother will be more acutely self-conscious at her son's Bar Mitzvah
than on any other Saturday in the synagogue; and that a young man will
more likely exhibit stage fright on his wedding night than on subsequent oc
casions of sexual intercourse with his wife.
A more complex situation generating stage fright involves the social
composition of the audience. As a hypothesis we may suggest that both
dramatic and social actors will experience a heightened sense of stage fright
in proportion to the social status and valuable rewards available from the
audience. To mention an extreme case of this point, we might expect the
war hero to show greater anxiety at the ceremony in which he receives the
Congressional Medal of Honor than on the battlefield where he carried out
the deeds to merit it.47 In addition to the status and power of an audience,
there is the question of its size. For some persons a performance that can be
carried out with grace and skill before a few becomes impossible in front of
seated hundreds . For others, the reverse is the case.
Neophytes and the neophyte status is another strategic research site for
the study of stage fright. The neophyte is about to perform for the first time
in a role that calls for certain skills never yet publicly tested. Neophytes,
unlike experienced performers, are unaware of the relationship between
rehearsal and performance, and thus cannot know what connection exists
between their private practicing and their public performance. In addition,
there are some situated neophyte statuses: for example, wedding nights for
virgins, for which perfect performance may be expected without any prior
rehearsal. Rehearsal or not, the neophyte status may be perceived as one
characterized by apprehension based upon the expectation of perfection in
a never-before-performed task.
Besides the neophyte status, there are those categories of persons
whose identity is potentially discreditable and who, therefore, have a vested
interest in masking the stigmatizable elements of their self-presentation. 48
Examples include ex-mental patients, passing homosexuals, and profes
sional check fo rgers . 49 Such types, unlike ordinary persons, must be alive to
those elements in their daily and regular performances which might give
them away. And it is among such discreditable types that heightened ap
prehensiveness is to be found as well, perhaps, as strategies for coping with
flaws in behavior.
Such persons are commonly labeled as "paranoids."5 0 Thus homosex
uals, sensitive blacks and cripples exhibit anxieties about their image and
their fate suggesting that a pervasive fear governs their lives. This fear, we
contend, is stage fright of the same order as that experienced by dramatic
actors in the theater and social actors in unusual situations. But in the case
of the stigmatized, the fear is permanent, based on the continuous feeling
of being onstage as a performer - always under surveillance, everywhere
being looked over for j ust those tell-tale slips that will betray the identity
which has been voluntarily assumed or involuntarily acquired.
But one need not look to extreme cases to witness stage fright in every
day life. Much of the so-called anxiety of the modern age is essentially due
to stage fright. We live in a pluralistic society where, increasingly, identity
claims are made problematic. In other words, we are suggesting that our
society is evolving into one where individuals are continually being faced
with the necessity of mobilizing their interactional performances, a society
where individuals are aware that their identity claims are being temporarily
honored - until further notice. If so, the twin plights of tension manage
ment and mobilization of the self for purposes of information control
become a problem not only for the stigmatized but increasingly for all peo
ple. And the coping mechanisms already alluded to appear to us as becom
ing dominant features of interpersonal relations.
What we are suggesting finally is that the age-old debate between art
and life is more complex than has been recognized . For most, the sense of
artistic performance is experienced occasionally and briefly; for a few it is a
matter of professional skills, experienced in settings clearly marked out as
theater; but for some, especially the stigmatized, art does not imitate life,
but becomes it . And a pervasive fear haunts those for whom their very ex
istence is theater.
Chapter 7 Coolness in Everyday Life
"Don't lose your cool ! "

A common enough phrase and one easily recognized in contemporary
urban America. But, sociologically speaking, what does this new male
moral imperative mean? What does one lose when he loses his cool? Our
task is to answer these questions by analyzing the social arrangements
whereby coolness gained and coolness lost are readily observable features in
everyday life. 1
Coolness is exhibited (and defined) as poise under pressure. By pressure
we mean simply, situations of considerable emotion or risk, or both.
Coolness, then, refers to the capacity to execute physical acts, including
conversation, in a concerted, smooth, self-controlledfashion in risky situa
tions, or to maintain affective detachment during the course of encounters
involving considerable emotion. 2
We may, distinguish three types of risk under which an individual
might display coolness. First there is physical risk to the person in the form
or danger to life and limb. The moral worth of many of the heroes of the
Western world is displayed in their willingness and ability to undergo trials
of pain and potential death with stylized equanimity and expert control of
relevant motor skills. Modern fictiorial heroes, such as James Bond and
Matt Dillon, for example, face death constantly in the form of armed and
desperate killers; yet they seem never to lose their nerve or skill. It is not
merely their altruistic service in the cause of law and country that makes
them attractive, but also, and perhaps more importantly their smooth
skill - verbal and physical - that never deserts them in times of risk.
Secondly, there is financial risk. Financial risk entails not only the
possible loss of income and status, but also the loss of character associated
with the venture. Captains of industry, professional gamblers, and those
who play the stock market are supposed to withstand the losses sometimes
occasioned in the process with calmness, detachment, even cavalier abandon.
Finally, the most crucial for our concerns, there is social risk. Social
risks may arise whenever there is an encounter. In every social encounter a
person brings a "face" or "mask" - which constitutes the value he claims for
himself. 3 Given that an individual stakes this value in every encounter, it
follows that encounters are morally serious occasions fraught with great
risks where one puts on the line a public face. This is the most serious of
90
Coolness in Everyday Life 91
risks, for in risking it - he risks his very self-hood. When the interactants
are aware that each is putting on a public face, they will look for cues to
glean some "real selr' presumably lurking beneath the mask. 4 The capacity
to maintain face in such situations constitutes a display of coolness.
As suggested, encounters are hazardous because of the ever present
possibility that identity and status will be disconfirmed or damaged by
behavior. Whenever an individual or a group has to stage an encounter
before a particular audience in order to establish a distinctive identity and
meaning, the management of the staging becomes crucial to the endeavour.
The effort can fail not simply because of the inadequacies or the conflicts in
the presented material, but also, and perhaps more importantly, because of
the failure to maintain expressive identity and control. Thus individuals and
teams - for a successful performance - must not only manage what they
have planned, but also carry off the presentation smoothly in the face of in
terruptions, intrusions, and prop failures.
Smoothness of performance can be seriously interrupted by "prop"
failure. Some engagements involve the maintenance in good order of a par
ticular setting. Included here at the minimum is the apparel of the actor. A
professor lecturing before his class might be completely discomfited if he .
discovers his fly is unzipped; and he is indeed hard pressed to re-establish
his seriousness of purpose if he is unable to repair the situation with discre
tion. Professional stage actors must immediately and smoothly construct
dialogue to suit a situation in whic h the stage sets unexpectedly collapse.
Smooth performance can also be challenged by interruption or intru
sion. In certain societies - England, for example - public political speeches
are traditionally interrupted by hecklers, and on some occasions, obj ects
are flung at the speaker. English politicians try to develop a style that
prepares them for responding to such interruptions by having in readiness a
repertoire of clever remarks. Interruption can also be occasioned by a sud
den and unexpected event that would normally upset the average person.
During the Second World War many actors and concert performers earned
reputations for coolness under extreme situations when they continued to
play out their performances after an air raid had begun.
Interruptions, intrusions and prop failures are of two sorts with
respect to coolness. The first type requires deft and casual repair of self or
self-possessions in order for coolness to be displayed. The professor who,
aware that the class perceives his unzipped fly, casually zips it up without
interrupting the flow or tone of his lecture is likely to be recognized as cool.
Similarly, the Walter Mitty-like flyer who sets the broken bone of his arm
while maneuvering his plane to a safe landing under hazardous conditions
will be known for his coolness.
The second type of intrusion, interruption or prop failure involves
those situations that require immediate action because the entire situation
has been altered by their presence. Fires in theaters, air raids, tornadoes,
assassinations of presidents and other maj or calamities are illustrations.
Those who maintain presence of mind in the face of the disastrous event,
and especially those who by their own example prevent others from riotous
or panicky behavior, place a stamp of moral worth upon themselves.
The exhibition of coolness under situations of potential panic can be a
source of leadership. Formal leaders may be thrust from their posts because
they panic, and unknown persons raised to political heights because of their
publicly displayed ability to remain calm. Much popular folk-lore perceives
calamitous situations as those providing j ust the right opportunity for a
person otherwise unqualified to assume a dominant position. Indeed, if his
acts are sufficiently skillful and smooth, the displayer of coolness may be
rewarded with future rights of charismatic authority. A doctor who per
fo rms delicate surgery in the midst of an earthquake may by that act
establish rights to administer the hospital in which he works . And a teacher
who manfully but non-violently prevents a gang of hoodlums from taking
over a school may by her performance take over the school herself.
Embarrassment is one of the chief nemeses of coolness. Any encounter
is likely to be suddenly punctured by a potentially embarrassing event - a
gaffe, a boner, or uncontrollable motor response - that casts new and un
favorable light upon the actor's performance. In some instances, the au
dience will save the actor from needless embarrassment by studiously
overlooking the event; however, this tactful inattention may itself cause em
barrassment as each person in the engagement manfully seeks to overlook
the obvious. In other instances, the actor himself will be on his mettle to at
tend or disattend to the disturbance in such a manner that it does not
detract from his performance. A skillful self-rescue from a potentially em
barrassing situation can win the actor more than he intended, since he may
gain not only his directly intended obj ective but also a boost in his moral
worth as well. The matter is also true for women.
Thus, coolness is both a quality to be lost and a prize to be gained in
any engagement. That is, coolness may be lost or gained by qualities ex
hibited in the behavior. A failure to maintain expressive control, a giving
way to emotionalism, flooding out, paleness, sweatiness, weeping, or
violent expressions of anger or fear are definite signs of loss of cool. s On the
other hand, displays of savoir faire, aplomb, sang-froid, and especially
displays of stylized affective neutrality in hazardous situations are likely to
gain one the plaudits associated with coolness.
Coolness does not, therefore, refer to routine performance in a role.
However, an affectively manifest departure from a role can disconfirm the
presence of an actor's coolness j ust as a remarkable exhibition of sang-froid
can gain for one the reputation of having it. To be cool, then, is to exhibit a
definite form of expressive control during the performance or a role. Thus,
we can distinguish three kinds of role performance: cool role behavior,

routinized role behavior, and role behavior that indicates loss of cool.
Card playing is one type of social gathering in which all three kinds of
role behavior might be exhibited. The "cool player" may push the deed to
his family home into the pile of money in the center of the table with the
stylized casualness of a Mississippi gambler, neither his smooth, softly smiling
face nor his calm, unshaking hands indicating that he is holding only a pair of
deuces. The "routine player" may take his bet with a grimace indicating
seriousness of purpose and awareness of risk, but not entirely losing com
posure or calling undue attention to himself. The "uncool player" may
become ashen, burst into tears, shriek obscenities, or suddenly accuse his
opponents of cheating when his prized and final bet is raised beyond his
ability to respond. The card game, like the battlefield, is a moral testing
ground.
While the display of coolness is a potential in all encounters, there are
certain typical situations where such a display is a social expectation. These
involve situations in which the risks are patently obvious - e. g. ,
bullfighting, automobile racing, and war. Literature dealing with these sub
jects typically portrays characterological coolness and invests it with honor
and virtue. Indeed, if one wishes to find examples and evidence of coolness
one need but look in the literature about activities considered risky.
Two other types of situations calling for the display of coolness are the
innovative and the anomic. Innovative situations include activities
associated with the rites of passage - all those "first times" in the life cycle in
which one has to be poised in the face of the as yet unexperienced event. Ex
amples include the wedding night for virgins, first days in school, and the
first witnessing of death. Anomic situations are those in which at least one
of the actors does not know the rules of conduct and must-carry off an
engagement in the face of those who do. Typically immigrants, newcomers,
and parvenus find themselves in such situations - situations in which poise
is at a premium. 6
A display of coolness is often a prerequisite to entrance into or
maintenance of membership in certain social circles . Since in nearly all
societies coolness is taken to be part of the character syndrome of elites, we
may expect to find a universal condition and a variety of forms of character
testing or the elite. European nobility were expected to acquire adeptness at
coquetry and repartee; the stylized insult and the witty return were highly
prized and regularly tested. 7 Among would-be samurai in Japan, the mar
tial skills were highly prized but even more highly prized was presence of
mind. A samurai in training was constantly subj ected to contrived sudden
dangers, but if he exercised little cathectic control over his skill and strength
he would be severely reproved by his zen master. 8 Another coolness test for
membership - one involving sexual self-control - is a commonplace of college
fraternity initiations. A "stag" film will be shown, and immediately upon its
completion, the lights will be flashed on and the initiates ordered to stand
up. Those who have "lost their cool" are then observable.
Tests of coolness among peers usually take the fo rm of some contest
relation. Teenage Italian-American slumdwellers engage in "a series of
competitive encounters intended to assert the superiority and skillfulness of
one individual over the other, which take the form of card games, short
physical scuffles, and endless verbal duels."9 And American ghetto-dwelling
Black have developed a highly stylized dialogue of insult which reaches its
quintessential manifestation in "sounding" or the game known as "the
dozens. " 1 0
To successfully pass coolness tests one must mobilize and control a
sizable and complex retinue of material and moral forces. First one must
master all those elements of self and situation whose unmastered presence
constitutes the condition of embarrassment. These include spaces, props,
'
equipment, clothing, and body. 1 1 Maladroit usage of these often con
stitutes a definite sign of loss of coolness, while deft and skillful manage
ment of any intrusive action by these can signify the presence of coolness .
Coolness tests also require one to control all those elements of self
which, if evidenced, constitute the sign of emotional incapacity. In addition
to the body - and here we refer to its carriage, litheness, deftness and grace -
there is the special case of the face, perhaps the most vulnerable agent of, as
well as the most valuable instrument for, poise under pressure. 1 2 The eyes,
nostrils, and lips are all communicators of one's mental ease and personal
control. Failures here - such as a look of fear in the eyes, a flare of the
nostrils, or quivering lips - communicate characterological faults that deny
coolness. Finally, the color of the face must be kept neutral if coolness is to
be confirmed . Those who blush or pale quickly are hard put to overcome
the outward physical sign that they are not poised.
Among the most significant instruments for coolness is the voice . Both
form and content are relevant here, and each must be coordinated in the
service of savoir-faire if that character trait is to be confirmed. In institu
tionalized verbal contests - such as the Black game of the "dozens" - vocal
controls are the principal element of style. For these games as for other ver
bal artistic endeavours "style is nothing if it is not an overtly conscious striv
ing for design on the part of the artist.�'1 3To engage expertly in "the
dozens," and other Black word games, one has to employ "non-casual ut
terances" - i.e. , use Of language for restricted purposes - in subculturally
prescribed but seemingly effortless syntactic constructions and specified
elements of diction. Of course voice control as an element of the establish
ment and maintenance of poise under pressure has its place in circles
beyond that of the ghetto Black. In parlor repartee, covert exchanges of
hostility among colleagues, j oking relations, and teasing, not only the con
tent but also the tone and timbre count for much.
Courtship and dating are perhaps the most widespread institutions in
which poise is expected and thus they require mobilization of those
material, anatomical, physiological, and moral forces which together,
under coordinated control, constitute the armamentarium by which the
coolness game may be won. 1 4 Activities which require for their execution a
mobilization of passions - e.g. , sexual intercourse - are sometimes regarded
as peculiarly valuable for testing poise through affective detachment.
·
Italian-American men admire a person "who is able to attract a good

looking woman and to conquer her without becoming involved. " 1 5 Chinese
clan rules warn husbands about the dangers created by emotional expres
sion in sexual relations with their wives. 1 6 And youthful male prostitutes
count it as a proof of their strong character that they do not become emo
tionally excited during professional acts of sexual intercourse. 1 7
Where coolness is considered a positive trait, attempts will be made to
demonstrate it. However, there are those statuses and situations that
typically are thought to be devoid of risk and whose incumbents must
therefore search out or create situations in which coolness can be
demonstrated if that trait is desired. For some, then, coolness must be staged.
Since, as we have said, coolness is imputed to individuals only insofar as the
person's actions are seen to occur in risk-taking situations, those who strive
after a reputation for coolness will seek out risky situations wherein it can
be manifested. Thus, children often attempt to show emotional poise by
"risky" riding on merry-go-round horses . 1 8 Adolescents escalate both the
nature of the risk and the poise required in games of "chicken. " Not surpris
ingly we find that slum-dwelling adolescents - who highly prize the
character attribute of coolness - distinguish time in terms of its potential
for action (and by inference, for displays of character) . "Dead" time is time
devoid of such potential. 1 9
CONCLUSIONS
Although the term "coolness" is of recent vintage, the phenomenon or

trait to which it refers is universal, appearing under a variety of rubrics :
nonchalance, sophistication, savoir-faire, "blase character, " and so on. For
Simmel, coolness - or blase character, as he called it - was a trait of ur
banized man. 2 0 Although Simmel attributes this blase character to the
preponderance of a money economy, the rapidity of change, and the in
terdependence of roles in cities, it would seem that these are but maj or
sources of risk that generate the conditions for displaying the character trait
of coolness. These sources of risk may be matched by other types of risk
and thus other forms of coolness and character development appropriate to

them may be found in non-urban settings. 2 1
Coolness is often associated with nobility and wealth; indeed, it is from
among the ranks of the risk-taking rich that savoir-faire and finesse are
usually noted and often expected, but it is not exclusively so. Bandits and
burglars exhibit many of the traits associated with coolness and sometimes
explicitly link these up to aspirations toward or identification with the
nobility. Thus Robin Hood is portrayed as a wronged lord who, although
forced to flee into the forest and adopt the outlaw life, remains noble,
courageous, temperate, and capable of considerable finesse. 22
Note, too, that coolness is not only associated with those of high rank
but also among those who are so low in the social order that the most prized
possession they have is personal character - a personal status that can be
acknowledged or disconfirmed in everyday encounters and demonstrated
particularly in the skill and finesse with which word games are played. Such
people, Blacks in America are an outstanding example, develop considerable
verbal ability, a pervasive pride in their own individuality, and - because of
the permanent danger of character as well as physical assassination - skill
in social and personal defense. And it is among quite ordinary American
Blacks and persons similarly situated that we find the creative imagination
developed toward posturing and pre-varication and characterological cool
ness. 2 3
On the contemporary American scene, however, the trait of coolness is
not limited to any one segment of the social order. David Riesman and
others have suggested that the era of moral absolutism, accompanied by the
trait of inner-directedness, has declined, and among the concomitant
changes is a shift in the concept of strong character. 2 4 In the era of inner
directedness moral character was summed up in the admonition to do one's
duty. Today, such a seemingly simplistic moral model has been exchanged
for the chameleon-like, radar-attuned actor who keeps pace with the rapid
changes in form, content, and style. Although poise under pressure was an
issue in the era of rugged individualism and unfettered capitalism, the
nature of the risks involved was both different in content and differentially
distributed. Modern society has changed the issue in risk and democratized
it. 2 s Keeping cool is now a problem for everyone.
In the place of the earlier isolated individuality accompanied by morally
clear doctrines of guilt and shame, there has arisen the coordinated group
accompanied by loneliness and affected by a ubiquitous sense of anxiety.
The fictional heroes of the eras reflect these changes . The Lone
Ranger - perhaps the last fully developed prototype of morally correct in
ner direction - was a silent, skillful devotee of law and order. He traveled
the uncharted trails of the frontier West accompanied only by an Indian,
both in but not of their society. He spoke seldom and then in short, clipped,
direct statements. He seemed to have no needs; neither women, wealth, nor

power attracted or wounded him. The problems he solved were simple in
form; they were only dangerous to life and limb : a gang of evil-doers
threatened the town. Only their removal from the scene would restore the
unquestionably desirable status-quo ante.
By contrast Maverick - a television Western hero of the late 1 950s - is
the prototype hero of the modern age. He is a gambler and, like Riesman's
other-directed man, a cosmopolitan. For Maverick, the problems are not
simple. His interest is to get through life with the maximum of pleasure, the
minimum of pain. He recognizes no moral absolutes except physical and
characterological survival. For him the only weapon is his wits; the only
skill, verbal repartee. Only if he loses his cool will he lose to his more power
ful and often ill-defined and impersonal opponents. The moral lesson implied
in Maverick is quite clear. The modern age is one of permanent complex
problems . They neither lend themselves to direct solution nor do they
gradually disappear. 26 It is rather that the hazardous nature of life becomes
ordinary, the impermanence of things and relationships becomes fixed, and
to survive man must adopt the character associated with the routinization
of anxiety. Its most salient feature is what we call coolness. Its manifesta
tions are the recognition of danger in the presentation of self in everyday
life, the risk in attachment to things or people, and the positive value of
what Goffman calls "role distance . " 2 7
Despite the ubiquity of coolness in the modern world, its study may be
enhanced if we look at the form and content of life for those who are
relatively permanent outsiders in society. Career deviants must manifest a
considerable display of savoir-faire if they are to survive and especially - if
like unlicensed abortionists2 8 - they deal with a clientele who are only situa
tionally deviant. Minorities whose status is both anomalous and precarious
have evidenced a remarkable ability to build a subculture resting in large
part on the artful development of coolness forms. Here, then, are the
strategic research sites .
The study of coolness - its meaning, manifestations, and metamor
phosis - is surely a topic deserving further investigation, for everyone in
society is subj ect to the problems of personal risk and the preservation of
poise under pressure.
Chapter 8 Paranoia, Homosexuality and Game Theory
Sociologists studying deviant behavior are increasingly thinking about

labeled deviants, 1 but few studying what labeled deviants are thinking.
To ask, who gets labeled and what are the fateful consequences for
those so labeled has proved a fruitful question. But in pursuing this ques
tion recent investigators have neglected to study the qualities of con
sciousness of the deviants themselves. There are at least two reasons for this
neglect. First, the very concern with states of consciousness is considered to
be within the psychological rather than sociological realm of inquiry, and
only of peripheral or a priori interest to the sociologist; second, sociological
theory apparently lacks a framework within which to investigate the prob
lem. However, we shall argue that sociological theory is both appropriate
and equipped to investigate what may appear as a psychological or psy
chiatric concern.
We hold that the model most fruitful for exploring the qualities of con
sciousness of deviants in general and paranoids and homosexuals in par
ticular is that derived from recent thought in game theory. 2 First we shall
present the components of a game model, then illustrate its usefulness in
comprehending the behavior of normals in abnormal situations, and finally,
we shall describe two deviant types - paranoids and homosexuals - and
suggest that their presumed quality of consciousness might best be analyzed
in terms of the game model.
THE GAME MODEL
Any encounter between two or more individuals may be analyzed as a

game if the following condition holds true: at least one of the interactants is
aware or capable of being made aware that, in realizing his or her aims in an
encounter, he or she must take into account the others' expectations, also
the others' expectations of what he or she expects of them, and vice versa.
Two problems have beset the game framework analysis of social rela
tionships: the problem of consciousness, and the problem of goals and goal
orientation, sometimes called the problem of rationality. One can easily ex
aggerate these problems, however. To begin with, consciousness is not in
fact a problem of the model, but a potential condition of the empirical
98
Paranoia, Homosexuality and Game Theory 99
situation. True, encounters ordinarily proceed without the consciousness of

the rules of the game so long as behavior follows along the lines of "the
recipes for living" that "everyone knows. "3 But once an interruption or
break-down of these "recipes, " or "background expectancies, " occurs there
arises in the minds of the interactants a heightened awareness context in
which the expectations of self, others, and the scanning of reciprocal mean
ings becomes manifest. 4 To put it another way, the awareness of self, and
the need to properly interpret the language, signs, and gestures of others
become conscious when the situation is made problematic. We will shortly
return to this point.
Similarly, the so-called problem of rationality need not be perceived as
an obstacle to the adoption of a game framework for analysis . As Bould
ing5 has noted, all behavior - including that of the "irrational" person - is
characterized by the actor's having an image of the state of things and a
preferential ordering of behavior patterns in accordance with that image.
(The principal differentiation between rational and irrational behavior is
that the latter is characterized by a rigid orientation, unmodified by further
information, and an inconsistent and shifting order of preferences govern
ing behavior choices. 6) Furthermore, the game model can be employed to
recognize that humans' goals are variable and not necessarily reducible to
the material benefits so dear to users of the homo economicus model . Peo
ple may choose goals involving sacrifice, long term gains for short term
losses, deferred gratifications, and so on. These are all empirical properties
of encounters, and as such merely represent the raw data to which the game
framework model is applied.
As these remarks suggest, one unit in which a game model may be fruit
fully employed for analysis is a focused gathering or an encounter. Goffman7
has defined this unit as existing when for the participants there is "a single
visual and cognitive focus of attention; a mutual and preferential openness
to verbal communication; a heightened mutual relevance of acts; an eye-to
eye ecological huddle that maximizes each participant's opportunity to
perceive the other participants' monitoring of him. " Such a unit may pro
ceed on the course of interaction without any of the members becoming
especially conscious of any game being involved in their own or others'
behavior. But should obtrusive information, unexpected events, or un
toward behavior intrude on the proceedings, a situation having all the pro
perties of a game might then become a conscious as well as an active part of
the encounter. Moreover, within any focused gathering one or more of the
participants might be more or less conscious of their presentation of social
selves than others . Thus, the game properties of a situation may be a greater
or lesser part of the awareness contexts8 of the actors in such a gathering.
Focused gatherings in which games may be observed are circumscribed
by time, space, and boundary rules. Such gatherings have an episodic
1 00 A SOCIOLOGY O F THE ABSURD
character s o that the actions carried on may be observed by both actors and
analysts as having a beginning and an ending. Despite their temporal bound
aries, episodic events provide the occasion fo r the actors to reconstruct their
own and others' biographies . And it is the mutually established biographies
of the actors that constitute the social selves involved in a game. These in
clude the actor's perception of the self he or she is presenting, alter's percep
tion of that self, and both actor's and alter's estimation of that biographical
self.
Once a game has consciously begun (that is, once at least one of the actors
in the encounter realizes he or she has a stake in the outcome of the situation)
s/he becomes consciously aware of rules of conduct appropriate to the situa
tion - rules which define what and how other actors and objects are rele
vant to the stakes at issue, 9 and which indicate appropriate norms of con
duct. These rules of relevance and rectitude constitute what for both the ac
tor and analyst are the game parameters.
Furthermore, the goal-directed actions undertaken by an actor constitute
the "moves" of the game. When an actor conceives and executes or attempts
to execute a set of moves - which in context take into account the moves,
including countermoves, of those with whom s/he is interacting - s/he is
carrying out a strategy.
A game may be said to be under way, then, when at least one actor in
an encounter perceives a situation as problematic, estimates his or her own
and others' construction of self and situation, and undertakes a line of ac
tion designed to achieve a goal or goals with respect to the situation.
Normal People and Abnormal Situations
Consider the following situation. John is a postal clerk; Marsha, a

customer wishing to mail a package. The encounter proceeds. Marsha and
John at once recognize each other as possessing certain identities -
customer and postal clerk - and thus have a set of mutual expectations that
smooth the flow of interaction. John will assume that Marsha will act as a
customer and that she will act toward him as toward a postal clerk. Marsha
assumes that he will act as a postal clerk and also assumes that he recognizes
her as a customer and will behave accordingly.
The package and its arrival are of great importance to Marsha (say, a
gift to her beloved) . Now after weighing the package, announcing the
postal charge and taking Marsha's money, John does not affix any stamps
to the package. If the package were not of unusual importance to Marsha
she might turn and leave, taking for granted that the postage will later be af
fixed. But because of the package's unusual importance she waits about the
post office, engaging in some activity that warrants her continued presence,
Paranoia, Homosexuality and Game Theory 101
all the while furtively glancing a t the clerk t o see if her package i s properly
processed. As the moments pass and the act of affixing stamps is not com
pleted, Marsha gets nervous, anxious and distraught. She analyzes the
situation: he did not write the price of the postage in the corner of the
package; therefore, he is not going to put the stamps on - he is going to
keep the money. But no, she corrects herself: if he wanted to keep the
money, the best thing he could have done was to make a point of marking
the postal charge on the package, thinking that this action would allay any
doubts she might have. But then another correction: he would be more in
terested in keeping the package than the price of postage, and a package
could be taken at any time - even after postage has been affixed.
At this point Marsha might make a scene, take a tranquilizer, or at
once write to the person destined to receive the package insisting that he
reply immediately as to whether the package had been received. Now if a
clinical investigator (a psychiatrist) were on the scene he would be observing
a highly agitated woman - a woman whom he might, after brief questioning,
describe as paranoid.
Let us leave 1 ohn and Marsha, going now to another part of the world
to investigate the interaction between Abdul and Abraham. Tensions are
high between Syria and Israel. Abdul, Syrian military chief of staff, learns
that his Israeli counterpart, Abraham, has granted massive leaves to the
Israeli army, whose soldiers are filling the streets of Tel Aviv. Syria can
relax its guard; after all, if Israel were going to attack, they would not be
giving leaves to the army. But Abdul reasons : If Israel were to attack, this
would be the very best moment - while Syria relaxes, having assumed that
Israel has relaxed. So Abdul reports is suspicions to his head of state, who
responds with: "Be quiet, Abdul; you are suspicious of everything . . . .
Everyone knows that an army doesn't give leaves to its men i f they are going
to attack. I would send you to a psychiatrist, if they weren't all Jewish ! "
Both Marsha and Abdul share a certain situated state o f conscious
ness, a consciousness not typical in their other activities . Marsha and Abdul
are both confronted by a problematic situation. For Marsha, involved in a
very important relationship, a routine activity linked to that relationship
turns out not to be routine. She becomes suspicious and mentally
reconstructs the meaning of the activity, searching for motives and the con
nection between imagined motives and actual situated activity. She mentally
rehearses the possible motives and strategies which would govern the seem
ingly unusual behavior of the postal clerk . She now regards him as an
adversary, and his actions are thought to be part of an ulterior scheme.
Notice that Marsha's situation has , at the moment of her agitation, the pro
perties of a game - and the outward characteristics of paranoia.
Marsha does not exhibit the signs of "paranoia" all the time, but only
when the ordinary world has abruptly become extraordinary; that is, when
conditions of trust that undergird the social world have broken down.
1 02 A SOCIOLOGY OF THE ABSURD
Abdul is also suspicious: he is engaged in mentally constructing and

reconstructing the relationship between actual events, alleged motives, and
future events in certain situations associated with his occupation. His oc
cupation requires suspiciousness, though his head of state does not always
share his suspicion-oriented perspective. Away from staff headquarters
Abdul does not exhibit the same signs of suspiciousness; elsewhere, he is
j ust plain Abdul. But on the j ob he must ask himself, "What does Israel
really intend? What strategies would achieve the end, but keep us off
guard? " He too performs in what may be called a game frame of reference;
he too exhibits signs that under · clinical investigation might be labeled
"paranoid. "
Homosexuals and the Game Framework
Suspicion arises as a consequence of questioning taken-for-granted

phenomena. Like Abdul, philosophers and sociologists, as part of their
respective occupational concerns, transform the taken-for-granted into the
problematic. And, as the incident between Marsha and John illustrates,
normal men and women are occasionally confronted with problematic
situations in everyday life, giving rise to suspicion, "paranoid" tendencies,
and game behavior. In addition to the irregular breakdown of conditions of
trust and the occupations requiring a suspicion orientation, there are some
persons who continually regard their social world as problematic, and who
thus exhibit a heightened awareness. Among these are the stigmatized. As a
result of possessing a stigma, an individual 1 o
may be led into placing brackets around a spate of casual social in
teraction so as to examine what is contained therein for general
themes . He can become "situation conscious" while normals present
are spontaneously involved within the situation, the situation itself
constituting for these normals a background or unattended matters .
This extension of consciousness on the part of the stigmatized
persons is reinforced . . . by his special aliveness to the contingencies
of acceptance and disclosure, contingencies to which normals will be
less alive.
Among the stigmatized a particularly significant issue is "passing,"
that is, concealing from others that portion of one's identity tl?-at is
discreditable. Blacks who "pass" for whites, spies who pose as ordinary
citizens, and homosexuals who move in heterosexual circles must take
special precautions to preserve their secret identity against disclosure.
Because of this danger of discovery, "passers" must develop a more
heightened awareness and a sharper perspective on ordinary affairs and
everyday encounters than those for whom concealment is not an issue.
Paranoia, Homosexuality and Game Theory 1 03
It is as a "passer" that the homosexual exhibits the behavior sometimes

called "paranoid" by clinical investigators . The situations that are quite
routine for normals become problematic fo r him. Thus one homosexual
reports, "You know what was really hard? Watching television with my
folks . I'd catch myself saying, 'There's a good-looking boy'. " 1 1 Another
homosexual reported his fear that a request to the landlord for more heat in
the apartment he shared with his friend might lead to discovery and even ar
rest. 1 2
As these cases illustrate, the "passing" homosexual must be more
cognizant of all those "little things" that might give him away. Thus, his
manner of dress and speech, his mobilization of gestures, especially those
of the eyes, and his indications of interests and avocations are all potential
clues to his "real" identity. The same is true for the heterosexual who thinks
that others think he is a homosexual . The case of R.R. , a young Black man,
illustrates the point nicely. 1 3 To all outward appearances, according to the
psychiatrists that treat him, R . R . displays a masculine appearance. Yet he is
troubled by doubts about his own sexuality, and by his belief that others
think him to be homosexual. Therefore he calculates the impressions others
get of him and behaves so as to belie the imagined identity of homosexual.
I try to make myself appear to others what I really am not. I f

they could see into m y mind, they would get a different impression
than they have . . . I just wonder what in my appearance now suggests
a feminine person? 1 4
Further, R . R . is alive to those events in his everyday life that suggest a

homosexual identity to ordinary persons, even if his psychiatrists are not .
Thus he reports about radio listening :
Yesterday I was sitting and listening to music on one radio at

work. Everybody else was at another radio listening to the ball game.
A person came in and said, "Get up. let's listen to the game." I said, "I
would rather listen to music. " The boss came in and said, "I always
thought something was wrong with you. Now, I know it. " He wouldn't
have said it if he didn't have something in the back of his mind.
And R.R. adopts a game strategic - or to the psychiatrists, a

"paranoid," - interpretation of these events :
To him [i.e. , the boss] my behavior is not usual. Maybe to him it

isn't normal for a young man to prefer music to a baseball game.
Evidently, people have formulated ideas and opinions that I have an
unusual personality. Rather than being a strong young man interested
in athletics and sports, I am more interested in light things. I must ap

pear effeminate to them. 1 s
The strategies open to R . R . , once he begins to gauge the meanings his

peers attach to events like listening to the radio, are many and varied. He
might try to convince his fellow workers that love of music is not un
masculine. He might try to "compensate" for his one "feminine" trait by ex
celling in another activity that demonstrates masculinity, such as, for example,
use of obscene language. He might confine his music listening to the privacy
of his home, j oin his co-workers in listening to ball games, feigning interest
in the subject, even reading up on it in private so as to be able to validate his
meretricious interest. He might purchase a tiny transistorized portable
radio outfitted with an earphone so that his taste in radio programs will be
unknown to his peers, but actually tune it to the ball game so that when asked
he can prove he is a "man" by handing the earphone to the interrogator.
And he might - and in fact, R . R . does - avoid as much as possible any
social contact with his peers . In other words, once a problem is recognized
in the interaction, R . R . might carefully evaluate the seemingly innocuous
items in the encounter environment for their meanings and utility. He may
seek to reorganize his own image or environment in order to convey a new
or different image from that which he presently suspects he is giving. He
may correctly or incorrectly implement his strategy, make wise or inept tac
tical moves, succeed or fail to achieve his obj ective. He might, indeed, play
a game.
"Passing" poses another kind of problem for the homosexual, namely,
communicating the secret identity he is trying to conceal in order to make
contact with a fellow homosexual "passer." The successful homosexual
"passer" must be able to mobilize his sign equipment so that a double identity
is available - a normal one for "straight" people, and a homosexual one for
those seeking his sexual services . However, the indicators of homosexuality
must be capable of withdrawal or redefinition should he have to revert to
the "pure" version of the passing identity. The elements of this situation
amount to a special kind of information game in which A, a homosexual,
seeks to outwardly manifest a heterosexual identity to B, a suspected
homosexual, but provide the latter with the necessary information to sug
gest A's identity as a homosexual and thus invite B to disclose his own
homosexual identity. Of course, should B turn out to be "straight, " A is left
with the problem of managing the clues already given off to his own true
identity so as not to give himself away. Ideally the situation amounts to a
reciprocally escalating presentation of relevant info rmation by which each
actor enhances the risk of revealing himself in order to ascertain the definite
and unambiguous identity of the other. The game is concluded either when
both actors recognize one another as homosexuals and drop all pretense as
heterosexuals, or when one actor concludes that the other is "straight" and
determines upon a strategy to salvage his own "passing" identity.
To repeat the important point: the exigencies "passing" necessitate that
the real or suspected homosexual take as problematic what others take for
granted. He must take into account the nuances of verbal meaning, the
symbolic definitions of obj ects, and the fact that others are (or may be) tak
ing into account his taking them into account. He operates in a context of
"suspicion awareness, " 1 6 asking: Do they know? How are they reacting to
me? When can I stop observing them observe me observing them? This is
the orientation of professional spies, and the manifest symptoms of
paranoia, an orientation not usually employed in everyday life.
The awareness contexts of the interactants may vary; consequently,
the strategies may vary in accordance with them. Thus homosexuals may
encounter one another or "straights" when each is openly aware of the
other's identity and aware that the other knows his identity; when one is
unaware of the other's identity and also unaware of the other's knowledge
of his own identity; when one or both suspects the true identity of the other
and that the other suspects his own; and when each is aware of the other's
identity but pretending ignorance of it. 1 7 Homosexuals must ascertain
which awareness context they are in (or if they are in multiple contexts
simultaneously) , and then mobilize the sign equipment appropriate to the
context . Thus, unlike many straights in the same situation, passing
homosexuals or ambivalent males must be more game aware.
The game-theoretic perspective is a model of strategic man playing
with hyper-consciousness of the opponent's moves. It is a normative model
in the sense of what a thinking actor must do to defeat an opponent and not
an empirical model of how people in fact typically experience their social
world . However, in the case of the passing homosexual or the ambivalent
heterosexual, it approaches an empirical model.
Paranoids and the Game Framework
What we have said about homosexuals in particular applies to paranoids

and paranoid-like states in general . Certain individuals - especially but not
exclusively persons with something to hide, or bearers of discrediting
stigmas - may come to see all or part of their world in terms of a conspiracy
in which they must constantly be on guard against physical or financial
harm, exploitation, or loss of status. Unlike normals, "paranoids" are more
aware of social realities, more alive to contingencies and nuances, more
strategic in their responses.
Until recently a paranoid was regarded as a person who had fashioned
and come to inhabit a "pseudo-community" directed against him/herself; a
person who aroused the concern of the actual community only after having
struck out at it in a vengeful reaction to the unreal world in which s/he lived. 1 8
The researches of Lemert 1 9 suggest that this definition and sequence is
questionable, if not wholly wrong . Lemert's study of paranoids points out
that the allegedly paranoid state of mind grows out of the context of a real
community of suspicion, hostility and exclusion in which the "paranoid" is
unprotected alone, under suspicion, and the object of secret conversations,
closed-door sessions, and extra-curricular plans. The incidents reported by
Lemert indicate the kind of events that make up this dynamic exclusionary
process. An office research team used huddles around the water cooler to
discuss an unwanted associate; a researcher's interview schedule was changed
at a conference arranged without him; office rules against extraneous con
versation were introduced with the connivance of superiors in order to
isolate an unwanted worker. Plans may be made that affect the after-hours
situation of the excluded person. In one instance, reported by Lemert,
fellow workers considered the possibility of placing an all night watch in
front of their perceived malefactor's home. The conspiracy said to be im
agined by the paranoid may not then be due originally to a malfunction in
his interior mental processes, but rather it may arise out of an actual con
spiratorial setting.
Kitsuse's2 0 study of the grounds for which a person is designated
"homosexual" provides further evidence of the dynamics of the con
spiratorial and exclusionary process. Among the incidents respondents
recalled as indicating to them that a person was a sex deviant were that an
officer "spent more time with the enlisted men than is expected of an of
ficer"; that a tennis coach offered to give a back rub to the guest invited for
dinner; that a stranger in a bar expressed interest in the fact that the person
sitting next to him was studying psychology. Following their interpretation
of these events as signs of homosexuality, the "normals" either watched the
person closely, or withdrew hastily from the encounter. Thus the labeled
deviant was given an indication of a problem in his interaction with others,
an indication that might make him react with game-awareness responses.
Once a person establishes for himself that he is in a conspiratorial set
ting, it is likely that he will begin to be suspiciously aware ofjust those items
and events that "everyone else" takes for granted. Thus, R . R . , suspecting
that his fellow workers harbor doubts about his masculinity, watches closely
the events that follow a conversation:
I feel that people when they are in groups are talking about me.
Especially if a person I have j ust been talking to goes over to another
and they laugh. I feel they are talking about me. 2 1
The paranoid is suspicious of obj ects in his social environment. For
him, the taken-for-granted world is placed under suspicion. The strategic
concerns and hyper-awareness of alternative meanings routinely manifested

by the theorist in a game of conflict is found among the paranoid, except
now the entire social environment is the opponent. Like an intelligence of
ficer continually engaged in doping out the opponent's real intentions, the
paranoid is hyper-conscious of others' motives. Note that in the literature
of paranoid schizophrenia, we find a recurrent theme depicting the para
noid as possessing a "mysterious intuition," 22 as engaging in a kind of
"emotional eaves-dropping,"2 3 as being "diffusely vigilant." 2 4 The paranoid,
as Cameron describes him, "watches everything uneasily; he listens alertly
for clues; he looks everywhere for hidden meanings. " Jackson 2 5 nicely il
lustrates the point:
A therapist and his patient had inadvertently occupied another

doctor's office. When the owner of the office appeared at the door,
the therapist apologized. The second physician remarked it was "per
fectly all right" and retired. The patient immediately told his
therapist, "Gosh Dr. X was angry. " The therapist had not detected
such a reaction in his colleague, but on checking later he discovered
that the patient was correct. Indeed, therapists are sometimes a little
frightened and disconcerted to learn that their schizophrenic patients
have an uncanny way of nosing out things about their personalities
which they have unconsciously tried to cover up.
The paranoid explores, in game-theoretic fashion, the possibilities of

all encounters . To illustrate, in one case reported by Laing and Esterson, 2 6
a girl feared her father was going to kill her; and so when she was given a
sedative, she believed it was poison, for if her father were indeed out to kill
her, he could - from her viewpoint - do no better than attempt to poison
her while presumably offering her a sedative. Like a good game theorist,
the paranoid ascribes to the opponent j ust the kind of rationality necessary
to make the best strategic move. 2 7
The paranoid - again, like a good intelligence officer - becomes attuned
to concealment and detection. The pathological component develops from
the shift in interest in "what really is going on" to the conviction that
"something is going on behind my back. " 2 8 Thus:
Patients maintained delusional misinterpretations by continually

overemphasizing an inferred, implied, concealed meaning (the "real"
meaning) and discarding the obvious or superficial content of a state
ment or action of a staff member. 2 9
Otherwise put, the paranoid schizophrenic is routinely engaged in in

terpreting the world in terms of a game-theoretic model.
Now if we ask, how is it that some people routinely put together their
world in these terms, we are approaching the etiology of paranoia. And in
this regard, the work of Bateson and his associates3 0 is highly suggestive.
Consider this illustration:
For example, if a mother begins to feel hostile (or affectionate)

toward her child and also feels compelled to withdraw from him, she
might say, "Go to bed, you're very tired and I want you to get your
sleep. " This overtly loving statement is intended to deny a feeling
which could be verbalized as "Get out of my sight because I'm sick of
you." If the child correctly discriminates her meta-communicative
signals, he would have to face the fact that she both doesn't want him
and is deceiving him by her loving behavior. He would be "punished"
for learning to discriminate orders of messages accurately. He there
fore would tend to accept the idea that he is tired rather than recognize
his mother's deception. This means that he must deceive himself
about his own internal state in order to support mother in her decep
tion. To survive with her he must falsely discriminate his own internal
message as well as falsely discriminate the messages of others.
Laing's work on family and schizophrenia is a rich source of examples

illustrating the "double bind" hypothesis of Bateson and associates. His
main point of emphasis is the family's negation of the child's perceived
reality. Only one example, the case of Maya, need be. mentioned here. 3 1
She was frightened that her parents knew that she had sexual
thoughts about them. She tried to tell them about this, but they told
her she did not have any thoughts of that kind. She told them she
masturbated and they told her that she did not. What happened then
is of course inferred, but when she told herparents in the presence of
the interviewer that she still masturbated, her parents simply told her
she did not!
Of course the family is not the only group of significant others having
a consequential impact in the etiology of the paranoid interpretive
framework . Lemert's3 2 study of the onset of paranoia focuses on the con
spiratorial denial of reality that emerges in the small, informal groups
embedded in the bureaucratic milieu.
The empirical investigations of Bateson3 3 , Laing34 and Lemert3 5 con
verge on this point: The constellation of significant others that
systematically negates reality for an individual is engaged in producing per
sons who routinely place their world under suspicion. Whether the product
of such a constellation will be identified as "ill" will depend on "career con-
tingencies,"3 6 a discussion of which would take us beyond our immediate

interests.
CONCLUSION
The game-theoretic model provides a framework whereby the quality

of consciousness of many who would clinically occupy the categories of
homosexual and paranoid is made sociologically intelligible. The game
framework is a model of human behavior under consciously problematic
situations. Each is trying to make sense of and plans for that and future
situations of a similar nature. The model suggests the contextual establish
ment of identities, the situation-oriented aliveness to objects and events,
and the calculation of strategies.
The game model may not be suited to the analyses of all behavior, but
rather to those situations having the properties of games - namely, im
agination of the interactant's identities, motives, and strategies, and the
development of counter-strategies, contingency tactics, and rescue opera
tions .
While all persons are cast into game-potential situations whenever an
interruption in ordinary activities occurs, certain persons are in them as
routine matters of their everyday lives . Homosexuals, who have sometimes
been treated as clinically paranoid, can be seen as persons embedded in a
permanently problematic environment so long as they inhabit heterosexually
oriented societies. Their allegedly paranoid behavior - indicated by a
heightened suspiciousness, conspiratorial interpretation of events , and
strategies of deviance disavowal or concealment - can be seen as behavior
oriented to their peculiar problematic status. The game framework , a
model of a thinking person in a win-lose-draw situation, not only provides
the model for distinguishing the elements of the homosexual's behavior, but
also by inference suggests the "normal" nature of this behavior.
Paranoids, typically treated as inhabitants of an unreal world, may
manifest their unusual behavior pattern because of the dynamics of exclu
sion and conspiracy which constitute their actual environment . Like
homosexuals, their behavior, especially in its early stages, may be analyzed
in terms of that of a game player. The persistence of a game environment in
their actual lives may be the factor that brings about the clinically diagnosed
symptoms of paranoia.
Homosexuals and paranoids have a heightened awareness. Beyond this,
their awareness is patterned in accordance with their perception of the
nature, rules, and problems of the "game" in which they find themselves .
Future research should focus on the classification of such games, the
linkage of game-types to particular environments and groups, and the rules
governing games.
Finally, our paper suggests that problematic environments are stable

features of life for certain groups in society. In addition to homosexuals
and paranoids, minority groups, physically disabled persons, the blind and
the deaf are some that might be suggested. It may be that these groups are
more sensitized to game situations than others and more subject to being
labeled as mentally ill when they exhibit their awareness of the game aspects
of life. Future research might focus on the game properties of stigmatized
behavior, the dynamics of exclusion and conspiracy that originate it, and
the non-pathological aspects of this "paranoia. "
PART IV :
AGENCY
Chapter 9 Accounts
From time to time sociologists might well pause from their ongoing
pursuits to inquire whether their research interests contribute in any way to
the fundamental question of sociology, namely, the Hobbesian question:
How is society possible? Answers addressed to this question might well
serve to unite a discipline that may not yet have forgotten its founders, but
nevertheless may have forgotten why it was founded.
Our purpose here is not to review the various answers to the Hobbesian
question, 1 but rather to suggest that an answer to this macro-sociological
problem might be fruitfully explored in the analysis of the slightest of in
terpersonal rituals and the very stuff of which most of those rituals are com
posed - talk.
Talk, we hold, is the fundamental material of human relations . And
though sociologists have not entirely neglected the subj ect, 2 the sociology
of talk has scarcely been developed. Our concern here is with one feature of
talk : its ability to shore up the timbers of fractured sociation, its ability to
throw bridges between the promised and the performed, its ability to repair
the broken and restore the estranged.
This feature of talk involves the giving and receiving of what we shall
call accounts.
An account is a linguistic device employed whenever an action is sub
j ected to valuative inquiry. 3 Such devices are a crucial element in the social
order since they prevent conflicts from arising by verbally bridging the gap
between action and expectation. 4 Moreover, accounts are "situated" accord
ing to the statuses of the interactants, and are standardized within cultures so
that certain accounts are terminologically stabilized and routinely expected
when activity falls outside the domain of expectations .
By an account, then, we refer to a statement made by a social actor to
explain unanticipated or untoward behavior - whether that behavior is his or
her own or that of others, and whether the proximate cause for the statement
arises from the actor himself or someone else. 5 An account is not called for
when people engage in routine, common-sense behavior in a cultural environ
ment that recognizes that behavior as such. Thus, in American society we do
not ordinarily ask why married people engage in sexual intercourse, or why
they maintain a home with their children, though the latter question might
well be asked if such behavior occurred among the Nayars of Malabar.6
1 12
A ccounts 1 13
These questions are not asked because they have been settled in advance in
our culture and are indicated by the language itself. We learn the meaning
of a "married couple" by indicating that they are two people of opposite sex
who have the legitimate right to engage in sexual intercourse and maintain
their own children in their own household. When such taken-for-granted
phenomena are called into question, the inquirer (if a member of the same
culture group) is regarded as "just fooling around," or perhaps as being
"sick ."7
To specify our concerns more sharply we should at this point dis
tinguish accounts from the related phenomena of "explanations. " The latter
refers to statements about events where untoward action is not an issue and
does not have critical implications for a relationship. Much of what is true
about accounts will also hold for explanations, but our concern is primarily
with linguistic forms that are offered for untoward action. Qualifying our
concern in this way, we may now specify further the nature and types of ac
counts .
TYPES OF ACCOUNTS
There are in general two types of accounts : excuses and justifications. 8

Either or both are likely to be invoked when a person is accused of having
done something that is "bad, wrong, inept, unwelcome, or in some other of
the numerous possible ways, untoward. "9 Justifications are accounts in
which one accepts responsibility for the act in question, but denies the pe
jorative quality associated with it. Thus a soldier in combat may admit that
he has killed other men, but deny that he did an immoral act since those he
killed were members of an enemy group and hence "deserved" their fate.
Excuses are accounts in which one admits that the act in question is bad,
wrong, or inappropriate but denies full responsibility. Thus our combat
soldier could admit the wrongfulness of killing but claim that his acts are
not entirely undertaken by volition: he is "under orders" and must obey.
With these introductory remarks, we now turn our fo cus to a more detailed
examination of types of justifications and excuses .
Excuses are socially approved vocabularies for mitigating or relieving
responsibility when conduct is questioned. We may distinguish initially
four model forms by which excuses are typically formulated: 1 0 appeal to
accidents, appeal to defeasibility, appeal to biological drives, and scape
goating.
Excuses claiming accident as the source of conduct or its consequences
mitigate (if not relieve) responsibility by pointing to the generally recognized
hazards in the environment, the understandable inefficiency of the body,
and the human incapacity to control all motor responses. The excuse of ac-
cident is acceptable precisely because of the irregularity and infrequency of

accidents occurring to any single actor. Thus while hazards are numerous
and ubiquitous, a particular person is not expected ordinarily to experience
the same accident often. In other words social actors employ a lay version
of statistical curves whereby they interpret certain acts as occurring or not
occurring by chance alone. When a person conducts himself so that the
same type of accident befalls him frequently, he is apt to earn a label - such
as "clumsy" - which will operate to stigmatize him and to warn others not
to put him and themselves or their property in jeopardy by creating the en
vironment in which he regularly has accidents. When the excuse is rooted in
an accident that is unobservable or unable to be investigated - such as
blaming one's lateness to work on the heaviness of traffic - frequent pleas
of it are likely to be discredited. Excuses based on accidents are thus most
likely to be honored precisely because they do not occur all the time or for
the most part to the actor in question. 1 1
Appeals to defeasibility1 2 are available as a form of excuse because of
the widespread agreement that all actions contain some "mental element. "
The components of the mental element are "knowledge" and "will. " One
defense against an accusation is that a person was not fully informed or that
the "will" was not completely "free. " Thus an individual might excuse
himself from responsibility by claiming that certain information was not
available to him, which if it had been would have altered his behavior. Fur
ther, an individual might claim to have acted in a certain way because of
misinformation arising from intentional or innocent misrepresentation of
the facts by others. An excuse based on interference in the "free will" of an
individual might invoke duress or undue influence. Finally, both will and
knowledge can be impaired under certain conditions, the invocation of
which ordinarily constitutes an adequate mitigation of responsibility - in
toxication (whether from alcohol or drugs) and lunacy (whether temporary
or permanent) being examples.
In ordinary affairs and in law a person's actions are usually distinguished
according to their intent. Further, a person's intentions are distinguished
from the consequences of his or her actions . Under a situation where an ac
tion is questioned an actor may claim a lack of intent or a failure to foresee
the consequences of the act, or both. If the action in question involves a
motor response - such as knocking over a vase - the situation is not very
different from that subsumed under the term accident. When actions going
beyond motor responses are at issue, the actor's intentions and foresight
can be questioned. "Why did you make her cry? " asks the accuser. The
presentational strategies in reply to this question allow several modes of
defeating the central claim implied in the question, namely, that the actor
intended with full knowledge to make the lady weep. The accused may simply
deny any intention on his part to have caused the admittedly unfortunate
A ccounts 1 15
consequence. However, people ordinarily impute to one another some measure

of foresight fo r their actions so that a simple denial of intent may not be
believed if it appears that the consequence of the action in question was indeed
what another person might expect and, therefore, what the actor intended.
In addition to the denial of intent an actor may also deny any knowledge
of the consequence. The simplest denial is the cognitive disclaimer: "I did not
know that I would make her cry by what I did." But this complete denial of
cognition is often not honored, especially when the interactants know one
another well and are expected to have a more complete image of the conse
quences of their acts to guide them. A more complex denial - the gravity
disclaimer - includes admitting to the possibility of the outcome in question but
suggesting that its probability was incalculable: "I knew matters were serious,
but I did not know that telling her would make her weep. "
Still another type of excuse invokes biological drives. This invocation is
part of a larger category of "fatalistic" forces which in various cultures are
deemed in greater or lesser degree to be controlling of some or all events.
Cultures dominated by universalist-achievement orientations ' 3 tend to give
scant and ambiguous support to fatalistic interpretations of events, but rarely
disavow them entirely. To account for the whole of one's life in such terms, or
to account for events which are conceived by others to be controlled by the
actor's conscience, will, and abilities is to lay oneself open to the charge of
mental illness or personality disorganization. 1 4 On the other hand, recent
studies have emphasized the situational element in predisposing certain per
sons and groups in American society to what might be regarded as a "nor
malized" fatalistic view of their condition. Thus, fo r example, Blacks 1 5 and
adolescent delinquents 1 6 are regarded andtend to regard themselves as less
in control of the forces that shape their lives than Caucasians or middle
class adults.
Among the fatalistic items most likely to be invoked as an excuse are
the biological drives. Despite the emphasis in Occidental culture since the
late nineteenth century on personality and social environment as causal
elements in human action, there is still a popular belief in and varied com
mitment to the efficacy of the body and biological factors in determining
human behavior. Such commonplaces as "men are like that" are short-hand
phrases invoking belief in sex-linked traits that allegedly govern behavior
beyond the will of the actor. Precisely because the body and its biological
apparatus are always present but not always accounted for in science or
society, invocation of the body and its processes is available as an excuse.
The body and its inner workings enj oy something of the status of the
sociological stranger as conceived by Simmel, namely, they are ever with us
but mysterious. Hence, biological drives may be credited with influencing
or causing at least some of the behavior for which actors wish to relieve
themselves of full responsibility.
The invocation of biological drives is most commonly an appeal to

natural but uncontrollable sexual appetite. Among first and second genera
tion Italians in America the recognition and fear of biologically induced
sexual intercourse serve men as both an excuse for pre- and extra-marital
sex relations and a justification for not being alone with women ineligible
for coitus. Thus, one student of Italian-American culture observes:
What the men fear is their own ability at self-control. This at
titude, strongest among young unmarried people, often carries over
into adulthood. The traditional Italian belief - that sexual intercourse
is unavoidable when a man and a women are by themselves - is main
tained intact among second-generation [Italians] , and continues even
when sexual interest itself is on the wane. For· example, I was told of
an older woman whose apartment was adjacent to that of an unmar
ried male relative. Although they had lived in the same building for
almost twenty years and saw each other almost every day, she had
never once been in his apartment because of this belief. 1 7
Biological drive may be an expected excuse in some cultures so that the

failure to invoke it and the use of some other excuse constitutes an improper
account when the appropriate one is available. Oscar Lewis provides such
an example in his ethnography of a Mexican family. A cuckolded wife
angrily rejects her wayward husband's explanation that the red stains on his
shirt are due to paint rubbed off during the course of his work. She strongly
suggests, in her retelling of the incident, that she would have accepted an ex
cuse appealing to her husband's basic sex drives:
And he had me almost believing it was red paint ! It was not that I
am jealous . I realize a man can never be satisfied with just one
woman, but I cannot stand being made a fool of. 1 8
Homosexuals, too, frequently account for their deviant sexual desires

by invoking the principle of basic biological nature. As one homosexual put
it:
It's part of nature. You can't alter it, no matter how many inj ec
tions and pills they give you. 1 9
Another of the biological elements that can be utilized as an excuse is

the shape of the body itself. Body types are not only defined in purely
anatomical terms, but also, and perhaps more importantly, in terms of their
shared social meanings. Hence, fat people can excuse their excessive
laughter by appealing to the widely accepted proverb that fat men are jolly.
A ccounts 1 17
Similarly, persons bearing features considered to be stereotypically "criminal"2 0

may be exonerated for their impoliteness or small larcenies on the grounds
that their looks proved their intentions and, thus, their victims ought to
have been on guard. The phrase, "he looks crooked to me," serves as a warn
ing to others to carefully appraise the character and intentions of the person
so designated since his features bespeak an illegal intent.
The final type of excuse we shall mention is scapegoating. Scapegoating
is derived from another form of fatalistic reasoning. Using this form a per
son will allege that his or her questioned behavior is a response to the behav
ior or attitudes of another. Certain psychological theory treats this
phenomenon as indicative of personality disorder, and if found in conj unc
tion with certain other characteristic traits, a signal of authoritarian per
sonality. 2 1 Our treatment bypasses such clinical and pathological concerns
in order to deal with the "normal" situation in which individuals slough off
the burden of responsibility for their actions and shift it on to another. In
Mexican working-class society, for example, women hold a distinct second
ary position relative to men, marriage causes a loss of status to the latter,
and sexual intercourse is regarded ambivalently as healthy, natural, and yet
also as a necessary evil. 22 Such a set of orientations predisposes both men
and women to attribute many of their shortcomings to women. An example
is found in the autobiography of a Mexican girl:
I was always getting into fights because some girls are vipers;
they get jealous, tell lies about each other, and start trouble. 23
Similarly, a Mexican youth who tried unsuccessfully to meet a girl by

showing off on a bicycle explains :
She got me into trouble with my father by lying about me. She
said I tried to run her down with my bike and that all I did was hang
around spying on her. 24
In another instance the same youth attributes his waywardness to the

fact that the girl truly loved was his half-sister and thus unavailable to him
for coitus or marriage:
So, because of Antonia, I began to stay away from home. It was

one of the main reasons I started to go on the bum, looking for trouble. 25
Like excuses, justifications are socially approved vocabularies that

neutralize an act or its consequences when one or both are called into ques
tion. But here is the crucial difference: to justify an act is to assert its
positive value in the face of a claim to the contrary. Justifications recognize
a general sense in which the act in question is impermissible, but claim that
the particular occasion permits or requires the very act. The laws governing
taking of life are a case in point. American and English jurisprudents are by
no means united on definitions or even the nature of the acts in question,
but in general a man may j ustify taking the life of another by claiming that
he acted in self-defense, defense of others' lives or property, or in action
against a declared enemy of the state.
For a tentative list of types of j ustifications we may turn to what has
.been called "techniques of neutralization. "26 Although these techniques
have been discussed with respect to accounts offered by juvenile delin
quents for untoward action, their wider use has yet to be explored . Relevant
to our discussion of j ustifications are the techniques of "denial of injury, "
"denial of victim, " "condemnation of condemners," and "appeal to loyal
ties. "27
In denial of injury the actor acknowledges that s/he did a particular act
but asserts that it was permissible to do that act since no one was inj ured by
it; or since no one about whom the community need be concerned with was
involved; or, finally, since the act resulted in consequences that were trifl
ing . Note that this j ustification device can be invoked with respect to both
persons and objects . The denial of injury to persons suggests that they be
viewed as "deserving" in a special sense: that they are oversupplied with the
valued things of the world, or that they are "private" persons ("my friends, "
"my enemies'') who have no standing to claim injury in the public, or to be
noticed as injured. Denial of injury to objects involves redefining the act as
not inj urious to it but only using it (e. g. , car "borrowing" is not theft) .
In denial of the victim the actor expresses that the action was permissible
since the victim deserved the injury. Four categories of persons are fre
quently perceived as deserving injury. First, there are proximate foes (i .e. ,
those who have directly inj ured the actor); second, incumbents of nor
matively discrepant roles (e.g. , homosexuals, whores, pimps) ; third, groups
with tribal stigmas (e. g. , racial and ethnic minorities) ; and finally, distant
foes , that is, incumbents of roles held to be dubious or hurtful (e.g. ,
"whitey," the "reds, " "politicians'') . Besides categories of persons, there are
categories of obj ects perceived as deserving of inj ury. To begin with, the
property of any of the above mentioned categories of persons may become
a focus of attack, especially if that property is symbolic of the attacked per
son's status. Thus the clothing of the whore is torn, the gavel of the politi
cian is smashed, and so on. Secondly, there are objects that have a neutral
or ambiguous identity with respect to ownership (e.g . , a park bench) . A
final focus of attacked obj ects are those having a low or polluted value
(e. g. , junk, or kitsch) .
Using the device of condemnation of the condemners, the actor admits
performing an untoward act but asserts its irrelevancy because others com
mit these and worse acts - and these others are either not caught, not
punished, not condemned, unnoticed, or even praised .
A ccounts 1 19
Still another neutralization technique is appeal to loyalties. Here the

actor asserts that the action was permissible or even right since it served the
interests of another to whom s/he owes an unbreakable allegiance or
affection. 28
Besides these "techniques of neutralization," two other sorts of
justifications may be mentioned: "sad tales, " and "self-fulfillment. " The
sad tale is a selected (often distorted) arrangement of facts that highlight an
extremely dismal past that "explains" the individual's present state.29
For example, a mental patient relates :
I was going to night school to get a M.A. degree, and holding

down a j ob in addition, and the load got too much for me. 3 0
And a homosexual accounts for his present deviance with this sad tale:
I was in a very sophisticated queer circle at the university. It was

queer in the sense that we all camped like mad with "my dear" at the
beginning of every sentence, but there was practically no sex, and in
my case there was none at all. The break came when I went to a party
and flirted with a merchant seaman who took me seriously and cor
nered me in a bedroom. There was I, the great sophisticate, who,
when it came to the point, was quite raw, completely inexperienced;
and I might tell you that seaman gave me quite a shock. I can't say I
enjoyed it very much but it wasn't long after before I started to dive
into bed with anyone. 3 I
Finally, we may mention a peculiarly modern type of j ustification,

namely, self-fulfillment. Interviewing LSD users and homosexuals in the
Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco in the 1 960s, we were struck by
the prominence of self-fulfillment as the grounds for these activities . Thus,
an "acid head" relates:
The whole purpose in taking the stuff is self-development. Acid

expands consciousness . Mine eyes have seen the glory - can you say
that? I never knew what capacities I had until I went on acid. 3 2
And a lesbian:
Everyone has the right to happiness and love. I was married

once. It was hell. But now I feel I have fulfilled myself as a person and
as a woman. 3 3
We might also note that the drug users and homosexuals interviewed
(in San Francisco) who invoked the justification of self-fulfillment did not
appear to find anything "wrong" with their behavior. They indicated either
a desire to be left alone or to enlighten what they considered to be the
unenlightened establishment.
HONORING ACCOUNTS AND BACKGROUND EXPECTANCIES
Accounts may be honored or not honored. If an account is honored,

we may say that it was efficacious and equilibrium is thereby restored in a
relationship. The most common situation in which accounts are routinely
honored is an encounter interrupted by "incidents" - slips, boners, gaffes
which introduce information deleterious to the otherwise smooth conduct
of the interactants. 34 Often a simple excuse will suffice, or the other interac
tants will employ covering devices to restore the status quo ante. A related
situation is that in which an individual senses that some incident or event
has cast doubt on that self image which he or she seeks to present. "At such
times," the maj or student of impression management writes, "the individ
ual is likely to try to integrate the incongruous events by means of
apologies, little excuses fo r self, and disclaimers; through the same acts, in
cidentally, he also tries to save his face. "35
One variable governing the honoring of an account is the character of
the social circle in which it is introduced . As we pointed out earlier,
vocabularies of accounts are likely to be routinized within cultures, sub
cultures, and groups, and some are likely to be exclusive to the circle in
which they are employed. A drug addict may be able to justify his or her
conduct to a bohemian world, but not to the courts. Similarly, kin and
friends may accept excuses in situations in which strangers would refuse to do
so. Finally, note that while ignorance of the consequences of an act or of its
prohibition may exculpate an individual in many different circles, the law
explicitly rejects this notion: "Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that
all men know the law but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and
no man can tell how to confute him."3 6
Both the account offered by ego and the honoring or non-honoring of
the account on the part of alter will ultimately depend on the background
expectancies of the interactants . By background expectancies we refer to
those sets of taken-for-granted ideas that permit the interactants to inter
pret remarks as accounts in the first place . 3 7 Asked why he is listless and
depressed, a person may reply, "I have family troubles. " The remark will be
taken as an account, and indeed an account that will probably be honored,
because "everyone knows" that "family problems" are a cause of depression.
This last illustration suggests that certain accounts can fit a variety of
situations. Thus, in response to a wide range of questions - why don't you
Accounts 121
get married? why are you i n a fit of depression? why are you drinking so
heavily? - the individual can respond with "I'm having family problems . "
The person offering such a n account may not himself regard i t a s a true
one, but invoking it has certain interactional payoffs : since people cannot
say they don't understand it - they are accounts that are part of our socially
distributed knowledge of what "everyone knows" - the inquiry can be cut
short.
Clearly, then, a single account will stand for a wide collection of events;
and the efficacy of such accounts depends upon a set of shared background
expectations.
In interacting with others, the socialized person learns a repertoire of
background expectancies that are appropriate for a variety of others.
Hence the "normal" individual will change his account for different role
others. A wife may respond sympathetically to her depressed husband
because his favorite football team lost a championship game, but such an
account for depression will appear bizarre when offered to one's inquiring
boss. Thus background expectancies are the means not only for the honor
ing, but also for the non-honoring of accounts. When the millionaire ac
counts fo r his depression by saying he is a failure, others will be puzzled
since "everyone knows" that millionaires are not failures . The incapacity to
invoke situationally appropriate accounts - L e. , accounts that are anchored
to the background expectancies of the situation - will often be taken as a
sign of mental illness. 3 8 There are grounds then for conceptualizing normal
individuals as "not stupid" rather than "not ill."39 The person who is labeled
ill has been behaving "stupidly" in terms of his culture and society: he offers
accounts not situationally appropriate according to culturally defined
background expectancies. 4 0
Often an account can be discredited by the appearances of the person
offering the account. And so when a girl accounts for her late return fr om a
date by saying the movie was overlong - that no untoward event occurred
and that she still retains virgin status - her mother may discredit the ac
count by noting the daughter's flushed appearance. Since individuals are
aware that appearances may serve to credit or discredit accounts, efforts are
underst;andably made to control these appearances through a vast reper
toire of "impression management" activities. 4 1
When an account is not honored it will be regarded as either il
legitimate or unreasonable. An account is treated as illegitimate when the
gravity of the event exceeds that of the account or when it is offered in a cir
cle where its vocabulary of motives is unacceptable. As illustration of the
first instance we may note that accidentally allowing a pet turtle to drown
may be forgiven, but accidentally allowing the baby to drown with the same
degree of oversight may not so easily be excused. In illustration of the second
instance we may note that male prostitutes may successfully demonstrate
their masculinity within the subculture of persons who regularly resort to

homosexual acts by insisting that they are never fellators, but such a defense
is not likely to lift the label of "queer" from them in homophobic circles. 4 2
An account i s deemed unreasonable when the stated grounds for action
cannot be "normalized" in terms of the background expectancies of what
"everybody knows. " Hence, when a secretary explained that she placed her
arm in a lighted oven because voices had commanded her to do so in
punishment for her evil nature, the account was held to be grounds for
commitment to an asylum. 4 3 In general, those who persist in giving
unreasonable accounts for questioned actions are likely to be labeled as
mentally ill. Or, to put this point another way, unreasonable accounts are
one of the sure indices by which the mentally ill are apprehended. Conversely,
those persons labeled as mentally ill may relieve themselves of the worst
consequences of that label by recognizing before their psychiatrists the
truth value of the label, by reconstructing their past to explain how they
came to deviate from normal patterns, and by gradually coming to give ac
ceptable accounts for their behavior. 44
Beyond illegitimacy and unreasonableness are special types of situa
tions in which accounts may not be acceptable. One such type involves the
incorrect invocation of "commitment" or "attachment"4 5 in account situations
'
where one or the other, but only the correct one, is permitted. By commitment
we refer to that role orientation in which one has through investiture become
liable and responsible for certain actions. By attachment we refer to the
sense of vesting one's feelings and identity in a role. Certain statuses,
especially those dealing with distasteful activities or acts that are condemned
except when performed by licensed practitioners, are typically expected to
invest their incumbents with only commitment and not with attachment .
Hangmen who, when questioned about their occupation, profess to be
emotionally attracted to killing, are not likely to have their account
honored. Indeed, distasteful tasks arc often imputed to have a clandestine
but impermissible allure, and so those who regularly perform them are
often on their guard to assert their commitment, but not their attachment to
the task.
It should be mentioned here that organizations systematically provide
accounts for their members in a variety of situations . The rules of
bureaucracy, for instance, make available accounts for actions taken
toward clients - actions which, from the viewpoint of the client, are un
toward. 46 Again, these accounts "work" because of a set of background ex
pectancies . Thus, when people say they must perform a particular action
because it is a rule of the organization, the account is regarded as at least
reasonable, since "everyone knows" that people follow rules. Of course, the
gravity of the event may discredit such accounts, as the trials of Nazi war
criminals dramatically illustrate. 4 7
Accounts 1 23
Under certain situations behavior that would ordinarily require an ac

count is normalized without interruption or any call for an account.
Typically such situations are social conversations in which the values to be
obtained by the total encounter supersede those which would otherwise re
quire excuses or j ustifications. Two values that may override the require
ment of accounts are sociability and information.
In the case of sociability the desire that the interactional circle be
uninterrupted by an event that might break it calls for each interactant to
weigh carefully whether or not the calling for an account might disrupt the
entire engagement. When the gathering is a convivial one not dedicated to
significant matters - that is, matters that have a proactive life beyond the
engagement itself - the participants may overlook errors, inept statements,
lies, or discrepancies in the statements of others . Parties often call for such
behavior but are vulnerable to disruption by one who violates the unwritten
rule of not questioning another too closely. In social and unserious situa
tions in which strangers are privileged to interact as a primary group
without future rights of similar interaction - such as in bars - the interac
tants may construct elaborate and self-contradictory biographies without
fear of being called to account. 4 8
In some engagements the interactants seek to obtain information from
the speaker which is incidental to his main point but which might be
withheld if any of the speaker's statements were called into account. Among
the Japanese, for example, the significant item in a conversation may be cir
cumscribed by a verbal wall of trivia and superfluous speech. To interrupt a
speaker by calling for an account might halt the conversation altogether or
detour the speaker away from disclosing the particularly valued pieces of
information. 4 9 Among adolescent boys in American society engaged in a
"bull session" it is usually inappropriate to challenge a speaker describing
his sexual exploits since, no matter how embellished and exaggerated the ac
count might be, it permits the hearers to glean knowledge about sex - or
dinarily withheld from them in the regular channels of education - with im
punity. Calling for an account in the midst of such disclosures, especially
when the account would require a discussion of the speaker's morality,
might cut off the hearers from obtaining precisely that kind of information
which is in no other way available to them. s o
S o far w e have discussed accounts i n terms o f their content. But i t should
be pointed out that accounts also differ in form or style. As we will now sug
gest, the style of an account will have bearing on its honoring or dishonoring.
LINGUISTIC STYLES AND ACCOUNTS
We may distinguish five linguistic styles that frame the manner in

which an account will be given and often indicate the social circle in which it
will be most appropriately employed. These five styles, which in practice

often shade into one another and are not unambiguously separated in or
dinary life, are the intimate, casual, consultative, formal, and frozen
styles . 5 1 These styles, as we shall see, are ordered on a scale of decreasing
social intimacy. s 2
The intimate style is the socially sanctioned lingual form employed be
tween persons who share a deep, intense, and personal relationship. The
group within which it is employed is usually a dyad - lovers, a married pair,
or very close friends. The group can be larger but not much larger, and
when it reaches four or five it is strained to its limits. The verbal style
employs single sounds or words and j argon to communicate whole ideas.
An account given in this form may be illustrated by the situation in which a
husband, lying beside his wife in bed, caresses her but receives no endearing
response. His wife utters the single word, "Pooped. " By this term the hus
band understands that the account given in response to his unverbalized
question, "Why won't you make love to me? After all, I am your husband.
You have wifely duties ! " is "I realize that under ordinary circumstances I
should and indeed would respond to your love making, but tonight I am too
exhausted for that kind of activity. Do not take it to mean that I have lost
affection for you, or that I take my wifely duties lightly. "
The casual style is used among peers, in-group members and insiders.
It is different from that of intimates in that it is a style employed by those
for whom the social distance is greater than that among intimates but still
within the boundaries of a primary relationship. Typically it employs
ellipses (i .e. , omissions) and slang. In casual style certain background infor
mation is taken for granted among the interactants and may be merely
alluded to in order to give an account. Thus, among those who are regular
users of hallucinogenic drugs, the question, "Why were you running about
naked in the park?" might be answered, "I was 'on. ' " The hearer will then
know that the speaker was under the influence of a familiar drug and was
engaged in an activity that is common in response to taking that drug.
While each style differs from that to which it is j uxtaposed by degree,
the difference between any two styles - skipping an interval on the afore
mentioned social intimacy scale - is one of kind. Thus, intimate and casual
style differs only in degree from one another and suggest a slight but signifi
cant difference in social distance among the interactants, but consultative
style differs in kind from intimate. Consultative style is that verbal form or
dinarily employed when the amount of knowledge available to one of the
interactants is unknown or problematic to the others . Typically in such an
interaction the speaker supplies background information which he is unsure
the hearer possesses, and the hearer continuously participates by means of
lingual signs and gestures that indicate he understands what is said or that
he requires more background information. In offering accounts in this
Accounts 1 25
form there is a definite element of "obj ectivity, " i. e. , of non-subjective and

technical terms. The individual giving an account relies on reference to
things and ideas outside the intimate and personal realm. In response to the
question, "Why are you smoking marijuana? Don't you know that it's
dangerous?" The individual might reply, "I smoke marijuana because
everybody who's read the Laguardia Report knows that it's not habit form
ing." But a casual response could be simply, "Don't be square. "
Formal style i s employed when the group i s too large for informal co
participation to be a continuous part of the interaction. Typically, it is
suited to occasions when an actor addresses an audience greater than six.
Listeners must then wait their turn to respond, or if they interject comments
know that this will be an untoward event, requiring some kind of re
structuring of the situation. Speaker and audience are in an active and
passive role, respectively, and, if the group is large enough, may be
obligated to speak or remain silent according to pre-established codes of
procedure. Formal style may also be employed when speaker and auditor
are in rigidly defined statuses. Such situations occur in bureaucratic
organizations between persons in hierarchically differentiated statuses or in
the court room in the interaction between j udge and defendant.
Frozen style is an extreme form of formal style employed among those
who are simultaneously required to interact and yet remain social strangers.
Typically, interaction in the frozen style occurs among those between
whom an irremovable barrier exists . The barrier may be of a material or
social nature, or both. Thus, pilots communicate to air scanners in a con
trol tower in the same lingual style as prisoners of war to their captors or
telephone operators to angered clients. Often the frozen accounts offered
are tutored, memorized or written down in advance, and they may be ap
plicable to a variety or situations . Thus, the prisoner of war reiterates his
name, rank and serial number to all questions and refers his interrogators
to the Geneva convention. The pilot replies to anonymous control tower
questions about his aberrant flight pattern by a smooth flow of technical
jargon quoted from his handbook on flying. The telephone operator
refuses to become flustered or angered by the outraged demands and ac
cusations of the caller unable to reach his party, and quotes from memory
the rules of telephone conduct required of the situation.
In summary, then, accounts are presented in a variety of idioms . The
idiomatic form of an account is expected to be socially suited to the circle
into which it is introduced according to norms of culture, subculture, and
situation. The acceptance or refusal of an offered account in part depends
on the appropriateness of the idiom employed . Failure to employ the pro
per lingual style often results in a dishonoring of the account or further calls
for accounts. Sometimes the situation results in requirements of compound
accounting wherein an individual having failed to employ idiomatic pro-
priety in his or her first account is required not only to re-account for the
original untoward act but also to present an account for the unacceptable
language of the first account. Note also that idiomatic errors on the part of
a person giving an account provide an unusual opportunity for the hearer to
dishonor or punish the speaker if s/he so wishes. Thus, even if the content
of the tendered account is such as to excuse or j ustify the act, a hearer who
wishes to discredit the speaker may "trip him up" by shifting the subj ect
away from the matter originally at hand and onto the form of the account
given. Typical situations of this kind arise when persons of inferior status
provide substantially acceptable accounts for their allegedly untoward
behavior to their inquiring superiors but employ idiomatically unacceptable
or condemnable form. Thus, school children who excuse their fighting with
others by not only reporting that they were acting in self-defense but also ,
and in the process, by using profanity still may be punished for lingual im
propriety, even if they are let off for their original defalcation. s 3
STRATEGIES FOR AVOIDING ACCOUNTS
The vulnerability of actors to questions concerning their conduct

varies with the situation and the status of the actors . Where hierarchies of
authority govern the social situation, institutionalized office may eliminate
the necessity of an account, or even prevent the question from arising.
Military officers are thus shielded from accountability to their subor
dinates. Where culture distance and hierarchy are combined - as in the case
of slaveholders vis-a-vis their newly imported slaves - those enj oying the
superior status are privileged to leave their subordinates in a perplexed and
frightened state. 5 4
Besides the invulnerability t o giving accounts arising from the status
and position of the actors are the strategies that can prevent their announce
ment. We may refer to these strategies as meta-accounts. Three such
strategies are prominent : mystification, referral, and identity switching. s s
When the strategy o f mystification is employed an actor admits that
s/he is not meeting the expectations of another, but follows this by pointing
out that although there are reasons for the unexpected actions s/he cannot
tell the inquirer what they are. In its simplest sense the actor says "It's a long
story," and leaves it at that . Such accounts are most likely to be honored
where the circumstances of the situation would normally hinder an
elaborate account, as when students have a chance meeting while rushing
off to scheduled classes .
More complicated versions of mystification are those that suggest that
alter is not aware of certain facts - facts that are secret - which, if known,
would explain the untoward action. Typically this is the response of the
Accounts 1 27
charismatic leader to his followers or the expert to his naive assistant. Thus ,
does Jesus sometimes mystify his disciples and Sherlock Holmes his Dr.
Watson. Finally, as already mentioned, certain statuses suggest mystifica
tion: in addition to charismatic leaders and experts at occult or little
understood arts are all those statuses characterized by specialized informa
tion including (but not limited to) doctors, lawyers, and spies.
Using the strategy of referral the individual says, "I know I'm not
meeting your expectations, but if you wish to know why please see . . . "
Typically referral is a strategy available to the sick and the subordinate. Ill
ness, especially mental illness, allows sick persons to refer inquiries about
their behavior to a doctor or psychiatrist. Subordinates may avoid giving
accounts by designating superiors as the appropriate persons to be ques
tioned. A special example of group referral is that which arises when ac
counts for the behavior of a whole people are avoided by sending the inter
rogator to the experts. Thus, j uvenile delinquents can refer inquiries to
social workers, Hopi Indians to anthropologists, and unwed Black mothers
to the Moynihan report.
In identity switching ego indicates to alter that s/he is not playing the
role that alter believes s/he is playing. This is a way of saying to alter, "You
do not know who I am. " This technique is readily available since all in
dividuals possess a multiplicity of identities . Consider the following exam
ple. 5 6 A working-class Mexican husband comes home from an evening of
philandering. His wife suspects this and she says, "Where were you?" He
responds with: "None of your business , you're a wife . " Here the husband is
assuming that it is not the wife's job to pry into the affairs of her husband.
She replies, "What kind of a father are you?" What the woman does here is
to suggest that she is not a wife, but a mother - who is looking out for the
welfare of the children. To this the husband replies : "I'm a man - and
you're a woman. " In other words, he is suggesting that in his status as a
man, there are things that a woman just doesn't understand. We note in this
example that the status of persons not only affects the honoring and non
honoring of accounts, but also determines who can call for an account and
who can avoid it. Again, it should be pointed out that the normal features
of such interaction depend upon the actors sharing a common set of back
ground expectancies.
NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES AND ACCOUNTS
As our discussion of identity switching emphasizes, accounts usually

occur between persons in roles - between husband and wife, doctor and pa
tient, teacher and student, and so on. A normative structure governs the
nature and types of communication between the interactants including
whether and in what manner accounts may be required and given, honored
or discredited.
Accounts, as suggested, presuppose an identifiable speaker and au
dience. The particular identities of the interactants must often be established
as part of the encounter in which the account is presented. 5 7 In other words,
people generate role identities for one another in social situations. In an
account-giving situation it is necessary to cast alter into a particular kind of
account, the kind suitable to the role identity conferred and assumed for at
least the period of the account. To assume an identity is to don the mantle
appropriate to the account to be offered. Identity assumption and "alter
casting"5 8 are prerequisites to the presentation of accounts since the iden
tities thus established interactionally "set" the social stage on which the
drama of the account is to be played out.
The identities of speaker and audience will be negotiated as part of the
encounter. Each of the interactants has a stake in the negotiations since the
outcomes of the engagement will often depend on these pre-established
identities. In competitive or bargaining situations 5 9 the interactants will
each seek to maximize gains or minimize losses, and part of the strategy in
volved will be to assume and accept advantageous identities, refusing those
roles that are disadvantageous to the situation. Every account is a
manifestation of the underlying negotiation of identities. 60
The most elementary form of identification is that of human and
fellow human negotiated by the immediate perceptions of strangers who
engage in abrupt and involuntary engagements. Thus, once two obj ects on
a street collide with one another and mutually perceive one another to be
humans, an apology in the form of an excuse or mutually paired excuses
will suffice. Those persons not privileged with full or accurate perception -
the blind, myopic, or blindfolded - are not in a position to ascertain im
mediately whether the object with which they have collided is ·eligible to call
for an account and to deserve an apology. In overcompensating for their in
ability to negotiate immediately such elementary identities, the persons so
handicapped may indiscriminately offer apologies to everyone and
everything with which they collide - doormen and doors, street walkers and
street signs .
Some objects are ambiguously defined with respect to their deserving
of accounts. Animals are an example. House pets, especially dogs and cats
are sometimes imputed to possess human attributes and thus are eligible for
apologies and excuses when they are trod upon by their masters. But insects
and large beasts - ants and elephants, for example - do not appear to be
normally eligible for accounts even when they are trod upon by unwary
(Occidental) humans.
However, there are instances wherein the anthropomorphosis of the
human self is more difficult to negotiate than that of a dog. Racial
A ccounts 1 29
minorities in caste societies often insist to no avail on the priority of their

identity as "human beings" over their identification as members of a racial
group. 6 1 Indeed the "Negro-human being" role choice dilemma is but one
instance of a particular form of strategy in the negotiation of identities . The
strategy involves the competition between ego and alter over particularist
versus universal role identities . In any encounter in which a disagreement is
potential or has already occurred, or in any situation in which an account is
to be offered, the particularistic or universal identity of the interactants
might dictate the manner and outcome of the account situation. Each par
ticipant will strive for the advantageous identity. A Black psychoanalyst
with considerable experience in Europe and North Africa has shown how
the form of address - either consultative or deprecatingly casual - and the
tone used are opening moves in the doctor's designation of his patient as
European or Black:
Twenty European patients, one after another, came in: "Please

sit down . . . Why do you wish to consult me? " Then comes a Negro or
an Arab: "Sit there, boy . . . "62
And, as the psychoanalyst points out, the identity imputed to the pa
tient might be accepted or rej ected. To reject the particularist identity in
favor of a universal one, the Black patient might reply, "I am in no sense
your boy, Monsieur" and the negotiations for identities begin again or get
detoured in an argument. 63
In an account situation there is a further complication. Once identities
have been established and an account offered, the individual is committed
to an identity and thus seemingly has assumed the assets and liabilities of
that role for the duration of the encounter. If s/he accepts the identity as
permanent and unchangeable, however, s/he may have limited the range of
subsequent accounts. And if one wishes to shift accounts to one ap
propriate to another identity s/he may also need to account for the switch in
identitees . Thus, in the face of a pej orative particularistic identity, a Black
might wish to establish his claim to a positive universal one devoid of the
pejorative contents of the imputed one. However, once this new universal
identity has been established, the Black might wish to shift back to the par
ticularist one, if there are positive qualities to be gained thereby, qualities
utterly lost by an unqualified acceptance of the universal identity. 64 But the
switch might require an account itself.
Identity switching has retroactive dangers, since it casts doubt on the at
tachment the claimant had to his or her prior identity, and the attachment
may have been a crucial element in the acceptability of the first account. On
the other hand, the hearer of an account may have a vested interest in accept
ing the entire range of accounts and may thus accommodate or even facilitate
the switch in identities. Thus, the hearer might "rationalize" the prior com
mitment, or reinterpret its meaning so that the speaker may carry off subse
quent accounts. 65 Another strategy available to a hearer is to engage in
altercasting for purposes o f facilitating or frustrating an account. The fact
that individuals have multiple identities makes them both capable of
strategic identity change and vulnerable to involuntary identity imputations.
In ordinary life accounts are usually "phased. "66 One account
generates the question giving rise to another; the new account requires re
negotiation of identities; the identities necessitate excuses or justifications,
improvisation and altercasting; another account is given; another question
arises, and so on. The fo llowing interview between a Soviet social worker
and his client, a young woman, nicely illustrates this phenomenon. 67
A girl about nineteen years of age enters the social worker's office and
sits down sighing audibly. The interview begins on a note of mystification
which ends, abruptly when the girl establishes her identity - abandoned
wife.
"What are you sighing so sadly for? " I asked. "Are you in trou
ble? " Lyuba raised her prim little head with a j erk, sighed pianissimo
and smiled piteously.
"No . . . it's nothing much. I was in trouble, but it's all over now . . . . "
"All over, and you are still sighing about it? " I questioned fur
ther. Lyuba gave a little shiver and looked at me. A flame of interest
had leaped into her earnest brown eyes.
"Would you like me to tell you all about it? "
"Yes, do. "
"It's a long story . "
"Never mind . . . . "
"My husband has left me. "
The interview carries o n i n what must b e regarded a s a n unsuccessful

approach by the social worker. He establishes that Lyuba still loves her
wayward husband, has lost faith in men, and is unwilling to take his advice
to forget her first husband and remarry. The abandoned wife turns out to
be an identity with which the worker has difficulty coping. He, therefore,
attempts to altercast in the following manner.
"Tell me, Lyuba, are your parents alive?"

"Yes, they are. Daddy and Mummy ! They keep on telling me off
for having got married. "
"Quite right too . "
"No, it's not. What's right about it? "
"Of course, they're right. You're still a child and already married
and divorced. "
Accounts 131
"Well . . . what about it! What's that got to do with them?"

"Aren't you living with them?"
"I have a room of my own. My husband left me and went to live
with his . . . and the room is mine now. And I earn two hundred rubels.
And I'm not a child ! How can you call me a child? "
Note that little bits of information provide the cues for altercasting, so
that Lyuba's volunteering the fact of her parents' disapproval of her first
marriage provides the grounds for the social worker's recasting her into the
child role. However, this new identity is rejected by Lyuba by further
evidentiary assertions: she supports herself and maintains her own
residence. The child role has been miscast. Even the social worker gives up
his attempt at switching Lyuba out from her role as abandoned wife. He
writes: "Lyuba looked at me in angry surprise and I saw that she was quite
serious about this game she played in life." Thus, negotiations for identities
as in financial transactions - usually end with both parties coming to an
agreeable settlement.
CONCLUSION
The sociologist has been slow to take as a serious subj ect of investiga
tion what is perhaps the most distinctive feature of humans - talk. Here we
are suggesting a concern with one type of talk: the study of what constitutes
"acceptable utterances"68 for untoward action. The sociological study of
communications has relegated linguistic utterances largely to linguists and
has generally mapped out non-verbal behavior as its distinctive domain. We
are suggesting that a greater effort is needed to formulate theory that will
integrate both verbal and non-verbal behavior. 69
Perhaps the most immediate task for research in this area is to specify
the background expectancies that determine the range of alternative ac
counts that are deemed culturally appropriate to a variety of recurrent
situations. We want to know how the actors take bits and pieces of words
and appearances and put them together to produce a perceivedly normal (or
abnormal) state of affairs. This kind of inquiry crucially involves a study of
background expectancies . 7 0 On the basis of such investigations the analyst
should be able to provide a set of instructions on "how to give an account"
that would be taken by other actors as "normal. "7 1 These instructions
would specify how different categories of statuses affect the honoring of an
account, and what categories of statuses can use what kinds of accounts.
Future research on accounts may fruitfully take as a unit of analysis
the speech community. 7 2 This unit is composed of human aggregates in fre
quent and regular interaction. By dint of their association sharers of a
distinct body of verbal signs are set off from other speech communities .
Speech communities define for their members the appropriate lingual
forms to be used amongst themselves . Such communities are located in the
social structure of any society. They mark off segments of society from one
another, and also distinguish different kinds of activities . Thus, the every
day language of lower-class teenage gangs differs sharply from that of the
social workers who interview them, and the language by which a science
teacher demonstrates to his students how to combine hydrogen and oxygen
in order to produce water differs from the language employed by the same
teacher to tell his inquisitive six-year-old son how babies are created. The
types of accounts appropriate to each speech community differ in form and
in content. The usage of particular speech norms in giving an account has
consequences for the speaker depending upon the relationship between the
form used and the speech community into which it is introduced.
A single individual may belong to several speech communities at the
same time, or in the course of a lifetime. Some lingual devices (such as
teenage argot) are appropriate only to certain age groups and are discarded
as one passes into another age grouping; others, such as the lingual forms
used by lawyers in the presence of j udges, are appropriate to certain status
sets and are consecutively employed and discarded as the individual moves
into and out of interactions with his various status partners. Some in
dividuals are dwellers in but a single speech community; they move in
circles in which all employ the same verbal forms . The aged and enfeebled
members of class or ethnic ghettoes are an obvious example. Others are
constant movers through differing speech communities adeptly employing
language forms suitable to the time and place they occupy. Social workers
who face teenage delinquents, fellow workers, lawyers, judges, their own
spouses and children all in one day are an example.
In concluding we may note that, since it is with respect to deviant
behavior that we call for accounts, the study of deviance and the study of
accounts are intrinsically related, and a clarification of accounts will con
stitute a clarification of deviant phenomena - to the extent that deviance is
considered in an interactional framework . 7 3
Chapter 10 Accounts, Deviance, and Social Order
Historically and analytically, sociology is the study of social order.

Viewed historically, sociology emerged in France 1 among a group of
thinkers who, seeing disorder all about attempted to develop the principles
whereby society would be orderly, that is, without conflict - a society
characterized by cooperation and coordination.
Analytically, sociology attempts to answer in more theoretical terms
the Hobbesian question of how social order is possible. 2 Despite this
recognition, however, the fundamental bases of social order have been
neglected in recent sociological thought. The acceptance of the given social
order, a somewhat reluctant but nevertheless real commitment to evolu
tionary theories of social change, 3 and a remarkably heavy research con
cern with macrosocial structures and local social problems have led to a
general begging of the Hobbesian question. Perhaps the time has come to
re-evaluate our research priorities .
Briefly put, we are suggesting that a return to the fundamental pro
cesses by which human association is possible - language, gestures, and
symbols - might help restore to its rightful place the basic question of the
sociological discipline.
In studying fundamental processes in term of their bearing on the problem
of order, a strategic research site is the area of deviance. It is our position
that studies of deviance are intrinsically theoretical and implicitly solutions
to the problem of order. For example, once a sociologist studies, say, the
causes of schizophrenia, he has committed himself to a certain theoretical
position, namely, that society is not possible if all people are schizophrenic.
Further, a study of the causes of schizophrenia is a study of how social
order is possible: if, for instance, the researcher shows that a certain pattern
of socialization produces schizophrenia, s/he is implying what kind of
socialization is needed to produce normality, and presumably this normal
socialization is a condition making society possible.
As mentioned, however, we might do well to focus our concern on the
more fundamental processes that underlie such structural phenomena as
role relations and socialization. In short, we are suggesting that the study of
social order might fruitfully begin by considering the relation of language
and gesture to the phenomena of deviance.
1 33
But what specifically is meant by deviance? And what fundamental pro

cess is most directly relevant if we are to study deviance to understand a
solution to the problem of order? First we will answer these questions
before elaborating on larger theoretical considerations.
WHEN IS AN ACT DEVIANT?
Between the promised and the performed, between the expected and
the actual, falls the shadow of deviance. Numerous failures in mutual ex
pectations characterize human association: old friends still violate one
another's expectations in enough instances for the matter to generate com
mon interpersonal concern; colleagues and acquaintances often startle one
another by their unpredicted behavior; and strangers are approached
cautiously in part because of the presumed likelihood that they will do the
unexpected. Deviation from the expected, then, is a common feature of
society. Yet society, rooted in a notion of predictability, endures these fre
quent dissociative acts . How is this possible?
Answers to the question might focus on the basic stuff of society - talk.
Among the many functions that talk serves is that of restoring estranged
relationships, repairing broken engagements, and cementing new gaps in
associations . Talk provides mechanisms by which everyday violations of
expectations may be excused or justified; it provides a ready-made process
by .which the label of deviant may be avoided or removed . The form of talk
especially devoted to this function is what we will call the giving and receiving
of "accounts. "
From an interactional perspective the deviant is one whom others label
as deviant. 4 When we speak of labeling someone as deviant we do not mean
to imply that persons use the term deviant. More specific words are
employed, such as "queer," "junkie," "troublemaker," and so on. Regardless
of the specific term used, persons ascribed a deviant label share two
characteristics. First the deviant is an individual whose actions, observed or
imputed, are perceived as untoward and possibly thought to be a threat to
the common good - as that is defined by some group or group agent (like a
policeman) . Second, deviants are generally held to be in some sense respon
sible for their deviant action . In other words, deviant acts are linked to an
imputed mental element said to reside "inside" the actor, so that presumably
s/he knows (or can be made to know) the reason for which s/he acts and the
reasons for which s/he might restrain or inhibit the behavior. 5
Deviant action and the mental component of this action are inex
tricably lined in lay beliefs and reflected in ordinary language. 6 Thus
language with respect to untoward action is both descriptive and putative. 7
To say, for instance, "Smith hit the girl," is not only to describe the action
A ccounts, Deviance, and Social Order 1 35
but also to ascribe responsibility. But note that our ordinary language also
permits us to defeat the accusative aspect of the remark : Smith might reply,
"I hit the girl accidentally while moving a piano out of the room"; or he
might reply, "I hit the girl because she had a knife poised to cut her wrist. "
In the first case the pej orative aspect of the act is modified b y a claim of ac
cidental (that is, unintended) action; in the second case, the action is relieved
of its label of wrongfulness because of the higher purpose it served. It
follows, then, that the label of deviant can be attached successfully to an ac
tor only if s/he is unable to relieve him/herself of the negative interpreta
tion of the intentions. I f s/he is able to offer an acceptable account (an ex
cuse or justification) for the presumed untoward action, the behavior is no
longer deviant. When an account is honored, we may say that deviance has
been neutralized.
The sociological study of accounts given to neutralize the attribution
of deviance and the conditions and reactions to success or failure in this
enterprise have hardly begun . As an initial step toward such investigations,
we propose to discuss the nature and construction of accounts and their
relation to the structure of law and society.
THE GENERAL NATURE OF ACCOUNTS
The essence of the argument that follows is that the plausibility and ac
ceptability of accounts depend ultimately on two considerations: the shared
common-sense theories of persons and the plausibility of the immediate
argument process itself. We may briefly examine these two considerations
in term of the theoretical origins of the subj ect of accounts. As might be ex
pected, these theoretical roads lead back to Max Weber.
For Weber, what is distinctive about social science (in contrast to
natural science) is the concern with the actor's attachment of subjective
meaning to the events and things in the environment. The depiction of these
meanings constitutes the criterion for an adequate explanation of social
phenomena. Specifically, the study of subj ective meaning involves an
analysis of the actor's motives. By motive Weber did not refer to drives,
need-dispositions, or attitudes, 8 but rather to "a complex of subjective
meaning which seems to the actor himself or to the observer an adequate
ground for the conduct in question. "9
From Weber's all too brief and somewhat ambiguous definition of
motives 1 0 two separate lines of investigation have begun. The first is that
which stems from the phenomenologically oriented interpretation of Weber
advanced by Alfred Schutz ' 1 and carried forward in explication and
research by Harold Garfinkel. 1 2 Schutz was particularly impressed by
Weber's notion that conduct tends to become routinized, so that the actor's
world becomes a taken-for-granted world consisting of "recipes for living"
that "everyone knows . " This taken-for-grantedness is part of the "back

ground expectancies" of the actor's everyday world. The task of the
sociologist is to uncover the routine grounds of action that the actors
themselves are often only party capable of expressing directly. Garfinkel, in
a series of intriguing experiments, has continued exploring the leads opened
by Schutz. His research is designed to demonstrate the taken-for-granted
expectancies of everyday action, and he has repeatedly shown that the ac
tors are not aware of the routine grounds of their conduct until a breach in
expectations occurs. To account for the uniformity of social order, the
sociologist in this tradition attempts to locate and describe these taken-for
granted expectancies.
The second line of investigation stemming from Weber's work on
motives involves the study of linguistic designations . C. Wright Mills, in
spired by Weber's discussion of motives (as well as Mead's social psychology
and the work of Kenneth Burke) , advanced the sociological study of
motives in his well-known essay "Situated Actions and the Vocabularies of
Motive. " 1 3 According to Mills, motives are lingual devices avowed or im
puted to social actors whenever conduct is interrupted directly or inferen
tially by the actor himself or someone else by the question, "Why? "
Since usage of the term motive still connotes a psycho biological reduc
tionism, locating it in the actor, and also suggests a dichotomy among ex
planations dividing those that are true from those that are mere rationaliza
tions, 1 4 we need a term more appropriate to sociological formulation. Fur
ther, a term is needed that will bring together Schutz's emphasis on the
taken-for-granted social "recipes" that "everyone knows" and Mills's em
phasis on linguistic designations. We think the suitable term is accounts.
Elsewhere we have extensively discussed the maj or analytic features of
accounts . 1 5 Here it is only necessary to summarize our previous discussion
with some modifications .
Accounts are statements made by social actors to relieve themselves of
culpability for untoward or unanticipated acts . There are two types of ac
counts: excuses and justifications. An excuse is an admission that the act in
question was bad, wrong, or inept, coupled with a denial of full respon
sibility. A justification is an admission of full responsibility for the act in
question, coupled with a denial that it was wrongful.
Four modes of excuses may be perceived as appeals to various respon
sibility-mitigating agents: the appeal to accidents, the appeal to defeasibility,
the appeal to biological drives, and scapegoating . Invoking accident as a
source of one's allegedly deviant conduct mitigates (or relieves) one of
responsibility by pointing to the well-recognized hazards in everyday life
and the equally well-recognized inability of humans to control absolutely all
their own motor responses . The appeal of defeasibility invokes a division in
the relation between action and intent, suggesting that the latter was
malfunctioning with respect to knowledge, voluntariness, or state of com
plete consciousness . Invoking biological drives suggests a distinction be
tween the animal and human characteristics of humankind as an explana
tion for untoward behavior, acknowledging that the former sometimes
overrides the latter characteristic. Scapegoating, employed for our pur
poses in a wider context than that familiar to students of racial prejudice,
blames others for one's own actions .
Justifications assert the positive qualities of an action in the face of a
claim to the contrary. They may utilize a universal counterstatement to the
original accusation, claiming that, in contrast to the accuser's position, the
act in question is everywhere recognized as acceptable; or, a particularistic
defense in which the act in question is recognized as generally impermissible,
but situationally appropriate. Four of the well-known "techniques of
neutralization," delineated by Sykes and Matza 1 6 to explain how juveniles
commit crimes without feeling like criminals - the "denial of inj ury,"
"denial of the victim, " "condemnation of the condemners," and "appeal to
loyalties" - are generalized justification types that have wider usage than
the arena of juvenile delinquency. In addition, the "sad tale" (that is, a
selected and distorted arrangement of facts or reconstruction of the
biography) is often invoked as a j ustification. Last, individuals sometimes
employ an appeal to self-fulfillment as a justification for behavior that
others regard as untoward.
Given these preliminary considerations, the question arises as to the
crucial structural form involved in giving accounts and holding others ac
countable. We shall argue that giving accounts and holding accountable are
typically face games - and, properly played and resolved, they are the basic
mechanism by which social breaches are bridged. Before this argument can
be made, we must first consider briefly what is meant by games in general
and language games in particular.
INTERACTION AS GAME BEHAVIOR
To understand both the construction and the acceptability of an ac

count, we may usefully begin by considering Wittgenstein's discussion of
language games. 1 7 According to Wittgenstein, the many kinds of games
card games, football games, baseball games - have no single feature in
common. Rather, they resemble one another as the members of a family
might, being alike now in this feature, now in that, and again in another.
The same may be said for language and, more to the point here, accounts.
An account may be fruitfully studied as a move in a social game. The ques
tions facing the actor in any encounter in which an accusation is made are
"What social game am I playing?" and "What are the rules of this game,
and what is the most efficacious move I can make in order to win or at least
not lose? " Perceived as games, social engagements employ moves, tactics,
and strategies, although the interactants themselves may be more or less
aware of the game properties and good or poor players. In any case, the ac
cused must estimate their goals and perceptions, the goals and perceptions
of their fellow interactants and other relevant persons, and the interpretation
that others place on their own action and words .
The minimal arena of game action is that social situation which Erving
Goffman 1 8 has designated variously as a "focused gathering, " an "engage
ment," or an "encounter. " The characteristics of an encounter are that two
or more persons have come into one another's visual and audial presence
and have granted one another mutual rights of cognitive and com
municative recognition and response. Any encounter between two or more
individuals may be analyzed as a game if the following condition holds true:
at least one of the interactants is aware or capable of being made aware that
in realizing his or her aims in an encounter, s/he must take into account the
others' expectations, also the others' expectations of what s/he expects of
them, and vice versa.
Game activity, then is under way when action is social in the sense that
Weber employed this term. 1 9 Hence we may dispose of that criticism of
game theory which holds that it is confined solely to a narrow conception of
goal orientations. 2 0 In social reality and in sociological theory it is recognized
that people may rationally proceed to achieve goals other than those asso
ciated with eighteenth-century shopkeepers. They may be primarily interested
in saving their own or someone else's face; in securing the unqualified love
of another; in gaining compliance from or giving allegiance to another.
These noneconomic goals are subject to actor's and alter's cognitive
awareness and also to their mutual and respective calculation of means to
be employed.
True, an encounter may proceed on the course of interaction without
any of the members' becoming especially conscious of any "game" being in
volved in their own or others' behavior. But should obtrusive information,
unexpected events, or untoward behavior intrude on the proceedings, a
situation having all the properties of a game might then become a con
scious, as well as an active, part of the encounter. In other words, it is in
account-giving situations where we are most likely to find a heightened
awareness on the part of the interactants, generating a gamelike mode of in
teraction.
When persons are conscious that the behavior pattern in which they
are involved is like a game, they tend to have a sense of sequentiality about
their own and their coparticipants' acts. For example, when one person
seeks to find out some information about another who desires to withhold
that knowledge, their mutual acts are apt to be perceived as a series of

covering and uncovering moves. 2 1 Similarly, when people are primarily in
terested in protecting their identities against spoilage, their acts are likely to
take on the character of face-supporting and protective moves. 22 Each
move carries with it strategies and counterstrategies, some of which go
undetected by the players .
The game situation is not stable. Its instability exists precisely in the
two kinds of contingencies inherent in goal-oriented behavior. First, that of
the dynamics of game behavior itself: during the course of any game, the in
teractants will continually indicate by their behavior that they are in the
game, out of the game permanently or temporarily, that they understand or
do not understand that they are in a game, or that they are changing the
nature of the game. The players communicate these various game states by
transmitting an assortment of clues and cues: some obvious, others subtle;
some recognized others missed. That any player will know what is happening
depends on his or her receptivity and perceptivity with respect to ongoing
behavior and his or her past experience and its meanings in the game con
text. 23
Second the complexity of interaction in game behavior is indicated by
the fact that it operates according to the paired mutuality or complemen
tarity of symbolic interpretation. Thus to make but a single opening move
of a game, John must decide in what game he is participating, what game
Marsha is playing, what game Marsha thinks John is playing, and what
orientation John has toward his imputed interpretation of Marsha's and his
own behavior. When third and fourth parties are added, complications
multiply. Consider the social function of humor as an element of a game in
which one actor is trying to shore up a difficult relationship, as, for exam
ple, the relation between a dying patient and a hospital nurse. Both nurse
and patient may understand that j okes about death or playful derogations
of the hospital, its personnel and services, are techniques that temporarily
patch up the fractured state of their different situations; but another patient
may regard the entire scene as one of unwarranted impropriety on the part
of either the nurse or patient and "enter the game, " so .to speak, in order to
redress what he believes is an imbalance in the relationship. 24 Complexity
and causes for error in perception arise because of the very nature of human
interaction; that is, the mutual mirror images and intepretations of the
players. Complexity and potential misperceptions are enhanced by increas
ing the number of players and, consequently, of mirror images.
Despite these complexities, however, the interactants may simultaneously
participate in different games without confusion. Because the same event
has multiple "normal" interpretations, the players are able to interpret that
event in different ways without necessarily confusing their association.
Thus, two scholars engaged in research on the same topic may meet and
carry on a colloquy in which one seeks to maintain "face" of both himself

and the other, while the other seeks to . e stablish a more secure relationship.
The face-saving moves of the former may so interlock with the intimacy
creating moves of the latter that each will interpret the behavior of the other
as complementary and co-ordinative, and both will end the encounter
believing that the sought-after goals were achieved.
Moreover, awareness by one player that the other is playing a different
and unco-ordinative game does not necessarily result in confusion. Rather,
such a situation is more likely to produce conflict. The players will then
mobilize stratagems fo r controlling the situation or avoiding an unwanted
outcome. Conflict, including deadly engagements, is usually carried on in
what may be viewed analytically as a game context. Only when collective
behavior of the type described under such headings as "extraordinary
popular delusions" or the "madness of crowds" occurs can we suggest that
the game framework is fractured - and even then it may be only a fracture
and not a total break.
Confusion and a state of anomie may arise when one interactant cannot
fathom any meaning from the other's behavior and thus is left in a state of
diffuse anxiety and fear. Such is likely to occur when the interactants
employ entirely different and mutually impenetrable universes of discourse
and gesture. Examples of such a condition are found in the autobiographical
literature of travelers2 5 and immigrants26 and in the accounts of persons
placed in captivity in a society entirely different from that with which they
are familiar. 27 A lesser state of anxiety, but of the same general type,
sometimes occurs when persons of different ethnic, class, or status groups
find themselves in situations where they must interact. 28 Even a state of
anxiety, however, can lend itself to a game-strategic outlook, as when a
player determines that, whatever happens, he will not lose his composure,
or when he decides that his own anxiety is an element in a game whose ob
ject is to confuse and demoralize him. Thus, for analytical purposes, the
state of anomie must be regarded as but a potential element in a game situa
tion.
FACE GAMES
Although game situations are subject to abrupt or gradual shifts, it is

possible to delineate the analytic contours of that gamelike encounter most
crucially relevant to the giving and receiving of accounts. Following Goff
man, 29 we refer to this encounter as a face game.
In face games each participant maneuvers to maximize his or her own
realization of a valued identity, while seeking an equilibrium that will permit
others to do likewise. In such games one or both of two objectives are sought.
A ccounts, Deviance, and Social Order 141
One may b e described a s "defensive, " in which a player seeks t o protect his
or her own identity against damage or spoilage; the other is "protective, " in
which a player seeks to prevent any damage or spoilage from happening to
the identity of the other player(s) . 3 0
Face games, then, are those which involve the preventing of damage to
one's own or another's identity or the salvaging of honor when it has been im
pugned. In the encounter where the face game is played, one may detect an in
terchange which (as Goffman suggests) has certain formal properties that in
dicate its beginning, playing time, and termination. The participants are a
minimum of two persons, and the acts or "moves" occur as a serialized taking
of "turns" at action. The game event signaling that a face game is about to begin
is an occurrence that openly damages the identity of one of the persons. This
occurrence can be initiated by the person damaged by the deed or by another
person. The event must be one that casts manifest doubt and negative evalua
tion on the self that has been presented thus far in the encounter. Thus, a per
son may make a remark that is interpreted by others present to be beyond and
beneath the character that he or she purports to be; s/he may indicate lack of
motor skills or body controls that until the event have been associated with his
or her character; s/he may reveal incapacity to carry out tasks with which s/he
has been previously identified; or s/he may give way to an emotional state that
is regarded as unsuited to his or her general character.
But whether a face game will be initiated or not is still problematic.
Several general considerations3 1 will determine if an act is seen as untoward
and if a call or anticipated call for an account will be forthcoming - these
being two conditions necessary for generating a face game.
To begin, one or more of the participants in an encounter may be seek
ing excitement, which can easily be generated by "calling down" or "sound
ing" another. One may even fabricate another's wrongs and challenge him
to an accounting - all for the sake of whipping up some action. Thus, the
youthful tough turns in anger on another accusing him (falsely) of bump
ing, of not watching where he is going, demanding an apology. Should the
innocent fail to respond apologetically, the situation for action (that is, ex
citement) is generated. And insofar as one desires the stepped-up excite
ment of a heated face game, hot action may be provided by challenging
easily available authority-endowed role others. For this kind of action,
then, students can turn to the administration, inmates to the staff, and
j uveniles to the polic e.
If the players perceive an encounter as an opportunity or risk to gain or
Jose face, we have a second factor determining whether a face game will en
sue. Certain conduct of the other might threaten or violate one's self
definition, sense of rightful place, or honor. Thus , an untoward action may
be perceived not only as a breach of situational propriety but also as an in
sult to the character of other participants in the situation. To spit on a per-
son in a New York subway is not only a violation of a city ordinance

(against spitting in subways) but also a violation of the victim's sense of
honor. Typically, however, the challenge-to-honor act is more subdued.
Through the slightest of cues - a look, a smile - one tests the other's will
ingness to engage in moral combat, or decides whether the insult deserves
notice as a character challenge.
A final feature influencing the initiation of a face game involves the
-restorative actions of those present in the encounter. Again, no more than a
look or a word need be necessary to communicate to another that he must
avoid or cease an activity lest he be launched in fateful moral combat. The
very presence of others - witnesses before whom one wishes to enhance
one's own face or destroy that of another - will affect whether an act is
perceived as untoward, or worthy of initiating a character contest, or both .
In short, whether a face game will ensue depends on the meaning
ascribed to the various actions . This meaning in turn "derives in part from
the orientation the player brings to them and the readings he retrospectively
makes of them."32
In any case, the game itself is begun by a challenge, a "move" made im
mediately after the untoward event. One or more of the parties present calls
attention to the offensive deed, designates the person responsible, and calls
for an admission of responsibility or a statement or deed of exculpation.
The challenge is one to the "face" (that is, a valued element of the identity)
of one of the participants. Responses to the challenge may take the form of
an offensive move against the challenger or an offering of apology, ex
planation, or j ustification for the deed in question. When the offending
party attacks the challenge itself or the challenger, the game is escalated to a
counterattack on the face of the challenger. Such a counterattack must be
responded to by withdrawal of the original challenge, accompanied either
by appropriate face-saving statements or by abj ect retreat (and, hence, loss
of face by the challenger) , or by a counterchallenge.
Here, however, we are concerned with face salvage, and hence we shall
deal with instances in which the response consists of an offering by which
the player in question hopes to restore the characterological status quo
ante. Emphasis in such an offering may be placed either on the untoward
event itself, as when a person challenged about an offensive story insists
that it was "merely" a joke or that it had no meaning with respect to persons
present or those with whom they intimately identify, 3 3 or on the actor, as
when our storyteller insists that he "must have been drunk" "didn't know
what he was doing," or, in making jest, claims to be a true representation of
the reprehensible self exhibited by the telling of the story.
An alternative or supplementary strategy is compensation, penance,
and self-punishment. By these acts the offender, though unable to establish
innocence, indicates to the co-participants in the interchange that s/he is
rehabilitated and ready to re-enter the group, if not as the old self, at least as
one who has paid the penalty for offensive deeds and is thus cleansed of
guilt and no longer required to feel shame. Moreover, one indicates by such
acts that one is solicitous for the feelings and sensibilities of others and that
when - however unintentionally - one has injured someone or the entire
group, s/he is willing to acknowledge fault and accept or even execute judg
ment for the untoward act.
When self-punishment is included, the actor signals to the others a
calculation of the gravity of the offense and of the punishment appropriate
to it if it were to be regarded seriously. Statements such as "I could kick
myself, " "I hate myself when I do things like that," and "I ought to be shot"
express a layman's calculation of punishments suitable to social crimes, 34
for in the arena of face interaction there are no crimes without victims.
Often enough, as the previous examples suggest, the offending party
will overstate the punishment for the deed, and by such exaggerated
(though only expressive) inflicting of pain will invite the offended parties to
assure him that "it wasn't that bad" and that "he shouldn't be so harsh with
himself. " By executing j udgment and sentence on himself, the offender re
establishes the code of ritual which his deed has threatened and indicates
that he is a supporter of the code, as vigilant as his fellows about its viola
tion and is as willing to punish violators, including himself, as they are.
(Our use of the masculine voice here is not meant to exclude women) .
After the offering is made, the next move is up to the challengers and
their allies. If face is to be restored they must accept the offering and in
dicate that equilibrium is re-established in the engagement. As suggested in
the discussion of the offering above, the offender can so phrase his move of
apology, penance, and punishment as strongly to invite acceptance. On the
other hand, dramatic failures here can lose the game as well. If an offender
so overstates the crime and exaggerates the penalty that the others regard
the entire performance as unserious with respect to the offense, they may
refuse his offer and even call for an account of that offer. Understatement
may also indicate lack of interest in social crimes and sensibilities and thus
invite unacceptance. But if conflict is to be avoided or a permanent rupture
in the relationship is undesirable, even a rather unseemly offering may have
to be tendered an acceptance.
The terminating move of the game is an acknowledgment of gratitude
by the offending party that s/he has been readmitted to the circle without any
permanent loss. The move itself is fraught with delicate aspects that may
upset the play and shift it back to the challenge-offering stage. Thus, the of
fender may not believe that the offer has been fully accepted and instead of
ending the game continue to make offerings, adding penances and punish
ments and calling for further acceptances. This move may, indeed have
positive pay-offs, since it can be taken as a sign of sincerity, a true expres-
sion of the state of mind of the contrite sinner against social conduct. A
repetition of this offering, however, may also be overdone and signal in
sincerity, false contriteness, and a desire for social intimacy that overrides
propriety. Persons who habitually apologize too much run the risk of exclu
sion from social circles, since their demand for face is greater than the
available supply.
Once the gratitude phase is passed, the game is concluded and reopen
ing it constitutes a breach of the social etiquette by which it was carried on.
Such breaches are themselves sources of loss of face which may not be
granted salvage, as when, after the sign of gratitude has been given, one
party continues the challenge. It is customary for the latter party to be cut
off with a peremptory, "The incident is closed ! " (Such a response requires
retreat or apology.) The face game is thus an episode that usually interrupts
ongoing social intercourse until face has been restored or one party has suf
fered a loss .
In addition to the elementary forms of face games just presented, cer
tain additional characteristics deserve comment. First, as suggested earlier,
face games may be prevented from beginning by the process of avoidance.
When one's face is likely to be challenged, one can avoid contacts from
whom a challenge is likely to arise. Delicate negotiations can be handled by
go-betweens who, precisely because of their neutrality, can conduct matters
with impunity for all concerned. Further, when an untoward act does occur
on the part of the actor or fellow participants in an encounter, one or all can
disassociate with the deed thus giving it no standing to be interpreted in the
engagement. 3 5 Persons, moreover, who are well known to one another
count it as an index of their mutual knowledge that they know what topics
to avoid and what info rmation to keep secret; persons who are strangers
employ tact and discretion until they have mapped out the social areas of
safety open to them.
Second, the elementary forms of the face game do not absolutely define
who the initiators and the respondents will be. Thus an offender may
challenge the propriety of the untoward act and monopolize the roles of ac
cuser, j udge, defendant, penitent, and guilty party, leaving the others to ac
cept or reject the accusation or offering. Or other parties may assume the ,
protective role for the offender, responding to the challenge by explana
tions or apologies and also indicating gratitude when their offering is ac
cepted. The offending party, then can be only an object in a face game in
which others have stakes in saving his or her face. In still another type of
situation the offender or others can be subordinate allies to whoever is mak
ing the challenge or offering. In short, the face game o ffers unusual oppor
tunities for an individual to employ multiple roles and role switching as
devices to secure his or her goals .
Finally, face games may be undertaken as part of a larger strategy of

exploitation. Thus persons may pose a threat of loss of face to themselves to
achieve certain gains that may be obtained thereby. Here the goals sought
are praise and favorable identifications for one-self or the social downfall
of another. The former is illustrated by the person who employs a strategy
of self-derogation as a way of finding greater acceptance; the latter, by the
person who commits suicide, leaving behind a note indicating that a certain
party has contributed to this ultimate act and thus is irrevocably guilty. 3 6 In
conclusion, face games may be undertaken for their own value or for the
pay-offs they have for larger strategies in other games .
We have noted that accounts may be usefully analyzed as moves in a
social game. But such an analysis would be incomplete without a considera
tion of law and pluralistic social structures . We now turn to these matters.
The problematics of deviance, its imputation and disavowal, are well
illustrated in the law. To begin, the prohibition of certain acts raises complex
questions because of the legal tradition that insists an act must be connected
in some manner to the intent of the actor. Activities that are prohibited
become legally actionable in the sense of a potentially successful prosecu
tion of the deviant actor only if it can be shown that the actor intended to
commit the act and foresaw the consequences. A variety of other inter
pretations, which appear as accounts, with respect to the same event are
possible: that it was an "accident"; that it or its consequences were an
unintended result of action undertaken for another purpose; that the
seriousness with which the act is viewed varies in the community so that its
normative undergirding is problematic; that the act does or does not fall in
to the category of universally disapproved behavior; or that the act is or is
not situationally prohibited.
There are two problems here. The first is that of establishing the unam
biguous intent of the accused. Without an establishment of intent, there
may not be a crime. Policemen, j udges, juries, and other administrators of
the law are faced with the necessary task of taking a retrospective reading of
the meaning of an untoward act for the actor at the time it was committed.
The second problem is that of the obj ective meaning of the act in the social
order. Law is undergirded by norms or a shared consensus of a community.
The degree of consensus for the law is inversely related to the degree of
value pluralism in a society. To the extent that a society is characterized by a
wide divergence in values, a heterogeneity of norms, and a variety of
beliefs, a consensus cannot be presumed. The law thus must cope with both
the mind-reading problem of intent and the societal survey of consensus.
Jurists and legal scholars typically approach the problem of intent under
the rubric of mens rea. 37 Two contradictory positions are argued in legal
circles . The more orthodox position holds that the accused's act must have
been voluntary, that s/he must have known what s/he was doing, and that
s/he must have had foresight of the prohibited consequences of the act.
Unless the prosecution positively demonstrates that each of these three
elements was present at the time of the act, the guilt of the accused is not
established. A more recent and less orthodox approach is taken by H. L. A.
Hart, who argues, according to the principle of defeasibility, that the voluntary
character of human action is not understood in a positive but only in a
negative way. 3 8 That is, human action is in fact carried out as mere
behavior most of the time, and the voluntary and foresighted character of
action can be presumed only if a number of negative conditions are not pre
sent. Thus, an accused is guilty only if it is shown s/he was not insane, not
drunk, not under hypnosis, and so on. The problem of subscribing to the
orthodox position is amply illustrated in the cases on negligence, reckless
ness, and errors of omission. In what manner, for example, can failure to
do something be a legally actionable instance of negligence? How can the
foresight in the positive sense of the orthodox school be established? Most
j udges, in fact, much as they may officially subscribe to the orthodox posi
tion, practice a bit closer to the position argued by Hart; that is, they look
for the form that lack of culpability can take in a particular situation, ex
cept in the crime of homicide.
The courts' problem in wholesale subscription to Hart's doctrine is that
it opens up a line of personal accountability by which an accused may
defeat the central charge against him. The orthodox position has a tendency
to relieve judges and juries from the onerous task of ascertaining and
evaluating the mental state of the accused at the time of the untoward deed
by substituting a homunculus, the reasonable man. It is argued that if a
reasonable man would have contemplated that a prohibited harm was likely
to result from his act and this harm did occur, the accused stands convicted.
The unorthodox position puts the real · actor into the legal retrospective
reading at all times and insists that his or her unimpaired foresight be the
substantial question before the j udge or jury.
The law is posed with a real dilemma when it either seeks to substitute
the reasonable man for the real actor or opens itself to considering the ac
counts for the latter's behavior offered by the actually accused person or by
witnesses and representatives. The reasonable-man doctrine substitutes
such an extraordinary actor-homunculus for the real actor that at least in
many instances ordinary juries find it difficult to punish the accused for any
failure to act in accordance with the behavior imputed to this legal chimera.
In addition to this problem, ordinary juries may also recognize that to act
for a reason is not necessarily to act after deliberation about the situation. 3 9
The rational-man model of behavior seems to presume just such a deliberating
person - a person unlikely to be encountered in everyday life and even less
likely to be found deliberating in those situations where the majority of
crimes occur.
Despite the easy-to-demonstrate discrepancy between the reasonable

man doctrine and actual behavior, this typification of responsibility often
proves adequate for the practical purposes at hand. Given the necessity of
mass-organized "justice, " jurors and others find it useful to invoke the rule
of-thumb maximum of the "reasonable man , " while the same jurors (in
nonlegal situations) will employ other maxims for constructing the inten
tions for an action. 4 0
In contrast t o the traditional legal model fo r constructing intention,
Hart's position of defeasible culpability might open the courts to consider
whatever negating circumstances an accused might offer. But the possibility
that any account of impaired consciousness and foresight might relieve the
accused of guilt - and, in addition, the j urists' suspicion of the accused's or
his lawyer's knowledge of the pay-offs that would arise from invoking j ust
the right account to defeat the charge of culpability - tends to lessen their
willingness to adopt an unambiguous juridical acceptance of the defeasibility
doctrine. In a celebrated English case involving the death of a police constable
who jumped onto the running board of the accused's car and was killed in
the crash that ensued after the driver panicked, the Lord Chancellor insisted
on the legal rectitude of invoking the reasonable-man doctrine in place of
giving official recognizance to the accused's own account of his behavior
because, if the intention of the accused were to become an issue, it would be
impossible for the prosecution to circumvent the accused's simple denial
that he intended to kill the policeman. 4 1 That the invoking of the proper ac
count for an untoward act is likely to be part of the process by which a
defense attorney negotiates the relationship between himself and his client
and also reconstructs the relevant aspects of the biography of the latter is
nicely illustrated in Traver's novel A natomy of a Murder. The lawyer
presents in a seemingly obj ective manner all the possible defenses against
the charge of intentional homicide and subtly assists the client to choose
just the one that might defeat the accusation most efficaciously in the given
situation. 4 2
In the place of the reasonable man some j uridical scholars, following
Hart, would have the j udge and j ury adopt a doctrine of empathy by which
they would apprehend the defendant's state of mind by vicariously taking
his role. Guilt or innocence is then assigned on the bases of the jurors' "in
dwelling understanding" of the situation in which the accused found
himself and their evaluation of what they might have done or been restrain
ed from doing therein. While this assignment to juries seems to come closer
to recognizing the nature of human behavior, it poses dilemmas of gravity
and standards . Jurists may be faced by persons accused of crimes so
heinous as to tax their sympathetic abilities beyond capacity, such as Albert
Fish, who murdered children and ate them, or John Reginald Halliday
Christie, who was a necrophiliac, or Adolf Eichmann. Moreover, excuses
or justifications of prohibited acts may or may not enjoy respect among the
community of jurors or a presiding judge. Thus an account that invoked an
identity understood by psychiatrists might fail to impress peers .
One other aspect of the intent problem faced by cour�s considering ac
counts arises when the actor is a body of persons rather than a single in
dividual. The typical situation is that of mobs, crowds, or excited groups
who engage in forbidden acts. Their collective behavior seems not to lend
itself to individual decomposition, as scholars such as LeBon and Freud
have so pointedly argued. 43 Yet they may be tried in a jurisdiction that re
quires an assessment of individual innocence or guilt. Even when collective
excitation is not an issue, however, the decisions of deliberative bodies
sometimes come under j udicial inquiry. The usual situation is that of con
flicting statements over the intent of a legislative enactment that imposes a
harm, annoyance, special duty, or obligation on a class of persons . The lat
ter, haled into court for noncompliance, may insist that the legislation is not
only unfair and discriminatory but also venal because it singles out the
classified group for special treatment. The representative of the state may
insist that the legislation has a reasonable public purpose and that no
malevolent intent exists . Whose account is to be be believed?
Consider the famous case of a Chinese laundryman, denied through a
local ordinance a license to operate his business, who, having refused to
retire from the occupation, was arrested, tried found guilty, fined, im
prisoned, and then appealed the lower courts' decision to the U . S . Supreme
Court. 44 The Court invalidated the administration of San Francisco's laun
dry licensing ordinance when it discovered that though the law was "fair on
its face, " it operated to affect adversely an entire group, the Chinese. This
consequence of the law, the Court argued, demonstrated an intent pro
hibited in lawmaking. The , makers of the ordinance insisted in vain that
their intent was to prevent fire through the regulation of hazardous
businesses and that the social imbalance created by the licensing procedure
was an unintended consequence.
There are two problems here. First the courts must distinguish between
purposes and consequences. Clearly not every consequence of an action
undertaken by a person or a group is intended by them to come about.
There may be unforeseen events or unanticipated consequences of pur
posive action. 45 Although some legal scholars4 6 have hinted that the intent
of a legislature may be read by noticing the outcome of the legislation they
pass, both legislators and ordinary people might deny that so easy a
discovery can be made. Some legislators may be astonished at the results of
the laws they pass ; others may be ignorant of them; and still others may
claim that nothing like what happened was intended. 47 But, granting the
distinction between purpose and consequence, actors, individual or collective,
may be held responsible for more than that which they intended.
The second issue is ascertaining, irrespective of purpose, the span of

consequences for which actors should be held responsible. Legal terms like
"gross negligence" suggest that there are situations where legal and common
sense standards of foresight coalesce and where they may not be overlooked.
When in such an instance an excuse of unintentionality or lack of cognition is
presented, it will not be honored. However, it is by no means clear that
jurists have unambiguously established the perimeter bounding the area of
consequences for which an actor may be held responsible.
Moreover, what is "one of the thornier aspects of judicial review"4 8 for
higher-echelon j udges is also a problem for the citizen . He or she, too, in
everyday life must distinguish between another person's intentional acts
and the consequences and also decide just for what span of consequentiality
others shall be held responsible. This is made all the more complex if the
society is marked by a plurality of values, norms, and beliefs.
ACCOUNTS , PLURALISM, AND POWER
The ability of an account to re-establish sociation is at the outset

dependent on its comprehensibility and acceptance by others. To the extent
that everyone in the audience to whom an account is given shares a common
universe of discourse and a common basis of beliefs, an account is likely to
be routinely acceptable. But in pluralistic societies in which consensus on a
wide range of matters cannot be presumed, accounts are likely to be prob
lematic and their acceptance not readily predictable. Pluralism may entail dif
ferences in language and employment of argot, differences in identification of
persons and objects, differences in beliefs about just what is acceptable and
unacceptable behavior, and differences in hierarchies of value-importance.
The pluralistic society suggests the existence of a multiplicity of identities
and meanings and a context of situated moralities wherein universal rules of
ethics are less if at all relevant.
Three issues in pluralistic societies are relevant to the presentation and
acceptability of accounts. The first is the relation of pluralistic meanings
and moralities to the power structure. The plural elements of a society do
not possess equal power or authority. In fact in most societies, plural or
not, we can speak of a power elite that possesses certain rights over others
and that expresses a given value pattern and morality. The value pattern
and moral beliefs of the power structure tend to take precedence over all
other value structures and moralities, at least in all situations in which in
dividuals and groups come into contact with and must acknowledge at least
formal compliance to the authority of the power-holding group. In such
situations there is not only a potentiality for confusion in communication
and contradiction in morality but also the hazard of suffering pain or
deprivation from failing to indicate agreement with the moral structure of

the power holders .
Typically certain functionaries act as agents of and representatives for
persons or groups outside the pale of legitimated morality. In modern
societies this task usually falls to the attorney - although clergymen pro
fessors, and psychiatrists sometimes act in this capacity. 49 The task of these
functionaries is to legitimate the accounts of persons untutored in or out of
sorts with prevailing beliefs when these persons come under the inter
rogatory scrutiny of the minions of law or authority of the larger society.
Lawyers and other functionaries often find it necessary to recast the
behavior, reconstitute the beliefs, and reconstruct the morality of their
clients in order to bring off a successful defense. The actual behavior and
beliefs of the actors in the untoward event in question are thus sometimes
wrenched out of original context and pressed on to what for some, at least is
a procrustean bed of publicly acceptable action and morality. Abstruse
legal rhetoric is itself used to mystify so that the inevitable gaps between dif
ferent value and belief positions in the conflictful pluralistic society will ap
pear to be bridged. The language of law - like a magical incantation - creates
the illusion of consistency and coherence.
The second issue with respect to pluralism is that which focuses on the
degree of social compartmentalization existing in any plural society. At the
outset we may note that it is possible at least to imagine a plural society
composed of groups that have no contact whatsoever with one another, but
do acknowledge common membership in the same society. Such a society
has been envisioned in the past and in South Africa as the solution to prob
lems of race contact and the protection of minorities, 5 0 but rarely if at all
has it been achieved. In such a society, however, account problems would
be reduced to a minimum, since persons with reciprocally different expecta
tions and beliefs would not come in contact with one another and thus
would not come under interrogatory scrutiny of one another. But such
perfect social apartheid is nearly impossible to bring about in contemporary
societies because of the coexistence in them of independent cultural and
social groups and interdependent tasks. Getting a living, preparing for an
occupation, enj oying the fruits of one's labor, and seeking after or dispens
ing services provide j ust those opportunities wherein peoples meet. s 1
It is in these contacts, crossing cultural and social groups , where in
dividuals will be likely to violate others' expectations and be called to ac
count. At one time a Roman Catholic clerk, for example, might have refused
to eat the meat set before him at his boss's Friday dinner and might have
been subjected to inquiry by his host. A student who is a marijuana user
may light up a "joint" at the coffee shop where he is talking over problems
with a professor and earn a look of shocked dismay and a statement of
searching disapproval which evokes the need for him to justify his
behavior. A Black man i n college may fall i n love with a white coed and be
asked by Blacks and whites alike how he dares to love one of another race.
An adolescent may refuse his friends' urgings to j oin with them for a night
of revelry and fun, claiming a prior interest in his studies, only to have his
refusal rejected on the grounds that on weekends fun should take precedence
over studies.
In each of these instances we have examples not merely of normative
conflicts but also of more subtle conflicts over the intensity of commitment
to and ecology of action for potentially untoward behavior. Catholics at
one time were expected to observe a double standard with respect to the
prohibition on eating meat on Fridays, living up to the church's edict when
at home, but permitting themselves lapses when at the homes of others.
Similarly, marijuana users and Blacks might be expected to give ample ex
pression to their beliefs in the positive aspects of the drug experience and
racial emancipation without acting in such a manner as to give a widely visible
display to these beliefs. 5 2 A call for accounts here is not merely a question,
"Why are you doing this?" but rather, "Why are you doing this now? " or
"Why are you using this situation as a vehicle for your moral expression? "
A successful account not only will have to excuse or j ustify the particular
act but also do the same fo r the degree of normative commitment which the
act indicates and the situation chosen for action. Given the different milieus
from which the interactants are drawn, the construction of an efficacious
account is by no means easy.
The third issue emerges from the elementary observation that pluralistic
societies are not typically static. Two dimensions of their dynamics may be
noted. The first, on which we have already touched, is their interdependency,
which is likely to throw together persons of several distinct social or cultural
backgrounds. The second is their tendency for change and reconstitution
with respect to the statuses of the several groups vis-a-vis one another.
Pluralistic societies in the contemporary era are not like the Estates of
France during the ancien regime5 3 in that the several groups might hold now
a less respectable, but soon a more respectable, position in the society.
The point with respect to accounts is their right to be requested, their
establishment of social identity, and their efficacy to change in accordance
with the changing status of the group involved. Situations of account con
fusion are especially acute when a group is in transition from one status
position to another and is undergoing a collective identity crisis. Racial
groups provide numerous examples . Before the 1 920's some Japanese in
America insisted on their identity as "free white persons" in order to circum
vent naturalization and franchise barriers, but found that few others would
accept this definition of their racial status. 54 The Chinese have often sur
prised naive but well-meaning whites by being offended when they are
referred to as "Chinamen, " refusing to recognize the latter term as anything
but pej orative. s s And contemporary Blacks sometimes take umbrage when
they are referred to as "Negroes . " Identity switching is not only a tactic in
the negotiation of account acceptability but also a source of confusion to
both speaker and hearer when several identities are equally available. If a
mutually agreed upon identity cannot be established, the giving and receiv
ing of accounts may break up into conflict or show signs of anomie.
Finally, status transition may involve a revocation of previously estab
lished conditions of accountability. As Blacks assert their equality with
whites in America, they refuse to behave according to, or apologize for
violation of, the etiquette of race relations familiar to white southerners . In
another instance, users of LSD were once a law-abiding group, but since the
passage of recent legislation, they must excuse or j ustify their drug use with
respect to the law. And in a society in which automation is replacing
laborers with machines, groups that disdain work altogether may feel it un
necessary to excuse their defalcation from the Protestant Ethic.
Pluralism, then affects accounts through the operation of unequal
power available to the several group or value interests, the contacts between
normatively distinguishable groups, and the mobility of status groups
within a society. At any given point in history a society may be more or less
pluralistic in any of three senses just discussed When status groups are
mobile, contacts between discrepant groups frequent, and the legitimacy of
the power elite questionable, accounts are highly problematic, and even the
opening negotiation of identities and the right to call for accounts will be
ambiguous. Such a society is likely to experience a sense of fractured con
sensus, a bewilderment of identities, and a frustration in the enforcement of
account liability.
CONCLUSION
Since accounts are employed to restore fractured sociation, we may

say that in general accounts are offered as part of a face or relation-building
game. The relation in question may range from a highly formalized and
nonintimate one (such as in cases at law where the accused seeks to retain
membership in the company of respectable citizenry) to a very localized and
intimate one (such as that in which the accused seeks to retain identity as a
"beloved one") .
Note, however, that social actors are sometimes unaware that their ac
tions are such that an account is expected. This is especially the case if an
encounter proceeds between persons of different cultures, subcultures, or
status groups. Even in social engagements between persons of the same
social class and cultural milieu there may arise situations in which one or
both parties are unaware of their liability to accounts. Consider the case of
a middle-class coed on her first date with a "sophisticated" senior. She may
be unaware that a refusal on her part to engage in sexual relations requires
an account. But once she discovers that an account must be offered there
are several strategies open to her. She may reverse the accountability and in
sist that her refusal is not an account-requiring act, while the young man's
insistence on having sexual intercourse on the first date does require some
j ustification. Or she may invoke one of several kinds of universally
recognized criteria for refusal, such as stating that she is in her period. Still
another tactic is to exculpa�e oneself from any blame by pointing to specific
attributes of the situation: that "nice girls" don't do "that" on a first date;
that she doesn't feel well ; or that she is having family problems and is not in
the mood.
The last-named tactic points up a peculiar quality of accounts . Some
statements about self or situation are so well understood in the mind-life of
the community and refer to conditions so ubiquitous that they may be in
voked to cover a multiplicity of untoward acts. Among these is the common
statement, "I'm having family problems, " which is an account efficacious
enough to cover deviancies and failures as different as crimes and sexual in
adequacy. Cognizance of the wide-spread workability of certain rhetorics
constitutes a basic background expectancy of society so that individuals can
fashion an account quickly and effectively in a variety of situations .
In general, however, the fashioning and acceptability of accounts are
functions of the social composition of any society. The presentation of self
and self-rescues constitute interaction rituals rooted in the group identity of
an individual . Depending on the social make-up of any society, there will be
a homogeneity or heterogeneity of group identities and a commonality or
variation in the very nature and legitimacy of accounts . To the extent that
there is a culturally homogeneous power elite presiding over a society, one
set of account forms will have greater precedence and rectitude over others.
For those who come from culturally or socially discrepant groups, public
accounts - in order to be efficacious - will have to be restructured for
presentation before the holders of power or their representatives. In a
highly pluralized society certain functionaries are likely to serve as account
makers and modifiers for all persons and groups who do not readily adhere
to established account procedures . Misunderstandings and punishments
are most likely to arise when the excuses or j ustifications for the untoward
acts of a socially or culturally discrepant group cannot be negotiated at all
by the respective advocates for the holders of power and the social trans
gressors. 5 6
Furthermore, the dynamic aspects of society modify the efficacy of
any established account procedure. Homogeneous societies may be "invaded"
by culturally distinct peoples or suffer withdrawals of support from in
digenous inhabitants who redefine themselves and their social aims, and
either or both will drastically affect the nature and acceptability of ac
counts. Plural societies may restrict contact between their culturally distinct
inhabitants and thus reduce confusion in accounts, but even apartheid is
likely to break down under the insistent pressures of secondary contacts and
task interdependence. Finally, the rank order of social groups in any society
is rarely static. Hence, the legitimacy of various forms of behavior and the
accounts offered for them are changing aspects of society.
The comparative structure of societies, and especially the comparative
study of social ethics and intrasocietal values and beliefs, constitutes crucial
areas of sociological research in the study of accounts. Especially valuable
for demonstrating and comprehending the dynamic and fragile aspect of
accounts are societies undergoing internal social estrangements and rear
rangements - such as in the United States . In these societies sociologists will
find the elements of social change by which one moral order replaces or
shares the moral order of another. These societies are social laboratories for
research on alienation, conflict, reidentification, redefinition, and rein
tegration.
Our discussion also suggests a fruitful line of research for the sociology
of law. Law distinguishes the prohibited from the permissible among the
activities of humans not only by designating certain acts as illegal but also
by dignifying certain motives as lawful. Thus law provides an inventory of
intentions which are, in fact, the efficacious excuses or justifications for
alleged crimes. But the law, by insisting on the mental element for criminal
behavior, opens its practitioners, clients, and subj ects to a problematic
situation: ascertaining and evaluating the motives of the accused person.
The establishment and judgment of the actor's intent call for the knowing
and judging of "other minds"57 under extremely onerous conditions - absence
of direct observation, conflicting statements, and a situation in which the
accused has a vested interest in establishing an excusable or justifying in
tent; while his accusers and judges, cognizant of his interest, are in a state of
hyperconsciousness and suspicious awareness of the preferred intent.
Sociologists interested in law might well turn their attention to the resolu
tion of the conflicting philosophical systems of legal thought on the subject
of mens rea with the actual practices in legal situations . Sociological theory
has much to offer this research already. The sociological tradition inspired
by the phenomenological work of Alfred Schutz, s s and elaborated in the re
cent writings of Harold Garfinkel5 9 and Peter Berger, 60 suggests the role of
biographical reconstruction in determining and j udging other people's ac
tions and intentions. The courtroom is an arena of empirical research for
establishing the praxeological6 1 basis of these already developed concepts
and fo r noting the process by which one institution of modern societies
maintains and re-establishes the moral order.
Let u s conclude b y noting that the study of accounts - b y which in

dividuals and groups bridge the gap between the promised and the performed,
the expected and the actual, and the surprising and the routine - focuses at
tention on a basic mechanism of social order. The threads of human
association are constantly being rent by unexpected deeds and untoward
acts. If there were no way by which individuals might salvage their identities
and repair their broken relationships, social relations would indeed be
treacherous, perhaps even coming to approximate Hobbes's state of nature.
Moreover, we must recognize that in modem societies accounts function
not only to salvage the ego but also to restore the person; that is, that set of
societal identities that we present in everyday life. Thus accounts are given
in every kind of social relationship, from the most trivial and fleeting (like
bumping into a stranger) to the most important and life-sustaining (such as
excusing or justifying the taking of another's life in a court of law). Ac
counts cut across class and status lines and modify power relationships.
Their presentation may bind up the wounds of conflict or open the interac
tants to continued hostile engagements . And, finally, accounts rest on a
fundamental acceptance of a bargaining process by which humans agree
that their irregular and asymmetrically reciprocal wrongs to one another
may be made up fo r by some form of restitution. Thus the fundamental
"social contract" by which individuals and groups agree to the rules of
bargaining and negotiation of accounts constitutes a basis for the moral
order and a solution to the Hobbesian problem.
PART V :
PURPOSE
Chapter 11 Game Frameworks
Until recently game theory was confined almost solely to "pure" math
ematical analysis of decision-making two-person, zero-sum situations in
which absolute conflict of interest, total rationality of players , mutual
knowledge of the outcomes, and mutual agreement on the rank order of
preferences were assumed a priori. The sociological criticism of this abstract
and formalistic analysis as non-empirical and hence of limited use has led to
tentative rethinking, bringing closer together theoretical and empirical
models. 1 As a result of these efforts , it is now possible to treat social situa
tions - in which two or more persons or groups are in communication with
one another and are engaged in goal-directed action - in terms or a game
theoretic framework, at least in its simple social-psychological form. 2 Our
task here is to reiterate elements of this framework outlined in the previous
chapter and to typify the games played by ordinary actors in everyday life.
The minimal arena of game action is the social situation which Goff
man has designated variously as a "focused gathering, " an "encounter", or
an "engagement. "3 The characteristics of a fo cused gathering are that two
or more persons have come into one another's visual and audial presence,
and . have granted one another mutual rights of cognitive and com
municative recognition and response. Such situations may be distinguished
from those gatherings in which persons are physically co-present but are not
privileged to interact - for example, the occupants of an elevator during the
course of its j ourney. Such a gathering, designated by Goffman as "un
focused, " is irrelevant to our present consideration.
Although a focused gathering is the minimal arena for game action, it
is not the only one. Some of the most fruitful analyses of games have come
from the study of nations posed against one another in some sort of com
petition. 4 Their physical co-presence was not at issue nor were their respec
tive power elites required to be in a literal eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation.
What is required for game action to proceed is that two or more persons or
groups (and here we include nations , or more properly, power elites of na
tions) be consciously aware of one another, be cognitively focused on one
another, and be in a position to communicate in some mutually intelligible,
or seemingly intelligible, manner. Thus, games may be played by persons
separated in space but connected by communicating media, such as
telephones, telegraph, mail or messenger services. Examples include chess
1 57
matches played by mail; the series of letters between sweethearts that

culminate either in a marriage proposal or what American soldiers call a
"Dear John" letter; and "hotline" interchanges between agents of national
powers that result in, say, a declaration of war or a decision to relax one's
vigil in a tense situation.
Interactants identify the game in play - although, of course, they do
not usually think in game-playing terms - by comprehending, perceiving,
or guessing what each is seeking to achieve. In other words, the interactants
become cognizant of the goals that each has chosen, or is about to choose,
by their respective lines of action. This is what is presumably meant by "ra
tionality" in the game-theoretic framework, though this term has been sub
j ected to considerable ambiguity and abuse by game theorists. 5 Awareness
that other social actors have goals , and a varied but finite set of means
through which to realize them, constitutes the primary prerequisite for
game action. It is one of the meta-understandings that underlie all game ac
tion. Absence of such awareness constitutes one principal condition under
which game action may not proceed . 6
When the actors recognize that they are in a particular game they
figuratively bracket the situation into an immediate situational awareness
context. 7 A frame of reference and perspective is thus established which
defines the meaning of persons and obj ects, and which also designates the
historical events and biographical identities that will be brought into play.
This frame constitutes a social boundary, a set of basic limitations, a unit of
background expectancies that determine the sense that will be accorded to
everything within it.
These important ideas may be restated thus: Once the interactants have
defined the game framework, they can interpret with mutual understanding
or, as we shall show presently, when more than one game is going on
simultaneously, with complementary and interlocking understanding - the
meaning of the actions taking place. Further, they can decide what behavior
shall be included in the attended sequence of events and what behavior may
be excluded if it occurs .
Depending on the game in progress, the same event can have different
meanings. First, we may distinguish game-inclusive from game-exclusive
meanings. The former are events which, should they occur, "count" (as it
were) toward the outcome. Some events , though they happen during the
temporal period of a game and in the presence of other players, are ab
solutely outside the frame of reference of the game. They have the same
status with respect to games as accidents or unwarranted intrusions - they
are present but not accounted for.
Secondly, we may differentiate the several kinds of meaning the same
event may have, when it is counted in the game perspective. The meaning
attached to a game-inclusive event - and, incidentally, to a game-inclusive
Game Frameworks 1 59
object as well - depends upon the prior meanings that categories of events
or objects have been assigned. These prior meanings are established in tacit
negotiation of the game identity. Consider the possible meanings of a slip
of the tongue. In one kind of game, it may be seen as just the cue needed by
alter to uncover a much-sought fact; in another kind of game, it might be a
source of embarrassment; in still another game, it might be taken as a
humorous happening; finally, in a certain kind of game, it might be seen as
an indicator that an opponent is weakening. Events are thus defined in a
game-specific sense.
Just as events are defined in a game-specific sense, so time also is
perceived in relation to the game. In an encounter in which definite goals
are sought by the interactants, a notion of the beginning and end of the play
is, in the typical case, shared. Thus in a game of chess, players are con
strained by the rules of the game to regard it as ended when one player has
placed the other's king in checkmate. Such an event can occur early or late
in the course of the game; but regardless of the particular moment, that
event constitutes the end of the game. After "checkmate, " chess stratagems
no longer count. The fact that stratagems end upon mutual agreement is
crucial aspect of the trust accorded by players to one another. 8 This is the
case whether the game is chess, courtship, or war.
In addition to the understanding that there is a beginning and an end to
game play, agreement also exists as to those periods allowed as "time out."9
The latter is characterized by a mutually agreed suspension of the frame of
reference negotiated at the outset of the game. Such a period may be
characterized by a non-serious or irreverent attitude toward those very ob
jects which in the period of game play were taken seriously and respectfully,
or by activities having no relevance to the game at hand. Competitive court
ship provides numerous illustrations, as for example, when rival suitors sit
down to a cup of coffee and discuss trivial matters or matters entirely
unrelated to their fierce rivalry for the same woman. Of course such "time
out" periods are subject to subversion by the interactants, a situation occa
sioned when one or both opponents in a competitive game utilizes the "time
out" for scoring points, preparing stratagems, strengthening forces , or
striking in secret. "Time out" may provide the most strategic moment to
poison an opponent's coffee.
The game itself may be conceived as consisting of a series of moves and
countermoves. When the players are conscious of a game context for their
behavior their own vocabulary may reflect this awareness, as when a spy
confides to his or her assistant that "it is their move next . "
When actors are aware that the behavior pattern in which they are in
volved is a game, they tend to have a sense of sequentiality about their own
and their coparticipants' acts. For example, when one person seeks to find
out information from another who desires to withhold that knowledge,
their mutual acts appear as a series of covering and uncovering moves.

Similarly, when people are primarily interested in protecting their identities
against spoilage, their acts are likely to take on the character of face
supporting and protective moves . Each move carries with it a host of
strategies and counterstrategies, some of which are likely to go undetected
by the players.
The game situation is a highly complex state of affairs . Its complexity
lies precisely in the three kinds of contingencies inherent in goal-oriented
behavior. The first involves the dynamics of game behavior itself. During
the course of any game, the interactants will continually indicate by their
behavior that they are in the game, out of the game permanently or tem
porarily, that they understand or do not understand that they are in a game,
or that they are changing the nature of the game they are.in. The com
munication concerning any of these states is transmitted in a variety of clues
and cues - some obvious, other subtle; some recognized, others missed.
That any player will know what is happening depends on his or her recep
tivity and perceptivity to ongoing behavior, and on past experience and its
meaning in the game context.
Secondly, the complexity of interaction in game behavior arises from
the paired mutuality or complementarity of symbolic interpretation. Thus,
to make but a single opening "move" of a game, ego - call him John - must
decide in what game he is participating, what game alter - call her Marsha -
is playing, what game Marsha thinks John is playing, and what orientation
John has toward his imputed interpretation of Marsha's and his own
behavior. When third and fourth parties are added, the game becomes
much more complicated. Complexity and causes for error in perception
thus arise because of the very nature of human interaction, that is, the
mutual mirror images and interpretation of the players . 1 0 By increasing the
number of players (and thus of mirror images) , complexity and potential
misconceptions are enhanced.
Third, the interactants may be coparticipants in different games at the
same time without confusion. For example, two scholars engaged in
research on the same topic might meet and carry on a colloquy in which one
seeks to maintain the "face" of both himself and the other, while the other
seeks to establish a more secure relationship. The face-saving moves of the
former may so interlock with the intimacy-creating moves of the latter that
each will interpret the behavior of the other as complementary and coor
dinative, and both will end the encounter believing that the sought-after
goals were achieved. 1 1 Thus, awareness by one player that the other is play
ing a different game does not necessary result in confusion. Rather such a
situation is more likely to produce conflict in which stratagems for controll
ing the situation or avoiding the unwanted outcome, and tactics of game
switching, are likely to ensue. Conflict, including deadly engagement, is
Game Frameworks 161
usually carried o n i n a game context. Only when collective behavior of the

type described under such headings as "extraordinary popular delusions"1 2
or the "madness of crowds" occurs can we suggest that the game framework
is fractured - and even then it may be only a partial fracture. 1 3
Confusion and a state of anomie may arise when one interactant cannot
fathom any meaning from the other's behavior and thus is left in a state of
diffuse anxiety. Such a state is likely to occur when the interactants employ
entirely different and mutually impenetrable universes of discourse and
gesture. Examples of such a condition are found in the autobiographical
literature of travellers 1 4 and immigrants, 1 5 and in the accounts of persons
held captive in a totally unfamiliar society. 1 6 A lesser state of anxiety, but
of the same general type, sometimes occurs when persons of different
ethnic, class, or status groups find themselves in situations where they must
interact. 1 7 Even a state of anxiety, however, can lend itself to a game
strategic outlook as when a player determines that, whatever happens, he
will not lose his composure, 1 8 or when he decides that his own anxiety is an
element in a game the object of which is to confuse and demoralize. 1 9 Thus ,
for analytical purposes, the state of anomie must be regarded as but a
potential element in a game situation.
A GAME TYPOLOGY
Although game situations are subject to abrupt or gradual shifts , and

although one game may interpenetrate another, it is possible to distinguish
four game types : face games , relationship games, exploitation games , and
information games.
For any concrete situation these games are functionally interdepen
dent, empirically overlapping, but analytically distinct. Thus in any en
counter it is possible to analyze behavior in terms of these four games. The
game typology provides a framework by which an organized account of
episodic social action may be produced.
Games may be distinguished according to the goals sought. In face
games each participant maneuvers to maximize his or her own realization
of a valued identity, while seeking an equilibrium that will permit others to
do likewise. In relationship games, the participants seek to create, main
tain, attenuate or terminate personal relations. In exploitation games, the
participants seek to maximize their positions of power and influence vis-a
vis one another. In information games, the participants seek to conceal and
uncover, respectively, certain kinds of knowledge. The goal orientations ex
pressed here are designated in an abstract and general sense. In any concrete
situation there would be a specific content and usually a sense of time and
place attached to these goals.
In face games two objectives, either singly or together, are sought. One
may be described as defensive, in which players seeks to protect their own
identities against damage or spoilage; the other is protective, in which a
player seeks to prevent any damage or spoilage to the identity of the other
player(s) . Often enough, activities undertaken on behalf of one of these
goals require attendance to the effect of the other.
A full discussion of face games appears in Chapter IO and is not
repeated here. See especially, pages 1 40-45 .
Relationship Games
In relationship games the interactants have one of two aims: to decrease

or increase social distance. When interactants undertake a line of action to
achieve greater intimacy, they initiate a positive relationship game; when in
teractants wish to attenuate or terminate an over-intimate relationship, they
initiate a negative relationship game. In either case the game consists of
managing a presentation of self so as to suggest the desired outcome. Since
the other players may not share the perspective of the first, this presentation
is subj ect to checks and countermoves as well as supports.
Positive Relationship Games. In all societies individuals feel constrained

to act more or less intimately with their fellows. Industrial societies with
their emphasis on universalistic criteria and achievement orientations still
find a place for intimacy in friendship cliques and the neolocal kinship
system. 27 The problem for individuals involved in intimacy struggles is how
to achieve the desired degree of social and personal proximity without suf
fering material or moral losses. The typical arenas of action for such games
are situations of courtship, and incipient or established friendship groups,
though other arenas can certainly be found.
In contrast to the face game in which actors cooperate to maintain
character equilibrium and allow no one to lose face, the positive relation
ship game involves at least one actor seeking to maximize one aspect of
character above and beyond that of mere face. That aspect has to do with
the quality of the interpersonal relationship, a quality that he or she wishes
to deepen and enrich to such an extent that the object of the attentions will
feel a sense of loss if faced with total estrangement. The ultimate sense of
this deepened relationship is love, especially as that term is defined and ex
perienced in the Western world and when prefixed by the elusive but power
ful element of romanticism. 2 s
Strong relationships, however, do not necessarily demand a deep sense

of intimacy. As Simmel has observed, 2 9 modem societies have a tendency
toward social differentiation that leads to the isolation of activities involv
ing intimacy from those requiring reserve and formality. Building relation
ships often implicitly calls for an inhibition of activities and sentiments that
threaten to over-step the boundaries of the limited relationship. Thus a
reciprocal recognition of and respect for one another's secret areas of action
and thought may be the tacit cause for and consequence of a successful rela
tionship. Relation building may depend on a silent promise to respect those
secrets one does not know in return for the receipt of intimacies one does
not now have.
Relation building constitutes a mutual and deepening reciprocal escala
tion of trust and commitment. But in modem societies - characterized by
formal arrangements, fleeting acquaintances, and fractured sociations - one
finds a basic distrust of the informal and the intimate. In their everyday
lives persons are on guard against unwarranted affection, excessive cor
diality, and ingenuous intimacy. The American argot indicates the degree
of distrust of intimacy by the numerous pejorative terms referring to its
various forms: "gold digger, " "lover boy," "phony," "con man," and so on.
Indeed, the language of altruism and love is so susceptible to derogatory
connotations that individuals and categories of persons who live in especially
untrustworthy environments (e. g . , Blacks and youth) find it necessary to
·
invent new terms or redefine old ones when the formally acceptable terms
have lost all but their derogatory meaning. Thus "tough" comes to mean
"fine," "crazy" to mean "worth-while, " and "bad" to mean "good. " Building
intimate relationship in such societies requires steering a course toward af
fectionate mutuality while always avoiding the Scylla of privacy invasion
and the Charybdis of exploitation.
Enhanced intimacy has a value that is determined in its specific sense in
great measure by the interactants themselves . 3 0 The scale of value,
however, is a function of scarcity and allocation in the relational as well as
the cash nexus. In courtship, for example, a woman's attractiveness to a
man is a function of the relative scarcity of salable and normatively defined
feminine characteristics. 3 1 However, the woman herself modifies her value
if she bestows emotional or sexual gratification too soon or too late. Thus,
in romantic love societies such as the United States, a woman may lose the
man she desires either by giving in too quickly, or not at all, to his requests
for increased intimacy. A successful courtship - and, mutatis mutandis,
successful relation building in general - consists of a series of turns in which
each interactant engages in activities vis-a-vis the other which provide some
enhancement of rewards, indicate an increasing degree of commitment,
and promise both further rewards and greater commitment for each
response in kind. For lovers the game is over when each indicates to the
other an exclusive commitment and a monopoly on sexual possession, 32 or

when they break off the relationship. For friends, the game is over when
each indicates to the other that he or she is willing to meet the obligations of
friendship to the other without requiring further proof of friendship by im
mediate rewards in kind .
Placed in its game framework the moves in a positive relationship game
consist of the introduction, the invitation, and the acceptance. Whenever
two persons are physically copresent they become eligible for mutual social
identification. Introductions in the restricted and formal sense of the word
provide ready-made mechanisms for reciprocal discovery, for very often a
third party who knows both persons will present each to the other providing
an identity that either might accept, reject, or modify as the occasion un
folds. However it occurs - whether formal or not, by self-introduction or
third parties - an identity must be provided for a relationship to ensue. The
question for any set of actors who are physically co�present but unknown to
one another is, Which identity to present? Since individuals possess a reper
toire of identities any of which has an unknown value for a particular set of
others, the introduction constitutes a test of viable identities. It is unsafe to
reveal the entire set of identities at once, so actors typically present one
identity - and a relatively innocuous one at that, in the very first instance
to see how acceptable it is. The choice of identity is made by taking a
reading of the cues and clues given and given off by alter and determining
which identity is most suitable.
The introduction consists not only of an identity disclosure, but also of
an unstated request for alter to invite further disclosures. These will be forth
coming only if the identities uncovered are shown to be gratifying to and
worthy of reward by alter. Ultimately, the person making the opening move
would like to find out if his or her secret and less-conventional identities are
acceptable to the other. However, precisely because these identities are
potentially discrediting, no actor will intentionally introduce them first if
s/he truly desires to build up a relationship with someone who is a stranger.
The introductory move is then a tentative exploration of the other person's
receptivity to one's identities . If the exploration is promising it will be con
tinued, although tentativeness coupled with awareness will mark the rela
tionship until enough discoveries have allayed suspicion.
In those cultures where people who do not know one another hold
themselves in reserve and regard one another with suspicion, the first en
counter with a stranger is likely to terminate with only a tentative degree of
commitment and trust. In the United States, for example, folk wisdom
about "first impressions" warns people not to take their initial reading of
one another as necessarily correct. Those who seem hostile or indifferent
may turn out to be warm and loving; those who are open and friendly may
be concealing ulterior motives. Where impression management is cultivated
as an art or science, those who would make friends and influence people are
on guard against their competitors.
Thus the introduction, or first move, is likely to be repeated several
times, testing different identities and seeking to determine whether the
totality of identities making up the person is acceptable. 3 3 In each introduc
tory move, John may seek to present for Marsha's acceptance more of the
identities making up his total personality. Each identity revelation poses a
dilemma. On the one hand, John risks the termination of the relationship
with each new unveiling of an identity; on the other, to leave the "total self'
unrevealed is discomforting since it implicitly involves a special kind of
"passing" - namely, presenting oneself not as something one is not, but
rather as not being something one in fact is. Furthermore, non-disclosure
risks the possibility that Marsha will unmask John without his cooperation
or consent.
Following the introduction, Marsha is in a position to issue an invita
tion. The invitational move is one that indicates to John that the identity he
has presented is acceptable, gratifying and worthy of reward. Moreover, it
invites John to disclose more, and tentatively signifies that these future
disclosures may also be accepted and rewarded. The invitational move
typically includes an introduction by Marsha of herself, an introduction
that presents an identity that is complementary and supportive to that
presented by John.
The next move is the acceptance. Once Marsha has indicated some rec
iprocity of identification, John is placed in the position of continuing the
relational development, disclosing more about himself and in turn re
questing another invitation, or terminating the encounter with a sign that
the degree of involvement already sustained is as much as he wishes to
carry. Typically, an invitation calls for more than an introducer wishes to
bring to the actual occasion. Therefore, the strategy for John is to convey a
sign that he is still interested in Marsha and wishes to receive a further in
vitation, but not to disclose all that is requested. 34
In relationship games each encounter involves introduction, invita
tions, and acceptance. There is a dialectic to these moves, since each con
tains elements of the other and seeks to evoke the appropriate sequential
response. A relationship itself is established completely after several of
these encounters, when the interactants have mutually reached the limits of
their "strain toward totality" and reciprocally regard one another as persons
whom they know "fully" and for whom they have sincere affection, deep
trust, and broad commitment.
Negative Relationship Games. Society is characterized as much by the

breaking as by the building of relationships. Once a relationship has been
established, one or both of the parties may wish to reduce its intensity or
end it altogether. Since intimate relationships are based upon commitment

and trust, the most overt form of breaking off is denial of commitment and
betrayal of trust.
A betrayal of trust indicates to the betrayed party that fundamental
and intrinsic elements of the intimate relationship no longer occupy their
quasi-sacred place, that any future activities with the betrayer ought to be
governed by at least that degree of formality and reserve accorded to a
stranger and, more likely - since there had existed a condition of trust - that
the betrayer ought to be regarded with suspicion.
A very common betrayal of trust is the disclosure of secrets. Secrecy is
a basic ingredient of intimacy, and indeed those aspects of life that are
secretly shared by an intimate group constitute the core of the intimacy
itself. This is true not only for dyadic groups, such as lovers and married
couples, but also of larger intimate groups such as social fraternities and
other secret societies for whom disclosure of secrets constitutes an ir
reparable breach. 3 5 Betrayal has its own fascination, as Simmel has noted,
but its specific consequence is to end intimacy itself, insofar as that state of
relationship is conditioned by confidence.
The "moves" in such a betrayal might be as follows : John reveals to
Dick a confidence previously shared only by John and Marsha; Dick in
dicates to Marsha that he is aware o f the once closely-guarded secret; Mar
sha confronts John with his betrayal; John can give no adequate account
for his breach of trust; Marsha decides to break off intimate association
with John. Of course there are many possible variations in this sequence.
The crucial elements are John's betrayal, Marsha's discovery of John's
treachery, Marsha's confrontation of John, John's inability to fend off the
accusation of betrayal, and Marsha's subsequent dissociation with John.
Note that betrayal constitutes a prevalent danger precisely because in
timates reveal secrets to one another or share clandestine activities as a
mechanism by which they obtain enhanced commitment to one another.
One tacit assumption of this sharing of secrets is that the hearer will not
blackmail the teller. When an intimate uses the threat of revealing
knowledge obtained through intimate association as a means for exacting
further rewards from his confidant, the nature of the relationship is shifted
onto a new plane combining the elements of exploitation and concealment.
Thus one opening move in a relation-destroying game is the threat to
disclose the secrets that united the intimate group. Even if the threat is idle,
the others will be on their guard against the potential traitor in their midst.
They might respond by closing off the sources of the information or by
ostracizing her or him. Either is sufficient to attenuate what was once an in
timate situation.
Betrayals of trust may go beyond the disclosure of secrets to include
"the enclosure in involuntary institutional networks." The meaning of this
phrase will now be made clear. An intimate association usually requires in
volvement in a wider social network than the intimates themselves. 3 6 For
friends there are one another's friends and kin; for the married there are the
"relatives. " Our point here is that a betrayal of trust can be engendered by
forcibly requiring extra-curricular social relations to exist as a price of the
intimate ones. When this occurs as an unstated or post hoc incident of an
established relationship - as when a husband requires that his wife share
their home with his mother - a challenge is hurled to the original relation
ship. In effect one party invites the other to accept an unwarranted situation
in return for continuing the relationship. The offended party is in a position
to respond to the challenge directly by offering a choice: "Either me or your
mother, not both. " The challenger must then choose, or seek to effect a
compromise.
The very presence of social networks poses a threat to intimacy and in
troduces jealousy as a potential element in every intimate social arrange
ment. 37 Incumbents of network statuses are thus eligible for accusations of
trespass and subversion. Such accusations constitute an ever-present open
ing move in a strategy designed to cool or terminate a relationship. When
friends are cast in the role of seducers, the accuser presents himself in an im
age not likely to invite further intimacy.
Beyond jealousy is uninvited benevolence. Thus a wife may act as the
"conspiratorial" agent arranging for her husband's visit to a dentist, physi
cian, psychiatrist, or priest. In this role, she invites distrust and derogation
since such visits are often first steps in a process of pej orative labelling or a
subsequent degradation ceremony. 3 8 Indeed, as Goffman has observed, the
benevolent activities undertaken by kin or friends in behalf of health or
welfare can leave the beneficiary in a state of abandonment and with a feel
ing of betrayal . 3 9 This is especially the case if treatment requires
hospitalization or commitment to an asylum. Thus, an opening and often
unintentional move in terminating a relationship is one that introduces the
other to the possibility of a negative redefinition of self. Persons who,
however well-intentioned, invite others to participate in their own degrada
tion ceremonies, or who arrange for them without the other's consent are
likely to find that they are redefined in the process as well.
Primary relations may also be attenuated or ended by a process related
to betrayal, namely, denial of commitment. Here one partner in an intimate
relationship, say, a boyfriend, indicates to his girlfriend that she no longer
holds the high place she once did in his affection. For those engaged in
dating the simplest method is to cease "going steady" and to resume dating a
number of persons . One can often indicate this shift in commitment silently
and out of the audial or visual presence of the other by arranging to be
reported in a situation that communicates the desired message. Thus a boy
wishing to break off with his steady girl may walk hand in hand with
another girl past the "steady" girl's house, or ask another girl to the "prom,"
or manage to commit an indiscretion in such a manner that it will be com-
·
municated and interpreted as a terminating deed.

Shifting commitments need not be loaded on to another person - an
object or a status may do as well. Consider the case of Gauguin who an
nounced his termination of marriage and family life by abruptly sailing to
Tahiti and devoting his life to painting. Indeed, the proper allocation of
energies to wife or career is apparently a common enough dilemma to be a
source for popular fiction. A husband may make the opening move in a se
quence that leads to divorce by staying late at his office every night. Friend
ships may also.be terminated by excessive zeal in one's career. In general, in
timate relations are vulnerable to the re-sorting of allocative priorities on
the part of the members, a re-sorting that may move the once deeply ap
preciated friendship to an intermittent acquaintanceship or off the agenda
of activities entirely.
Viewed as an episodic occurrence, a negative relationship game has
three basic moves - the opening-termination gambit, the supportive
response, and the acceptance of termination. The opening-terminating move is
usually a challenge flung at an actor who has done something that the
challenger defines as relation-breaking. A husband may be confronted with
evidence of his philandering; a boyfriend accused or dating others; a
friend's excuse for refusing an invitation proven to be false. In other words,
from among the welter of life's events, one event is picked out by a challenger,
interpreted as a betrayal of trust or a denial of commitment and offered to
the offending party for action. The challenged in turn must ratify the
challenger's interpretation, or offer an account (i.e. , an excuse or justifica
tion) for the untoward deed.
The challenged party may respond with any of several tactics in
response. In a cooperative effort s/he may undertake a line of action in
dicating to the challenger that s/he has indeed done exactly what s/he has
been accused of doing and deserves to be treated accordingly. Such an effort
may be observed when the parties have independently reached the decision
to break off and are in need of a legitimating reason to do so. Thus
husbands and wives in an "empty shell"40 marriage may leap at the oppor
tunity provided by an untoward act by one of them to end a tasteless mar
riage. Another common situation in which the cooperative response
emerges is when a condition of "pretense awareness"4 � underlies an intimate
relationship; that is, both interactants are fully aware of the reason for end
ing a relationship but pretend not to be. Such a situation may be found, for
example, when a man discovers that the woman he loves has a terminal
disease, or when lovers are unable to disentangle themselves from mar
riages to other persons, or when one partner's ardor has cooled, while the
other's has not - in each case, the incident chosen for the challenge may
provide precisely the right excuse for breaking off when the actual reason
cannot be broached. A "staged" quarrel may legitimate the mutually
desired break .
In some cases, however, a challenge is not forthcoming even when an
ticipated. A husband's careful planting of a lipstick-stained handkerchief in
his lapel may go unnoticed by his wife or she may simply laugh it off; or his
announcement that he loves another may be disbelieved or disattended. Un
toward events may be excused in advance by the potential challenger.
Preserving th� relationship may be so important to the offendable party
that she overlooks failings, saves her partner's face, and refuses to become
perturbed when relation-negating events occur. When one party wishes to
break off a relation and the other does not, the former may have to commit
several acts of trust defiance or commitment withdrawal before his or her
deeds are accepted for their relation-breaking value.
In a conflict response, the challenged party may refuse to accept the
construction put upon the deed, deny it occurred, or make excuses and
apologies for the behavior. Such a response, if accepted, terminates the
relation-breaking game. However, a challenger need not accept the
accused's interpretation; s/he may insist on the original interpretation, and
even escalate the vehemence of the colloquy or the seriousness of the
charges . Just as one' party may so desire to end a relationship that s/he com
mits deeds likely to bring about challenges, so a challenger may be so in
terested in the rectitude of his or her position or the opportunity of ending
the relationship that no excuse or apology is acceptable.
The acceptance move is one in which the challenger commits herself to
the relation-breaking interpretation put upon her original challenge and
acknowledged by the offender. When a husband admits to philandering
and suggests getting a divorce, a wife may respond by calling her attorney
and beginning discussions of property settlements. When a boy tells his
steady girlfriend that she is not his date for the prom, she may reply that she
already has another date. When one room-mate accuses the other of eating
more than his share of the communal food supply, the accused party may
pack his belongings and move out .
Of course some challengers will be opposed to the ultimate interpreta
tion of their original challenge. If the challenger expected apology and con
triteness but not termination of the relationship, she may pull back at the
last minute, begin to soften the charges, advance excuses for the other's un
toward deeds, engage in a conciliatory mea culpa, and in other ways seek to .
forestall the final break. Such a situation poses a problem for the accused
who wishes his untoward deed to have a terminating effect. He must put off
these conciliatory moves, insist on the reprehensible (but perhaps j ustified)
interpretation of his deeds, and not acknowledge a shared responsibility.
Exploitation Games
In an exploitation game one actor or group seeks to gain compliance

from another actor or group. In such a game a line of action is undertaken
in order to get another to do or believe something that the would-be ex
ploiter cannot predict in advance will follow from the request. Exploitation
games occur on the brink of power relationships;4 2 that is, one actor hopes
to obtain "imperative control"4 3 over another but is not absolutely sure s/he
can do so. In such a situation the actor seeking compliance from another
will counteract the other's moves by direct and deflecting maneuvers.
An exploitation game begins with one actor attempting to establish a
frame of meaning from which compliance to his or her wishes is a "natural"
or "normal" consequence. The attempt may be countermanded by a con
tradictory or different frame of meaning introduced by the potential ex
ploitee. Or the latter may accept the general structure of meaning introduced
by the would-be exploiter, but redefine its specific elements, modify its "in
frastructure," so to speak. The next move is that of the exploiter-to-be who
must either insist on the original definition, try another that also has
positive payoffs, or utilize elements of the opponent's presentation for their
own exploitative value. Thus, an exploitation game is often "phased. " One
frame of meaning is introduced but quickly thwarted; the original thrust is
insisted on, or a new one is tried, and it too is thwarted; a third thrust,
parry, and so on. The game is over when the would-be exploiter has tri
umphed over the adversary who has succumbed to the former's will; when
the intended victim has avoided or evaded the compliance frame into which
s/he might have been cast; or when there is a stand-off, a breaking up of the
engagement with an apparent promise or hint that the game may be resumed
later, perhaps with one or both antagonists better prepared.
The general strategies employed for such a game are variants of the
reward-punishment dichotomy. A person may comply with another's wishes
if s/he is rewarded for doing so or threatened for not so doing. The reward
punishment technique may be applied before, during, or after the desired
behavior is manifested. Thus John, wishing Marsha to do "X, " may reward
her first and tell her that "X" is expected as a return favor in exchange; or he
may reward her after a pattern of punishment. (Various other possibilities
suggest themselves.) The temporal dimension of the reward-punishment
mechanism is usually an interplay of three factors : the specific situation
where compliance is a feature, the norms of permissibility and constraint
governing that situation, and the temporal efficacy of the rewards and
punishments.
The method of obtaining compliance is usually an appeal either to sit
uational or motivational aspects of another's identity. 44 An appeal to the
situational employs references to the target person's specific "external" en-
Game Frameworks 171
vironment - j ob, neighborhood, o r family. An appeal t o the motivational

employs reference to the "internal" state of the target person - the motives,
commitments, and feelings. Each of these general types of appeals has
reward-punishment variants which are adopted in accordance with tactics.
Thus, an appeal along the situational dimension may promise to grant, say,
a job promotion - a positive thrust - if compliance is forthcoming; or it
may promise to withhold that promotion, or direct a demotion - a negative
thrust - if it is not. In an appeal along the motivational dimension, a would
be exploiter may reward the target person by pointing up how good s/he
will feel if s/he complies, or how bad s/he will feel if s/he does not .
The situational appeal has other features that turn out to be tactful
weapons in any exploitative encounter. Compliance may be "explained" as
necessary not because of its effects on the person asking for it, but because
of its general consequence and meaning for the relationship. Thus, Marsha
may point out to John that he must refrain from sexual intercourse with her
because he is a cousin. In a counteractive response, however, John might
indicate to Marsha that he is in an exchange relationship with her: he has
paid fo r the theater and the dinner and therefore she owes him a debt of
gratitude, which can only be paid off in bed.
Note that in this example we see several features of the exploitation
game simultaneously operating. To begin with, two exploitation games are
going on at the same time. In one, Marsha is seeking to get John to refrain
from sexual intercourse; in the second, John is seeking to make Marsha
yield. Moreover, two "situations" are available to which the respective par
ties may appeal. Marsha appeals to the universal aspects of their relation
ship; John appeals to the particular conditions of the same relationship.
Most importantly, each party is engaged in the negotiation of identities
suitable to the play of the game: Marsha defines John as a relative and in
eligible as a sexual partner; John defines their relationship as one of that
between a creditor and a debtor. The moves in an exploitation game, then,
reflect the underlying negotiation of identities, as well as definitions of the
situation.
Further, we may note that another tactic available to a player is to shift
at the right moment from a situation-oriented to an identity-oriented ap
peal. This tactic is employable by either or both players and may be used at
just the right moment to overcome an opponent when victory appears to be
in the latter's grasp. Thus , a young lady, having exhausted all situational
defenses against sleeping with her hot-blooded boyfriend, may introduce
her religion - a heretofore unrevealed identity - as a final bar to his
demands. Religious as well as other identities, in this sense, may be kept in
reserve in order to be available as a final trump card playable at precisely
the right moment. 45 In this respect we may note the "softness-hardness"
hierarchy of identities: those that are "soft" being new, shortlived, or situa
tionally specific; those that are "hard" being old, permanent, and trans
situational . In general the ascribed characteristics of a person are "hard"
while the achieved characteristics border on "softness . " Thus, in any com
petitive win-lose, or zero-sum game, the invocation of a "hard" identity is
likely to be a tactically effective move, since it is much more difficult to be
dislodged from a permanent identity with its attendant rules and limitations
than it is from a "softer" one.
To sum up then, the of model play of an exploitation game in which
John seeks to get Marsha to do "X" looks like this:
John will open the game by a positive or negative thrust appealing
either to the situational or motivational aspects of Marsha's condition, or to
both . In a positive situational thrust John will appeal to Marsha's situa
tional needs and the advantages accruing from compliance; in a positive
motivational thrust John will engage in a construction of Marsha's feelings
indicating that Marsha will "feel" better, or have an integrated sense of self,
or a feeling of emotional well-being if she complies . In a negative situa
tional thrust J ohn will warn Marsha of the threat to her status, career, or
security should she refuse to comply; in a negative motivational appeal
John recasts Marsha's personal identity in such a manner that Marsha is
made to feel bad, or is shown that she will feel bad should she not comply.
Marsha may frustrate John's strategy by rejecting the construction put
by him on either self or situation. Marsha may switch from a situational to
an identificational reply; may readjust the definition of self or situation so
as to make compliance unnecessary or irrelevant; or may invoke a condi
tion of self or situation which ranks higher in terms of moral investment or
commitment.
John in turn may reply by disputing any of the constructions which
Marsha has employed; he may invoke still another "ranking" construction,
or insist with new argument or enhanced vehemence on his original con
struction of the situation.
Information Games4 6
Information games arise whenever one actor wishes to uncover infor

mation from another who wishes to conceal it. In one sense information
games overlap all others because knowledge of others is a prerequisite to
social life, and individuals rarely convey openly the kind or amount of
knowledge "required" by their fellows. All people are placed in positions of
info rmation control and concealment when they present themselves on any
particular social scene, for by its very nature any social scene is habitable
only by a few of the identities which make up the total "personality. " The
unwelcome identities will have to be inhibited or hidden. This becomes a

problem for the actors on the scene when one of the unpresented identities
is thought to be under scrutiny by another person. Moreover, some persons
and categories of persons must play information games almost all the time,
or as part of their occupations . Among the former are all those possessing
discreditable identities; 4 7 among the latter, all those charged with keeping
institutionalized secrets . Presumably those who are regular players in infor
mation games are more adept at it or conscious of the exigencies than occa
sional players and amateurs . Thus Blacks, 48 thoroughbred horse trainers, 49
and homosexuals5 0 share in common the continued use of stratagems by
which they respectively "put on" white folks, deceive race track bettors, and
pass as "straight. "
An information game may b e said to b e underway when a n actor per
ceives that information s/he wishes to keep secret is being sought. Once the
game has been perceived, the sequence of moves that takes place are control
moves, covering moves, uncovering moves, and recovering moves . 5 1
Although these moves may be planned and executed in advance as part of a
total strategy to deceive the person seeking information, each move is itself
modified by physical and environmental limitations , normative con
straints, and personal and idiosyncratic desires. Thus gathering, managing,
and concealing information are bounded by social rules and personal
wishes .
In the preliminary, or control, moves, the seeker of information tries
to discover the regular behavior patterns, preferred activities, normative
constraints, and secret activities of the information concealer. The seeker
then is in a position to judge the meaning of the concealer's acts, having
gleaned clues from the latter's seemingly non-informative behavior.
Once the concealer is aware that his or her actions are under scrutiny,
he mobilizes informational vigilance in a series of covering moves. He or
she will attempt to limit the information state of the seeker by sealing off
certain arenas of action and information and by opening up others.
Sealing off is a process created in part by the compartmentalized arenas of
action available to most social actors whereby they can secretively carry on
activities that have relevance in later public displays . Backstage preparatory
areas are typically closed to front stage audiences . In their most direct and
simple usage these backstage areas are undisguised and would reveal what
actually is the case, but these areas are closed to outsiders . Thus members of
the audience are not permitted in the dressing rooms before a theater per
formance, bettors are not permitted to prowl around the shed area and
backstretch of the race track, and guests are not usually invited to the back
b edrooms at a cocktail party. "Open privacy" in backstage areas provides
an arena of action where possessors of secret information may relax their
guard without fear of revealing that which ought to remain undisclosed.
The balding actress can remove her wig without fear of embarrassment, the
trainer can discuss the horse's winning chances openly with the exercise boy,
and the housewife can leave the beds unmade with impunity.
However, an adroit concealer might attempt to foil a seeker by reveal
ing information seemingly valuable but in fact irrelevant or misleading.
Such a tactic may involve opening the supposedly-private backstage area to
inspection but in fact contriving the situation so that a false impression is
given. Thus a housewife might allow guests to wander into the back
bedroom where beds and furniture are neatly arranged to give the impres
sion of a house that is everywhere tidy. A "passing" homosexual might in
vite someone who suspects his true identity to his bedroom where a seem
ingly casual and careless display of pictures of female nudes and his
baseball cap and glove convey a contradictory definition . And a suspected
Communist might stock his library shelves with books in praise of capi
talism and business, so that police and other snoopers "find" evidence
which contradicts their suspicions.
Concealing and revealing involve more than management of ecological
niches. They include what one conceals or reveals by personal behavior.
Thus in controlling information an actor will attempt to manage not only
the physical environment, but also expressive and idiomatic behavior. Since
seekers of information are likely to be watching quite carefully for clues to
what they wish to know, adroit concealers attempt to manage not only their
direct actions but also their seemingly accidental and casual activities as
well. When activities must be undertaken in the presence of those from
whom information is to be kept, the most revealing acts might be under
taken with an air of careless abandon or casualness unrelated to their actual
seriousness. To further throw a seeker off the track, actually unimportant
activities may be undertaken with a stylized seriousness of purpose that ex
aggerates their actual importance and shifts attention away from the truly
revealing. If a game player suspects that a seeker is in fact wise to the "rule
of reversals" - whereby the revealing is treated unseriously and vice versa
s/he might reverse this once more and actually indicate seriousness to what
is serious, supposing that this is just what the seeker will take as a sign of
unimportance. This escalated complexity is characteristic of the next phase
of the information game, namely, the one involving uncovering moves .
The uncovering phase begins when the seeker is aware that the con
cealer is aware of the seeker's information-gleaning activities. As a general
strategy, the seeker brackets the person and situation under investigation
within an assessment perspective designed to discover just what might be
revealed by extraordinary scrutiny. The otherwise routine activities and
taken-for-granted world are subjected to at least a mental search and
seizure, so to speak. The adept seeker will focus on j ust those aspects of ver
bal expression or body idiom, which, because of inadequate control, un-
cover what is otherwise hidden beneath the surface. Especially significant

here is the face - interpreting the movements of the eyes, nostrils, and lips,
and its flushed or pale coloration. 5 2 Thus Chinese jade dealers are sensitive
to the dilation of the pupils of the eye as a clue to the particular interest of a
customer otherwise being careful not to indicate his or her actual
preferences. 5 3 And some aficionados of the bull ring believe that the length
of the bullfighter's beard is a clue to his anxiety state. 5 4
Sometimes information can be obtained by interviewing, although
answers obtained through this method, like answers obtained in clinical in
terviews, cannot be assumed to have great reliability - especially when the
interactants are aware that they are both engaged in an information game.
Face-to-face contact, however, provides opportunities for observing unob
trusive indicators. Furthermore, indirect questioning may have payoffs for
an adroit interrogator. Some race track bettors have developed the fine art
of indirectly interrogating trainers to glean clues as to a particular horse's
chances. 5 5 Questioning a civil rights worker about the kind of clothing to be
worn at a demonstration may indicate whether arrests are expected. 5 6 And
Japanese employ a reciprocal round-aboutness in conversation, discreetly
avoiding the subj ect of interest in order to exhibit info rmation about it. 5 7
Another kind o f uncovering device i s spying, o r observing the person
when s/he believes s/he is unobserved. In addition to clandestine voyeurism,
technological advances have placed all manner of "hardware" at the disposal
of the seeker. Vision can be increased by the use of telescopes, and minute
details may be attended to with microscopes . The ears may be assisted by a
wide variety of bugging devices ranging in size from a cocktail olive to a
room-size amplifier.
A third uncovering tactic is seduction in which exchange (usually but
not always confined to a trade of sexual services for information) rather
than espionage is employed. Certain occupational statuses are apparently
frequent victims of this tactic. At least in legentl, military men are thought
to be particularly vulnerable to Mata Hari stratagems; and college pro
fessors are said to be prone to exchange test information for coed
comforting. Seductions are common occurrences even in such lesser known
occupations as race track trainer and j ockey, where innocents are forced to
play information games, as hoards of information-seeking beauties utilize
their sexual talents to pump the men for reliable information. 5 8
When seduction fails, the seeker may employ the ultimate tactic -
"coercive exchange. " Here force or threat of force is used to obtain infor
mation.
The final phase of the information game is initiated by recovering moves.
They are undertaken by a concealer when s/he suspects his or her cover is
suspected. For example, the jade buyer who is aware that his dilated pupils
betray his interest may take a chemical that dilates the pupils - a re-covering
to be employed when he wishes to feign interest in some purchase. Thus the

best evidence for the seeker to obtain in order to uncover the concealer's
motives is the best "evidence" the concealer has to tamper with if he or she
wants to re-cover information control.
. Re-covering moves clearly illustrate that information games take on the
behavioristic elements described when mirrors are looking into mirrors. Each
actor may suspect the other suspects him or her and thus undertake counter
active measures. Since the most fundamental rule of deception is that of the
contradiction between appearances and reality, game players will be on guard
to judge the meaning of events according to the rule of reversals. But since the
reversals can be reversed again and again, the problem for the actors is to
determine what state of suspicion awareness their antagonist is in.
Before concluding this discussion of information games, special note
must be made of the concept of deception.
Although most codes of ethics and statements of ideals deprecate de
ception, the latter has its place as a regular and indeed often expected code
of conduct. Forms of deception ranging from "little white lies" to tactful
meretriciousness to dissimulation are not only noticeable features of social
life but even required patterns of behavior in specially designated situa
tions. Beyond these situations are those categories of persons whose very
occupation pre-supposes deception as a routine procedure - magicians,
spies and confidence men. And still further integrated into a deception
oriented frame of reference are those persons whose actual identities are
permanently shrouded from public view, covered up by a "front" quite dif
ferent from that which it conceals, best illustrated perhaps in the case of the
passing homosexual.
At the outset, then, we may distinguish between the situated and occa
sional falsifier and the career deceiver. The former, found in nearly every
walk of life, is familiar to everyone and is universally justified in his or her
behavior by reference to the widespread belief that the end served by the
deception is of a higher order of priority than candidness. Phrases like
"What he doesn't know won't hurt him," "The truth hurts, " and "It's better
not to know" indicate that approved deception must be rooted in a moral
evaluation of the situation with which others - including ultimately, the
deceived person - would agree.
Career deceivers are not under the same moral constraints. They aim at
different purposes : the magician presents himself as capable of superimpos
ing his will on nature in ways that the ordinary person cannot; the espionage
agent masquerades as a citizen to obtain extraordinary information; the
confidence man parades at the race track in the regalia of a horseman to ex
ploit the credulity of the betting public for private gain. For the profes
sional deceiver the problem is not one of moral rectitude but rather of social
comprehension. He or she must understand the seen-but-unnoticed features
of everyday life. And like a stage manager, the deceiver must create the
meaning of the setting in which s/he wishes the audience to participate and
sustain that definition of the situation against alternative, contradictory
and revelatory interpretations .
In essence deception is the placement of the individual or group to be
deceived into one frame of meaning, while the deceiver is operating in quite
another. Magic tricks provide numerous examples. 5 9 The magician actually
creates an environment in which - given his definition of obj ects and ac
tivities - the events can be explained as magical . Meanwhile, he is operating
in quite another environment in which certain objects and activities defined
as irrelevant to the central feature of the trick in fact control the outcome.
This is what is meant by the art of misdirection. Other deceivers employ a
method similar to that of the magician. The race horse trainer, exposed to
public view in the paddock, gives his do-or-die riding instructions to the
jockey in a casual seemingly off-hand manner, while pretending to be most
concerned with saddling the horse. A confidence man, employing the
"pigeon drop" swindle, knows that no one will turn over their life savings to
anyone but a bona fide official charged with a bonded responsibility for
them; so he provides a well-credentialed confederate who accompanies the
"mark" to the bank and guards him against danger from thieves. The
"plant," inserted by the F . B . I . into the Communist party, debates ideology
and practice with the vigorous spirit that animates true believers; in the very
process he obtains documents, names, and other information for use in
subsequent prosecutions.
Relevant to the success of a deception is the deceiver's knowledge of
just what will be taken as reliable evidence on the part of the other, so that
the latter will conclude that s/he is in the frame that the deceiver has
credited. Information must be managed so that it has the properties of
coherence, validity, and naturalness. This means that the deceiver must be
alive to that one false note which, when sounded, rings down the curtain on
the entire performance. To succeed in the deception, the deceiver must be
alive to the dramaturgic elements of routine behavior. To him or her fur
niture provides props; clothing, a costume; manner, a well-rehearsed, situa
tionally appropriate performance. For the deception to go undiscovered,
self-presentation must be a coherent representation of the person who is im
personated; and the minute details and gross features must all fit together to
form, for the deceived party, an undramatic whole.
Deceivers also realize that the validity of their presentation is increased
when confirmed by an independent party. Thus professional deceivers
such as confidence men and field anthropologists - usually employ "in
dependent" agents to assist in the masquerade. The role of assistants in
every facet of swindling is well known, including the use of a special func
tionary who remains after the swindle to "cool the mark out . " In ethno-
graphic investigations of exotic peoples, the anthropologist often finds it

necessary to employ native assistants to validate his or her right to intrude
on local private life. The use of native assistants tends to reduce the suspi
cion and hostility of the people to be investigated, while at the same time
highlighting the anthropologist's trustworthy image.
Let us conclude this section by noting finally that, while mathemati
cians have posited a model of game behavior in which perfect information
is a characteristic feature, sociologists must recognize that all social games
proceed from a condition of imperfect information. In this sense every
game includes an information game in which each player seeks to uncover
the real identity, the actual intentions, and the secret stratagems employed
by the other. The condition of imperfect information renders all social
games problematic. Indeed, uncertainty of outcomes is a feature of games
that provides the players with anxious concern over strategic decisions and
zestful incentive for action when the game is on.
CONCLUSION
Game frameworks provide the sociologist with a useful way of ordering

action in human encounters. Such encounters will almost always have
prizes of honor, compliance, knowledge, and emotional ties at stake; and
thus face, exploitation, information, and relationship games, respectively,
will emerge as the essential procedural properties of the interaction.
Human beings vary in their adeptness at the playing of these games,
and their varying skills certainly modify the outcome in any particular
game. Beyond individual skills, however, are several related factors - all
components of the concept of dominance - that influence which game will
emerge in any encounter and what limits in game play are binding on all
participants. As pointed out, whether a game is going on and which of
several possible games is being played are both functions of the specific
social situation. Any game in theory and each game in practice requires a
definition of the situation to be imposed on past, present, and future
events . This definition or framework is itself a social product emanating
from the actual conditions that prevail. Power is among the most important
of these conditions, and, as a general rule, "He who has the bigger stick has
the better chance of imposing his definitions of reality. " 60
Even in those cases in which the weaker party secretly plays a different
game with its own risks and stakes, s/he must take into account the game
defined by the more powerful person and in the process mobilize sign
equipment to satisfy the requirements of the dominant game. 6 1 Thus, while
several games may be going on in the same encounter, it is certainly relevant
to inquire into the hierarchy of domination that governs the engagement
and the modifications on game play imposed by this hierarchy.
Domination in games is grounded in the same source from which it arises

in social life: traditional, legal, bureaucratic, and charismatic statuses. 62
Where tradition prevails the ascribed statuses of the actors may indicate
who is the official defining authority in a game. Among traditional
Japanese, for example, siblings deferred to one another according to age; 6 3
and in nearly all societies men exercise traditional authority over women. 64
Legal statuses may freeze authority relations in accordance with juridi
cally established hierarchies . Thus, police are free to define the meaning
and strongly affect the outcome of their encounters with juveniles because
of the widespread deference given to the former's legal status and the
relatively low esteem given to the latter . 6 5
Bureaucratic authority encloses relationships i n the clasp of office,
thus defining hierarchical rights and privileges . School principals, for ex
ample, exercise dominance in situations involving both fellow teachers and
students by dint of their official position, modified of course by the manner
in which they exercise it. 66
Finally, charismatic authority arises out of the "majesty" with which
an actor is cloaked by others, 67 a maj esty which is compounded of awe and
reverence of someone who seems to occupy a position at, or a control over,
the elements at the center of life. 68 Charisma may lodge in any ac
tor - regardless of formal status - who behaves in such a manner as to
evoke its imputation.
Dominance in any game situation may be subverted. Sentiment may
invade the status hierarchy. In this respect the most powerful sentiment is
affection, whether it appears as romantic love or comradely friendship.
While status apartheid limits affectionate contacts, interdependence makes
hermetic isolation impossible. Thus formally dominant authorities - such
as guards in a prison69 - may be corrupted by frequent intimate encounters
with social inferiors; and charismatic leaders - such as bandit chiefs - may
be toppled by their sentimental attachments or betrayal by their amorous
affairs. 7 0 In sum, while dominance and asymmetry are features of nearly
every social relationship, and while social factors govern their allocation,
no social situation is without possibility of subversion and restructuring of
dominating relationships .
A final note is due on what might be called a humanistic obj ection to
the game perspective. Some critics of the game and related frameworks
have objected to what they perceive as their image of humankind as basically
immoral and essentially opportunistic. Thus Martindale7 1 contrasts what
he alleges to be Goffman's model of self ("opportunist") with that of James,
Cooley, and Mead ("autonomous moral agent") and seems to find the
former wanting. But let us interpose an objection. It is not that game
frameworks, or the earlier models of Goffman - to whom we gratefully
acknowledge a debt of insight and guidance - presuppose (much less
honor) a particular human morality; rather, the model of games indicates

only that skill in play has advantageous payoffs . The amoral and adept op
portunist is but one of several social types - for some, s/he is a hero to be
emulated; for others, a scoundrel to be brought low. The game framework
may be used to discover moral man in immoral society or vice versa.
PART VI :
EXTRODUCTION
Chapter 12 A Sociology o f the Absurd Revisited
"The world rests on the back of an elephant. That elephant rests on the back
of another elephant. And so it goes - elephants all the way down . "
Hindu Proverb
Two decades ago we published the first edition of A Sociology of the

A bsurd. We intended to do particularly for sociology what Mircea Eliade's
homunculus, "archaic man," does for his own history: To abolish the reigning
paradigm of the discipline - an amalgam of Positivism and Functionalism
and begin again de novo. 1 Although we did not succeed in convincing most of
our colleagues to set aside their premises and prognostications, mathematics
and methods, fact-mongerings and functions, our book appeared at about
the same time that a long-festering anti-functionalist, anti-positivist move
ment had begun to emerge openly. 2 For various reasons - some ideological,
some practical, some epistemological - a significant number of sociologists
began to address the received wisdom of the previous generations of main
stream American sociology critically, to suggest that the prevailing outlook
had reached its point of marginal utility, and to investigate the theoretical,
empirical, and practical possibilities in alternative and heterodox perspec
tives. Quite naturally, the leaders and followers of orthodoxy defended
their position; our book - and, with even greater vehemence, its sequel, The
Drama of Social Reality, - became a handy target for critics, polemicists,
and cranks. A leading functionalist nominated Lyman and Scott as a
remarkable duo among the "streamlined sorcerers clad in the latest
paraphernalia of science, " and, holding that we were warlock-soldiers
within the "Trojan Horse" that had appeared "in the camp of the enlighten
ment," urged our exorcism from the mind-life of the discipline that, he
alleged, had originally been based in Reason. 3 This jeremiad in behalf of ra
tionalism treated the authors of A Sociology of the A bsurd as blinkered and
abject followers of Harold Garfinkel and his school of ethnomethodology,
peddling a mumbo-jumbo of magical incantations that, supposedly, hides a
jargonized replication of ''what sociologists of the old Chicago School, like
Park, Burgess, and Thomas, were occupying themselves with in the early
decades of the present century . . "4 If Stanislav Andreski believed that
.
Lyman and Scott were high priests of a recent, and, in his mind, unfor-
1 82
A Sociology of the A bsurd Revisited: An Extroduction 1 83
tunate, incarnation of a pagan social science that is in fact sorcery, Robert

S. Broadhead devoted an entire essay to proclaiming that, while we were
proponents of "an undersocialized conception of man," we were nonetheless
functionalists in disguise: " . . . [l] n the Absurd, man's behavior is seen to be
the function of 'absurdity'; in functionalism, man's behavior is seen to be
the function of a reified social system. Thus The Sociology of the Absurd
becomes a type of functionalism that could be called 'afunctionalism'." As
Broadhead saw the matter, "The Absurd's reaction to functionalism becomes
so extreme that it makes a full circle; like a reflection in a mirror, it becomes
both an antithesis and a duplicate. "5 Still another critic, Barry Schwartz,
although far more restrained than either Andreski or Broadhead, and sym
pathetic to our position which he designated as "neosymbolic interac
tionism, "recognized that A Sociology of the Absurd had been "put together
with a view to providing an alternative to the functionalist image of man as
a passive object molded by the group." Nevertheless, he held that by "stressing
what is negotiated in social life at the expense of what is not, neosymbolic
interactionism seems to be leading us from (an originally Durkheimian)
oversocialized conception of man to an undersocialized conception. "6 (This
statement, incidentally, is the acknowledged source for Broadhead's essay.)
Despite their different apprehensions of what kind of sociology A Sociology
of the A bsurd is, their several nominess for its real intellectual ancestors,
and their various objections to its thesis and claims, the critics of the work
share in common a refusal to accede to its central claim, i.e. , that, (as Zyg
munt Bauman put it) , "For Camus or Lyman [and Scott] the Absurd is a
necessary - that is immutable - predicament of the human condition."7
A Sociology of the A bsurd achieved its greatest impact not through ab
sorption or appreciation of its basic message, but rather through a piecemeal
appropriation and application of the substance of two of its chapters: "Ter
ritoriality: A Neglected Sociological Dimension" and "Accounts" - (each of
which had appeared earlier in major journals of the profession; both would
be reprinted in widely used anthologies for the next two decades) . In ''Ter
ritoriality," we reopened the virtually moribund interest in human ecology
that had once been a hallmark of the Chicago School. 8 However, our ap
proach eschewed the biotic and geosocial determinism that had been implicit
in the original approach and reconceived space as a fundamental feature of
every social and individual environment; out of the raw spaces of existence
persons, groups, associations, and states carve out territories for public,
home, interactional, or anatomic uses. From this perspective, the spaces and
interstices of the earth and the body constitute that backdrop of obdurate but
inherently unintelligible reality against, in relation to, and on top of which
humans form the intelligible and usable um welt. 9 The point of view of A
Sociology of the Absurd holds that the social construction, reconstruction,
and destruction of space constitute basic features of human action.
"Accounts" provided another angle of approach to the underlying

question that the discipline of sociology had been formed to answer: "How
is society possible? " If "Territoriality" outlined the modes and processes
whereby humans constructed their spatial realities out of the rawest of
nature's topography, "Accounts" provided both a phenomenological and
an interactional answer to the Hobbesian problem : social order was
preserved within its precarious skein by and through the acceptability of ex
culpatory linguistic devices . Thus, individuals and groups 1 0 contrived to
repair the potentially gaping rips and widening tears in the social fabric that
their words and deeds had allegedly brought about by invoking excuses or
j ustifications. Whether these accounts will be honored with an acceptance
by relevant others is always problematical. And, it follows, so also for
social order.
Although "Accounts" generated a veritable cottage industry of research,
elaborating the conceptual taxonomy of exculpatory and explanatory
rhetorics and providing various empirical studies of their acceptability, 1 1 it
already had had a genealogy of adumbrating works preceding it: the
writings of Robert Mac Iver 1 2 and C. Wright Mills, 1 3 both of which owed
their origins to the Pragmatic tradition 1 4 and, directly or indirectly, to the
essays of that genius without discipline, Kenneth Burke. Burke's insightful
discussion of the problematic relationship between rationalization and
reason 1 s opened a new chapter for the study of vocabularies of motive.
Although Louis Wirth 1 6had in 1935 recognized possibilities for the further
development of Burke's observations, the essay by Mac Iver has gone vir
tually unnoticed for more than four decades, while Mills's contribution was
often celebrated but rarely utilized until "Accounts" revived interest in the
subj ect. For our own part, we conceived "Accounts" as a translation of
Jean-Paul Sartre's essay on "bad faith" 1 7 into an ethnomethodologically in
telligible form.
Although the critical response to "Accounts" has been gratifying, a
program calling for the analysis of the vocabulary of motives as linguistic
devices of salvation will not satisfy those social investigators who are con
cerned about addressing social problems and social issues in terms of struc
tural arrangements . To these sociologists the human condition that we
designate as absurdity is perceived contingently as a concomitant of
modern man's situated and structurally-determined alienation. In this
regard, Felix Geyer, a Dutch sociologist concerned to distinguish
psychiatric from sociological alienation and a co-founder of the Research
Committee on Alienation Theory and Research of the International
Sociological Association, has observed, "Sociological alienation is . . . caused
by social processes, institutions and structures in the individual's macro
societal environment . . . Sociological de-alienation . . . presupposes a
change of the individual's environment rather than of the individual
A Sociology of the A bsurd Revisited: A n Extroduction 1 85
himself; when the alienating structures or processes in the environment in

deed disappear - through concerted action, revolution, or revolutionary
change - then sociological alienation disappears as well . . . " 1 8 Our own
position, in contrast, is anti-utopian; it regards the secular salvation devices
that excuse or j ustify the allegedly untoward actions of individuals and
groups as potentially reparative and irregularly restorative accounting prac
tices, elementary forms of secular life that throw unsturdy bridges across
the particular experiences of an irreparably fractured sociation.
Functionalism explains anomie and alienation as consequences of in
complete socialization, the absence or weakening of norms, or a lack of
social integration. Functionalism thus provides its own salvational device
for modern society: improved socialization, the strengthening of norms, or
the reintegration of society will ultimately restore equilibrium. Anomie is
merely a temporary "strain in the social structure, one that would generate
processes that would reclaim dislocated elements within itself. " 1 9 Society,
hence, is a social system, and social change consists of the oscillations that
occur as innovative elements are periodically integrated in accordance with
the laws of motion described by the concept dynamic equilibrium. 20. Func
tionalism disposes of conflict by regarding it as an occasional and irregular
phenomenon and process that moves ultimately to eliminate whatever
estrangements, separations, misunderstandings, and absurdities have crept
into the social order.
By contrast, A Sociology of the A bsurd starts from the position that
conflict is the fundamental process undergirding all social relations . The
"arena encompassed by conflict theory," Randall Collins recently noted, "is
not only the moments of obvious strife in society, but also the systematic
explanation of the entire social structure. " 2 1 Our own position coincides
with that of Collins on this point. The functionalists seek to pour the balm
of equilibrating oils on the troubled waters of society given over to absurdity.
But, just as the Hindu proverb conceives of an unending stack of elephants
holding up the world, so we envision conflict "all the way down . " The in
sight of Emile Durkheim - that society ultimately rests on a non-rational
foundation - gives an impetus to our position, but Durkheim went on to
posit the existence of integrative forces more or less at work to reduce,
mitigate, or eliminate conflict altogether. Max Weber emphasized the
significant roles that conflict and domination play in ordering the relations
among classes, ethnic sodalities, and status groups, but by emphasizing
legitimation processes as conducive to state solidarity he moved the poten
tial of his conflict sociology toward one of order; moreover, its reception
and application in the United States, at any rate, became the basis for
Talcott Parsons's structural-functionalism. Conflict sociology is usually
associated with the writings of Karl Marx, who supposed that class strug
gles formed the paradigm case for all significant social strife; but Marx's
emphasis on the primacy of material conditions that operate through the

sphere of economic production limited the depth and breadth of his pro
posed mode of analysis. Our own position owes most to the writings of
Georg Simmel, whose theory of the ubiquitous conflict between life and its
many forms transcends the Marxian idea at the very moment that it incor
porates it, making unceasing conflict into the never-ending tragedy of
culture . 2 2
A s Collins has done s o much t o elucidate, there i s a variety of conflict
sociologies. 23 Some concentrate on the inexorable struggle of classes,
others on racial strife, and still others on the battles of the sexes ; some pose
an inherent division between the demands of society and the imperatives of
personality; others on the hegemony of conscience and the resistance of im
pulses; and still others depict an inherent impasse between natural law and
cultural norms. What distinguishes a sociology of the absurd from the other
conflict sociologies is its emphasis on the irreducibility of conflict as both a
fundamental concept and a basic process, and, more importantly, the con
ceptual lens it employs to investigate conflict. Its methodology is drama
turgic.
To view the world dramaturgically is to read it as a text: Social life is a
kind of discourse. 24 Making sense of that discourse demands key concepts
and particular points of reference. The concepts that have been developed
in A Sociology of the A bsurd are meta-empirical, i.e. , they intend to sen
sitize the researcher to the modes through which the actions of the subjects
under investigation are made meaningful to and efficacious for them. Start
ing out from the ontological position that the world makes no essential
sense, A Sociology of the A bsurd, gives notice and priority to the fact that
meanings are always something that humans impose upon the world of raw
experience. A Sociology of the A bsurd provides a dramatistic guide to
reading the texts of meaning given in the discourses of real-life actors . Ran
dall Collins once observed that, "Of all the interpretive sociologies, Lyman
and Scott's (1970) A Sociology of the A bsurd alone manages to maintain
this insight [about the imposition of meaning] without falling into a purely
philosophical position and, [thereby, ] missing the real conflicts in human
behavior."25 The dramaturgic approach developed in A Sociology of the
A bsurd is peculiarly suited to researching the human constructions of social
reality and the inherent conflicts entailed in their architectonic because it
designs a conceptual and methodological apparatus whereby the sociologist
can investigate precisely how that ubiquitous, practical - and, sometimes,
bewitched, bothered, and bewildered - social-scientist-in-spite-of-himself,
Everyman-and-woman, goes about the daily tasks of living life. The
dramaturgic approach proceeds in the spirit of the warning that Rom Harre
has given to social scientists: "Everyone is, in a certain sense, a fairly com-
A Sociology of the A bsurd Revisited: An Extroduction 1 87
petent social scientist, and we must not treat his (or her) theory about the
social world and his place in it with contempt. "2 6
Specifically, A Sociology of the A bsurd fashions bundles of concepts
that allow the student of society to examine patterns of action as drama and
discourse. Surrounding these concepts is an ideal-typical frame: Kenneth
Burke's formulation of the elementary basis of dramatistics, especially his
suggestion that the act be seen in terms of scene, agent, agency, and pur
pose. To make this dramatistic framework prominent, we have re-arranged
t he chapters of this revised and expanded edition of A Sociology of the A b
surd around the Burkean categories and thus moved what was an unseen
backstage feature of the original edition on to an immediately visible front
stage principle of thematic organization.
Critics of A Sociology of the A bsurd in particular, and the drama
turgic approach in general, have raised several objections to this orienta
tion. However, we believe that these cavils can be disposed of by a deeper
understanding of the scope and breadth of Burke's basic ideas and by a
closer inspection of the usages to which we have put them. Among these
criticisms are: 1) McNall's and Johnson's claim that the theories contained
in A Sociology of the A bsurd "are inherently conservative because they are
either not concerned with the possibility of change, or they are actively op
posed to it . . . [T] oday's conservative theoreticians, who revel in the use of
dramaturgical models for the analyses of behavior, forget the implications
of their own models. If behavior is drama, then who wrote the play, who
directs the actors, who buys the tickets, and who is really backstage?"; 27 2)
The supposed contradiction, alleged by Elizabeth Burns in her review of
The Drama of Social Reality, between our claim that "social reality is realized
theatrically . . . the social world is inherently dramatic" and a later state
ment, as paraphrased by Burns, that "most of life is routine, only punc
tuated by 'dramas' " ; 28 3) Robert Broadhead's assertion that A Sociology of
the Absurd "confuses and misappropriates a 'metaphysical problem' [i. e. ,
meaninglessness] with a 'sociological problem,' " because "the social con
struction of reality . . . exists through history as an immense framework of
meaning designating names to all obj ects, defining relationships and rules
of conduct, and even providing values and Gods"; 29 and 4) Randall
Collins's contention that A Sociology of the A bsurd cannot cut "a path for
ward to scientific sociology" because it "falls into the category of romantic
social science, " setting for itself "an aesthetic aim: to capture the pathos or
drama of human existence, especially the existential tragedy of man impos
ing fragile meanings on a meaningless world. "30
Let us examine each of these seemingly powerful critiques . A Soci
ology of the Absurd's method is in fact designed after Burke's "contention
that the application of dramatistic terms to the study of human motivation
in general is not merely 'metaphorical, ' that people do literally 'act,' and
since 'action' is the primary qualitative part of drama the systematic use of
drama as a model helps us perfect our terminology for charting the cycle of
terms implicit in the idea of an act. "3 1 Contrary to the criticisms
enumerated above, charting those terms permits sociological analyses of
the following: change as well as stasis; the power to define and the
resistance to acceptance of the scenarios of human existence; the existential
conditions affecting the recognition or overcoming of manifest absurdity;
the ordinary scenes of everyday life as well as the extraordinary dramas that
interrupt and modify those scenes.
Burke's well-known pentad - act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose
perrnits a distinction between telic action and mere motion. An action,
Burke reminds us, "contains some ingredient of purpose or end."3 2 In our
elaboration of the Burkean system, we not only do not eschew the study of
persistence and change - as McNall and Johnson would have it - but quite
literally analyze the scenarios appropriate to each . Hence, under the
Burkean category of scene, we have provided a dramatistic account of the
emergence, continuity, and conversion of space into defined territories;
depicted the temporal modes by which duree is dissolved into the several
tracks of socially recognized time; and taken notice of the interstitial mo
ment in an individual's or a group's routine that permits departure from
normative constraints. Moreover, exemplary of Burke's notion of "pur
pose," our essay on "game frameworks" outlines the strategies and tactics
appropriate to keeping or breaking a relationship; maintaining or spoiling
an identity; hiding or fathoming a secret; and obtaining or resisting
hegemony. Each of these is inextricably connected to the accomplishment
or failure of social change and only a blind or willful refusal to see the con
nections can explain the assertion that A Sociology of the A bsurd avoids
the study of change.
However, McNall and Johnson are concerned about a presumption that
they believe lies at the heart of our discussion: that all humans are in an
equal position to define their situations and achieve whatever aims they
wish: As they put it, Lyman and Scott "ignore the fact that some people's
definitions of reality carry more weight than those of others."33 Of course,
it is difficult to see how a perspective that takes Machiavelli as its intellec
tual genitor can be declared to be naive about the power differences and in
vidious distinctions that obtain among humankind. However, what is truly
remarkable is how these two critics - who wish to impose their own pejorative
label of "conservative" on us - have failed to take cognizance of our discus
sion of just these issues. "[P] ower, " we note in what was the conclusion to
the original edition of A Sociology of the A bsurd, "must be raised to its ap
propriate sociological significance . . . [It] always matters in social rela
tions, and . . . the gaining, holding, recognition, exercise, and consequences
of power are always problematic. " Moreover, in contra-distinction to what
A Sociology of the A bsurd Revisited: A n Extroduction 1 89
McNall and Johnson have averred about our position, we directly address
the effects of differential power on the capacity of actors to achieve their
goals: "The many groups and individuals that make up a pluralistic society
do not possess equal power or authority . . . The value pattern of the domi
nant elites tends to take precedence over all other value structures and
moralities at least in all those situations in which individuals and groups
find themselves i n confrontation with these elites . "3 4 In this as in other mat-
. ters we share the position put forward by Burke to the effect that hierarchy
isalways a part of any ordering of life and allows for a world that is
simultaneously final and fluid. As Burke once put it, " . . . [S] ince, for bet
ter or worse, the mystery of the hierarchic is forever with us, let us, as
studentsof rhetoric, scrutinize its range of entrancements, both with
dismay and delight. " 3 5 As students of society, we delineated the rhetorics
and described the scenarios that legitimate the eternal dramas of political
domination in The Drama of Social Reality , and followed that discussion
with an equally analytic essay on the dramas of resistance to authority . 3 6
Dramas of power and resistance are intensely "dramatic, " i n the con
ventional use of that term , i . e . , they are striking in appearance or effect,
and stir the imagination while arousing the emotions of all involved.
However, not all scenes in real life possess this power to charm or startle
both players and audience . A dramatistic sociology must not only explore
scenarios that are "theatrical, " i . e . , those that appeal b y means of exag
gerated gestures and vocalizations; " histrio nic, " i . e . , those that depend on
deliberately affected or over-determinedly staged motions, movements,
and tones; and "melodramatic," i.e. , those that rely on excessively heightened
emotionalism and inappropriate theatricalism, but also those that achieve
their dramatistic height by being performed outside of the conventional
styles associated with staged theater . These are the dramas of everyday life
that are characterized by unprepossessing scenes, uninspiring agents, un
surprising agencies of achievement, and unremarkable purposes. In brief,
these dramas, theaters of action that occur in the ordinary course of affairs
of everyday people, are dull, "undramatic" in the conventional sense. That
fact does not remove them from the situs of a dramatistic sociology; quite
the contrary, these dramas-in-the-routine are the very stuff of praxis and
provide the basic data for a social science that is faithful to the character of
its subj ect matter. 3 7
Dramas of everyday life a s well a s theaters of politics, resistance, crime,
and retribution occur within a world of meanings imposedby the actors. The
frames within which individuals and groups establish the definitions of the
situations in which they are involved are neither devoid of historical content
obliged to the official conceptions of past and present put
nor necessarily
forth by dominant elites. Broadhead's conception of history as "an im
mense framework of meaning" proceeds from the point of view of what
Harold Garfinkel has called a "cultural dope." It converts what should be a

topic for investigation by any sociologist seeking to uncover the meanings
brought to bear on human experience into a resource that would beg the
very question that is to be answered. 3 8 Applying the Burkean category of
"scene" to a research proj ect requires that the sociologist bracket belief in
whatever notions of the past s/he regularly employs in order that s/he might
uncover the definition of the past in use by the research subjects. Rather than
assuming that the elements that compose the dramatic frame of any ex
perience are shared by each participant, or that they are pre-given by a com
mon and unambiguous history, a sociologist of the absurd performs an
epoche around such things. For this kind of investigator the attitude toward
history becomes a feature to be researched: a problematic feature of the
scene, a discoverable aspect of the outlook of the agent, an element that
figures in the employment of the agency, and a factor related to the purpose
of the action. A Sociology of the A bsurd adopts the perspective on history
developed by Georg Simmel when he observed, " . . . the extent of a single,
historical unit, the concentration of historical data around a single cen
trifugal point, and the definition of the limits of the unit with reference to
the extension of the lines of development which radiate from the centrifugal
point are all specifically determined by the intentions, forces and motives,
and available forms which at any given time have the status of historical a
prioris. " It is precisely these "intentional forces and motives, and available
forms," that constitute data to be gathered in the analysis of a scene. As for
what the officially designated elites claim is an event, we share Simmel's
view that "Compared to the purely immanent meaning and rhythm of the
event and life itself, the historical representation is a categorically new entity."39
Does A Sociology of the A bsurd contribute to the development of
sociology as a science? Or, is it, as Randall Collins would have it, an
aesthetic discipline elaborating what Robert Nisbet once called sociology as
an art form?4 0 The answer depends on what definition of science is
employed. For Collins, the "scientific ideal is to explain everything, and to
do it by making causal statements which are ultimately based upon ex
perience. "4 1 But this is but one definition of science that must contend with
others that call, variously, for descriptive outcomes , praxiological results,
melioristic proposals, or aesthetic enhancement. We believe that A
Sociology of the A bsurd is part of a scientific sociology, formulating a
method of investigation, a set of problems for research, and permitting the
construction of generalizations that fit a world conceived dramatistically.
However, A Sociology of the A bsurd is not averse to sociological poetics.
As Alan Swingewood has noted about the latter, "Sociological poetics rests
ultimately on liberal assumptions, on individual responsibility, on active,
educated subj ects . "4 2 Those who would take up its calling are invited to
become such subjects.
PART VII :
APPENDICES
APPENDIX I
The Marquis de Sade and the Quest for the Nonabsurd*
The absurd raises the problem of how one carves out meaning in a mean
ingless world. Thus a sociology of the absurd takes as its subject matter
every person's quest for the nonabsurd. While trying to understand how
modern man or woman achieves the nonabsurd, we happened to run across
the writings of the Marquis de Sade. In the light of Sade's work, the follow
ing represents a preliminary orientation for understanding modern
humankind's quest for the nonabsurd.
SADE AND THE ABSURD
The tireless heroine of Sade's novel, Justine, asks: "So pray tell me:
what life shall be mine to lead? " To which Sade answers : "An absurd life. "
To us the significance of Sade 1 rests upon his contributions to the
analysis of the absurd. By the absurd we mean the subjective sense that
one's established social worlds are hopelessly alien from one's conception of
the good, the expected, and the "normal. " The absurd may be experienced ·
either as a sense that no effective and appropriate norms are available to

produce meaning, and the result is a gnawing sense of confusion about the
world and events; or it may be experienced as a sense of impotence, a sense
that activities are matters of compulsion, and vehicles of coercive rather
than individual expression.
The conditions that generate these two senses of the absurd can be
gleaned from the world that Sade himself experienced . To begin with, the
France of the late eighteenth century was a world of profound transition.
The A ncien Regime was to give way to a new republic; and normative
frameworks were to break down, ushering in an era of acute anomie - the
feeling that one's experiences no longer fit with one's expectations.
Besides his experience in an anomicized world, Sade also spent half his
adult life in a world equally pathological, and yet in every way the opposite
of an anomic milieu. We refer to his years in "total institutions" - i.e. ,
asylums and prisons - where he faced the deadening drudgery of routinized
1 92
Appendix I: The Marquis de Sade and the Questfor the Nonabsurd 1 93
life. Rather than the feeling that one's experiences no longer fit with one's
expectations (the condition of anomie) , total institutions produce the feel
ing of a too predictable world - a condition Emile Durkheim called
"fatalism. "2
Sade thus experienced equally two opposite milieux: intense anomie
and intense fatalism. His observations and writings are continually informed
by this j oint experience. From the absurdity of his own social existence,
Sade formulated the fundamental human problem: How to achieve a sense
of dignity and humanity; and at the same time, achieve a zestful, though
continuously meaningful existence? To the extent that our age is char
acterized by the conditions of anomie and fatalism, and to the extent that
the resulting human problem of our time is to achieve a sense of dignity,
humanity, zest, and meaningfulness - to the extent that these are true,
Sade's ideas are relevant for an understanding and analysis of the modern
world.
On the basis of Sade's own experiences, then, the j oint task of every
person - faced with absurdity - is to get outside of the deadening routine
and to apprehend a sense of purposeful meaning. Efforts to resolve these
two problems constitute the quest for the nonabsurd.
Sade provides a perspective to attain - and analyze - the nonabsurd.
The key element of this perspective is, in a special sense of the term, sadism.
To clarify its meaning, sadism may be distinguished from two other
notions often confounded with it, namely, Schadenfreude and algolagnia.
Schadenfreude refers to the sense of j oy or excitement one may receive
when others have suffered some unhappiness. In the case of Schaden
freude, the person having the enj oyment is not responsible for the suffering
of the other. The j oy one might experience by watching a man slip on a
banana peel is Schadenfreude, not sadism. Algolagnia refers to the sexual
pleasure that one may receive by inflicting pain on others . Although the
psychoanalytic literature often identifies algolagnia with sadism, it might
be more properly thought of as a specialized type of sadism.
What, then, is sadism? In brief, it refers to "the pleasure felt from the
observed modifications on the external world produced by the will of the
observer". Unlike Schadenfreude, the pleasures of sadism do not spring
from the unhappiness of others, but from the knowledge that one is respon
sible. According to British anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer, what is central
to sadism is the pleasure one receives by knowing that one's words or ac
tions affect others strongly. "Sadism," Gorer suggests, "covers an enor
mous range of human activity, from creation of works of art to the blowing
up of bridges, from making little girls happy by giving them sweets, to mak
ing them cry by slapping them"3 • Sadism is the pleasure a bank robber has
when he looks at the horrified face of the teller as he says, "Stick'em up ! "
Sadism is giving a great performance o n the dramatic stage t o the applause
of an audience. In short, sadism involves any perceivable modification of

the external world through one's own efforts.
I f sadism connotes destruction and cruelty, it is because one is more
likely to perceive a modification of the world by blowing up a bridge than
by building it. And rape provides a reality missing in seduction.
Sade perceived the connection between absurdity on the one hand and
assertiveness and violence on the other. The awareness of absurdity makes
man free - literally, a libertine. But the price of freedom is the terror that
comes with this awareness: the terror of fundamental ontological insecurity,
As a result, the free man (or libertine) needs "violent emotions in order to
feel the truth of his individual existence. "4
REBELLION AND THE NONABSURD
The "sadistic" orientation is, according to Sade, most natural to man's

basic nature. Sade's image of man has a peculiarly contemporary ring. He
sees man as a eudaemonic creature, as one who seeks stress, dissonance,
and thrills. 5 Since it is his nature to be aroused, he will move in the direction
of those activities that create an aroused state. And the activity most likely
to produce arousal is rebellion; the flagrant violation of norms.
Because infractions trigger counter-reactions, the flagrant violation of
norms is a sure way of perceivably modifying the world . The modifications
produced by the rebellious act also include a restructuring of ordinary time
and space. When absurdity is experienced, routine time and space is op
pressive; to get outside of routine time and space becomes part of the quest
for the nonabsurd. Rebellious acts collapse time into a single realizable
event, and transform space into new settings rich with dramatic meaning.
In brief, the act of rebellion itself is a way of achieving the nonabsurd .
Sade grants that what a man is - as a person, as a social animal - depends
in part on the institutions in his social environment. But beneath this
facade, he remains a rebel: man is a "stance-taking entity, " whose spirit is
beyond the control of all institutions. 6 Except under violence or torture,
man never submits totally to his social institutions; or enclosed in a society
where he may feel oppressed by morality and law, man somehow will seek
freedom in the rebellious act.
As a society takes on the oppressive characteristics of total institutions,
rebellion may take the fo rm of idiosyncratic sexual behavior, exercised
without restraint in the private sector of life. Sade is always sensitive to the
distinction between private and public life. The public life of Sade's fic
tional characters is irrelevant to their happiness - which is located offstage
Appendix I: The Marquis de Sade and the Questfor the Nonabsurd 1 95
in the private domain. In the private sphere man can practice secret roles
and realize suppressed dreams. Sade, in his own life and in the fictional
worlds he created, recognized the importance of having territorial control
for the exercise of idiosyncratic sexual behavior.
In Sade's revolutionary program, one privately practices sexual ir
regularity until the private can be transformed into the public. With good
reason, Sade's ideas have been called "obscene. " But note that ob/scene
means literally "offstage. " Sade wants to take the offstage world and put it
onstage. In Herbert Marcuse's phrase, Sade calls for an "erotization of the
entire personality"' This is not measured by frequency of sexual relations ; it
means the spread of the private to a wide range of public societal relations.
Sade, then, is concerned not only with freedom but with the ecstasy of
freedom - which comes fr om transforming the private to the public, the
offstage to the onstage. 8 In Sade's formulation, freedom equals obscenity. 9
For Sade, then, sexual irregularity in private is but a rehearsal and a
prelude of a new life, where the ecstasy of freedom will be expressed in the
public arena. Until that day, sexual behavior remains the best defense
against the oppressive social order. On this point, we may note an in
teresting convergence between Sade and Max Weber.
Weber recognized that the enemy of a bureaucratic, rationalized society
is sexual behavior. He noted that "rationalization" and the methodical plan
ning of life are seriously threatened by the peculiar irrationality of the sexual
act. Wherever society becomes bureaucratized and rationalized - wherever it
takes on the characteristics of total institutions - people will at a certain point
resort to sexual activity as a defense against dehumanization. 1 0 Sex is the
last frontier where a person can exercise control and have a sense of
mastery. The body can itself serve as a field to explore new meanings.
David Riesman, et al. , too, have pointed out that "sex provides a kind
of defense against the threat of total apathy. " The other-directed man looks
to sex "for reassurance that he is alive. " 1 1
The toneless, matter-of-fact sex of the other-directed man may solve
the problem of apathy, but not absurdity. For Sade meaningful sexual
behavior must always have something of a rebellious quality. What is im
portant is not the sex, but the rebellion. Sade clearly indicates that the act of
rebellion is in itself the crucial thing that provides meaning. In rebelling one
is producing dissonance in the world, and in upsetting the established moral
order, the rebel invites counteractions . One need not rebel to ameliorate the
world; the act of rebellion is in itself the crucial thing that provides mean
ing - as one gets the realization that he caused another to act. David Matza
has provided an empathic application of this idea to the understanding of
juvenile delinquency. 1 2
Rebellion does not always begin as a consciously determinative act.

Rather, it is often thrust upon individuals through the ineluctable workings
of society. Since no complex society can be homogeneous, no universal
morality is possible. All modern societies are composed of a plurality of
groups. The laws, however, are always to be understood as being represen
tative of some power-controlling group; and these laws are oppressive to
many persons living under them. Some of these persons, in following their
own conventional codes, may be singled out and labeled deviants or rebels .
For Sade no actions are intrinsically deviant or rebellious. Deviance is merely
a label that powerful groups can successfully pin on the less powerful. 1 3
Once designated as a rebel, the individual literally acts out the role of
the rebel. 1 4 Indeed, Sade sees the rebel as one who acts out stage spectacles
in the setting of everyday life. The dramatic actor and the social actor
become one in the rebel. The rebel - i.e. , the person made conscious of his
rebellion - acts out his fantasies to his own improvised script. 1 5
For Sade the meeting place between theater and everyday life is in sex
ual behavior. Sade is aware of the historical connection between sexual
behavior and dramatic ritual. In his own writings, Sade recommends that
one engage in sex in terms of a ritual performance, that is, by the acting out
of a sexual scene. The libertine - as Genet brilliantly depicts in The
Balcony - plays at sex, and thus dramatizes it. Furthermore, in Sade's
thinking, to dramatize in the world leads to the erotization of the world.
Sade was himself a playwright and actor, and this is of significance in
understanding the relation among sadism, theater, and rebellion. As Gorer
notes:
By his skills , the playwright or actor commands the emotion or

his audience, makes them laugh, or cry, shudder or exult, as he plays;
he produces visible and audible changes in the people who are under
his spell. But, in a crude and concrete way, this is precisely what a
sadist wishes to do to his victims; in a great number of cases one might
say that the sadist is acting out a play with an audience of one. 1 6
Clearly, the play's the thing. And rebels of all kinds are engaged in the
construction of dramaturgy. For Sade, the full humanistic benefits of
rebellion can be expressed only through an outrageous display of drama
turgical constructions . For the rebel, art does not imitate life. It becomes
life. The rebel's very existence is theater. And when the rebel begins to
regard clothes as costumes, facilities of all kinds as props, and streets as
stages, he is capable of wreaking havoc in the social world - as his
dramaturgical innovations break down the line between theater and taken
for-granted reality. 1 7 But in the process of destroying the world, he has
made himself.
Appendix /: The Marquis de Sade and the Questfor the Nonabsurd 1 97
CONCLUSION
From a Sadean perspective, the proper subject matter of sociology is

the rebellious act . If we wish to uncover the fundamental structures that
undergird the social order, then we must turn to rebellious acts as our.
strategic research site. Through such acts the deep structures of society are
brought to the surface. Thus, to understand social order we turn to the
study of disorder. Implied in this sociological perspective is that disorder
should be the crucial focus of sociological investigation. The study of de
viance and social disorganization should be viewed as always concealing
solutions to the problem of order. Further, the study of deviance and
disorganization can become tests of theories of order. The heightened
observability that comes with deviance and disorganization can provide for
us the maxims of conduct that make order possible.
One of the few sociologists who theorizes within this sociological frame
work is Harold Garfinkel. Garfinkel, following the phenomenology of Alfred
Schutz, recognizes that social life everywhere is built upon a structure of
meanings that is ordinarily shuffled back in consciousness. However, when
a nasty surprise, a sudden interruption, or a striking violation of the or
dinary occurs, the underlying meaning structure is thrust into the cognitive
foreground. Garfinkel's version of ethnomethodology enjoins the sociologist
to take an active role in disrupting the social world. Since sadism involves
the modification of aspects of the world by one's own efforts, ethnometh
odology may be regarded, in the special sense of the term used here, as a
"sadistic" enterprise. 1 s
Ethnomethodology shares one further assumption with Sade's soci
ology - and this is the most important point. Both are facets of a sociology
of the absurd in that they share a common conception of the world as being
absurd - without any intrinsic meaning. The human (or existential) im
plication of this is the theoretical commitment to maintain a lucid con
sciousness in the face of absurdity. To maintain this lucid consciousness, as
Camus put it, the creator - the sociologist of the absurd - must describe the
world with nothing added to it. "To describe: this is the ultimate ambition
of absurd thinking. " 1 9 Through description of experience the sociologist
reaches out in a kind of personal awareness of others, and in this awareness
indicates his common lot with mankind and in the process transcends his
own absurdity.
APPENDIX II
Power, Pluralism, and Order*
Machiavelli, the father of the Sociology of the Absurd, continually em

phasized the role of power in the creation of social order. Power - the
capacity to impose one's will upon the behavior of others 1 - has been
neglected within the dominant theories of social order in American
sociology. According to the functionalist approach, which at least one
sociologist has claimed to be the only current mode of sociological inquiry, 2
the .social order rests upon a normative system that legitimates not only
social action but power itself. However, in terms of the Sociology of the
Absurd, the issue of power may not be begged; rather power must be raised ·
to its appropriate sociological significance. That significance arises precisely

from the twin facts that power always matters in social relations, and that
the gaining, holding, recognition, exercise, and consequences of power are
always problematic. Like the social order, which functionalist sociology in
correctly assumes a priori to exist, power may neither be assumed nor
forgotten in sociological analysis.
What is peculiarly significant about Machiavelli's theoretical ideas on
power is that they were constructed in a social milieu that resembles con
temporary society in one striking way: namely, its fundamental pluralism.
The fragmentation of the peninsular principalities rendered Italy little more
than a concept in Machiavelli's fertile brain; similarly, the fractionalization
of modern societies into races, classes, and subcultures makes consensus
unlikely and order problematic.
In these final pages, then, we wish to suggest the relationship of power
to pluralism and its implications for the Sociology of the Absurd.
In pluralistic societies in which consensus on a wide range of matters
cannot be presumed, social interaction is not likely to take an unam
biguously predictable course. 3 Pluralism may entail differences in
language, 4 differences in the identification of persons and objects, 5 and dif
ferences in the comprehension of concrete situations. 6
The many groups and individuals that make up a pluralistic society do
not possess equal power or authority. 7 In most societies, whether plural or
not, we can speak of a power elite or a value-sharing oligarchy of elites
1 98
Appendix II: Power, Pluralism, and Order 1 99
governing the several sectors of society. The value pattern of the dominant
elites tends to take precedence over all other value structures and moralities
at least in all those situations in which individuals and groups find
themselves in confrontation with these elites. 8 In such situations, when the
encounter involves an unequal power engagement between persons or col
lectivities sharing fundamentally different outlooks, there is the likelihood
that not only will confusion or demoralization arise but also pain and
deprivation. The latter are especially likely when the officially subordinate
group fails to indicate acquiescence to the moral position of the power
holders. Thus racial groups espousing a new Weltanschauung, youth
groups in the process of developing innovative sex mores in lieu of those of
their parents, and individuals adopting outlooks inconsistent with the
prevailing dominant ethos are "troublesome" partners in a public or legal
engagement precisely because they do not share the perspectives of their
more powerful fellow interactants. Moreover, these social groups are likely
to suffer injury in their engagements because they cannot control
them - they lack the power of the elites who dominate public arenas.
Plural societies may be more or less compartmentalized, so that social
contacts and the attendant opportunities for displays of relative power and
resistance are more or less likely to occur. It is possible at least to imagine a
plural society composed of groups who have no contact whatsoever with
one another but who do acknowledge common membership in the same
society. Such societies have been envisioned in the past9 and in the present
in South Africa1 0 as the solution to problems of race contact and the pro
tection of minorities, but they have rarely if at all been established. In such
a society the lack of contact among groups presumably would reduce fric
tion and related problems of value difference, but at the same time it could
render the several groups relatively impotent with respect to the central
power elite. Moreover, the establishment of such a society raises the follow
ing question: Which group or group of groups would provide the personnel
. and perspective of dominant authority? 1 1
However, despite the wishes of nationalists and segregationists, such
perfect social and cultural apartheid is unlikely in modern societies because
of the coexistence within them of independent cultural and social groups on
the one hand and interdependent tasks on the other. Getting an education,
preparing for an occupation, enjoying the fruits of one's labor, and seeking
after or dispensing services provide opportunities for contact. 1 2 These
contacts -criss-crossing social and cultural groups - promote the frequency
of reciprocal violations of expectations and "political" struggles for
dominance among groups. Thus Black power movements in America raise
again the Jewish question; 1 3 Catholic insistence on public legal enforce
ment of their religious views on birth control and abortion arouses the in
dignation of Protestants and non-believers; 1 4 and youth's demand for
recognition of its rights to self-determination in sex activities, drug use,

educational curricula and hiring of professors promotes reaction from
religious leaders, doctors, school administrators, and a considerable
number of adults in general. 1 s
Finally, it is important to recognize that plural societies are not typically
static. Two dimensions of their dynamics are salient for the analysis of
power. The first, on which we have already touched, is their interdependency, a
condition making it likely that socially and subculturally different groups
will be thrown together in everyday affairs . The second is their tendency
toward socio-political vicissitudes, changes in the relative status and power
relations of several groups vis-a-vis one another. Plural societies in the
modern era are not like the Estates of France during the A ncien Regime;
rather, status groups might move from a less to a more respectable and
powerful position in society. The two dynamic elements of pluralist
society - their tendencies toward "horizontal" contacts among unlike
groups and "vertical" redistributions of power and status - provide another
problematic element for social life. Stable relations, unambiguous hierar
chies, and predictable encounters are not likely to be characteristic of such a
dynamic society.
PLURALISM AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE ABSURD
Recognizing the condition of pluralism and the reality of power, we

may now take a retrospective look at the essays in this book to suggest some
further directions for investigations, from the perspective of the Sociology
of the Absurd.
In our discussion of game frameworks we noted that s/he who has the
power can define the game being played as well as win out over less power
ful players. However, it fo llows from our general analysis as well as the
discussion of power and pluralism that the power relations of game players
are by no means necessarily clear at the outset of a game. The power dimen
sion may be subject to negotiation, hinged as it often is on identity negotia
tions, and, in general, subj ect to the rules of the exploitation game which we
have described. Our modern day prince, the ordinary man, must establish
and re-establish his power, and in the several circles in which he moves, he
might find himself superordinate in one, subordinate in another, and con
fused with respect to j ust what power he holds in a third . Power is an ex
istential variable in every game. And this holds true for women, too .
Our discussion of paranoia, homosexuality, and game theory is in fact
predicated upon a power dimension that governs the essential labeling pro
cess by which a person is transformed into a deviant. 1 6 Not all labels
"stick. " If two strangers meet on the street, get into an argument, and one
calls the other "crazy," the likelihood of that appellation having a lasting ef
fect is low indeed. On the other hand when a judge agrees with a lawyer and
a psychiatrist that a defendant is "insane, " 1 7 that label is not only likely to
adhere but also, and more important, to have consequences which could
not have occurred unless the label had been legitimately affixed. The so
called "labeling" school of deviance is, in effect, a school engaged in a
"political sociology"; and future research might focus not only on who
labels, but on how the labeler is legitimated, and how, in turn the label is
made to adhere to the putative deviant. In turn, the availability of power,
persuasion, skill, and savoir-faire by which labeled deviants avoid the worst
consequences of being labeled, lift the label from themselves, or manage
their spoiled identities, needs further research built upon the excellent work
that has already begun.
Accounts shore up fractured social relationships and mitigate, if they
do not altogether prevent, the Hobbesian state of nature. In a pluralistic
society the giving and receiving of accounts is distinctively modified by the
presence of and contact with heterogeneous types. Differing social situa
tions call for a situation ethics 1 8 whose general rules call for a special atten
tion to and suggest the problematic nature of identities, the negotiation of
which are underlying features of the presentation of excuses and justifica
tions. When persons of African descent are willing to fight over whether
they are "Negroes" or "Blacks"; 1 9 when users of psychedelic drugs are
regarded as victims of a debilitating disease or as the wave of the future; 20
when persons who have passed the age of thirty are regarded as experienced
citizens or untrustworthy characters , then inter-group encounters with their
attendant presentations of accounts are fraught with new difficulties . 2 1
Pluralism affects accounts by posing every person with problems o f when,
how, and in what manner to request and honor, or disallow, an account.
Moreover, situations of account confusion are especially acute when one
group is in transition from one status position to another and is undergoing
a collective identity crisis. For everyman-and-woman the management of
respect and the maintenance of dignity becomes not only a central, but a
potentially anxiety-provoking concern.
Territoriality, power, and pluralism are intricately connected. In a
pluralistic society we may expect severe conflict over "public" and "home"
territories as people remake their image of the vital habitat. We may see
societies make startling re-examinations of what is vital and what is expend
able, as citizens, or rather, national elites, re-define space in terms of air and
"fire, " rather than the traditional earth and water. 22 Control of territory is a
maj or source of identity, and among persons and groups in status transition
the territorial imperative may be uppermost in their minds. Thus, American
Blacks have recently discovered the cherished values of the ghetto, university
administrators fight students and legislatures for proprietary control over
campus buildings, and "demilitarized zones" become the scenes of bloody

battles . Space becomes an item of the environment due for persistent
redefinition and struggles for stability.
With games more difficult, labels more dangerous, accounts more
problematic, and territory less stable, risk becomes a feature of everyday
life. The modern Machiavellian - that is, each of us - is more on his or her
mettle than ever before to remain poised under the pressure of everyday af
fairs. Coolness, however, may not be simply a matter of will. For some it
appears to be a natural gift, an element of charisma, in the literal sense; or it
may be an accident of physico-cultural imputation; or it may be assiduously
cultivated as an art . Moreover, its political consequences become more vital
as opposed groups struggle for status and power. The new managerial elite
of modern societies may find coolness in short supply as they become the
power brokers among contending interests . The ability to maintain poise in
the face of attempts to destroy it may become the single most important
criterion in deciding the tenure of future holders of power in all ad
ministrative settings, replacing the more mundane and material skills that
once held sway. And, as we have previously indicated, a prime test for the
loss of cool is the manifestation of stage fright. Persons in leadership posi
tions find their actions subj ect not only to moral but also to character ex
amination. Fear and trembling in the face of pressure may be sufficient to
cancel out the potential rewards of wise decisions . The avoidance of stage
fright has thus become a crucial criterion of leadership.
Finally, let us note that power is a crucial feature in defining, maintain
ing, and switching time tracks . In a pluralist society, time tracks owe their
subcultural legitimacy to the political acumen of the several elites who
establish and maintain them . Work-time, playtime, and "banana time,"23
not to mention "dead time," "hot time," and "time out" are temporal
creatures of power holders and power brokerage. Some times are functions
of space - as when physical barriers present opportunities for two or more
time tracks to exist; others are functions of congregation and cultural dif
ference - as when Chinese and Japanese tacitly agree to violate clock time
at weddings, banquets, and other unserious activities, but to report to work
on time; and still others are functions of negotiations - as when striking
workers insist that a 10 a.m. coffee break is a sine qua non for their return
to work . And on a macrocosmic level, the nature and measurement of time
itself may be decided in the philosophical debates of contending an
thropological schools of thought. 2 4 Although time seems to be a universal
aspect of human existence, time tracks are products of power and persua
sion, force and legitimation, strength and agreement . Yet, in an absurd
world, every person is likely to experience the sense that the time is out of
joint, and to wonder j ust how and when they might make it right. In the
modern world, we are all likely to be Hamlets - at least some of the time.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Let us restate our position. Functionalism takes social order for

granted and confines its researches to the societal infrastructure. We hold
that the basic problem of sociology - how is society possible? - is still a
salient question. The Sociology of the Absurd re-establishes this question as
the central concern of sociology and focuses attention on man or woman as
the creator of stable situations, the striver for their own interests, and the
destroyer of specific social orders.
The study of power and order are intrinsically related. The course of
action in any encounter will hinge upon the power relations of the interac
tants. In this sense, then, the ancient debate between Plato's Socrates and
the ebullient Thrasymachus, as Ralf Dahrendorf has recently argued so
forcefully, is not resolved on the side of Socrates . "Socrates became the first
functionalist, " writes Dahrendorf, "when he described justice as the state in
which everybody does what he is supposed to do . . . . " But such a state does
not exist, and even if it did, it would be "clearly a miserable state, a world
without rebels or retreatists, without change, without liberty. " 2 5 Socrates'
humanism, like that of the functionalists and those opposed to Machiavelli's,
is one mounted on a utopia, rather than one of this world. If we, as
sociologists, are to come "out of utopia, "2 6 we must agree, together with
Merleau-Ponty's perceptive analysis of Machiavelli, 2 7 to build our
discipline on an innerworldly humanism. Such a humanism recognizes both
the reality of power and its "viscosity, " and, with Dahrendorf, perceives
j ustice "to be not an unchanging state of affairs, whether real or imagined,
but the permanently changing outcome of the dialectic of power and
resistance. " 2 8
NOTES
FOREWORD
I . S. Toulmin, Encounter, 1969.

2. Reprinted in this volume.
PART I: INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: TOWARD A SOCIOLOGY OF THE ABSURD
I . Edmund Husserl, Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, N.Y. : Harper Torch
books, 1965 . See also The Phenomenology ofInternal Time-Consciousness, Bloomington
and London: Indiana University Press, 1964. These two works will introduce the reader to
Husserl's style and general orientation. For an explication, interpretation and extension of
Husserl's philosophy, see Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl and Its
Interpretation, edited by Joseph J . Kockelmans, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday Anchor,
1967 .
2. Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962, 1964, 1966. Three
volumes. Edited by Maurice Natanson, Arvid Brodersen, and I. Schutz, respectively. See
also Schutz's The Phenomenology of the Social World, translated by George Walsh and
Frederick Lehnert, Evanston, Ill. : Northwestern University Press, 1967 .
3. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Structure of Behavior, Boston: Beacon, 1963 ; In Praise of
Philosophy, Evanston, Ill . : Northwestern University Press, 1963; Sense and Non-Sense,
Evanston, Ill . : Northwestern University Press, 1964; The Primacy of Perception and
Other Essays, Evanston, Ill . : Northwestern University Press, 1964; and Signs, Evanston,
Ill . : Northwestern University Press, 1964.
4. See Edward A. Tiryakian, Sociologism and Existentialism, Englewood-Cliffs, N.J . :
Prentice Hall, 1962, 71-76.
5. Edmund Husserl, "The Thesis of the Natural Standpoint and Its Suspension," in
Kockelmans, op. cit. , 68-79.
6. Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, N. Y . : Oxford University
Press, 1947, 88.
7. Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action. Glencoe: The Free Press, 1949, 79-81,
732-33 , 750-51.
8. Edward A. Tiryakian, "Existential Phenomenology and the Sociological Tradition,"
A merican Sociological Review, 30 (October, 1965), 687 .
9. See G.E.M. Anscombe, Intention, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966, 1-61.
10. For an introduction to ordinary language philosophy, see Andrew Flew, editor, Logic and
Language, First Series, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960. Our own thinking on language and
meaning has been strongly influenced by the following: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical
Investigations, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1959; J . L . Austin, Philosophical Papers, Ox
ford: Clarendon Press, 1961; Gilbert Ryle, The Concept ofMind, N. Y . : Humanities Press,
204
Notes 205
1965 . Anthropologists are far ahead of sociolgists in their recognition of the fundamental
importance of the study of language. See John J. Gumperz and Dell Hymes, editors, The
Ethnography of Communications, a special publication of the A merican Anthropologist,
66 (December, 1964). Whatever recognition sociologists have given the study of language
falls under the rubric of "sociolinguistics. " For a sampling, see William Bright, editor,
Sociolinguistics, Hague: Mouton, 1966.
11. Parsons, op. cit. , 10-12, et passim.
12. For a general discussion, see Edward C. Devereux, Jr. , "Parsons' Sociological Theory,"
Social Theories of Talcott Parsons, edited by Max Black, Englewood Cliffs, N.J .: Prentice
Hall, 1961.
13. For an analysis of the early and more recent changes in Parsons' frame of reference, see
John Finley Scott, "The Changing Foundations of the Parsonian Action Scheme," Amer
ican Sociological Review, 28 (October, 1963), 716-35 .
14. See Thomas Szasz, The Myth of Mental Illness, N.Y. : Delta, 1967. See also Michel
Foucault, Madness and Civilization, N.Y. : Pantheon, 1965 .
15. Georg Simmel, ''The Adventure," Georg Simmel, 1858-1918, edited by Kurt H. Wolff, Col
umbus: Ohio State University Press, 1959, 249-252.
16. Tiryakian has argued that existentialism might benefit from the sociological conception
of humankind as interdependent. "Sociologism, to reiterate an earlier point, does not
view the relation between the individual and society as one marked by conflict, for it
stresses ultimately the needs and contributions of each to the other." See Socio/ogism and
Existentialism, op. cit. , 167 . Our conception is that the conflict between individual and
society, or individual and individual, may not be "marked," although sometimes it is, but
it is always present, though sometimes repressed or hidden from view. Further, though
people may "ultimately" contribute to one another's needs, they act out relations which
are full of conflict in the actual episodes of their lives.
17. A conflict model was employed by early sociologists derived from their awareness of the
conflicts between classes, races, and states. See for example Ludwig Gumplowicz,
Outlines of Sociology, edited by Irving L. Horowitz, N.Y.: Paine-Whitman, 1963 . A
modern sociology of conflict has been urged by Lewis Coser. See his The Functions of
Social Conflict, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1956, and Continuities in the Study of Social
Conflict, N .Y . : The Free Press, 1967 .
18. Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression, N . Y . : Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966.
'
19. Thus the value of Sigmund Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents is not to be found in
its empirical validity, but rather in its conception of humankind in opposition to society
and thus in a position to regard all social situations as problematic.
20. For a clear and systematic statement on functionalism, see Robert K. Merton, "Manifest
and Latent Functions," in Social Theory and Social Structure, N. Y . : The Free Press, 1968,
73-138.
21 . Kenneth E. Bock, The Acceptance of Histories, Berkeley: University of California Press,
1956, 49-56; and Marvin B. Scott, "Functional Foibles and the Analysis of Social
Change," Inquiry, 9 (1966), 205-14.
22. See Milton M. Gordon, Assimilation in A merican Life, N.Y. : Oxford University Press,
1964, 132-232.
23 . The point is nicely made by Floyd Matson, The Broken Image, N.Y. : Braziller, 1964,
54-101.
24. See Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1966.
25 . See C. Wright Mills, The Sociological lmagination, N. Y . : Oxford University Press, 1959,
84-90.
26. We are indebted for this point to Jack Douglas.
27 . Quoted in Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the A bsurd, Garden City: Doubleday Anchor,
1961, xxi.
28. Georg Simmel, "The Stranger, " The Sociology of Georg Simmel, Glencoe: The Free
Press, 1950, 402.
29. Quoted in Esslin, op. cit . , xix.
30. Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1958 .
3 1 . Bartholomew Landheer, ''The Universalistic Theory of Othmar Spann," in A n Introduc
tion to the History of Sociology, edited by Harry Elmer Barnes, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1948, 388.
32. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "A Note on Machiavelli," Signs, op. cit. , 211.
33. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, N.Y. : Washington Square Press, 1%3 .
34. Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future, N. Y . : Viking Press, 1968, 137 (revised edition).
3 5 . Machiavelli, op. cit.
36. Willard Waller, ''The Rating and Dating Complex," A merican Sociological Review (Oc
tober, 1937), 727-37 . Reprinted in Logan Wilson and William Kolb, editors, Sociological
A nalysis, N .Y . : Harcourt, Brace & Co. , 1949. Quotation from p. 617 .
37. Merleau-Ponty, "A Note on Machiavelli," op. cit.
38. Machiavelli, op. cit . , 77.
39. See "Game Frameworks" and "Paranoia, Homosexuality and Game Theory," appearing
here as Chapters 1 1 and 8.
40. See Harry Elmer Barnes, "Ancient and Medieval Social Philosophy," in Barnes, op. cit.,
22-24; Emory S. Bogardus, The Development of Social Thought, N . Y . : David McKay,
1960, 1%-98; Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision, Boston: Little, Brown, 195-238; Arendt,
op. cit., 1 36-7 .
4 1 . Wolin, op. cit . , 202-3 .
42. Machiavelli, op. cit . , xxxvi.
43 . Although it tends to emphasize the unfortunate aspects of marginality, the best discussion
is still Everett V. Stonequist, The Marginal Man, N.Y. : Russell and Russell, 1961.
44. For an excellent discussion - but one which does not mention Machiavelli - see Severyn
T. Bruyn, The Human Perspective in Sociology, Englewood Cliffs, N. J . : Prentice-Hall,
1966.
45 . Wolin, op. cit . , 203 .
46. Machiavelli, op. cit., 92-97. For an excellent discussion, see Wolin, op. cit. , 211-15 .
Although Machiavelli often employed the terminology that implied society perceived as
an organism, these pictures were, as Wolin (Ibid. , 214) has suggested, "palimpsests. " At
other times Machiavelli described political bodies in language translatable into that of
physics, (Ibid. , 214).
47 . For a modern statement, see Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construc
tion of Reality, Garden City: Doubleday, 1966.
48. Joseph Heller, Catch-22, N . Y . : Simon and Shuster, 1961.
49. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, London: Allen and Un
win, 1930. Trans. by Talcott Parsons.
50. Simmel, "The Adventure, " op. cit. , 243-46.
5 1 . Although this point is reiterated throughout his work, see especially Robert E. Park,
"Community Organization and Juvenile Delinquency," in The City, Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1967, 99-112.
52. Lorenz, op. cit.
5 3 . Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative, N.Y. : Atheneum, 1966.
54. Desmond Morris, The Naked Ape, N.Y. : McGraw-Hill, 1967 .
55 . Machiavelli, op. cit. , 78.
56. Park, "Behind Our Masks," Survey Graphic, 56 ( May I, 1926), 135-39.
57. See the perceptive poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar, "We Wear the Mask," in Arna
Bontemps, A merican Negro Poetry, N.Y. : Hill and Wang, 1%3 , 14 .
Notes 207
58. Goffman, Stigma, Englewood Cliffs, N . J . : Prentice-Hall, 1963 .

59. Simmel, "The Metropolis and Mental Life," in The Sociology of Georg Simmel, op. cit. ,
409-24.
60. Goffman has explored these phenomena in a series of brilliant monographs: The Presen
tation of Self in Everyday Life, Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1959; Encounters, In
dianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961; Asylums, Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1961;
Behavior in Public Places, N . Y . : The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963; Interaction Ritual,
Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1967 .
61. Ibid. , 3 .
62. See Matson, op. cit . , 175-272.
63 . Machiavelli, op. cit. , HO.
64. Merleau-Ponty, op. cit. , 223 .
65 . Goffman, "Where the Action Is," Interaction Ritual, op. cit. , 149-270.
66. Ibid. , 218-29.
67. See "Coolness in Everyday Life," appearing here as Chapter 7 .
68. Machiavelli, op. cit. , Ill.
69. For a relevant theatrical presentation of these ideas, see Tom Stoppard's play, Rosen
crantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, N.Y. : Grove Press, 1%7.
70. Machiavelli, op. cit. , lll-ll2.
7 1 . See the perceptive essay by Simmel, "The Dramatic Actor and Reality, " in The Conflict of
Modern Culture and Other Essays, N.Y. : Teacher's College Press, 1968, 91-7 .
72. See Dennis H. Wrong, "The Over-Socialized Conception of Man in Modern Sociology,"
Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Review, 49 (Summer, 1962), 53-69.
73. See Sheldon Messinger, et al. , "Life as Theater: Some Notes on the Dramaturgic Ap
proach to Social Reality," in Sociology and Everyday Life, edited by Marcello Truzzi,
Englewood Cliffs, N. J . : Prentice-Hall, 1968, 7-18 .
74. Machiavelli, op. cit. , ll2.
75. Garfinkel, op. cit.
76. See reviews of Garfinkel's Studies in Ethnomethodology by Guy E. Swanson, Anthony
F.C. Wallace, and James S. Coleman in A merican Sociological Review, 33 (February,
1968), 122-130.
77. See especially Schutz, "Common Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action,"
Collected Papers, I , op. cit. , 3-47 .
7 8 . See Aaron Cicourel, The Social Organization of Juvenile Justice, N.Y. : Wiley, 1968,
27-29, 248, 290, 330.
79. Jack Douglas, The Social Meanings of Suicide, Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1%7 192-96.
'
80. See, however, Harold Garfinkel, "Practical Sociological Reasoning: Some Features in the
Work of the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center," in Essays in Self-Destruction,
edited by Edwin S. Shneidman, N.Y. : Science House, 1%7, 171-187; and Harvey Sacks,
"The Search for Help," Ibid. , 203-223 . See also Marvin B. Scott, "New Rules for Suicide
Students," Psychiatry and Social Science Review, 2 (October, 1%8), 21-4 .
8 1 . See Harvey Sacks, "Sociological Description," Berkeley Journal of Sociology, VIII (1963),
1-16.
82. See Aaron Cicourel, Method and Measurement in Sociology, N. Y . : The Free Press, 1964,
106-107, ll4-120.
PART II:
SCENE CHAPTER 2: TERRITORIALITY
Stanford M. Lyman and Marvin B. Scott, "Territoriality: A Neglected Sociological

Dimension, " Social Problems, Vol. 15, No. 2 (1967), pp. 236-248 . By permission of The Society
for the Study of Social Problems.
I . The concept of territoriality was introduced into sociological analysis in the twenties
under the label of "the ecological school. " For an early statement see Robert E. Park,
Ernest W. Burgess and R.D. McKenzie, The City, Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1925 . For a summary and bibliography of the school see Milla Aissa Alihan, Social
Ecology, N . Y . : Columbia University Press, 193 8 . An updated version of this school is
found in James A. Quinn, Human Ecology, N.Y. : Prentice-Hall, 1950, and Amos H.
Hawley, Human Ecology, A Theory of Community Structures, N. Y.: The Ronald Press,
1950.
Originating in animal studies, "territoriality" still looms large as an organizing con
cept· in ethology. For a summary statement see C.R. Carpenter, "Territoriality: A Review
of Concepts and Problems," in A. Roe and G. Simpson, editors, Behavior and Evolution,
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958, pp. 224-50.
For a challenging argument that sociological investigation can fruitfully employ the
techniques of comparative ethology - especially on such subjects as territoriality - see
Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox, "The Zoological Perspective in Social Science," Man, I, i,
(March, 1966), esp. p. 80.
Only very recently have sociologists revived ecological thinking to include a truly in
teractional dimension. The outstanding contributor is, of course, Edward T. Hall. See his
The Silent Language, Garden City, N.Y . : Doubleday and Co. , 1959, and The Hidden
Dimension, Garden City, N. Y . : Doubleday and Co. , 1966. For a masterful application of
the concept of territoriality in interactional terms see Erving Goffman, Asylums, Garden
City, N.Y . : Doubleday and Co. , Anchor Books, 1961, pp. 227-248 . In a slightly different
vein see the interesting efforts of Robert Sommer, "Studies in Personal Space,"
Sociometry, 22 (September, 1959), pp. 247-60, and the writings of Roger Barker, especially
his "Roles, Ecological Niches and the Psychology of the Absent Organism," paper
presented to the conference on the Propositional Structure of Role Theory, University of
Missouri, 1962.
2. For the argument that human territoriality is a natural rather than a cultural phenomenon
see Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative, New York : Athenum, 1966, pp. 3-41.
3. The idea of "free territory" is derived from Goffman, loc. cit.
4. See Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday Anchor Books, 1959, p. 22.
5. The term "citizenship" is used in a sense similar to that employed by T.H. Marshall in
Class, Citizenship and Social Development, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday Anchor
Books, 1965, esp. pp. 71-134.
6. See Harvey Sacks, "Methods in Use for the Production of a Social Order: A Method for
Warrantably Informing Moral Character," Center for the Study of Law and Society,
University of California, Berkeley, 1962; and Aaron Cicourel, The Social Organization of
Juvenile Justice, New York: John Wiley, 1968.
7 . See Jerome Skolnick, Justice Without Trial, New York: John Wiley, 1966, pp. 96-111 et
passim; and Sacks, op. cit.
8. Sherri Cavan, "Interaction in Home Territories, " Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 8 (1963)
p. 18.
9. See Stanford M. Lyman, The Structure of Chinese Society in Nineteenth Century
A merica, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Berkeley: University of California, 1961. [In
Notes 209
1986 a revised version of this dissertation was published as Chinatown and Little Tokyo:
Power, Conflict, and Community A mong Chinese and Japanese Immigrants in A merica,
Millwood, N.Y. : Associated Faculty Press, Inc.)
10. Indeed, children are among the most regular and innovative creators of home territories
from the space and material available to the public in general. Speaking of their peculiar
tendency to violate the rules governing trespass, William Prosser has aptly observed,
"Children, as is well known to anyone who has ever been a child, are by nature unreliable
and irresponsible people, who are quite likely to do almost anything. In particular, they
have a deplorable tendency to stray upon land which does not belong to them, and to
meddle with what they find there." "Trespassing Children," California Law Review
(August, 1959), p. 427.
11. Ethnic Groups in the process of assimilation sometimes discover to their astonishment
that the isolated slum wherein they have traditionally and unwillingly dwelt is in fact a
home territory possessed of cherished values and irreplaceable sentiments. A militant
Black thus writes: "For as my son, Chuck, wrote me after exposure to the Negro com
munity of Washington: 'I suddenly realized that the Negro ghetto is not a ghetto. It is
home."' John Oliver Killens, Black Man 's Burden, New York: Trident Press, 1%5 , p. 94.
1 2. Harvey W. Zorbaugh, The Gold Coast and the Slum, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1929. See also Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great A merican Cities, N.Y. :
Vintage Books, 1961, pp. 29-142.
13. See Erving Goffman, Behavior in Public Places, N. Y . : The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963,
pp.151-165 et passim.
14. An excellent illustration of the several facets of this process and attendant issues in social
gatherings is found in David Riesman, et al. , "The Vanishing Host," Human Organiza
tion (Spring, 1960), pp. 17-27 .
15 . Talcott Parsons notes that "the very fact that affectionate bodily contact is almost com
pletely taboo among men in American Society is probably indicative of [the limited nature
of intra-sex friendship] since it strongly limits affective attachment. " The Social System,
Glencoe: Free Press, 1951, p. 189. For an empirical study and analysis of touching relations
see Erving Goffman, "The Nature of Deference and Demeanor," A merican A n
thropologist, 58 (June, 1956), pp. 473-502.
1 6. See Kingsley Davis, Human Society, New York: MacMillan, 1948, pp. 189-193 .
17. Lyman, op. cit . , pp. 97-111.
18. The perceptions of Simmel on this subject surpass all others and we are indebted to his
work. Thus Simmel has noted: "In regard to the 'significant' [i.e . , "great"] man, there is an
inner compulsion which tells one to keep at a distance and which does not disappear even
in intimate relations with him. The only type for whom such distance does not exist is the
individual who has no organ for perceiving distance . . . The individual who fails to keep
his distance from a great person does not esteem him highly, much less too highly (as
might superficially appear to be the case); but, on the contrary, his importune behavior
reveals lack of proper respect . . . The same sort of circle which surrounds a
man - although it is value-accentuated in a very different sense - is filled out by his affairs
and by his characteristics. To penetrate this circle by taking notice, constitutes a violation
of personality. Just as material property is, so to speak, an extension of the ego, there is
also an intellectual private property, whose violation effects a lesion of the ego in its very
center. " Georg Simm el, "Secrecy and Group Communication," reprinted in T. Parsons, et
al. , Theories of Society, New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1961, p. 320. For an up
dated statement of Simmel's point see Goffman, Behavior in Public Places, op. cit.
19. An interesting dilemma in this respect arises for the deaf and myopic. In attempting to ap
pear as "normals" they may overstep another's territorial space and thus call attention to
the very stigma they wish to conceal. On the problems of those who are stigmatized see
Goffman, Stigma, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1963 .

20. Goffman refers to this as "civil inattention." See Behavior in Public Places, op. cit.
2 1 . Compare the remarks by Simmel, op. cit . , p. 321. "In the interest and social cohesion, the
individual must know certain things about the other person. Nor does the other have the
right to oppose this knowledge from a moral standpoint, by demanding the discretion of
the first: he cannot claim the entirely undisturbed possession of his own being and con
sciousness, since this discretion might harm the interests of his society . . . But even in
subtler and less unambiguous forms, in fragmentary beginnings and unexpressed notions,
all of human intercourse rests on the fact that everybody knows somewhat more about the
other than the other voluntarily reveals to him; and those things he knows are frequently
matters whose knowledge the other person (were he aware of it) would find undesirable."
See also Goffman, The Presentation Of Seif in Everyday Life, op. cit. , pp. 1-16.
22. The structural properties and parameters of interactional territories in unserious gather
ings have been admirably presented by Georg Simmel. See his "The Sociology of Soci
ability," A merican Journal of Sociology, (November, 1949), pp. 254-261. Reprinted in
Parsons, et al. , Theories of Society, op. cit. , pp. 157-163 .
23 . Here perhaps it is worth noting that language has a "tactile" dimension, in the sense that to
be "touched" audially by certain terms is to be elevated or reduced in status. Until recently,
for Southern Blacks to be publicly addressed as "Mr. ," "Miss, " and "Mrs. ," and by last
names was considered so relevant for removal of caste barriers that legal action to require
these usages had to be undertaken. We may also note that genteel persons are polluted by
audial contact with slang, obscentity, and, on occasion, idiomatic expression.
24. See Horace Miner, "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema," A merican Anthropologist, 55,
No. 3 , (1956).
25. Note such phrases as "I wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole"; "she's under my skin";
"he's a pain in the neck," and "Look, but don't touch." For the rules regarding touch see
Erving Goffman, "The Nature of Deference and Demeanor," op. cit.
26. Robin Williams has shown that one test of social distance among the races in America is
their unwillingness to try on clothing at an apparel shop when they have witnessed that
clothing tried on and rejected by members of another - and supposedly inferior - race.
Robin Williams, Strangers Next Door, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964, pp.
125-130.
27. Our usage is similar to that employed in describing the relationships in plant
communities. "The majority of individuals of a plant-community are linked by bonds
other than those mentioned - bonds that are best described as commensal. The term com
mensalism is due to Van Beneden, who wrote 'Le commensal est simplement un com
pagnon de table'; but we employ it in a somewhat different sense to denote the relation
ship subsisting between species which share with one another the supply of food-material
contained in soil and air, and thus feed at the same table." Robert E. Park and Ernest W.
Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1921, p. 175 . (Adapted from Eugenius Warming, Oecology of Plants, London: Oxford
University Press, 1909, pp.12-13 , 91-95 .)
28. Ann Terry D'Andre, "An Occupational Study of the Strip-Dancer Career," paper
delivered at the annual meetings of the Pacific Sociological Association, Salt Lake City,
Utah, 1965 .
29. See Ardrey, op. cit . , p. 210, who writes: "Biology as a whole asks but one question of a ter
ritory: is it defended? Defense defines it. Variability becomes the final description." See
also Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression, New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966, pp.
33-38 et passim.
30. See Mary Coolidge, Chinese Immigration, New York: Henry Holt, 1909, pp 15-26, .
255-56.
Notes 21 1
31. See Lewis Yablonsky, The Violent Gang, New York: MacMillan, 1962, pp. 29-100 for a
good ethnography of urban gangs. For an analytical treatment see Frederic M. Thrasher,
The Gang, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1927, pp. 97-100, 116-129.
32. See M.G. Smith, "Kagoro Political Development," Human Organization (Fall, 1960), pp.
137-149.
33. It is now a commonplace of sociological irony that persons thus insulated are vulnerable
once the insulating material is removed or ubiquitously available. Thus non-coms will in
sult officers in clubs when both are out of uniform, psychiatrists will be mistaken for pa
tients at dances held in the recreation room of an insane asylum, and students will adopt
an inappropriate familiarity with professors not wearing a coat and tie.
34. See Goffman, Behavior in Public Places, op. cit . , p. 85 for a succinct account of the
elements of this process as a form of civil inattention.
35. Kathleen Tamagawa, Holy Prayers in a Horse's Ear, New York: Long and Smith, Inc.,
1932, pp. 144-151 e t passim. Andre M . Tao-Kim-Hai, "Q rientals are Stoic, " in F.C.
Macgregor, Social Science i n Nursing, New York: Russell Sage, 1960, pp. 313-326.
36. See Georg Simmel, "The Aesthetic Significance of the Face," in Kurt H . Wolff, editor,
Georg Simmel 1858-1918, Columbus, Ohio State University Press, 1959, pp. 280-281
37. The usual situation is quite the reverse, however. The "dozens" and other verbal contest
forms are most frequently used by Blacks within the ethnic enclave out of earshot and
view of whites. See Roger D. Abrahams, Deep Down in the Jungle, Hatboro, Penn. :
Folklore Associates, 1964, esp. pp. 41-64.
38. See Carl Werthman, Delinquency and A uthority, M.S. Thesis, University of California,
Berkeley, 1964.
39. David Matza, Delinquency and Drift, New York: John Wiley, 1964.
40. Many suggestive essays on this subject can be found in Dress, A dornment, and the Social
Order, ed. by M.E. Roach and J . B . Eicher, N.Y. : John Wiley, 1965 .
41 . See Cesar Grana, Bohemian vs. Bourgeois, New York: Basic Books, 1964, and Harold
Finestone, "Cats, Kicks, and Color," Social Problems, V. 5, I (1957), pp. 3-13 .
42. See Harry B. Hawthorn, editor, The Doukhobors ofBritish Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. :
The University of British Columbia and Dent & Sons, 195 5 .
43 . Goffman, Behavior in Public Places, op. cit., pp. 69-75.
CHAPTER 3: TIME TRACKS
I . The philosophical and psychological study of time is so vast that merely to list those
sources that we consulted would be excessively space-consuming. Mention should be
made, however, of very useful source with an excellent bibliography: The Voices of Time,
edited by J . T. Fraser, N. Y . : Braziller, 1966. Here let us note only those sociological works
which served as the immediate source and inspiration for the present paper: Barney Glaser
and Anselm Strauss, Time for Dying, Chicago: Aldine, 1968; Erving Goffman, "Where
the Action Is," in Interaction Ritual, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1968; Everett
Hughes, "Cycles, Turning Points, and Careers," in Men and Their Work, Glencoe: The
Free Press, 1958; Wilbert E. Moore, Man, Time and Society, N.Y. : Wiley, 1963 ; Alfred
Schutz, Collected Papers, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962, 1964, Vols. I and II. See
especially his essays, "Making Music Together, " "Mozart and the Philosophers, " and
"Tiresias, or Our Knowledge of Future Events." Schutz's work on the subject of time
represents a finely developed synthesis of the contributions of Bergson and Husserl.
While Schutz's work has been the most influential on our thinking about time, the im
mediate inspiration for the present effort was Julius A. Roth, Timetables, Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1963 . Aside from the above-mentioned works, we have been continuously
influenced by those two classic gems: W .F. Cottrell, "Of Time and the Railroader,"
A merican Sociological Review, 4 (April, 1939), 190-198; and Pitirim Sorokin and Robert
K. Merton, "Social Time: A Methodological and Functional Analysis," American Jour
nal of Sociology, 42 (March, 1937) 615-629.
2. See, for instance, Claude G. Bowers, The Tragic Era, Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1929.
3. F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Echoes of the Jazz Age," The Crack Up, N . Y . : New Directions, 1956,
13-22.
4. For a discussion of the uses of paired concepts in sociology, see Reinhard Bendix and Ben
nett Berger, "Images of Society and Problems of Concept Formation in Sociology, " in
Symposium on Sociological Theory, ed. by L. Gross, Evanston: Harper, Row, Peterson,
1959, 92-ll8.
5. For a discussion of humanism and fatalism which parallels our own and which we have
adapted to our purpose, see David Matza, Delinquency and Drift, N . Y . : Wiley, 1964.
6. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, N . Y . : Scribners, 1930.
7. Matza, op. cit.
8. Georg Simmel, "The Adventure," Georg Simmel, 1858-1918, edited by Kurt H. Wolff, Col
umbus: Ohio State University Press, 1959, 249-252.
9. Ibid. , 244 .
IO. "The notion of career implies a great number of future expectations. These future expec
tations extend through the work lifetime of the individual. Indeed, longevity of experience
is one of the norms of career. " Lee Taylor, Occupational Sociology, N.Y. : Oxford
University Press, 1968, 267.
11. For a description of the daily double in the context of the sociology of gambling, see Mar
vin B. Scott, The Racing Game, Chicago: Aldine Press, 1%8, 133-135 .
12. See Irving K. Zola, "Observations o n Gambling in a Lower Class Setting," i n The Other
Side, edited by Howard S. Becker, N.Y. : Free Press of Glencoe, 1964, 247-260; and Scott,
op. cit . , ll6-ll9.
13. Simmel, op. cit. , 246.
14. Jessie Bernard, ''The Eudaemonists, " in Why Men Take Chances, edited by Samuel z:
Klausner, Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1968, 27-34.
15. Simmel, op. cit., 252.
16. Ibid. , 246.
17. Fo r a general discussion, see Gerald R. Leslie, The Family in Social Context, N. Y . : Ox
ford, 1%7, 465-624; and Ira L. Reiss, The Social Context of Premarital Permissiveness,
N.Y . : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967, 76-91.
18. On the concept of "timetable failure," see Roth, op. cit. , 105-107, 116.
19. For earlier and more quietistic discriminations against Blacks, see, among many works,
Arthur Evans Wood, Hamtramck, New Haven: College and University Press, 1955 , 99,
238-239; Frank F. Lee, Negro and White in a Connecticut To wn, New Haven: College
and University Press, 1961, 63-65 . For a study of Jewish opposition to school desegrega
tion indicating that socioeconomic status was a factor in Jewish dispositions toward
Blacks, see Kurt Lang and Gladys Engel Lang, "Resistance to School Desegregation," in
Raymond J. Murphy and Howard Elinson, editors, Problems and Prospects of the Negro
Movement, Belmont: Wadsworth, 1966, 145-158 . On the other hand where class dif
ferences were not a factor and both Blacks and Jews had achieved a modicum of success,
integration moved more smoothly. See Herbert J. Gans, The Levittowners, N.Y. : Pan
theon, 1967, 1 72- 1 73 , 371-384. For the attitudes of various ethnic groups who have only
achieved some success in intergenerational mobility, see Nathan Glazer and Daniel
Patrick Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot, Cambridge: M . l .T. Press and Harvard
University Press, 1963 , 18-19, 70-71. That backlash is a phenomenon of timetable percep
tions is indicated in the resentment toward Irish demands for more power within the
Democratic Party in New York City in the 1880s. "Like the Negroes in the 1960's, the Irish
Notes 213
in the 1880's were feeling the middle-class backlash,"; see Thomas N . Brown, Irish
American Nationalism, 1870-1890, Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966, 139.
20. Many examples are to be found in Erving Goffman, Behavior in Public Places, Glencoe:
The Free Press, 1963 .
21. Ibid. , 77.
22. See T.C. Schelling, The Study of Conflict, N.Y . : Oxford Galaxy, 1963 , 35-43 .
23. For other aspects of card playing, see Irving Crespi, "The Social Significance of Card
Playing as a Leisure Time Activity," in Sociology and Everyday Life, edited by Marcello
Truzzi, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1968, 101-108.
24. See Goffman, Interaction Ritual, op. cit. , 229-233 . Many examples are provided in the
essays collected in Death and Identity, edited by Robert Fulton, N.Y . : Wiley, 1%5 .
25 . For this example we are indebted to Horace Cayton.
26. Thus one view of assimilation in America is that of a kind of "race" toward full scale
citizenship in which the "runners" not only j og along at different rates but also begin from
culturally different starting places, while the assimilated members of the society sit as
"judges" awarding economic, political, and social "laurels" to each group as it crosses the
"finish line." For a critique of various views of assimilation, see Milton M. Gordon,
Assimilation in A merican Life, N.Y. : Oxford University Press, 1964.
27 . For a sociological discussion of the transformation of the millenial kingdom from its
post-historic transcendence to its realization in the mundane world, a transformation that
began with the evolutionary energies of oppressed Christians posed against the church's
insistence on an orthodoxy which denied worldly betterment, see Karl Mannheim,
Ideology and Utopia, N.Y. : Harcourt, Brace, 1953 , 190-197.
28. See Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. , The Politics of Upheaval, Boston: Houghton-Mifflin,
1960, 185-187 , for a discussion of this play and its social context.
29. Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, London: Faber and Faber, 1 959, 41.
30. Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the A bsurd, Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1%1, 17 .
31. See Weber, op. cit. , 102-128 .
32. See Sherri Cavan, Liquor License, Chicago: Aldine, 1966, 10-13 , 235-237.
33. Erving Goffman, "Fun and Games" in Encounters, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961,
37-48.
34. See Talcott Parsons, "The Incest Taboo in Relation to Social Structure and the Socializa
tion of the Child," British Journal of Sociology, 5 (June, 1954), 101-117; and Philip Slater,
"Social Limitations on Libidinal Withdraw!," A merican Journal of Sociology, 68
(November, 1%1) 2%-311.
35. See William J . Goode, "The Theoretical Importance of Love," A merican Sociological
Review, 24 (February, 1959), 38-47 .
36. See Katherine George, "The Civilized West Looks at Primitive Africa: 1400-1800, " Isis, 49
(March, 1958), 62-72.
37 . See Henri Baudet, Paradise on Earth: Some Thoughts on European Images of Non
European Man, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965.
38. For an interesting discussion of hippie morality and social structure, see Fred Davis,
"Why All of Us May be Hippies Someday," and Bennett Berger, "Hippie Morality - More
Old Than New," both in Trans-A ction, 5 (December, 1967), 10-18, 19-27. In an afterword
to his article Berger writes (p. 27): "If one knew why the hippies are so consistently
newsworthy, one would have the answer to a very important question. The hippies don't
know. Only the media know, and they aren't telling." Our observations would suggest
that the "newsworthiness" of the hippies arises because they combine within themselves a
withdrawal from socially approved attitudes and behavior and a highly visible public
display of that withdrawal. If they had simply become monks and disappeared behind the
walls of a remote monastery they would have attracted but occasional attention.
However, by being ever-present but not accounted for in society, they challenge
"straights" either to justify their own existence beyond slavish habituation to the dictates
of culture or to become hippies themselves.
39. For an early account of the beat scene in New York, its structures, processes, and relations
with the outer world, see Ned Polsky, Hustlers, Beats and Others, Chicago: Aldine 1%7,
150-185.
40. Note also that when it occurs as an individual phenomenon, withdrawal is taken as a sign
of mental illness. The catatonic schizophrenic is perhaps the extreme instance since he or
she appears to have withdrawn entirely from the communicative world . In this sense, see
Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization, New York: Pantheon, 1%5 , 98-100 and
passim.
41. One form of withdrawal involves the combination of physical presence and mental
absence. Thus soldiers on the drill field might perform their duties mechanically while
they mentally rehearse what they will do when they get their week-end pass; students may
relax into reverie while seemingly paying attention to a lecture; and one partner in a sexual
encounter might fantasize during intercourse, transforming it entirely from its gross reality.
Episodic time tracks are especially subject to this form of withdrawal.
42. See L. Broom and J . H . Smith, "Bridging Occupations, " British Journal of Sociology, 14
(December, 1%3), 322.
43 . For useful discussions, see the papers collected in Panic Behavior, edited by Duane P.
Schultz, New York : Random House, 1964.
44. See Neil J. Smelser, Collective Behavior, New York : Free Press of Glencoe, 1%3 .
45 . This point has been emphasized in conversations between Professor Shuichi Kato and
Stanford M. Lyman. See Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, Boston:
Houghton-Mifflin, 1946, 47-48. Such time panics are not experienced by visitors to Japan
and rarely experienced by Nisei and Sansei, since the Japanese automatically exempt
foreigners and culturally removed Japanese from this requirement of Japanese etiquette.
46. For a general discussion, see Alvin W. Gouldner, Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy,
Glencoe: Free Press, 1954, 79-83 .
47 . On the Cinderella syndrome, see Erving Goffman, Stigma, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice
Hall Spectrum, 1963, 90.
48 . The term is derived from the Victorian gothic novel by Bram Stoker about a vampire who
had to return each dawn to his casket or suffer total disintegration by the power of the
sun's rays.
49. The case of John Howard Griffin is instructive. After having darkened his skin chemically
in order to pass as a Black, his attempt to return to white society was impeded by the fact
that for a few weeks after he had removed the outer dye he was subject to excessive
darkening by the rays of the sun. For a while he could only depend on being white at night.
See John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me, New York : Signet, 1962, 118-119.
50. See Goffman, Stigma, op. cit. , 90.
51. Sorokin and Merton, op. cit.
52. See Dorothy Lee, Freedom and Culture, Englewood Cliffs: Spectrum Paper, 1959, 151.
53. Scott, op. cit. , 72.
CHAPTER 4: ADVENTURES
Stanford M. Lyman and Marvin B. Scott, "Adventures, " Chapter 8, pp. 147-158, 173
of The Drama of Social Reality, New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. By permission
of the authors and Oxford University Press.
I . Our concept of "adventures" derives from two sources : Georg Simmel's "The Adventure, "
in Essays on Sociology and A esthetics, by Georg Simmel, ed. by Kurt H. Wolff, New
Notes 215
York : Harper & Row, 1965, 243-58, and Erving Goffman, "Where the Action Is," i n In
teraction Ritual, Chicago: Aldine, 1967, 149-270.
2. Kasper Naegele, Health and Healing, compiled and edited by Elaine Cumming, San Fran
cisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc . , 1970, 29.
PART III: AGENT
CHAPTER 5: FREUD, MEAD, GOFFMAN
Stanford M. Lyman and Marvin B. Scott, "Freud, Mead, Goffman" pp. 1 0 1 - 1 1 1 , 1 68- 1 70
of The Drama of Social Reality. New York: Oxford University Press, 1 975. By permission of
the authors and Oxford University Press.
I. For a summary statement of various facets of the dramatistic approach, see Kenneth
Burke's essay "Dramatism" in The Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 1968, 445-51. Here
Burke makes the critical point that dramatism is both a method of analysis and an on
tology ("drama is employed, not as a metaphor but as a fixed form that helps us discover
what the implications of the terms 'act' and 'person' really are," Ibid. , p. 448). Unlike
Burke, Erving Goffman is committed to the notion of drama as mere metaphor, a
heuristic tool for delineating the various strategies of "impression management. " Writes
Goffman, "The claim that all the world's a stage is sufficiently commonplace for readers
to be familiar with its limitations and tolerant of its presentation, knowing that at any
time they will easily be able to demonstrate to themselves that it is not to be taken too
seriously." The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Garden City: Doubleday, 1959, 254.
Thus Goffman is not saying that men are literally acting, and he distinguishes his ap
proach by the label "dramaturgy. " Goffman's dramaturgy, however powerful as an ex
planatory metaphor, excludes the theoretical generality inherent in "dramatism. " For a
sharp critique of Goffman along these lines, see A.R. Louch, Explanation and Human
Action, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969, 213-16. In using such phrases as
"dramatistic approach" and "performance theory," we are pointing to a perspective that
involves both ontological and heuristic features associated with the notion of drama. Ob
viously there are many conceptual issues that await theoretical clarification, this essay be
ing only the first step.
2. See Jerome S . Bruner, "Freud and the Image of Man, " A merican Psychologist, II (1956),
463-66.
3. Nicolas Evreinov, (or Evreinof!) is the major theorist of monodrama. See Nicolas
Evreinoff, The Theatre in Life, ed. and trans. by Alexander I. Nazaroff, New York : Ben
jamin Blom, 1970 [1927) . For a summary of Evreinov's position, see Christopher Collins'
introduction to Life as Theatre: Five Modern Plays by Nikolai Evreinov, Ann Arbor,
Mich: Ardis, 1973 . See also Stanford M. Lyman, "Evreinoff, Our Contemporary, " in
Japanese, the foreword to H. Shimizu's Japanese translation of Evreinofrs Theatre in
Life, Tokyo: Shinyo-sha, 1983, 1-17. Martin Esslin has consistently interpreted Beckett's
major works - Waiting for Godot and Endgame- as monodramas and suggested further
the direct influence of Evreinov on Beckett. See, for instance, Esslin's Theatre of the A b
surd, Garden City: Doubleday, 1961, 30-31. Evreinov and Beckett are paradigm instances
of seeing life as theatre and life as absurdity. Evreinov's outlook has been summarized
thus : "If there are no certainties, no God, in the post-Nietzschean world, then we ought to
be consciously, deliberately elaborating our illusions, creating theater in life, rather than
leaving man naked in the name of murderous truth . . . no matter how grim life is, one
must look for and appreciate good theater because that's all there is, and the abyss must be
faced with laughter that derives from a recognition of absurdity because there is no other
response. " Collins, Life as Theatre, xxvii-xxviii.
4. Sigmund Freud, "The Relation of the Poet to Daydreaming, " Collected Papers, trans. by
l . F. Grant Duff, New York: Basic Books, 1959, Vol. IV, 173-83 .
5. Ibid. , 174.
6. George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self, and Society, ed. by Charles W. Morris, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1934; The Philosophy of the A ct, ed. by Charles W. Morris
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938; The Philosophy of the Present, ed. by Arthur
E. Murphy, LaSalle, Ill . : Open Court Publishing Co. , 1959.
7. For a discussion, see R ichard Schechner, Public Domain: Essays on the Theatre, New
York : Avon, 1969, 63-67 . Schechner - a director, actor, playwright, and theorist - is (like
Evreinov before him) an embodiment of the concept of the theoria. See his highly
stimulating work, Environmental Theater, New York: Hawthorne Books, 1974.
CHAPTER 6: STAGE FRIGHT AND THE PROBLEM OF IDENTITY
1 . Rose Heylbut, "How to Abolish Fear Before Audiences," Elude 51, (January, 1939), 12.
2. Lewis Funke, "Always in the Wings - the Shakes, " New York Times Magazine, May 17,
1964, 20.
3. The symptoms, causes and prevention of stage fright, while neglected by sociologists,
have received some attention in the psychological literature. See, for example, C.W.
Lomas, "The Psychology of Stage Fright," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 23 (1937), 35-44;
M . Dickens, "An Experimental Study of Certain Physiological, Introspective and Rating
Scale Techniques for the Measurement of Stage Fright", Speech Monographs, 18 (1951),
251-259; T. Clevenger, Jr., "A Synthesis of Experimental Research in Stage Fright,"
Quarterly Journal of Speech, 134-145 . For an overview see Jon Eisenson, et al., The
Psychology of Communications, N . Y . : Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1963, chapter 18,
320-327 .
4. Erving Goffman, "Embarrassment and Social Organization, " A merican Journal of Soci
ology, 62 (November 1956), 264.
5. Ibid. ; see also Edward Gross and Gregory Stone, "Embarrassment and the Analysis of
Role Requirements," A merican Journal of Sociology, 69 (July, 1964), 1-15 .
6. This is the central problem examined in Erving Goffman's Presentation of Self in Every
day Life, Garden City, N. Y . : Anchor, 1959. Sheldon L. Messinger and Associates, "Life
as Theater" in Sociology and Everyday Life, edited by Marcello Truzzi, Englewood
Cliffs, N . J . : Prentice-Hall, 1968), have charged Goffman with reifying his dramaturgical
approach. That is, in everyday life, Messinger argues, persons are not really engaged in
the conscious employment of stagecraft to project identities. It is our position that in cer
tain situations - those, for example, that are depicted in this paper - Goffman's normative
model constitutes in fact an empirical description of social reality. Beyond this, we would
suggest that increasingly American society is evolving into one where its social members
are consciously engaged in the employment of stagecraft to construct and sustain iden
tities. For a general discussion on the construction and maintenance of identity, see
Anselm Strauss, Mirrors and Masks, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1959.
7. See Alfred Schutz, "Commonsense and Scientific Interpretations of Human Action," in
Collected Papers, I , edited by Maurice Natanson, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962;
also Harold Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology, Englewood Cliffs, N . J . : Prentice
Hall, 1967.
8. For a general discussion, see Erving Goffman, "Fun in Games," in Encounters, In
dianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961.
9. Odd Ramsoy, Social Groups as Systems and Subsystems. N. Y . : Free Press of Glencoe,
1963 , 53.
10. Ibid.
1 1 . Louis Wirth, "Urbanism as a Way of Life," A merican Journal of Sociology, 44 (July,
1938), 1-24. The point, of course, was made earlier by Georg Si1J1mel, "The Metropolis and
Notes 217
Mental Life, " i n Sociology of Georg Simmel, edited b y Kurt Wolff, New York : The Free
Press, 1950, 413-414.
12. On the concept of "frame" or "frame of meaning," see Goffman, "Fun in Games, " op. cit.
13. We are grateful to Erving Goffman for suggesting this example.
14. This point is fully developed by Goffman, Presentation ofSelf in Everyday Life, op. cit . ,
3-76.
15. Lewis Funke and John E . Booth, A ctors Talk A bout Acting, I I , New York: Avon, 1961,
35.
16. Quoted i n Garff B . Wilson, A History of A merican A cting, Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1966, 77.
17. Funke and Booth, A ctor.s Talk A bout A cting, I, op. cit., 206.
18. Heylbut, op. cit. , 12 .
19. Those concepts are employed b y Gross and Stone, op. cit. , in their analysis of embarrass-
ment.
20. Wilson, op. cit., 107-108.
21 . Ibid. , p. 7 .
22 . Thus the distinguished nineteenth century black Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge could
not win an audience in the United States, but he succeeded admirably in England and
Ireland. See Herbert Marshall and Mildred Stock, Ira A ldridge: The Negro Tragedian,
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1968; Errol Hill, Shakespeare in Sable: A
History of Black Shakespearean Actors, Amherst: The University of Massachusetts
Press, 1984, 17-42; and Richard Bardolph, The Negro Vanguard, New York : Vintage, 1961,
79.
23 . Reported in Herb Caen's column, The San Francisco Chronicle, December 19, 1967, 27 .
24. Langston Hughes, "The Negro and American Entertainment ," i n The American Negro
Reference Book, edited by John P . Davis, Englewood Cliffs, N. J . : Prentice-Hall, 847 .
25 . See Calvin C. Hernton, White Papers/or White A mericans, Garden City, N . Y . : Double-
day, 1966, 53-70.
26. Kingsley Davis, Human Society, New York: Macmillan, 1948, 295 .
27 . See Erving Goffman, Stigma, Englewood Cliffs, N . J . : Prentice-Hall Spectrum, 1963 .
28. Goffman, op. cit. , distinguished between the person with an overt stigma (the
discredited), who suffers the plight of tension-management, and the person with a covert
stigma (the discreditable) , who suffers the plight of information control. In terms of the
present paper, both kinds of stigma arid their attendant anxieties are but special instances
of the more general notion of stage fright.
29. Louis Wirth, The Ghetto, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956, 37, 260-261; Judith
R. Kramer and Seymour Leventman, Children of the Gilded Ghetto, New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1961, 92-94; Kurt Lewin, "Self Hatred Among Jews, " in Race Prejudice
and Discrimination, edited by Arnold Rose, New York : Knopf, 195 3 , 321-332.
30. See LeRoi Jones, "Philistinism and the Negro Writer" in A nger and Beyond, edited by
Herbert Hill, New York: Harper and Row, 1966, 51-52; see also E. Franklin Frazier, Black
Bourgeoisie, Glencoe, Ill . : The Free Press, 1957, 226-227.
31. Many instances are reported in G. Westwood, A Minority, London: Longmans, Green
and Co. , 1960.
32. In some plays, such as Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an A u thor, the line be
tween illusion and reality is stretched to its limits, creating a kind of generalized audience
anxiety.
33. For a piquant example, see Willard Waller, The Sociology of Teaching, N.Y. : Science
Edition, John Wiley, 1965 , 329-332.
34. Certain categories of persons - the Japanese are an outstanding example - apparently
have a feeling of audience stage fright most of the time and attempt to cultivate a perma
nent sense of composure to cope with it. See George De Vos, "A Comparison of the Per-
· sonality Differences in Two Generations of Japanese Americans by Means of the

Rorschach Test," Nagoya Journal of Medical Science, 17 (August, 1954), especially
252-261; William Caudill, "Japanese American Personality and Acculturation," Genetic
Psychology Monographs, 45 (1952), 3 -102; and Stanford M. Lyman, "Generation and
Character: The Case of the Japanese Americans," in idem, The Asian in the West, Reno:
Desert Research Institute, 1970, 81-97.
35. See Harold Garfinkel, "Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies," American
Journal of Sociology, 61 (March, 1956), 420-424.
36. M. Carl Holman, "The Afternoon of a Young Poet," in A nger and Beyond, op. cit. , 150.
37. George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant," Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays, Garden
City, N. Y.: Doubleday Anchor, 1954, 159-160.
38. In a sense this is not strictly accurate. Both the presence of virginity and the absence of life
are socially defined and may vary within and between societies and classes. Moreover,
both virgin status and death can be feigned. We are here concerned with the actor's orien
tation toward his or her situation and in each of these instances, we believe, the actors are
experiencing a never-before, never-again situation.
39. Two studies of dying are worthy of mention in this respect, Barney Glaser and Anselm
Strauss, A wareness ofDying, Chicago: Aldine, 1965 ; Time for Dying, Chicago: Aldine,
1968. See also David Sudnow, Passing On, Englewood Cliffs, N . J . : Prentice-Hall, 1967.
40. See Erving Goffman, "Where the Action Is, " in Interaction Ritual, Garden City, N . Y . :
Doubleday Anchor, 1967, especially 229-233 .
41 . See Howard S. Becker, Outsiders, N.Y. : The Free Press, 1963 , 41-58 .
42. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s generated many new statuses with atten
dant anxieties in their performances. Consider the personal description (Merril Proud
foot, Diary of a Sit-In, New Haven: College and University Press, 1964, 1-2) of stage fright
by a white college professor attempting his first sit-in in the company of a black student:
When I made that promise to Robert Becker three months ago, I did not expect that I
would ever have to keep it. Yet at ll:l5 this morning I found myself- a white, bespectacled
college professor at the usually conservative age of thirty-six - advancing to my baptism
of fire as a sit-in demonstrator! With me was Robert Becker, a tall dignified Negro youth
who is president of the student body of our college. As we approached the basement lunch
counter in Rich's, the city's largest department store, Becker showed no fear; I was secretly
terrified . . .
The seat of my personality shifted to the solar plexus. "Could I possibly be the fellow,
I who gets nervous indigestion when 1 have to make an announcement in chapel, who has
got himself involved in this situation? " I was asking myself. "Now have you got enough
nerve to go through with it, or are you going to let your student understand that you are a
coward?" I sauntered in after Becker, trying to look like an ordinary customer, but I could
not have felt more self-conscious had my skin been coal-black.
43 . See Martin S. Weinberg, "The Nudist Management of Respectability," in Deviance and
Respectability, edited by Jack Douglas, N.Y. : Basic Books, 1970, 375-403 .
44. For a general discussion of screening devices and other "involvement shields," see Erving
Goffman, Behavior in Public Places, New York : The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963 , 176-178
and passim.
45 . See Stanford M. Lyman and Marvin B. Scott, "Coolness in Everyday Life," in Sociology
and Everyday Life, op. cit . , 93-101, reprinted as Chapter 7 in this book.
46. Funke, op. cit. , 20.
47. For a case in point, see Ralph G . Martin, Boy from Nebraska, New York : Harper and
Brothers, 1946, 198.
48. Goffman, Stigma, op. cit.
49. For the case of the check forger, see Edwin H. Lemert, Human Deviance, Social Prob
lems, and Social Control, Englewood Cliffs, N. J . : Prentice-Hall, 1967 , 109-134.
Notes 219
SO. For further discussion, see Marvin B . Scott and Stanford M . Lyman, "Paranoia,
Homosexuality and Game Theory," Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 9
(September, 1968), 179-187, reprinted as Chapter 8 in this book.
CHAPTER 7: COOLNESS IN EVERYDAY LIFE
Stanford M. Lyman and Marvin B. Scott, "Coolness in Everyday Life," from Marcello
Truzzi, editor, Sociology of Everyday Life, Englewood Cliffs, N. J . : Prentice-Hall, 1%8.
Reprinted by permission of Prentice-Hall, Inc . , Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
1 . This paper explores a theoretical avenue opened up by Erving Goffman. Our orientation
and some of the conceptual categories used here are derived from the various writings of
this seminal thinker.
2. This definition closely follows the one suggested by Goffman in "Where the Action Is,"
Unpublished Manuscript, University of California, Berkeley, 29.
3 . Goffman, "On Face Work , " Psychiatry, 18 (August, 1955), 213-231.
4. The hazards of social encounters are not universally recognized with the same degree of
seriousness. Thus, in Japanese culture the face engagements of individuals are always
regarded as character tests. Individuals are expected to be aware at all times of the pro
prieties. Loss of face can occur at any time. On the other hand, in American culture it
would appear that social risks are not recognized as an ingredient of every encounter, but
only of those that have a retro- or pro-active effect on the participants. For an analysis of
the Japanese as veritable models of poise under pressure, see Nyozekan Hasegawa, The
Japanese Character, Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1966, esp. 29-34 and 90-94. See also
George De Vos, "A Comparison of the Personality Differences in Two Generations of
Japanese Americans By Means of the Rorschach Test, " Nagoya Journal of Medical
Science, (August, 1954), 164-165, 252-261; William Caudill, "Japanese American Per
sonality and Acculturation," Genetic Psychology Monographs, 45 (1952), 3-102; Stanford
M. Lyman, "Generation and Character: The Case of the Japanese Americans, " in idem,
The Asian in the West, Reno: Desert Research Institute, 1970, 81-97.
S. The loss of cool is not everywhere a stigma. Among Shtetl Jews, for example, displays of
overt emotionalism are culturally approved. See Mark Zborowski and Elizabeth Herzog,
Life is With People: The Culture of the Shtetl, N.Y . : Schocken Books, 1%2, 335.
6. I n some instances the fears and apprehensions among newcomers are s o great that not
even ordinary calmness can prevail until special restorative measures are employed. For a
most dramatic illustration of the point see Equiano's Travels: The Interesting Narrative of
the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus VilSS"a the African, edited by Paul Edwards,
N . Y . : Praeger, 1967 (originally published in 1789), 30-31.
7. Repartee and other word games apparently came into full bloom in courtly circles after
women and intellectua�s were admitted to participate. See Florian Znaniecki, Social Rela
tions and Social Roles. San Francisco: Chandler, 1%5 , 175-76.
8. Hasegawa, op. cit. , 88.
9. Herbert J . Gans, The Urban Villagers, N . Y . : The Free Press of Glencoe, 1962, 81.
10. See John Dollard, "The Dozens: Dialectic of Insult," The A merican Imago, Vol. I ,
(November, 1939), 3-25; R.E. Berdie, "Playing the Dozens," Journal of A bnormal and
Social Psychology, V. 42 (January, 1947), 120-121; Cornelius L. Golightly and Israel Schef
fler, "Playing the Dozens: A Research Note," Journal of A bnormal and Social
Psychology, V. 43 (January, 1948), 104-105; Roger D. Abrahams, Deep Down in the
Jungle, Hatboro Penn . : Folklore Associates, 1964, pp. 41-65, 89-98, 259-262. Abrahams
\
(p. 50) describes sounding as follows: "Sounding occurs only in crowds of boys. One in
sults a member of another's family; others in the group make disapproving sounds to spur
on the coming exchange. The one who has been insulted feels at this point that he must
reply with a slur on the protagonist's family which is clever enough to defend his honor
(and therefore that of his family). This, of course, leads the other (once again, due more
to pressure from the crowd than actual insult) to make further jabs. This can proceed until
everyone is bored with the whole affair, until one hits the other (fairly rare), or until some
other subject comes up that interrupts the proceedings (the usual state of affairs). "
11. Edward Gross and Gregory P . Stone, "Embarrassment and the Analysis of Role Re
quirements," A merican Journal of Sociology, 70 (July, 1964), 6-10. See also Erving Goff
man, "Embarrassment and Social Organization," A merican Journal of Sociology, 62
(November, 1956), 264-71.
12. See Georg Simmel, "The Aesthetic Significance of Face," in Kurt Wolff, editor, Georg
Simmel, 1858-1918, Columbus : Ohio State University Press, 1959, 276-281. Also Goffman,
"On Face Work ," op. cit.
13. Charles T. Scott, A Linguistic Study of Persian and A rabic Riddles: A Language
Centered Approach to Genre Definition, unpublished Ph. D . dissertation, University of
Texas, 1963 , 12 .
14. For a piquant instance in which these forces were unexpectedly tested b y a Kikuyu youth
studying in America, see R. Mugo Gatheru, Child of Two Worlds: A Kikuyu 's Story,
Garden City: Doubleday-Anchor, 1965 , 153-154.
15. Gans, op. cit . , 190.
16 . Hui-chen Wang Liu, The Traditional Chinese Clan Rules, Locust Valley, N.Y. : J . J .
Augustin, 1959, 60-93 .
17. Albert J. Reiss, "The Social Integration of Queers and Peers, " in Howard S. Becker, ed. ,
The Other Side, N. Y. : The Free Press o f Glencoe, 1964, 181-210.
18. For a discussion of the behavioristic elements in riding a merry-go-round and other games
of equipoise see Erving Goffman, "Role Distance," in Encounters, Indianapolis: Bobbs
Merrill, 1961, 105-110.
19. Gans, op. cit . , 27-32; Jules Henry, "White People's Time, Colored People's Time,''
Trans-A ction, (March-April, 1965), 3 1-34; John Horton, "Time and Cool People," Trans
Action (April, 1967), 5-12 .
20. Georg Simmel, "The Metropolis and Mental Life," in Sociology of Georg Simmel, N. Y . :
The Free Press, 1950, 413-414 .
21. One such setting is the chivalric ideal of the fifteenth century. See Diaz de Gamez, "The
Chivalric Ideal," in James B. Ross and Mary M. McLaughlin, eds. , The Portable
Medieval Reader, N . Y . : Viking Press, 1949, esp. 91-92.
22. See Maurice Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1961 . For further evidence of the generalized character of bandits and outlaws see
Eric J. Hobsbawm, Social Bandits and Primitive Rebels, Glencoe: Free Press, 1959, 1-29.
For a characterological analysis of the modem day fictional Robin Hood, namely, Raf
fles, see George Orwell, "Raffles and Miss Blandish," in Dickens, Dali and Others, N. Y. :
Reynal and Co. , 1946, 202-221. These legendary bandits - Robin Hood, Raffles, etc. - are
characterized by taking extra risks in the name of sportsmanship, or aesthetic reasons,
and in so doing amply display strong character.
23 . See Richard Wright, "The Psychological Reactions of Oppressed People," in White Man,
Listen!, Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1957, 17-18 .
24. David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, Reuel Denny, The Lonely Crowd, Garden City:
Doubleday-Anchor, 1950, 195 3 .
25 . See Talcott Parsons and Winston White, "The Link Between Character and Society, " in
S . M . Lipset and L. Lowenthal, editors, Culture and Social Character, N. Y . : The Free
Press of Glencoe, 1961, 89-13 5 .
26. "Brett Maverick,'' portrayed b y James Garner i n a popular television western drama from
1957 to 1961, typified the new imagery of the hero - amiable and unassuming, he always
Notes 22 1
kept his cool, choosing to employ his wits rather than his fists to overcome opponents. His
type was especially popular among college and post-college middle class professionals,
who also relied on rhetoric as a weapon. For an analysis of the modern world in these
terms see Robert Nisbet, Community and Power, N.Y. : Oxford Galaxy, 1962.
27 . Goffman, "Role Distance," Encounters, op. cit.
28. See Donald Ball, "An Abortion Clinic Ethnography," Social Problems, V. 14 (Winter,
1%7), 203-301.
CHAPTER 8: PARANOIA, HOMOSEXUALITY AND GAME THEORY
Marvin B. Scott and Stanford M. Lyman, "Paranoia, Homosexuality, and Game Theory,"
Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1968), pp. 179-187. By permission of the
authors and of the American Sociological Association.
I . Howard S. Becker, Outsiders, New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963 ; John I. Kit
suse, "Societal Reaction to Deviant Behavior," in The Other Side, edited by Howard S.
Becker, New York : The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964; Eliot Freidson, "Disability as Social
Deviance, " in Sociology and Rehabilitation, edited by Marvin B. Sussman, Publication of
the American Sociological Association, n.d. ; Thomas Scheff, Being Mentally Ill,
Chicago: Aldine Press, 1966.
2. T.C. Schelling, Strategy of Conflict, New York: Galaxy Books, 1963 . Credit for the idea
of applying a game-like model to the analysis of certain kinds of deviance goes to Erving
Goffman. His unpublished manuscript, "Communication and Strategic Interaction,"
consists - among other things - of an explication of Schelling's work and a brilliant ap�
plication of game-theoretic notions to the analysis of a variety of diverse social structures.
We are deeply indebted to Goffman's paper for many of the ideas presented here.
3. Alfred Schutz, "The Problem of Rationality in the Social World," in Collected Papers,
Vol. II, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964, 64-88, esp. 72-76.
4. Erving Goffman, "The Nature of Deference and Demeanor," A merican Anthropologist,
(June, 1956), 473-474.
5. Kenneth Boulding, Conflict and Defense: A General Theory, New York: Harper and
Row Torchbook, 1963 .
6. Ibid. , 150-151.
7. Erving Goffman, Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction, Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1961, 17 .
8. Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss, "Awareness Contexts and Social Interaction,"
A merican Sociological Review, 29 (1964), 669-679.
9. Goffman, Encounters, op. cit . , 19-34.
JO. Erving Goffman, Stigma, Englewood Cliffs, N . J . : Prentice-Hall Spectrum Paperback,
1963 , 111.
1 1 . George J. McCall and J .L. Simmons, Identities and Interactions: An Examination of
Human Associations in Everyday Life, New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1%6, 190.
12. Gordon Westwood, A Minority, London: Longmans, Green and Co. , 1960, 147.
1 3 . Abram Kardiner and Lionel Ovesey, The Mark of Oppression, Cleveland: Meridian
Books, 1962, 179-190.
14. Ibid. , 185-186.
I S . Ibid. , 186.
16. Glaser and Strauss, op. cit.
1 7 . Ibid.
1 8 . No rman Cameron, "The Paranoid Pseudo-Community Revisited," American Journal of
Sociology, 65 (1959), 52-58.
1 9. Edwin Lemert, "Paranoia and the Dynamics of Exclusion," Human Deviance, Social
Problems and Social Control, Englewood Cliffs, N. J . : Prentice-Hall, 1967, 197-2ll.
20. Kitsuse, op. cit. , 92-93 .
2 1 . Kardiner and Ovesey, op. cit. , 186 .
22. Alfred H. Stanton and Morris S. Schwartz, The Mental Hospital, New York: Basic
Books, 1964, 200 .
23 . Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Principles of Intensive Psychotherapy, Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1950.
24. Cameron, op. cit. , 54.
25. Don D. Jackson, "Psychotherapy for Schizophrenia," Scientific A merican (January,
1953), 5 .
26. R . D . Laing and A. Esterson, Sanity, Madness, and the Family, Vol. I . , London:
Tavistock Publications, 1964. 27 . Ibid. , 16f.
28. Stanton and Schwartz, op. cit . , 203 .
29. Ibid.
30. Gregory Bateson, et al. , "Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia," Behavioral Science, I (Oc-
tober, 1956), 251-264.
3 1 . Laing, op. cit. , 26.
32. Lemert, op. cit.
3 3 . Bateson, op. cit.
34. Laing, op. cit.
3 5 . Lemert, op. cit.
36. Erving Goffman, Asylums, Garden City, N . Y . : Anchor Paperback, 1961, 134 ff.
PART IV: AGENCY
CHAPTER 9: ACCOUNTS
Marvin B. Scott and Stanford M. Lyman, "Accounts, " A merican Sociological Review,
Vol. 33, No. 1 (February, 1968), 46-62. By permission of the authors and of The American
Sociological Association.
I . For a now classic statement and analysis of the Hobbesian question, see the discussion by
Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social A ction, Glencoe, Ill . : The Free Press, 1949,
89-94.
2. See, for instance, William Soskin and Vera John, "The Study of Spontaneous Talk," in
The Stream of Behavior, edited by Roger Barker, N. Y . : Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1%3 ,
pp. 228-282. Much suggestive material and a complete bibliography can be found in Joyce
0. Hertzler, A Sociology of Language, N . Y . : Random House, 1965 .
3. An account has a family resemblance to the verbal component of a "motive" in Weber's
sense of the term. Weber defined a motive as "a complex of subjective meaning which
seems to the actor himself or to the observer as an adequate ground for the conduct in
question." Max Weber, Theory of Social and Economic Organization, translated by
Talcott Parsons and A.M. Henderson, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1947, 98-99. Following
Weber's definition and building on G.H. Mead's social psychology and the work of Kenneth
Burke, C. Wright Mills was among the first to employ the notion of accounts in his much
neglected essay, "Situated Action and the Vocabulary of Motives, '' American
Sociological Review, V.6 (December, 1940), 904-913 . Contemporary British philosophy,
following the lead of Ludwig Wittgenstein, has (apparently) independently advanced the
idea of a "vocabulary of motives." An exemplary case is R.S. Peters' The Concept of
Motivation, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958.
4. The point is nicely illustrated by Jackson Toby in "Some Variables in Role Conflict
Analysis, '' Social Forces, V. 30 (March, 1952), 323-327.
Notes 223
5. Thus, by an account we include also those non-vocalized but lingual explanations that
arise in an actor's "mind" when he or she questions his or her own behavior. However, our
concern is with vocalized accounts and especially those that are given in face-to-face rela
tions.
6. William J. Goode, World Revolution and Family Patterns, New York: The Free Press of
Glencoe, 1963 , 254-256.
7. Moreover, common-sense understandings that violate wide-spread cognitive knowledge,
such as are asserted in statements like "the sun rises every morning and sets every night,"
or avowed in perceptions that a straight stick immersed in water appears bent, are ex
pected to be maintained. Persons who always insist on the astronomically exact statement
about the earth's relation to the sun might be considered officious or didactic, while those
who "see" a straight stick in a pool might be credited with faulty eyesight. For a relevant
discussion of social reactions to inquiries about taken-for-granted phenomena see Harold
Garfinkel, "Studies of the Routine Grounds of Everyday Activities," Social Problems, V.
II (Winter, 1 964), 225-250, and "A Conception of and Experiments with 'Trust' as a Con
dition of Concerted Action" in Motivation and Social Interaction, edited by O.J. Harvey,
N.Y.: Ronald Press, 1963 , 187-238 .
8. W e have taken this formulation from J . L. Austin. See his Philosophical Papers, e d . b y
J.O. Urmson and G . J . Warnock, London: Oxford University Press, 1961, 123-152.
9. Ibid. , 124.
IO. These types of excuses are to be taken as illustrative rather than as an exhaustive listing.
1 1 . Only where nothing is left to chance - as among the Azande where particular misfortunes
are accounted for by a ubiquitous witchcraft - is the excuse by accident not likely to occur.
Zande do not assert witchcraft to be the sole cause of phenomena; they have a "practical"
and "realistic" approach to events which would enjoy consensual support from Occidental
observers. However, Zande account for what Occidentals would call "chance" or "coin
cidence" by reference to witchcraft. E.E. Evans-Pritchard writes: "We have no explana
tion of why the two chains of causation [resulting in a catastrophe] intersected at a certain
time and in a certain place, for there is no interdependence between them. Zande
philosophy can supply the missing link . . . . It is due to witchcraft . . . Witchcraft explains
the coincidence of these two happenings." Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic A mong the
Azande, London: Oxford University Press, 1937, 70.
12. Defeasibility, or the capacity of being voided, is a concept developed by H . L.A. Hart.
This section leans heavily on Hart's essay, "The Ascription of Responsibility and Rights,"
in Logic and Language, First Series, edited by Antony Flew, Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1960, 145-166.
1 3 . For a general discussion of cultures in terms of their "fatalistic" orientations or
universalist-achievement orientations, see Talcott Parsons, "A Revised Analytical Ap
proach to the Theory of Social Stratification," in Essays in Sociological Theory, Glencoe:
The Free Press, 1954, 386-439. See also Parsons, The Social System, Glencoe: The Free
Press, 1951.
14. Thus, in the most famous study of the psychodynamics of prejudice, one of the character
istics of the intolerant or "authoritarian" personality is "externalization, " i.e., the attribu
tion of causality of events believed to be within the actor's power or rational comprehen
sion to uncontrollable forces beyond his or her influence or understanding. See T.W.
Adorno, et a/., The A uthoritarian Personality, N.Y . : Harper and Row, 1950, 474-475. See
also Gordon W. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice, Garden City: Doubleday Anchor,
1958, 379. In a recent study, an intermittently employed cab driver's insistence that there
would inevitably be a revolution after which the world would be taken over by Blacks and
Jews is recalled as one of several early warning cues that he is mentally ill. Marion Radke
Yarrow, et al. , "The Psychological Meaning of Mental Illness in the Family," in Thomas
J. Scheff, Mental Illness and Social Process, N.Y. : Harper and Row, 1967, 3 5 .
1 5 . See Horace R. Cayton, "The Psychology of the Negro Under Discrimination," in Arnold
Rose, editor, Race Prejudice and Discrimination, N. Y. : Alfred Knopf, 1953 , 276-290; and
Bertram P. Karon, The Negro Personality, N. Y. : Springer, 1958, 8-53, 140-160.
16. David Matza, Delinquency and Drift, N.Y. : Wiley, 1964, 88-90, 188-191.
17 . Herbert J. Gans, The Urban Villagers, N.Y. : The Free Press, 1962, p. 49. According to
another student of Italian-American life, slum-dwelling members of this subculture
believe that "a man's health requires sexual intercourse at certain intervals." William F.
Whyte, "A Slum Sex Code," A merican Journal of Sociology, XLIX (July, 1943), 26.
18. Oscar Lewis, The Children of Sanchez, N.Y. : Random House, 1961, 475 .
19. Gordon Westwood, A Minority, London: Longmans, Green and Co. , 1960, 46.
20. For an interesting study showing that criminals believe that a fellow criminal's physical at
tractiveness will vary with type of crime - robbers are the most attractive, murderers the
least; rapists are more attractive than pedophiles, etc. - see Raymond J. Corsini, "Ap
pearance and Criminality," A merican Journal of Sociology, LXV (July, 1959), 49-51.
2 1 . Adorno, op. cit. , 233, 485; Allport, op. cit . , 235-249, suggests the historicity and uni
queness of each instance of scapegoating.
22. Arturo de Hoyos and Genevieve de Hoyos, "The Amigo System and Alienation of the
Wife in the Conjugal Mexican Family," in Bernard Farber, editor, Kinship and Family
Organization, N.Y. : Wiley, 1966, 102-ll5 , esp. 103-107.
23 . Lewis, op. cit. , 143 .
24. Ibid. , 202 .
25 . Ibid. , 86.
26. Gresham M. Sykes and David Matza, "Techniques of Neutralization," A merican Socio
logical Review, XXII (December, 1957), 667-669.
27. One other neutralization technique mentioned by Sykes and Matza, "denial of respon
sibility," is subsumed in our schema under "appeal to defeasibility. "
28. Note that appeal to loyalties could be an excuse if the argument runs that X did do A
under the influence of Y's domination or love, or under the coercive influence of Y's in
jury to him were he not to act (e.g., loss of love, blackmail, etc.). In other words, appeal to
loyalties is an excuse if X admits it was bad to do A but refuses to monopolize responsibility
for A in himself.
29. Erving Goffman, Asylums, Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1961, 150-151. The sad tale
involves the most dramatic instance of the general process of reconstructing personal
biography whereby - for example - a husband may account for his present divorce by
reconstructing the history of earlier events in an ascending scale leading up to the final
dissolution. The idea of a reconstruction of biography is a continual theme in the writings
of Alfred Schutz. See his Collected Papers, Vol. I, edited by Maurice Natanson, The
Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1962. A shor� clear summary of Schutz's contribution on the
reconstruction of biography is found in Peter L. Berger, Invitation to Sociology, Garden
City: Doubleday Anchor, 1963 , 54-65 . Drawing on Schutz, Garfinkel details the concept
of reconstruction of biography in a series of experiments on the "retrospective reading" of
social action. See his "Common Sense Knowledge of Social Structures, " in Theories of the
Mind, edited by Jordon M. Scher, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1962, 689-712. The empirical
use of the concept of retrospective reading of action is nicely illustrated by John I. Kit
suse, "Social Reaction to Deviant Behavior," in The Other Side, �dited by . Howard S.
Becker, N.Y. : The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964, 87-102.
30. Goffman, op. cit. , 152.
3 1 . Westwood, op. cit. , 32.
32. Tape recorded interview, May, 1967 .
3 3 . Tape recorded interview, June, 1967.
34. Erving Goffman, Encounters, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961, 45-58 .
Notes 225
35. Ibid. , 51.

36. John Selden, Table Talk, 1696, quoted in Harry Johnson, Sociology, New York: Har
court, Brace and Co. , 1960, 552n.
37. The term is borrowed from Harold Garfinkel. In addition to the references to Garfinkel
already cited, see his Studies in Ethnomethodology, Englewood Cliffs, N . J . : Prentice
Hall, 1968 . For an original discussion on how the meaning of an account depends upon
background expectancies and a methodology for its study, see Harvey Sacks, The Search
for Help, unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1%6.
38. On how background expectancies are used to determine whether a person is judged
criminal or sick see the neglected essay by Vilhelm Aubert and Sheldon L. Messinger,
''The Criminal and the Sick," Inquiry, I (Autumn, 1958), 137-160.
39. This formulation is persistently (and we believe rightly) argued in the various writings of
Ernest Becker. See especially The Revolution in Psychiatry, N. Y . : The Free Press of Glen
coe, 1964; and his essay "Mills' Social Psychology and the Great Historical Convergence
on the Problem of Alienation, " in The New Sociology, edited by Irving L. Horowitz,
N.Y. : Oxford University Press, 1964, 108- 1 33 .
40. I n the case o f schizophrenics, i t has been noted that they are individuals who construct
overly elaborate accounts - L e., accounts that are perceived as being elaborately con
structed. These accounts, it appears, take the form of "building up" the possibilities of a
situation that others find improbable. Thus, the paranoid husband accounts for his fren
zied state by relating that his wife went shopping - and, to him, going shopping con
stitutes the most opportune occasion to secretly rendezvous with a lover. In response to
the inquirer, the paranoid asks, "If you wanted to meet a lover wouldn't you tell your
spouse you're going shopping?" For a general discussion, see Becker, The Revolution in
Psychiatry, op. cit.
41. Erving Goffman, Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Edinburgh: University of Edin
burgh, 1956.
42. Albert J. Reiss, Jr. , "The Social Integration of Queers and Peers," in The Other Side, op.
cit. , 181-210.
43 . Marguerite Sechehaye, A utobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl, New York: Grune and
Stratton, 1951.
44. See Thomas Scheff, Being Mentally Ill, Chicago: Aldine Press, 1966. See also Erving
Goffman, Behavior in Public Places, N. Y . : The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963 , 36n, and En
counters, op. cit . , 105ff.
45 . These terms are adapted from Erving Goffman, Behavior in Public Places, N.Y. : The
Free Press of Glencoe, 1963, 36n, and Encounters, op. cit. , l05ff.
46. The theme is widely explored in the literature on formal organizations. For an early - and
perhaps still the clearest statement of the theme - see Robert K. Merton's widely reprinted
"Bureaucratic Structure and Personality," available in Complex Organizationa, edited by
Amitai Etzioni, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962, 48-60.
47 . For a literary illustration, see the play by Peter Weiss, The Investigation, N. Y . : Atheneum
Books, 1%7 .
48 . See Sherri Cavan, Liquor License, Chicago: Aldine Press, 1966, 79-87 .
49. Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension, Garden City: Doubleday, 1966, 139-144.
50. When a boy is interrupted by a call for an account in the midst of his own recounting of
sexual exploits he may simply relapse into uncommunicative silence, change the subject,
or withdraw from the group. To prevent any of these and to aid in the continuity of the
original story, the other members of the audience may urge the speaker to continue as
before, assure him of their interest and support, and sharply reprove or perhaps ostracize
from the group the person who called for the account.
51. We have adapted these styles from Martin Joos, The Five Clocks, N.Y. : Harbinger
Books, 1961.
52. Each of these linguistic styles is associated with distinctive physical distances between the
interactants. For a discussion of this point see Hall, op. cit. , ll6-122.
53. Besides the five linguistic styles discussed, we may note that accounts may be usefully
distinguished in the manner of their delivery. For a cogent typology see Robert E.
Pitenger, et al., The First Five Minutes, Ithaca, N.Y. : Paul Martineau, 1960, 255.
54. Another kind of invulnerability arises in those situations in which physical presence is tan
tamount to task performance. Students in a classroom, parishioners in a church, and
soldiers at a drill may be counted as "present" - their very visibility being all that is re
quired for routine performance - although they might be "away" in the vicarious sense of
daydreaming, musing on other matters, or relaxing into a reverie.
5 5 . For these terms, in the context of strategies for avoiding accounts, we are indebted to
Gregory Stone.
56. For this illustration we are again indebted to Gregory Stone. The illustration itself is derived
from Oscar Lewis' The Children of Sanchez, op. cit.
57. For an excellent discussion of this point as well as an insightful analysis of the concept of
identity, see Anselm L. Strauss, Mirrors and Masks, Glencoe: The Free Press.
58. The concept of "altercasting" is developed by Eugene A. Weinstein and Paul
Deutschberger, "Tasks, Bargains, and Identities in Social Interaction," Social Forces,
XLII (May, 1964) , 451-456.
59. See the brilliant discussion by Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, N. Y . :
Galaxy Books, 1963 , 21-52.
60. The term "identities" and "roles" may be used as synonyms in that roles are identities
mobilized in a specific situation; whereas role is always situationally specific, identities are
trans-situational.
61. "An unconscious desire to be white, coupled with feelings of revulsion toward the Negro
masses, may produce an assimilationist pattern of behavior at the purely personal level.
Assimilationism is in this sense a means of escape, a form of flight from 'the problem. ' It
involves a denial of one's racial identity which may be disguised as such sentiments as 'I'm
not a Negro but a human being' - as if the two were mutually exclusive. This denial is ac
companied by a contrived absence of race consciousness and a belittling of caste barriers.
By minimizing the color line, the assimilationist loses touch with the realities of Negro
life.'' Robert A. Bone, The Negro Novel in A merica, New Haven: Yale University Press,
1965, 4.
62. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, N. Y. : Grove Press, 1%7, 32.
63 . Ibid. , 33.
64. Fanon, ibid. , provides one of the most graphic examples of this phenomenon. For a
socio- literary treatment, see St. Clair Drake, "Hide My Face? - on Pan-Africanism and
Negritude," in Herbert Hill, editor, Soon One Morning, N . Y . : Alfred Knopf, 1963 ,
77-105 .
65 . Schelling, op. cit . , 34.
66. For a discussion on the "phasing" of encounters, see Strauss, op. cit. , 44ff.
67 . The following is from A.S. Makarenko, The Collective Family, Garden City: Doubleday
Anchor, 1967, 230-232.
68. The term is borrowed from Noam Chomsky, Aspects of a Theory of Syntax, Cambridge,
Mass . : MIT Press, 1965, IO.
69. To our knowledge the most persuasive argument for this need is made by Kenneth L.
Pike, Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior,
Glendale: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1954. A short, clear programmatic statement is
found in Dell Hymes' "The Ethnography of Speaking," in Thomas Gladwin and William
C. Sturtevant, editors, Anthropology and Human Behavior, Washington, D.C . : An
thropological Society of Washington, 1962, 72-85. For an argument that stresses the
Notes 227
analytic separation of the content of talk from the forms of talk, see the brief but lucid
statement of Erving Goffman, "The Neglected Situation, " in The Ethnography of Com
munications, edited by John Gumperz and Dell Hymes, A merican A nthropologist, LXVI
(December, 1%4), Part 2, 133-136.
70. For the methodology of such studies sociologists may well investigate the anthropological
technique of componential analysis (i.e., the study of contrast sets). The clearest state
ment of the method of componential analysis is that of Charles 0. Frake, "The
Ethnographic Study of Cognitive Systems," in A nthropology and Human Behavior, op.
cit. , 72-85 . A related methodology is developed by Sacks in The Search/or Help, op. cit.
71. See Charles 0. Frake, "How to Ask for a Drink in Subanun," in The Ethnography of
Communications, op. cit. , 127-132.
72. The idea of "speech community" is usefully developed by John J. Gumperz in "Speech
Variation and the Study of Indian Civilization," in Language in Culture and Society,
edited by Dell Hymes, N.Y. : Harper and Row, 1%4, 416-423 ; and "Linguistic and Social
Interaction in Two Communities," in Ethnography of Communications, op. cit . , 137-153 .
73. We refer to the approach to deviance clearly summarized by Howard S. Becker, The Out
siders, N.Y . : The Free Press of Glencoe, 1%3, esp. 1-18.
CHAPTER 10: ACCOUNTS, DEVIANCE, AND SOCIAL ORDER
Marvin B. Scott and Stanford M. Lyman, "Accounts, Deviance, and Social Order,"
Chapter 4, pp. 89-ll9, of Deviance and Respectability: The Social Construction ofMoral Mean
ings, ed. by Jack D. Douglas, New York: Basic Books, 1970. By permission of the authors,
editor, and publisher.
1 . In a paper for the San Francisco International Exposition of 1915, Durkheim himself was
very emphatic on this point, writing, "To set forth the role which belongs to France in the
establishment and development of sociology is almost tantamount to writing the history
of this science; for it was born among us, and, although there is no country today where it
is not being cultivated, it nevertheless remains an essentially French science. " See Emile
Durkheim, "Sociology," in Kurt H. Wolff, ed. , Emile Durkheim, 1858-1917, Columbus:
Ohio State University Press, 1960, 376.
2. This argument is most cogently presented by Talcott Parsons in The Structure of Social
Action, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1949, 89-94.
3. See Kenneth E. Bock, "Evolution, Function and Change," A merican Sociological
Review, XXVIII (April, 1%3), 229-237 ; and Marvin B. Scott, "Functional Foibles and the
Analysis of Social Change," Inquiry, IX (1966), 205-214.
4. Howard S. Becker, Outsiders, New York: The Free Press, 1963, especially 1-18.
5. This is also true for the mentally ill. Mental illness is a "reason" for behavior, and
acknowledging one's own mental illness is an excuse for untoward behavior as well as a
signal of "cure. " See Thomas Scheff, Being Mentally Ill, Chicago: Aldine, 1966, 80-101.
6. Behind this deceptively simple remark stands the whole of "analytic philosophy," that
modern school of philosophical inquiry spawned by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his epoch
making Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958 . For a general state
ment on the fundamental principles of this school, see Antony Flew, "Philosophy and
Language," in Antony Flew, ed. , Essays in Conceptual A nalysis, London: Macmillan,
1956, 1-20.
7. See H.L.A. Hart, "The Ascription of Responsibility and 'Rights,"' in Antony Flew, ed. ,
Logic and Language, First Series, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960, 145-166.
8. Weber was not uninterested in attitudes, however. He published a detailed program for
essaying the attitudes of industrial workers and tortuously explored the realm of attitudes
while seeking to avoid psychological reductionism. See Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Anthony
R. Oberschall, "Max Weber and Empirical Social Research," A merican Sociological
Review, XXX (April, 1965), 185-199, especially pp. 190-192.
9. Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. by Talcott Parsons
and A.M. Henderson, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1947, 98-99.
10. See Parsons, op. cit. , 44-51, 579-639.
11. See Alfred Schutz, "Commonsense and Scientific Interpretations of Human Action" and
"Concept and Theory Formation in the Social Sciences," in his Collected Papers, ed. by
Maurice Natanson, The Hague: Nijhoff, 1962, I, 3-98.
12. Harold Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1967.
13. First appearing in A merican Sociological Review, VI (December, 1940), 904-913 , the essay
is reprinted in C. Wright Mills, Power, Politics and People, ed. by Irving L. Horowitz,
New York: Ballantine, 1964, 434-452.
14. Harry Stack Sullivan, for example, recognizes words as lingual symbols of action, but still
divides accounts into creditable motives and "personal realism." He writes: "Actually in a
very long psychiatric career I would say that I have come to have more and more affection
for the rationalization which ends with 'just because'; the more words that follow, the
harder it is to figure out how much is personal verbalism - rationalization, as it is
called - and how much is an important clue to something that one ought to see." See his
Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry, New York: Norton, 1953 , 191. In contrast, Mills
notes: "The 'real' attitude or motive is not something different in kind from the verbaliza
tion of the 'opinion. ' They turn out to be only relatively and temporally different. " Op.
cit. , 446.
IS . Marvin B. Scott and Stanford M. Lyman, "Accounts," A merican Sociological Review,
XXXIII (February, 1968, 46-62. Reprinted here as Chapter 9.
16. Gresham M. Sykes and David Matza, "Techniques of Neutralization," American
Sociological Review, XXII (December, 1957), 667-669.
17. Wittgenstein, op. cit., 3 1e, 32e.
18. Erving Goffman, Encounters, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961, 7-19.
19. Weber, op. cit. , 88.
20. See Jessie Bernard, "The Theory of Games of Strategy as a Modern Sociology of
Conflict," American Journal of Sociology, LIX (March, 1954), 4ll-424, especially pp.
413-415 .
21. For an empirical and theoretical statement on such information games, see Marvin B.
Scott, The Racing Game, Chicago: Aldine, 1968 .
22. Erving Goffman, Stigma, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963 .
23 . Thus certain categories of persons - for example, homosexuals and paranoids - are more
likely to be game-aware at all times than others. See Marvin B. Scott and Stanford M.
Lyman, "Paranoia, Homosexuality, and Game Theory," Journal of Health and Social
Behavior, IX (September, 1968). Reprinted here as Chapter 8 .
24. For an extended discussion of this example, see Joan P . Emerson, "Negotiating the
Serious Import of Humor," Sociometry, XXXII (June, 1969), 169-181.
25. See, for example, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto, A Daughter of the Samurai, Rutland, Vt. :
Charles E. Tuttle, 1966.
26. Many instances are reported in William Carlson Smith, A mericans in the Making, New
York: Appleton-Century, 1939.
27 . An excellent example is Paul Edwards, ed. , Equiano's Travels, New York: Praeger, 1966,
originally published in 1789, especially pp. 30-31 .
28. A nice example involving race is related by the black poet M. Carl Holman, "The After
noon of a Young Poet," in Herbert Hill, ed. , A nger and Beyond, New York: Harper and
Row, 1966, 138-153. For numerous insights about social class in this respect, see W. Lloyd
Notes 229
Warner and Paul S. Lunt, The Status System ofa Modern Community, New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1942. For a full-scale description of a game orientation between teacher
and student involving the former's imagination of the embarrassment and anxiety he was
causing the latter, see Willard Waller, The Sociology of Teaching, New York: Wiley
Science Edition, 1965 , 326-332. For a literary illustration, see Herman Melville's "Benito
Cereno," in Great Short Works of Herman Melville, New York: Harper and Row, 1966,
182-259.
29. This section leans heavily on Erving Goffman's "On Face Work," Psychiatry, XVIII
(August, 1955), 213-231.
30. Fred Davis, in his work on "deviance disavowal, " deals with the manner in which interac
tion with the stigmatized is "normalized. " But when the normalization process itself goes
awry, account-giving situations with the attendant face-game framework are generated.
Thus we are suggesting that Davis' theoretical statement is but a special case to be subsumed
under the more general framework of face games. See F. Davis, "Deviance Disavowal:
The Management of Strained Interaction by the Visibly Handicapped," Social Problems,
IX (1961), 120-132.
31. In exploring these considerations, we are closely following the leads of Erving Goffman.
See his essay "Where the Action Is," in his Interaction Ritual, Garden City, N.Y. : An
chor, 1967, especially pp. 239-258 .
32. Ibid. , 244 .
33. An example is the joke that slurs a racial group. In polite circles, it seems to be necessary
to preface such a j o ke by an explanation or apology not only to the parties listening but
also, vicariously, to the offended racial group, whether any of its members are present or
not.
34. In very serious breaches, the individual may take the ultimate recourse of suicide in an ef
fort to project a new and more favorable imagery of self. For a discussion along these
lines, see Jack D. Douglas, The Social Meanings of Suicide, Princeton: Princeton Univer
sity Press, 1967, 284ff.
35. The problem of managing studied nonobservance of one's own violations of social rules
deserves more attention. One obvious element is that studied nonobservance is itself
noticeable by others and thus requires them studiously to nonobserve not only the un
toward deed but also the offender's studied nonobservance of it, if interaction is to pro
ceed smoothly. See the discussion of this and related phenomena in Erving Goffman, The
Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Garden City, N . Y . : Doubleday, Anchor, 1959,
233-237.
36. See Douglas, op. cit . , 310-319.
37. For an illuminating discussion, see Graham Hughes, "Criminal Responsibility," Stanford
Law Review, XVI (March, 1965), 470-485 .
38. Hart, op. cit.
39. See D.S. Shwayder, The Stratification of Behaviour, New York: Humanities Press, 1963,
95-102.
40. The whole question of the social construction of meaning is clearly examined in Douglas,
op. cit. , Part IV.
41. Director of Public Prosecutions vs. Smith, 1961, A.C. 290. This case is discussed in
Hughes, op. cit. , 473-477.
42. We are indebted to the discussion in Thomas J . Scheff, "The Negotiation of Reality: The
Process of Assessing Responsibility," Working Paper No. 6, Social Science Research In
stitute, Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1967, 13-16.
43 . Gustave LeBon, The Crowd, London: Ernest Benn, 1952, originally published in 1896;
Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, New York: Bantam, 1960.
44. Yick Wo vs. Hopkins, Sheriff, 118 U . S . 356 (1886).
45 . See Philip Selznick, TVA and the Grass Roots, Berkeley: University of California Press,
195 3 , 253-259.
46. See, for example, the discussion in Joseph Tussman and Jacobus ten Broek, "The Equal
Protection of the Laws, " California Law Review XXXVII (September, 1949), 341-381.
47. Tussman and ten Broek (ibid. , 343-356) suggest that judges may organize the classifica
tions made by legislative bodies into categories of reasonableness, suspicion, and prohibi
tion; The first would include all classifications which are reasonably related to a public
purpose and not prohibited or suspect; the second would include classifications which,
while not necessarily prohibited, are suspicious because they suggest the latent motive
prohibited to lawmakers of exercising prejudices against tribal, racial, or other groups
popularly subjected to prejudice; the last would include classifications whose very invoca
tion is so unreasonable to any public legislative purpose as to prompt a presumption of
prohibited intent.
48 . Ibid. , 367.
49. See Talcott Parsons, "The Law and Social Control," in William M. Evan, ed. , Law and
Sociology, New York: The Free Press, 1962, 56-72.
50. See J.A. Laponce, The Protection of Minorities, Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1960, 67-96. For South Africa, see Ernest Cole with Thomas Flaherty, House of
Bondage, New York: Random House, 1967.
51. See Alain Locke and Bernhard J. Stern, eds . , When Peoples Meet, New York: Hynds,
Hayden, and Eldredge, 1946; and Everett C. Hughes and Helen M. Hughes, Where
Peoples Meet, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1952.
52. The increase in human contacts between normatively distinct groups appears to have put a
premium on reserve and imperturbability in contemporary America. For an extended
discussion, see Stanford M. Lyman and Marvin B. Scott, "Coolness in Everyday Life," in
Marcello Truzzi, ed. , The Sociology of Everyday Life, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall,
1968.
53. See Ferdinand Tonnies, "Estates and Classes," in R. Bendix and S.M. Lipset, eds . , Class,
Status and Power, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1953 , 49-63 .
54. See Raymond L. Buell, "Some Legal Aspects of the Japanese Question," A merican Jour
nal of International Law, XVII (January, 1923), 29-49.
55. Walter Kong, "Name Calling," Survey Graphic, XXXIII (June, 1944), 296-304.
56. One fruitful area of study for this phenomenon is that of colonized peoples. In this respect
see J .S. Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, New York: New York University Press,
1956. An excellent illustration of the personal breakdown of an individual living inside a
plurality of cultures overseen by a culturally homogeneous power elite will be found in
Wulf Sachs, Black A nger, New York: Grove, 1947 .
57. See J . L . Austin, "Other Minds," in Philosophical Papers, ed. by J . 0 . Urmson and G.J.
Warnock, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961, 44-84.
58. Schutz, Collected Papers; also The Phenomenology of the Social World, trans. by George
Walsh and Frederick Lehnert, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967.
59. Garfinkel, "Commonsense Knowledge of Social Structures," in op. cit.
60. Peter L. Berger, Invitation to Sociology, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday Anchor, 1963,
54-65 .
6 1 . The key figure in the science of praxeology - that is, the study of methods employed by
social actors in going about their daily routines - is T. Kotarbinski. A brief statement of
his position is found in Henry Hiz, "Discussion: Kotarbinski's Praxeology," Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research, XV (December, 1954), 238-243 ; see also H. Garfinkel,
"Some Sociological Concepts and Methods for Psychiatrists," Psychiatric Research ·
Reports, VI (October, 1956), 191.
Notes 23 1
PART V: PURPOSE
CHAPTER 11: GAME FRAMEWORKS
I. The rise of game theory and its recognition in sociological thought is discussed by Jessie
Bernard in several essays. See "Where is the Modern Sociology of Conflict? " A merican
Journal of Sociology, 56 (July, 1950), 11-16; "The Theory of Games of Strategy as a
Modern Sociology of Conflict, " A merican Journal of Sociology, 59 (March, 1954),
411-424; "Some Current Conceptualizations in the Field of Conflict," A merican Journal of
Sociology, 70 (January, 1965) , 442-454. For a good sampling of the range of interest and
approach associated with the "game theory" perspective, see Martin Shubik, editor, Game
Theory and Related Approaches to Social Behavior, N.Y. : Wiley, 1964.
2. A Most important borderline figure, bridging both traditional game theory and social
psychological concerns is T.C. Schelling. See his Strategy of Conflict, N.Y. : Oxford
Galaxy, 1963 . For an effort to apply game theoretic notions to social-psychological prob
lems, see John W. Thibaut and Harold H. Kelley, The Social Psychology of Groups,
N.Y. : Wiley, 1959. A recent theoretical statement is provided by James S. Coleman in
"Games as Vehicles for Social Theory," Johns Hopkins University: Report from the
Center for the Study of Social Organization of Schools, 1968. See also Clarice S. Stoll,
"Player Characteristics and Strategy in a Parent-Child Simulation Game, " Johns
Hopkins University: The Center for the Study of Social Organization of Schools, Report
No. 23, 1968. While the above-mentioned works have influenced our thinking, our greatest
indebtedness is to Erving Goffman. In fact, the present paper may be read as an effort to
extend the theoretical ideas in his unpublished manuscript, "Communications and
Strategic Interaction."
3. Erving Goffman, Encounters, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961, 7-19.
4. Such, for example, is the controversial work by Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960.
5. For a discussion on this point,. see Bernard, ''The Theory of Games . . , " op. cit . , 413-415 ;
.
and Schelling, op. cit. , 3-6, 14-15 , 143-150, 278-290.

6. Part of this and the following section on face games appeared in slightly modifed form in
the authors' "Accounts, Deviance and Social Order," in Deviance and Respectability,
edited by Jack Douglas, N.Y. : Basic Books, 1970, 89-119. Reprinted here as Chapter 10.
7. The following draws on the work of Erving Goffman, Alfred Schutz and Anselm Strauss.
The "frame" approach is suggested by Goffman in "Fun in Games," Encounters, op. cit . ,
19-35 . The typification of identities i s a central element in the sociological theory of Alfred
Schutz, Collected Papers, Vols. I and II, Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962, 1964. The nego
tiation of identities, awareness contexts and other relevant concepts are discussed by
Anselm Strauss in Mirrors and Masks, Free Press of Glencoe; and (with Barney Glaser),
"Awareness Contexts and Social Interaction," A merican Sociological Review, 29 (Oc
tober, 1964), 669-679.
8. The notion of trust is used here in accord with the one developed by Harold Garfinkel in
"A Conception of and Experiments with 'Trust' as a Conditon of Concerted Action," in
Motivation and Social Interaction, edited by O.J. Harvey, N.Y.: Ronald Press, 1963,
187-238 .
9. For a discussion o n this point, see Sherri Cavan, Liquor License, Chicago: Aldine Press,
1966, 9-12, 236-238 .
10. For a n empirical test, see Sheldon Styker, "Conditions of Accurate Role-Taking," i n
Human Behavior and Social Processes, edited b y Arnold Rose, Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1962, 41-62.
1 1 . There is a potentially proactive and serendipitous quality about such games which occurs
when the players discuss the game at a later date and reveal to each other for the first time
the conscious motives for their respective moves. They then discover that different but
non-mutually exclusive goals were sought. At such discoveries each actor is likely to in
dicate his or her surprise by saying, in effect: "But I thought you were doing that to . . . "
And the other is likely to say, "And to think that I thought you were . . . " And so on. An
example of considerable interest is the relationship between "Agnes," a pseudo-intersexed
person, and the physicians and sociologists interested in "her" problem. See Harold Gar
finkel, "Passing and the Managed Achievement of Sex Status in an 'Intersexed ' Person,
Part I," and "Appendix," Studies in Ethnomethodology, op. cit., 116-185 , 285-288.
1 2 . Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Boston:
Page and Co .. 1932.
13. See Herbert Blumer, "Collective Behavior," in New Outline of the Principles of
Sociology, edited by Alfred Mcclung Lee, N . Y . : Barnes and Noble, 1946, 167-224; and
Neil J. Smelser, Theory of Collective Behavior, N.Y. : The Free Press, 1962.
14. See, for example, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto, A Daughter of the Samurai, Rutland, Vt. :
Charles E. Tuttle, 1%6.
1 5 . Numerous instances are reported in William Carlson Smith, A mericans in the Making,
N.Y . : Appleton-Century, 1939.
16. An excellent example is Equiano's Travels, edited by Paul Edwards, N. Y.: Praeger, 1966,
originally published in 1789, especially 30-31.
1 7 . A nice example involving race is related by the black poet M. Carl Holman, "The After
noon of a Young Poet," in A nger and Beyond, edited by Herbert Hill, N.Y. : Harper and
Row, 1966, 135-153. For numerous insights about social class in this respect, see W. Lloyd
Warner and Paul S. Lunt, The Status System ofa Modern Community, New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1942. For a full-scale description of a game orientation between teacher
and student involving the former's imagination of the embarrassment and anxiety he was
causing the latter, see Willard Waller, The Sociology of Teaching, N.Y . : Wiley Science
Editions, 1%5 , 326-332. A fictional account of mystification in what, in our terms, would
be called an information and exploitation game, is brilliantly presented in Herman
Melville, "Benito Cereno," Great Short Works of Herman Melville, N.Y. Harper and
Row, 1%6, 182-259.
1 8 . This point is examined in detail in our essays, "Stage Fright and the Problem of Identity,"
and "Coolness in Everyday Life," which appear in this volume as Chapters 6 and 7.
1 9. The structure of Black verbal contests provides many examples. See Roger D. Abrahams,
Deep Down in the Jungle, , Hatboro, Penn . : Folklore Associates, 1964, 41-64, 89-98 .
20. See Erving Goffman, "On Face Work," Psychiatry, 18 (August, 1955), 213-231.
2 1 . See Erving Goffman, "Where the Action Is" in Interaction Ritual, Garden City, N.Y.:
Anchor Books, 1967, especially 239-258 .
2 2 . Ibid. , 244.
23 . In polite circles, it seems to be necessary to preface a joke that slurs a racial group by an
explanation or apology not only to the parties listening, but also, vicariously, to the of
fended racial group, whether any of its members are present or not.
24. In very serious breaches, the individual may take the ultimate recourse of suicide in an ef
fort to project a new and more favorable image of self. For a discussion along these lines,
see Jack Douglas, The Social Meanings of Suicide, Princeton, N . J . : Princeton University
Press, 1%7 , 284 ff.
25 . See the discussion of the problem of managing studied non-observance of one's own
violations of social rules and related phenomena in Erving Goffman, The Presentation of
Self in Everyday Life, Garden City, N.Y. : Anchor Books, 1957, 233-237.
26. See Douglas, op. cit., 310-319.
Notes 233
27. Talcott Parsons has observed that in what he calls the "universalistic-achievement
pattern": "There is also room for an ecological system of diffuse affective attachments.
These are exceedingly prominent in the cross-sex relationships of the 'dating' period with
the attendant romantic love complex, but tend to be absorbed into the kinship unit by
marriage. Intrasex friendship as diffuse attachment is much less prominent, probably
because it can too readily divert from the achievement complex. Among men it tends
rather to be attached as a diffuse 'penumbra' to occupational relationships in the form of
an obligation in a mild way to treat one's occupational relationships in the form of an
obligation in a mild way to treat one's occupational associate as a friend also." The Social
System, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1951, 189.
28. For relevant discussions on this point, see Ernest van den Haag, "Love or Marriage, " in
The Family, edited by Rose Laub Coser, N.Y. : St. Martin's Press, 1964, 192-202; Peter
Blau, Exchange and Power in Social Life, N . Y . : Wiley, 1964, 76-87 ; and William J .
Goode, "The Theoretical Importance o f Love," American Sociological Review, 24 (1959),
38-47 .
29. Georg Simmel, "Friendship, Love and Secrecy, " A merican Journal of Sociology, II
(1906), 457-466, and reprinted in The Substance of Sociology, edited by Ephraim H.
Mizruchi, N. Y. : Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967, 128-134.
30. See Blau, op. cit . , 76-85.
3 1 . See Kingsley Davis, "Intermarriage in Caste Societies," American Anthropologist, 43
(July-September, 1941), 388-395 .
32. Blau, op. cit., 82, provides a typical sequence of moves in such a game: "The girl lets the
boy kiss her, he takes her to the 'prom,' she permits some sex play, he ceases to date others,
so does she, and he ultimately gives her the ring that formalizes their relation . . . . "
3 3 . The following analysis draws on George J. McCall and J . L . Simmons, Identities and In
teractions, N . Y . : The Free Press, 1966, 185-186.
34. Albert K. Cohen provides a similar interaction model in discussing the formation of the
delinquent gang. See his Delinquent Boys, N . Y . : The Free Press, 1955, 60-6 1 .
35. See Georg Simmel, "The Secret and the Secret Society, '' in The Sociology of Georg Sim
mel, edited by Kurt Wolff, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1950, 307-378, especially 324-333 and
345-349. For a discussion of the relative importance of ritual secrets to different kinds of
secret societies, see Stanford M. Lyman, "Chinese Secret Societies in the Occident: Notes
and Suggestions for Research in the Sociology of Secrecy, " Canadian Review of
Sociology and A nthropology, I (1964), 79-102 .
36. See Marvin B. Sussman and Lee G. Burchinal, "Kin Family Network," Marriage and
Family Living, 24 (August, 1952), 231-240.
37 . See Kingsley Davis, Human Society, N.Y. : Macmillan, 175-193 .
38. The term is borrowed from Harold Garfinkel, "Conditions of Successful Degradation
Ceremonies,'' A merican Journal of Sociology, 61 (March, 1956), 420-424.
39. See Erving Goffman, Asylums, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday Anchor, 1961, 136-141.
40. William J . Goode, The Family, Englewood Cliffs, N . J . : Prentice-Hall, 1964, 92.
41 . See Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss, "Awareness Contexts and Social Interaction, " op.
cit.
42. Power here is defined in Weber's sense as "the probability that one actor within a social
relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of
the basis on which this probability rests. " Max Weber, The Theory of Social and
Econom ic Organization, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1947, 152.
43 . Again, following Weber, toe. cit. , we refer here to ''the probability that a command with a
given specific content will be obeyed by a given group of persons." 44. For the following
we lean heavily on Talcott Parsons, "On the Concept of Influence, " Sociological Theory
and Modern Society, N. Y . : The Free Press, 1967, 355-382. See also the analytic treatment
of Parsons' schema in Gerald Marwell and David R. Schmitt, "Dimensions of Compliance

Gaining Behavior," Sociometry, 30 (December, 1967), 350-364, especially 352-358.
45 . See Jessie Bernard, The Sex Game, Englewood Cliffs, N . J . : Prentice-Hall, 1968, 194-195 .
46. For a fuller statement on information games as well as an empirical application, see Mar
vin B. Scott, The Racing Game, Chicago: Aldine Press, 1968.
47. Erving Goffman, Stigma, Englewood Cliffs, N. J . : Prentice-Hall, 1963 , 41-104.
48. See Richard Wright, "The Psychological Reactions of Oppressed People," in White Man
Listen!, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday Anchor, 1964, 17-18.
49. Scott, op. cit. , Chapter 4.
50. Gordon Westwood, A Minority, London: Longmans, Green and Co. , 1964.
51. For a full discussion of these terms, see Goffman, "Communications and Strategic In
teraction," op. cit.
52. See Georg Simmel, "Sociology of the Senses," translated and adapted in R.E. Park and
E.W. Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1924, 356-361.
53. Reported in Eugene J. Webb, et al. , Unobtrusive Measures, Chicago: Rand McNally,
1966, 148 .
54. Ibid.
55. Scott, op. cit. , 166.
56. Webb, op. cit. , 118 .
57. Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1966, 141-142.
58. Scott, op. cit. , 167-168.
59. On this point, we are indebted to Marcello Truzzi.
60. Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, Garden City,
N. Y . : Doubleday, 1966, IOI . See also the seminal discussion in Ralf Dahrendorf, "In Praise
of Thrasymachus," Essays in the Theory of Society, Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1968, 129-150.
61 . A telling example is the double game in which, for twenty-five cents, a black elevator
operator allows his white passenger to kick him - a game complex in which each obtains
valued prizes while losing relatively disvalued ones. See the description in Richard Wright,
Black Boy, N . Y . : Signet, 1951; 248-250.
62. Max Weber, "The Three Types of Legitimate Rule," in Complex Organizations, edited by
Amitai Etzioni, N. Y . : Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1961, 4-14.
63 . See Edward Norbeck, Takashima: A Japanese Fishing Community, Salt Lake City:
University of Utah Press, 1954, 51.
64 . Bernard, The Sex Game, op. cit . , 59-64, refers to this as the "cichlid effect," pointing out
that male dominance depends on female awe, and that it is therefore by no means an ir
revocable condition.
65 . See Carl Werthman and Irving Piliavin, "Gang Members and the Police," in The Police,
edited by David Bordua, N.Y. : Wiley, 1967, 56-98 .
66. See Howard S. Becker, "The Teacher in the Authority System of the Public School," in
Etzioni, op. cit. , 243-252.
67. Consider the comment by Ralph Waldo Emerson on the English nobility: "You cannot
wield great agencies without lending yourself to them, and when it happens that the spirit
of the earl meets his rank and duties, we have the best examples of behavior. Power of any
kind readily appears in the manners; and . . . gives a majesty which cannot be concealed or
resisted. " Quoted in Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills, Character and Social Structure,
N.Y. : Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964, 196.
68. See Edward Shils, "Charisma, Order, and Status," American Sociological Review, 30
{April, 1965), 199-213 .
69. See Gresham Sykes, "The Corruption of Authority and Rehabilitation," in Etzioni, op.
cit. , 191-198 .
Notes 235
70. See E.J. Hobsbawm, Social Bandits and Primitive Rebels, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1959,
13-28.
7 1 . Don Martindale, A merican Society, Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1960, 72.
PART VI: EXTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 12: A SOCIOLOGY OF THE ABSURD REVISITED
l . Eliade's "archaic man" engages in the ritualized task of periodically abolishing his own
and his people's history and beginning personal and social life without the weight of the
past upon him. Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, trans. by Willard R.
Trask, New York: Pantheon, 1965 .
2. See Stanford M. Lyman, "The Rise and Decline of the Functionalist-Positivist Paradigm:
A Chapter in the History of American Sociology," Hyoron Shakaikagaku: Doshisha
University Social Science Review, No. 20 (March, 1982), 4-19.
3. Stanislav Andreski, Social Science as Sorcery, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1972,
236-238.
4. Ibid. , 237.
5. Robert S. Broadhead, "Notes on the Sociology of the Absurd: An Undersocialized Con
ception of Man," Pacific Sociological Review, XVII (January, 1974), 45 .
6. Barry Schwartz, review of A Sociology of the A bsurd and Social Psychology Through
Symbolic Interaction, in A merican Journal of Sociology, LXXVII (July, 1971), 153-156.
7. Zygmunt Bauman, "Sociology of the Absurd," Jerusalem Post Magazine, (March 5 ,
1971), 13 .
8. For assessments of The Chicago School's approach to human ecology, see George A.
Theodorson, ed. , Studies in Human Ecology, Evanston, Ill: Row, Peterson and Co. , 1961,
3-128; Ernest W. Burgess and Donald J. Bogue, eds . , Contributions to Urban Sociology,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964, 15-200.
9. The reopening of the sociological approach to space evoked a number of subsequent
researches among which Cornelius B. Bakker and Marianne K. Bakker-Rabdau, No
Trespassing! Explorations in Human Territoriality, San Francisco: Chandler and Sharp,
1973, and E. Gordon Ericksen, The Territorial Experience: Human Ecology as Symbolic
Interaction, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980, stand out for providing continuities
in social research on our original theme.
10. We elaborated and extended the "Accounts" thesis in a follow-up essay, "Accounts, De
viance, and Social Order," in Jack D. Douglas, ed. , Deviance and Respectability: The
Social Construction of Moral Meanings, New York: Basic Books, 1970, 89-119. Reprinted
as Chapter IO of this edition.
1 1 . See, among many others, John P. Hewitt and Peter M. Hall, "Social Problems, Prob
lematic Situations, and Quasi-Theories," A merican Sociological Review, XXXVIII
(June, 1973), 367-374; John P. Hewitt and Randall Stokes, "Disclaimers," A merican
Sociological Review XL (February, 1975), 1-11; Randall Stokes and John P. Hewitt,
"Aligning Actions," A merican Sociological Review, XLVI (October, 1977), 838-849; and
John P. Hewitt, Self and Society: A Symbolic Interactionist Social Psychology, Boston:
Allyn and Bacon, Inc. , 1976, 110-138. For an empirical study see P. W. Blumstein, et. al. ,
"The Honoring of Accounts," A merican Sociological Review XXXIX (August, 1974),
551-566. For a critical assessment from two ethnomethodologists, see Alan F. Blum and
Peter McHugh, "The Social Ascription of Motives," American Sociological Review, XXXVI
(February, 1971), 98-109.
1 2 . Robert Maciver, "The Imputation of Motives," A merican Journal of Sociology, XLVI
(July, 1940), 1-12.
1 3 . C. Wright Mills, "Situated Actions and The Vocabulary of Motives," A merican

Sociological Review, VI (October, 1940), 904-913 .
14. John Dewey, "On Motive," Human Nature and Conduct, New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, 1922, 119-120.
1 5 . Kenneth Burke, ''The Search for Motives, " Chapter 5 of his Permanence and Change, In
dianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, i965 , 216-236.
16. See Hugh Dalziel Duncan, Symbols in Society, New York: Oxford University Press, 1968,
41 n. 16.
1 7 . Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: A n Essay on Phenomenological Ontology,
translated by Hazel E. Barnes, New York: Philosophical Library, 1956, 47-72.
1 8 . Felix Geyer, "A General Systems Approach to Psychiatric and Sociological De
alienation," in S. Giora Shoham and Anthony Grahame, eds . , A lienation and Anomie
Revisited, Tel Aviv, Israel: Ramot Publishing Co. , 1982, 140-141.
1 9. See Talcott Parsons, The Social System, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1951, 180-199, 252-256,
298-325 , 404-407, 442-454, 466-469, 485-496, 504-53 5 .
20. For a critique see two essays b y Marvin B . Scott, "Functional Foibles and the Analysis of
Social Change," Inquiry, IX (1966), 205-214; and "Functional Analysis: A Statement of
Problems," in Gregory P. Stone and Harvey A. Farberman, eds . , Social Psychology
Through Symbolic Interaction, Waltham, Mass: Ginn-Blaisdell, 1970, 21-28.
2 1 . Randall Collins, Sociology Since Midcentury: Essays in Theory Cumulation, New York:
Academic Press, 1981, 44.
22. See two essays by Georg Simmel, "The Conflict in Modem Culture," and "On the Con
cept and Tragedy of Culture," in his The Conflict in Modern .<;_ulture and Other Essays,
translated and edited by K. Peter Etzkorn, New York: Teachers College Press, 1968, 11-47 .
23 . Randall Collins, Sociology since Midcentury, op. cit . , 13-44 .
24. See Paul Ricoeur, "The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as a Text,"
Social Research, XXXVIII (Autumn, 1971 , 529-562.
25. Randall Collins, Conflict Sociology: Toward an Explanatory Science, New York:
Academic Press, 1975, Ill.
26. Rom Harre, "Blueprint for a New Science," in Nigel Armistead, Reconstructing Social
Psychology, Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1974, 244 . Emphasis in original.
27. Scott G. McNall and James C.M. Johnson, "The New Conservatives: Ethnomethodologists,
Phenomenologists, and Symbolic Interactionists," The Insurgent Sociologist, V:4 (Sum
mer, 1975), 58, 62.
28. Elizabeth Bums, review of TheDrama of Social Reality, in Contemporary Sociology, VII
(March, 1978), 158.
29. Broadhead, op. cit . , 43 .
30. Collins, Conflict Sociology, op. cit. , 30.
3 1 . Kenneth Burke, Dramatism and Development, Barre, Mass. : Clark University Press with
Barre Publishers, 1972, 12.
32. Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of !t-fotives, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969,
261.
33. McNall and Johnson, op. cit, 57 .
34. Stanford M. Lyman and Marvin B. Scott, A Sociology of the A bsurd, First Edition, New
York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970, 213 , 214.
3 5 . Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969,
333.
36. Stanford M . Lyman and Marvin B . Scott, The Drama of Social Reality, New York : Ox
ford University Press, 1975, 115-146.
37. The conception of ''the drama in the routine" was introduced in Stanford M. Lyman,
"Cherished Values and Civil Rights," The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races, LXXI
(December, 1964), 645-654, 695 .
Notes 237
38. See Don H. Zimmerman and Melvin Pollner, "The Everyday World as Phenomenon," in
Jack D. Douglas, ed. , Understanding Everyday Life: Toward the Reconstruction of
Sociological Knowledge, Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co. , 1970, 80-103 .
39. Georg Simmel, "The Constitutive Concepts of History," Essays on Interpretation in
Social Science, translated and edited by Guy Oakes, Totowa, N . J . : Rowman and Lit
tlefield, 1980, 197 .
40. Robert Nisbet, Sociology As A n A rt Form, New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
4 1 . Collins, Conflict Sociology, op. cit . , 2.
42. Alan Swingewood, Sociological Poetics and Aesthetic Theory, New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1987, 152.
PART VII: APPENDICES
APPENDIX I: THE MARQUIS DE SADE AND THE QUEST FOR THE NONABSURD*
Marvin B. Scott, "The Marquis de Sade and the Quest for the Nonabsurd," Chapter 4, 60-67 of
The Humanities As Sociology: A n Introductory Reader, ed. by Marcello Truzzi, Columbus,
Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co. , 1973. By permission of the author, editor and
publisher.
*Comte Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade, better known as the Marquis de Sade
(1740-1814), was the author of a dozen novels, approximately sixty short stories, twenty plays,
and many smaller works. His life was punctuated by many sex scandals, which resulted in his
spending thirty years in prison including the last thirteen years of his life. Much of his writing
was done while he was incarcerated, and about one-quarter of his manuscripts was burned by
the police. Sade's major published works include: Justine ou /es Malheurs de la vertu (1791); La
Philosophie dans le boudoir (1795); Juliette (1797); and Les 120 Journees de Sodome (193 1-35).
Modern examinations of his writings by both literary critics and psychiatrists have claimed that
his themes anticipated many of the elements found in the philosophy of Nietzsche and in
modern psychology.
1 . Our concern is wholly with Sade's sociological significance. For a good sampling of Sade's
significance in the fields of literature, philosophy and psychoanalysis, see Jean Paulhan,
"The Marquis de Sade and His Accomplice," in Richard Seaver and Austryn Wainhouse,
ed. and trans. , The Marquis de Sade, New York: Grove Press, 1965 . For an examination
of Sade's contributions to the existentialist literature, see Simone de Beauvoir, "Must We
Burn Sade?" in Paul Dinnage, ed. The Marquis de Sade, New York: Grove Press, 1953;
Albert Camus, The Rebel, New York: Vintage Books, 1956, 36-46, et passim.
For a stimulating introduction to Sade's work, see Geoffrey Gorer, The Life and the
Ideas of the Marquis de Sade, London: Pantheon Books, 1962. For another excellent in
troduction that emphasizes the social milieu in which Sade lived and worked, see Iwan
Bloch, Marquis de Sade, New York : Castle Books, n.d. In 1988, F. Gonzales-Crussi
published a discerning essay on de Sade that complements the discussion presented here,
On the Nature of ThingsErotic, San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1988, 69-94.
2. In calling anomie and fatalism pathological social conditions, we are strictly following the
orientation and conceptualization of Emile Durkheim, Suicide, Glencoe: The Free Press
(1951).
3. Geoffrey Gorer, op. cit., p. 1 56.
4. Simone de Beauvoir, op. cit., p. 63 .
5. See Rollo May, Love and Will, (New York: Norton, 1 969); and S. Klausner, ed. , Why
Men Take Chances. (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1 968).
6. On the basis of his study of total institutions, Erving Goffman, Asylums, Garden City:
Anchor, 1961, 320, concludes that man should be defined "as a stance-taking entity, a
something that takes up a position somewhere between identification with the organiza
tion and opposition to it, and is ready at the slightest pressure to regain its balance by
shifting its involvement in either direction . "
7. Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, (New York: Vintage, 1 955), p. 1 84.
8. For an interesting discussion on the relation between sexuality, political radicals and
drama, see Richard Schechner, ''Speculations on Radicalism, Sexuality, and Perfor
mance," Tulane Drama Review 13 (Summer, 1969), 89-110.
9. Goffman, Behavior in Public Places, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1963 , notes that the symp
toms of mental illness involve the violation of behavior in public places. This violation
consists, in effect in the carry-over of private behavior into the public sphere. In these
terms, the mentally ill are perceived as being not only insane, but also obscene.
10. Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion, trans. by E. Fischoff, (Boston: Beacon Press,
1 922), pp. 236-242.
11. David Riesman, et al., The Lonely Crowd, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1 950) .
12. David Matza, Delinquency and Drift, (New York: John Wiley, 1 964).
13. The perspective that sees deviance as a result of a labeling process is nicely formulated by
Howard S. Becker, Outsiders, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1963 .
14. From the Sadean perspective we can find no better phrase to describe the rebel (criminal,
or deviant) than that employed by Frank Tannenbaum, Crime and the Community, New
York: Columbia University Press, 1938, 19-20, in his theory of crime: the dramatization of
evil.
15. This point is brilliantly explored by Jean-Paul Sartre, Saint Genet, New York: Mentor
Books, 1964.
16. Gorer, op. cit., p. 1 84.
17. For an application of these ideas to an understanding of student rebellion, see Marvin B.
Scott and Stanford M. Lyman, The Revolt of the Students, Columbus, Ohio: Charles
Merrill, 1970.
18. For a similar observation, see A. Gouldner, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology,
(New York: Basic Books, 1 970), pp. 394-395 .
1 9. Quoted in Thomas Hanna, The Thought and A rt of A lbert Camus, (Chicago: Henry
Regnery, 1 958), p. 37.
APPENDIX II: POWER, PLURALISM AND ORDER*
*This chapter appeared as the "Conclusion" in the First Edition and includes portions of the
material appearing in Chapter 10.
1 . Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, Glencoe: The Free Press,
1947, 152. Translated by A.M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons. Edited by Talcott Parsons.
2. Kingsley Davis, "The Myth of Functional Analysis as a Special Method in Sociology and
Anthropology," A merican Sociological Review, 24 (December, 1959), 757-772.
3. See Vilfredo Pareto, The Mind and Society: A Treatise on General Sociology, Vol. IV:
The General Form of Society, New York: Dover Publications, 1963, 1511-1512.
4. See Joshua A. Fishman, et al. , Language Loyalty in the United States: The Maintenance
and Perpetuation of Non-English Mother Tongues by A merican Ethnic and Religious
Groups, The Hague: Mouton and Co. , 1966.
5. Marshall H. Segall, Donald T. Campbell and Melville Herskovitz, The Influence of
Culture on Visual Perception, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966.
6. See Peter McHugh, Defining the Situation: The Organization of Meaning in Social In
teraction, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968 .
7. Cf. C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, New York: Oxford University Press, 1956, and Ar
nold Rose, The Power Structure: Political Process in A merican Society, New York: Ox
ford University Press, 1967.
Notes 239
8 . The exception, of course, is when confrontation is established as a challenge to the power

holders and their legitimacy.
9. See J.A. Laponce, The Protection of Minorities, Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1960.
10. Pierre van den Berghe, South Africa: A Study in Conflict, Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1%7 .
1 1 . See Kingsley Davis, "American Society: Its Group Structure," Contemporary Civilization
2, Palo Alto: Scott, Foresman, 1%1, 171-187 .
12. See Alain Locke and Bernhard J. Stern, Editors, When Peoples Meet, New York: Hynds,
Hayden, and Eldredge, 1946; and Everett C. Hughes and Helen M. Hughes, Where
Peoples Meet, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1952.
1 3 . Cf. Earl Raab, "The Black Revolution and the Jewish Question, " Commentary, 47
(January, 1969), 23-3 3 .
14. See William J . Gibbons, S . J . , "The Catholic Value System and Human Fertility,"
Kingsley Davis, "Value, Population , and the Supernatural: A Critique, " United Church
of Christ, "Responsible Parenthood and the Population Problem," all in William
Petersen and David Matza, Editors, Social Controversy, Belmont: Wadsworth, 1963,
14-35 .
1 5 . See, e.g. , Jerry L. Avorn, et al. , Up Against the Ivy Wall: A History of the Columbia
Crisis, New York: Atheneum , 1968, edited by Robert Freedman; Daniel Walker, Rights in
Conflict: The Violent Confrontation of Demonstrators and Police in the Parks and
Streets of Chicago During the Week of the Democratic National Convention of 1968, New
York: Signet, 1968; Free (Pseud. for Abbie Hoffman), Revolution/or the Hell of It, New
York: Dial Press, 1968; George Kennan, Democracy and the Student Left, New York:
Bantam, 1%8 .
16. See Howard S. Becker, The Outsiders, New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963 , 1-8.
1 7 . See Bernard L. Diamond, "With Malice Aforethought," A rchives of Criminal
Psychodynamics, II (Winter, 1957), 1-45 .
1 8 . Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics: The New Morality, Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1966.
1 9 . See Warren L. d 'Azevedo, "Race and the Negro," Liberator (December, 1%8), 4-11.
20. See Herbert Blumer, The World of Youthful Drug Use, ADD Center Project, Final
Report, Berkeley: School of Criminology, University of California, January, 1%7; James
T. Carey, The College Drug Scene, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1968; J . L . Simmons,
Editor, Marijuana: Myths and Realities, North Hollywood, Calif. : Brandon House, 1967 .
2 1 . See J.L. Simmons and Barry Winograd, It's Happening: A Portrait of the Youth Scene
Today, Santa Barbara: Marc-Laird Publications, 1966.
22. See Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations, Garden City:
Doubleday, 1966, 181-210.
23 . Donald F. Roy, "'Banana Time' - Job Satisfaction and Informal Interaction, " in Warren
G. Bennes, et al. , Interpersonal Dynamics: Essays and Readings in Human Interaction,
Homewood, Ill . : Dorsey Press, 1968, Revised Edition, 539-555.
2 4 . See the interesting discussion of time conceptions in anthropology in S.L. Washburn,
"One Hundred Years of Biological Anthropology, " in J.O. Brew, Editor, One Hundred
Years of A nthropology, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968, 106-110.
25. Ralf Dahrendorf, "In Praise of Thrasymachus," Essays in the Theory of Society, Stan
ford: Stanford University Press, 1968, 150.
26. Ralf Dahrendorf, "Out of Utopia: Toward A Reorientation of Sociological Analysis,"
Ibid. , 107-128.
27 . Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "A Note on Machiavelli," Signs, Evanston: Northwestern
University Press, 1964, 211-223 .
28. Dahrendorf, "In Praise of Thrasymachus," toe. cit. To us it appears that the chief expo
nent of modern functional analysis in sociology, Talcott Parsons, has adopted a view of
power - at least in interpersonal relations - that is not too different from our own. See
Talcott Parsons, "On the Concept of Power," and "On the Concept of Influence,"
Sociological Theory and Modern Society, New York: The Free Press, 1967, 297-354,
355-382.
Index
Acceptance, relationship games and, 1 65 Black(s), 14, 23, 26, 29, 3 1 , 32, 33, 80, 88,
168, 1 69 1 5 1 -52, 1 63 , 201 ; actors, 78-79;
Access, rights of, 23 , 27-29, 32-33 negotiating activities, 1 29, 1 73 ; "pass
Accident, appeals to, 1 1 3- 14, 1 36 ing," 1 02-3; word games, 94-95 , 96
Accountability, avoiding, 1 26-27 Body territories, 26-27, 58
Accounts, 1 84-85 ; defined, 1 1 2; honor- Booth, Edwin, 73 , 78
ing, 1 20-23 ; illegitimate, 1 2 1 -22; Broadhead, Robert S . , 1 83 , 1 87, 1 89
linguistic style and, 1 23-26; nature of, Building relationships. See Relationship
1 3 5-37; negotiation of identities and, games
1 27-3 1 ; pluralism and, 1 49-52; Burke, Kenneth, 1 36, 1 84, 1 87
strategies for avoiding, 1 26-27; types Burns, Elizabeth, 1 87
of, 1 1 3-20; unreasonable, 1 22-23
Action: Goffman's view of, 1 6- 1 8 ; nature Calvinists, 1 2- 1 3 , 36, 38
of human, 3 Camus, Albert, 8-9, 1 2 , 1 97
Actor, self as, 6 1 -68 Career deceivers, 1 76-77
Ad-libs, 86-87 Challenge: in face games, 1 42; in relation
Adornment, body, 26-27, 33 ships games, 1 68-69
Adventure(s), 1 3 , 37-38, 44, 46, 5 1 -59; Chicago School, 1 82-83
modern society and, 58-59; sex and, Children, 23, 25 , 29, 32, 42, 70. See also
53-58; space and, 53; time and, 5 1 -53; Youth
youth and, 53 Chinese, 24, 26-27, 30, 3 1 , 50, 1 48, 1 5 1 ,
Affairs, 54-55 175, 202
Alienation, 5 1 , 1 84-85 Cinderella syndrome, 48
Anatomy of a Murder, 1 47 Collins, Randall, 1 85-86, 1 87, 1 90
Andreski, Stanislav, 1 82-83 Collusion, linguistic, 3 1 . See also Language
Anomie, 93, 1 6 1 , 1 85 Colonization, 24-25 , 29, 45
Anxiety, 82-83, 85-87, 1 40, 1 6 1 . See also Commitment, denial of, 1 67-68
Audience anxiety; Performance anxiety; Compliance, exploitation and, 1 70-7 1
Stage fright Conflict, 5, 1 0, 14, 1 40, 1 60-6 1 , 1 68 , 1 69,
Appearances, 1 4- 1 5 , 1 6 1 85 , 1 86
Ardrey, Robert, 1 3 Consciousness, 3, 19, 98-99
Audience, 70, 72, 76, 8 8 ; anxiety, 79-81 Coolness, 16, 90-- 97 ; defined, 90; elites and,
Authenticity, 68 93-94, 96; embarrassment and, 92; risk
Avoidance, process of, 1 44 and, 90--9 1 , 93, 95-96; tests of, 93-94
Coping strategies, 85-87
Balzac, Honore de, 38 Courtship, 39, 54, 95, 1 63
Bates, Marston, 13 Critical performance, 8 1 -83 ·
Bateson, Gregory, 1 08
Beckett, Samuel, 8, 6 1 , 64 Davis, Kingsley, 79
Becoming, process of, 2, 4 Death of a Salesman, 75
Berger, Peter, 1 54 Deception, concept of, 1 76-77
Betrayals of trust, 1 66-67 Defeasibility, appeals to, 1 14- 1 5 , 1 36-37,
Biological drives, 1 1 5 - 1 7 , 1 3 7 1 46-47
24 1
Determinateness, 41 Genet, Jean, 8, 1 96

Determinism, 4, 5 , 6 Geyer, Felix, 1 84
Deviance, 12, 24, 5 1 , 98, 1 96, 200 ; fatalism Goals, 98-99
and, 37; intent and, 145-48; meaning Goffman, Erving, 9, 14, 1 6- 1 8 , 6 1 ,
of, 1 34-35 65-67, 70, 99, 1 38 , 1 4 1 , 1 57, 1 67
Domination, 1 78-79, 1 99-200 Gratitude, face games and, 143-44
Dracula syndrome, 48-49 Guinness, Alec, 87
Dramatistic orientation, 6 1 -68, 1 87-88
Drugs, 33, 1 20, 201 Harre, Rom, 1 86
Durkheim, Emile, 1 9, 1 85 Hart, H.L.A., 146-47
Heller, Joseph, 1 2
Elite, 93-94, 96, 1 98 Hobbes, Thomas, 1 4
Elman, Mischa, 69 Home territories, 24-25
Embarrassment, 69, 79-80,. 92 Homogeneous societies, 1 53-54
Encroachment, territorial, 22, 27-29; Homosexuality, 24, 27, 3 1 , 80, 88, 200;
reaction to, 29-3 1 adventure and, 56-57; biological
Environment, stage as, 74-79 drives and, 1 1 6; justification for, 1 1 9-
Erotic moment, 38, 55, 57-58 20; "passing," 1 02-5 , 109- 10, 173, ·
Esterson, A., 1 07 1 74 1 76
,
Ethnomethodology, 1 8-20, 1 82, 1 97 Honor, face games and, 1 4 1 -42

Excuses, 1 1 3 - 1 7 , 1 36-37, 1 47-48 Humanism, 8, 10, 32; time tracks of, 36-
Existentialism, 2-3, 4 38
Expectancies, background, 1 20-23 , 1 36 Husserl, Edmund, 2, 9
Explanations vs. accounts, 1 1 3
Identity(ies), 70, 88, 9 1 ; anxiety and, 82-
Exploitation games, 145, 1 6 1 , 1 70-72
83; critical performance of, 8 1 -83;
double, 1 04-5; face games and, 1 40-
Fair games, 140-49, 1 60, 1 6 1 , 1 62
49; hierarchy in, 1 7 1 -72; information
Fantasies, 62
games and, 1 72-78; negotiating, 1 27-
Fatalism, 8, 32, 1 1 5- 1 7 ; time tracks, 36-38
3 1 , 1 52; relationship games and, 164-70
Fetishes, sexual, 58
Illegitimacy of accounts, 1 2 1 -22
"First-time" situations, 83-85, 88, 93
Impression management, 1 64-65
Focused gatherings, 99- 100, 1 38, 1 57
Information games, 1 6 1 , 1 72-78
Fontanne, Lynn, 73
Injury, denial of, 1 1 8, 137
Forrest, Edwin, 78
Insulation, territorial, 30-3 1
Fortune, virtue and, 10, 14, 1 5 , 1 6- 1 7 , 54
Intent, 3; denial of, 1 14- 1 5 ; deviance and,
Freedom, 2, 3, 5 , 8, 1 5 ; territoriality and,
1 44-48
22-23 , 32-33
Interaction, 4, 5, 1 1 ; background expec
Freud, Sigmund, 1 0, 13, 6 1 -62, 64, 65
tancies and, 1 20-23 ; in "first-time"
Functionalism, 5-6, 1 85 , 203
situations, 83-85 ; in game behavior,
1 39-40, 1 60- 6 1 ; linguistic style and,
Game behavior, interaction as, 1 37-40
1 23-26; negotiating identities in, 1 27-
Game framework, 4, 10- 1 2 , 1 57-80, 200;
3 1 ; onstage, 74-79; rules of social, 70-
defining, 1 57-58; exploitation in, 1 6 1 ,
7 1 ; territorial, 25-26
1 70-72; face games, 140-49, 1 60, 1 6 1 ,
Interviewing, 1 7 5
1 62; information games, 1 6 1 , 1 72-78 ;
Intimacy: linguistic style and, 1 24-26;
meanings, 1 5 8-59; relationship games,
relationship games and, 1 62-68
1 6 1 , 1 62-70
Invasion, territorial, 28
Game model, 98- 1 09; conditions for,
Invitational moves, 1 65
98-99; homosexuals and, 102-5 , 1 09-
Ionescu, Eugene, 8
10; paranoia and, 1 0 1 -2, 103, 1 05-9
Garfinkel, Harold, 9, 1 8- 19, 1 35-36, 1 54, Japanese, 47, 93, 123, 1 5 1 , 202
1 82, 1 90, 1 97 Jealousy, 1 67
Index 243
Jews, 28, 3 1 ,80 Norms: pace and sequence, 39-40;

Justifications, 1 1 3 , 1 1 7-20, 1 36-37, 1 48 societal, 6-7
Juvenile delinquency, 29, 30, 1 1 8, 1 37, 1 95
Orwell, George, 83
Kafka, Franz, 8
Kama Sutra, 58 Pace and sequence norms, 39-40
Kierkegaard, Soren, 3 Panic, time, 46-49
Paranoia, 88, 1 0 1 -3 , 1 05-9, 200
Labeling, 12, 3 1 , 98, 200-201 Park, Robert E . , 1 3
Laing, R . D . , 107, 1 08 Parsons, Talcott, 3 , 4 , 1 8 , 1 85
Landheer, Bartholomew, 9 Participant observation, 1 1
Language, 1 3 , 62; collusion, 3 1 ; deviance "Passing," 1 02-5 , 1 09- 10, 1 7 3 , 1 74, 1 76
and, 1 34-3 5 ; game behavior and, 1 37- Penetration, inner space, 33
40; styles and accounts, 1 23-26 Performance anxiety, 78-79, 83-84. See
Last chances, 47-48 also Stage fright
Law, sociology of, 1 54 Persona, 14- 1 5 , 65-67
Lawrence, Gertrude, 69 Phenomenology, 2-3
Lemert, Edwin, 1 06 Philosophes, French, 1 2
Lewis, Oscar, 1 1 6 Pluralism, 1 49-52, 1 98-203
Lorenz, Konrad, 5, 1 3 Poitier, Sidney, 73, 79
Love, 10, 55, 1 62-64 Pornography, 57
Loyalties, appeals to, 1 1 9, 1 3 7 Positivism, 3
Lunt, Alfred, 7 3 Power, pluralism and, 149-52, 1 98-203
Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 65
Machiavelli, Niccolo, 9-20, 1 98 Prince, The, 1 0, 1 4
Maclver, Robert, 1 84 Props, stage, 7 5 -7 7 , 9 1
Manipulation, 32 Prostitution, 27
Marat/Sade, 80 Protestant ethic, 45, 1 52
Marcuse, Herbert, 1 95 Public/private spheres, 5 1 -52
Markings, body, 26-27, 33 Public territories, 22-23
Marriage, 38, 40, 42, 54, 1 68
Marx, Karl, 12, 1 85-86 Rationality problem, 98-99
Masks, 1 4, 65-67 Reality, 4, 6; appearances and, 1 4- 1 5 ;
Masturbation, 57 play vs. 62; stage settings and, 7 1 -79;
Matza, David, 1 95 statistics and, 1 9
Mead, George Herbert, 6 1 , 62-64, 1 36 Reasonable-man doctrine, 1 46:--47
Meaning, 3, 8, 1 42; in game framework, Rebecca syndrome, 48
1 58-59; and meaninglessness, 12, 1 7 , Rebellion, Sade on, 1 94-96
1 9-20 Relationship games, 1 62-70; negative,
Mental illness, 39-40. See also Paranoia 1 62, 1 65-70; positive, 1 62-65
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 2, 9, 10, 1 5 Respectability, 14, 1 6- 1 7 , 5 1 , 56
Merton, Robert K . , 1 2 , 49 Reward-punishment dichotomy, 1 70-7 1
Mexicans, 1 1 6, 1 1 7 Riesman, David, 1 95
Mills, C. Wright, 1 36, 1 84 Risk, coolness and, 90-9 1 , 93 , 95-96
Mind: Freud's theory, 61 ; Mead's theory, Role switching, 1 44 . See also Identity
62-63 negotiating
Motives, 1 35-36
Mystification, 1 26-27, 1 30 Sade, Marquis de, 10, 58, 1 92-96
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 3, 9, 65
Naegle, Kaspar, 58 "Saving face. " See Face games
Neutralization techniques, 1 1 9, 137 Scapegoating, 1 1 7, 1 37
Nisbet, Robert, 1 90 Schutz, Alfred, 2, 9, 19, 1 35-36, 1 54
Schwartz, Barry, 1 83 Theatre of t h e Absurd, 8

"Sealing off, " 1 73-74 Theatre of life, 63-64
Secrecy, 1 66-67, 1 73 Theatre of the mind, 62-64
Seduction, 1 75 Time: adventure and, 5 1 -5 3 ; in game
Segregation, racial, 23, 1 99 framework, 1 59; panic, 46-49
Self: Goffman's concept, 65-67; Mead's Time out, 44-45
concept, 63-64 Time tracks, 35-50, 202; concept, 35;
Self-consciousness, 80-8 1 continuous-episodic, 38; determinate
Self-fulfillment, 1 1 9-20 ness, 4 1 ; entering and terminating, 4 1 -
Self-presentation, 77-78, 88 43 ; humanistic-fatalistic, 36-38; move
Self-punishment, 1 42-43 ment on, 4 1 -46; pace and sequence of,
Sex, adventure and, 53-58 39-4 1 ; side tracking, 43-46; switching,
Shakespeare, William, 9, 1 7 46; time panic and, 46-49
Side tracking, 43-46 Tiryakian, Edward, 3
Simmel, Georg, 4, 8-9, 1 3 , 14, 37, 38, 44, Tokens, symbolic, 42
95 , 1 1 5 , 1 63 , 1 66, 1 90 Touch, rules regarding, 28-29
Smith, Adam, 1 2 Trust, 1 9-20; betrayals of, 1 66-67
Sociability, accounts and, 1 23 Turf defense, 30
Social order, 14; deviance and, 1 33-35 ;
pluralism and, 1 98-203
Values, 6-7
Space: absence of free, 32-33; adventure
Victimization, 1 7 ; denial of, 1 1 8
and, 53; control over, 22, 27; encroach
Violation, territorial, 27-28
ment, 27-3 1 ; inner, 27; types of, 22-27
Virtue, fortune and, 10, 14, 1 6- 1 7 , 54
Speech community, 1 3 1 -32
Voyeurism, 57-58
Spying, 1 75
Stage fright, 69-89; audience, 79-8 1 ;
coping with, 85-87; dramatic frame Waiting for Godot, 43-44
and, 7 1 -74; in everyday life, 8 1 -85; Waiting for Lefty, 43-44
stage environment and, 74-79 Waller, Williard, 1 0
Stigmatization, 4, 88-89, 1 02, 1 05, 1 10, 1 1 8 Weber, Max, 3 , 9, 36, 1 35-36, 1 85 , 1 95
Stranger, concept of, 8-9 Wirth, Louis, 1 84
Strauss, Leo, 9 Withdraw!, 45-46
Swingewood, Alan, 1 90 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 9
Wolin, Stanley, 1 1
Territories, 22-27, 3 2 , 33, 1 84, 201 ; body, Women, 54, 200
26-27, 58; encroachment on, 22, 27- Word games, 94-95, 96
29; home, 24-25 ; interactional, 25-26;
onstage, 74-75; public, 22-23 ; studies Youth, 25, 29, 3 1 , 32-33 , 36, 53, 55, 95 ,
on, 33 123, 1 63 , 1 99
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that compares the way of life of blacks in the three social classes. A comparative analysis of black and of white
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lnteractionism: Exposition and Critique

Larry T . Reynolds, Central Michigan University
This book presents an overview of that theoretical framework known as symbolic interactionism.
The Seven Deadly Sins: Society and Evil

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A SOCIOLOGY OF THE ABSURD

GENERAL HALL, INC.

GENERAL HALL, INC .

Copyright © 1989 by General Hall, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

Publisher: Ravi Mehra

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 89-80378

ISBN: 0-930390-85-7 [paper]

Manufactured in the United States of America

Foreword by Rom Harre vii

Part One: Introduction 1

} Toward a Sociology of the Absurd 2

Part Two: Scene 21

Part Three: Agent 60

5 Freud, Mead, Goffman 61

6 Stage Fright and the Problem of Identity 69

7 Coolness in Everyday Life 90

Part Four: Agency 111

1Q Accounts, Deviance, and Social Order 133

Part Five: Purpose 156

11 Game Frameworks 157

Part Six: Extroduction 181

12 A Sociology of the Absurd Revisited 182

Part Seven: Appendices 191

Appendix I: The Marquis de Sade and the Quest

Appendix II: Power, Pluralism, and Order 198

New waves of thought have an odd habit of starting at many d ifferent

of an investigation might be a set of concepts with whic h episodes c an be

The "Sociology of the A bsurd " is a new approach to the fu ndamental

temporal d imension of actual experience; t h e scene, in short, is spatialized

The agency of human action is talk. A sociology of the absurd, some­

As we stated in our Preface to the first edition, the papers presented

A new wave of thought is beginning to sweep over sociology. Aspects

It follows from the emphasis on freedom and becoming in existentialist

With regard to the second, the Sociology of the Absurd assumes a

Because we cannot assume value consensus, we have a second reason

It would be untrue, however, to say that restricted societies are un­

If wandering is the liberation from every given point in space,

A world that can be explained by reasoning, however faulty, is a

and of light, man feels a stranger. His is an irremediable exile,

Simmel characterizes the stranger as an awe-inspiring, fearsome con­

NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI (1469-1527)

A and B begin an affair on the level of light involvement . A becomes

One of Machiavelli's contributions to the Sociology of the Absurd is

Machiavelli writes, "a prince should seem to be merciful, faithful, humane,

Machiavelli's technique was to set out a situation where conflicting

The stance taken b y Machiavelli's social theorist suggests the principal

Machiavelli's prince and Goffman's social actor have n o interior

If by humanism we mean a philosophy of the inner man which finds

Thus Machiavelli saw that failure might be founded on the sense of

account o f the routine grounds for everyday action. Although Garfinkel

THE TYPES OF TERRITORIES

We can distinguish four kinds of territories, namely, public territories,

Home territories are areas where the regular participants have a

It is precisely because of their officially open condition that public

The agency of human action is talk. A sociology of the absurd, some

It would be untrue, however, to say that restricted societies are un

Simmel characterizes the stranger as an awe-inspiring, fearsome con

Interactional territories are characteristically mobile and fragile. Par

We have already suggested that something of a reciprocal relation ex

Insulation is the placement of some sort of barrier between the oc

from students, and doctors from patients. 3 3 Bodily insulation characteristi

American sociology provided a possible avenue for this kind of explora

Humankind's mortality forces it to organize and allocate its energy ac

at an early age. I t i s held, fo r example, that Olympic swimmers, mathemati

The Dracula syndrome is an extension of that described under the Cin

acts is called among its regular practitioners) requires special equipment

"All the world's a stage" has become a sociological as much as a Shake