Free Custom «Sociological Theory Analysis» Essay Paper

Interaction takes a central place in the humans. Interactions changes the act from something formed and pushed to completion by a commencing cause to a line of events created by the actor.  The staging of self in the day to day individual life offers an impressive sight of the human behavior in social interactions. Social interaction is a procedure which entails learning values, norms and beliefs of a social group thus converting a person into a useful component of the society.  This paper looks at both the Meads concepts and the Goffman’s concepts.

Meads concepts

Action

 The act of communication is vital.  The mind arises from this act. The social act is important to the mind theory as well as the social philosophy of Mead. The interaction with many individuals is critical. The theory of mind, self and society involves the interaction of people in a society which can be equated to the theory of knowledge and value which is a philosophy of the person experiencing personal interaction with the surroundings. In Meads general philosophy, there are two representations which are the model of the act as such which can be explained as the organic activities. \

The other representation is the model of the social act which is of importance to the peoples experiences.  Mead argues that the physical biological environment and the individual organism are equal in some manner to the social surroundings and the social process of behavior. The act as such is the causal factor of the connection between the person and the environment.  Reality is circumstances exemplified by the connection between an organic individual to its surroundings.  The social act involves the participation of more than one individual whereas the social object is a collective object that bears a similar meaning to the participants in the act (Blumer & Morrione, 2004).  Communication is important in our day to day live, from the informing the lecturer that you are going to hand in your assignment late to informing the fire department that there is a fire in your house. Without the act of communication, life would be extremely miserable.

The self and the other

 The self compared to the mind is a social development.  The individual selves are the creation of social interaction. He argues out that the self is not in existence at the point of birth. The self develops as a result of social experiences. The self is a reflective course. It is different from the body. One can loose some parts of their body without loosing the self. The social growth of the self is further enhanced through language, play and game (Blumer & Morrione, 2004).  Age is wisdom. This is due to the fact that a person who has lived more years has seen a lot through the social experiences.

Language is all about communication which can be in symbols and in words. Effective communication forms the baseline in which humans are able to gauge others attitudes toward self. Language is the main ingredient to the social self.  Game encompasses a more intricate activity of role playing. Individuals are required to interiorize both self and all the participants.  This involves having the rules of the game at the finger tips. This is the social process whereby humans are able of achieving selfhood (Cronk, 2005).  The mastery of language is vital. Martin Luther king had a great mastery of language according to the videos I have watched.  He had a well laid out game plan that came to succeed eventually. This can be attributed to the mastery of self and the participants.

The temporary structure of the human existence

This can be described in relation to emergence, sociality and freedom.  Every day humans come to terms with new experiences. These create problems to be defeated bringing disharmony.  This disharmony is the creator of experience. Without it, life would be a mere passage without experiences.  Problems give birth to life experiences. The past connects the present and the future and it cannot be cancelled. Freedom is an important element of the self (Cronk, 2005).  Problems are a daily part of our lives. For instance, passing the exam is  a major problem to most of the students who have managed to circumvent it through personal experiences.

Goffman’s Concepts

Goffman drew a clear parallel line amongst a persons daily activities and a presentation performed to an audience. Each and every individual has a certain role that they play. He uses performance to depict the way human beings present themselves to others.

Regions and region behavior

A locality surrounded by an extent of barriers and perception can be defined as a region. Regions can be front stage, back stage or off stage.  The front stage is usually where a performance is carried out, this can be seen to provide the picture that certain standards are met by the activities indulged in. this can be gauged by the way the audience is treated by the performer. The back stage is marred with conflict because the performers are not tied to the demand of the public role. Differences are the hallmark of backstage.  Technical standards are offered to the backstage workers while expressive standards are offered to the front stage workers. The outside region helps in embarrassing situation, it helps avoid them. The actors may meet the audience backstage individually or in small groups independent of the team’s performance (Davis, 2008).

This is similar in our day to day lives. For example in the hotel scenario, I have observed that some have very clean eating areas, if u go to the kitchen, you won’t eat the food. They have managed to divide the room into regions whereby the waiters have the best uniform while the cooks who are in the backstage are all sweaty.

Discrepant roles

This is most often than not information that is capable of dishonor or distracting the delicate reality. Information of destructive nature must be controlled to avoid the negative consequences that it might bring forth. I prefer to compare this kind of information to the Pandora box. There are secrets that the team might choose to keep that are considered as dark and don’t portray the image of it to the audience (Islaih, 2005). There are the strategic secrets which are kept from the audience with an intention of hiding the future moves of the team. There are also the entrusted secrets whereby a person is obliged to keep due to the relationship with the team and the free secrets which don’t have any negative impact (Missana, 2001).

The world we live in is full of secrets. From the married couples to work colleagues, all have secrets. In the movie iron man, we find that secrets can be used to protect a nation’s boundary. The secret of the weapon of mass destruction is closely guided as a strategy to defeat the enemy. This is necessary in situations of war.

Communication out of character

In the event that two teams present themselves to each other, the performers are inclined to continue with their character.  Performers might at times make utterances they shouldn’t. Open mistakes are a rare occurrence in a performance. Some of the instances whereby these communication is observed is when treating the absent by using derogatory words due to the fact that they are incapable or listening. Staging talks are whereby performers can discuss on how to stage performances and gossip at the same time. Team collusion is cautiously conveyed communication without any foreseeable threat. This can be done through encrypting words to hide meaning from unintended ears (Davis, 2008).

To avoid eaves dropping over a network, encryption is used. For example, eBay encrypts customer information to avoid placing the clients account at risk as a result of eavesdropping. Mistakes are a part of humans. Most often than not, they have negative effects as opposed to positive effects. Jeff a reporter in CNN mispronounced a word thus generating a wrong meaning which almost led to his termination.  

Conclusion

Communication is paramount to the existence of mankind. One cannot leave alone in this planet as we require each other for the continuity of life. Knowledge of social theories is helpful in enlightening of the people. Goffman and Meads made great developments in analyzing the human self. Their findings and works should be made available to all in order to give the people the necessary skills required to fit in the society.