Compare and Contrast Goffman and Focaults’ Explanations of How Social Order Is Made and Remade

Although there are somewhat of similarities between Weber’s and Foucault’s relations of power and dominance, how they evaluate the concepts separately and the ways these concepts are practiced in society, can be distinguished differently. Webber appears to occupy the polar opposite with the respect to his claims of how power becomes existent with bureaucratic instruments and bureaucracy itself, Foucault argues that the power relations are everywhere in society and with expansive elements; society has no option but to internalize (Shaw 2011). His explanation of power is much broader than Weber’s. Focault rejects the hierarchical models of power, and believed that relations of dominance are formations of unequal power (McClaren 2002), and over time domination may seem fixed in society’s social structure (Shaw 2011). Additionally, Foucault looks at the concept of power from a functional strategy, with the functional practices administered by authority, and emphasises that authority commonly uses discursive power and the operation of discourse to maintain the dominance (Smart 2010; Shaw 2011). What is compelling about Foucault’s concept of power are his discursive claims. Unlike Webber, he suggests that power relations are not necessarily derived from state practices, but are all under state control, and highlights that “state and hegemony is in the every area of life” (Shaw 2011). Further, to understand some of Foucault’s functional examples, he focuses on the everyday lives of

For example in the setting of a workplace the power does not pass from the top down; instead it circulates through their organizational practices. Such practices act like a grid, provoking and inciting certain courses of action and denying others. Foucault considers this as no straightforward matter and believes that it rests on how far individuals interpret what is being laid down as "obvious" or "self evident", institutional power works best when all parties accept it willingly. Foucault's notion of power is a difficult notion to grasp principally because it is never entirely clear on who has the power in the first place, once the idea is removed that power must be vested in someone at the top of the ladder, it becomes much more difficult to identify what power is or where and whom it lies with. Foucault believes that we are used to thinking about power as an identifiable and overt force and that this view is simply not the case, because it is taken for granted that the above statement is true then it is much more complicated to comprehend power as a guiding force that does not show itself in an obvious manner.

Foucault goes through the way governments have attempted to control populations throughout history, and how power has exercised

Interaction is an important concept in sociology, and it has been studied from multiple different perspectives. Both Erving Goffman and Arlie Hochschild have made notable contributions to the sociological study of interaction. According to Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, interaction can be explained through a dramaturgical model. Within the dramaturgical model, interactions are portrayed as performances, as if a particular social environment is a stage, and the people in that social environment are actors (Goffman). Erving Goffman’s sociological interpretation of interaction is extended by Arlie Hochschild in her piece Feelings Management. Hochschild focuses specifically on performances that are put on in the workplace. Acting in the workplace has become a necessity in the service industry because in many cases, people must act warm and welcoming in order to keep their jobs. This method of acting happy and upbeat in the service industry is called emotional labor. However, as Hochschild explains, emotional labor can cause a strain on service workers, especially when they must act cheerful, even when they feel upset and distressed. The discrepancy between a person’s true emotions and their feigned emotional state is known as emotive dissonance. Continued emotive dissonance can lead to spillover, in which a person’s true emotions come out because they can no longer hold back these emotions. Though emotional labor began in the workplace, Hochschild

The processes that lead to social order are considered as intricate and premeditated, and not spontaneous. The construction of social order is the result, in reference to Blau’s Exchange Theory, of trust and solidarity achieved through repeated social exchange. This paper will explain how and why social exchange occurs and the significance of continual social exchange between two counterparts.

Modern day power originates from the mind in that we give certain figures power based upon man-made forms of value or worth like money. The definition of power has fluctuated throughout time, and while the past may have emphasized the more violent aspects, today, we have shifted towards a more control based interpretation. Both Michael Foucault and John Berger delve into the idea of power and its functionality. Based on their texts, in our current socio-cultural setting, power is best exploited when the concept behind the power is deindividualized for many purposes, internalized by the people, and integrated throughout society to the point that its origins is mystified.

According to Foucault, power does not belong to the individual, but to the system, to the institution. In his essay on Discipline and Punish, Foucault presents his idea of the panopticon mechanism, a mechanism in which visibility is a trap. With little importance over the actual individual in the role of the observer or of the observed, the object of the system is total power over the observed. Due to the unique shape of the panopticon, there are no corners and thus no blind spots for the observed to hide in. The private space is replaced by the public one. Furthermore, as final evidence of total control, the observed never knows for sure if they are being watched or not, as they can’t see the observer (Foucault 200-205). Foucault further argues that this system is followed by any government institution, placing the society under permanent observation. Individuals might try to evade the system, but achieving liberation and freedom is not something that anyone could do. Dostoevsky’s famous novel, Crime and

Institutional structures have the power to configure adolescent growth through repression and liberation. The capability that adolescents have to create their own destiny and choose their own social institution can be limited, but not impossible. In Trites article, “Do I dare disturb the universe?” the author argues that kids have personal power, whether they acknowledge it and use it to their own advantage or not. Michel Foucault declares that “Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere” (Trites). Power is inevitable, there will never be no such thing as power in this world; it will never diminish or fade. Trites also conveyed that, “power not only acts on a subject but, in a transitive

Foucault address the changing definition of crime and how power is exerted through the enforcement of punishment. During the monarchy, kings and queens showed their power and authority of the people by determining what punishment someone would receive for their actions. In the current political system, judges and juries are in the position to make these decisions. Judgement is the current system is based on motives and intent rather than on the severity of the crime alone. We care more about the psychological state of the individual and want to be able to change the person's soul to better respect society. The quote below addresses how punishment uses a variety of specializations and how the individual's mental state is molded to fit into standards we have created today.

It is a system that Foucault describes as being a relationship between power and knowledge, structured by a discourse that has created the agreed upon ideology

Michel Foucault’s work within philosophy has made important impacts when it comes to understanding how power affects a capitalist state. Believed that history of a country should how the past created a better future for society but in most cases through history, that was not the case. One of the examples that Foucault uses is how the mentally ill were treated in the Renaissance compared to the 18th century. During the Renaissance period, the mental ill people were allowed to seen within society and were seen as useful and gave wisdom into their society rather than in the 18th century. People with mental illness were put away and see as a burden to society and seen as needed to being cured by sinister people. Another example that Foucault discuss

dealing simply with subjects, or even with a “people,” but with a “population,” with its specific phenomena and its peculiar variables." (298/25) This is where we begin to see Foucault's concept of Biopower come into play. One of the central themes of Foucault's writing, he defines biopower as "[T]he forms of power, the channels it takes, and the discourses it permeates in order to reach the most tenuous and individual modes of behavior, the paths that give it access to the rare or scarcely perceivable forms of desire, how it penetrates and controls everyday pleasure—all this entailing effects that may be those of refusal, blockage, and invalidation, but also incitement and intensification: in short, the 'polymorphous techniques of power.'” (292/11 For Foucault, Biopower relates to the government's concern with fostering the life of the population, but is also a form of complete control of that population through surveillance or perceived surveillance. Foucault believed that Biopower permeates through the

Subsequently, the modernist approach of Buchanan (Silva et al., 2009) illustrate Foucault’s theory that ‘’the development of standardised uniform spaces commanding uniform behaviour, leaving no room for individual interpretation, explaining everything with signs and texts. The government and public authorities look after the citizens’’ (Silva et al., 2009 p. 339). In modernist approach rules, orders and prohibitions enforces behaviour demanding individuals to adapt to the system on the street. The individual conforms to rules and a state solves problems and looks after the people by setting up laws and prohibitions. In contrast, the flexible approach or shared space movement has the opposite outcome, making human behaviour central and negotiating ‘shared space’ as emphasised by Goffman. (Silva et al., 2009)

Foucault in theorizing the relationship between power and knowledge basically focused on how power operated in the institutions and in its techniques. The point is how power was supported by knowledge in the functioning of institutions of punishment. “He places the body at the centre of the struggles between different formations of power/knowledge. The techniques of regulation are applied to the body” (Wheterell et al., 2001: 78)

he “15 Million Merits” episode of Black Mirror elucidates the view on discipline of cited humanities scholar Michel Foucault in its futuristic take on modern day society. Foucault claims that through the means of surveillance and observation, a natural order will take over sophisticated societies without much policing power. By establishing common behaviors in different settings, a high level of discipline can be achieved without effort. In many different commonly used places like schools, factories, hospitals and prisons, a similar examination takes place among workers, patients and prisoners, creating a similar and normal accepted behavior. In Black Mirror, the society runs smoothly without the presence of a central figure of authority, and this directly relates to the Foucauldian view on society. The use of advanced technology all around them creates the feeling of being watched, so with that panoptic illusion in the forefront, the behavior of the citizens follows all rules and codes of conduct.