"When there is a discrepancy between an individual's actual social identity and his virtual one, it is possible for this fact to be known to us before we normals contact him, or to be quite evident when he presents himself before us. He is a discredited person, and it is mainly he I have been dealing with until now. [...] However, when his differentness is not immediately apparent, and is not known beforehand, [...] he is a discreditable, not a discredited person [...]. The issue is [...] that of managing information about his failing. To display or not to display; to tell or not to tell; to let on or not to let on; to lie or not to lie; and in each case, to whom, how, when, and where. [...] It is this second general issue, the management of undisclosed discrediting information about self, that I am focusing on in these notes - in brief, 'passing'."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ch.2 - p. 57, 58
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Erving_Goffman
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Erving Goffman
1922 – 1982
kanadisch-US-amerikanischer Soziologe
35 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Erving Goffman →
Related Quotes
"Approved attributes and their relation to face make every man his own jailer; this is a fundamental social constraint…"
"I mean this report to serve as a sort of handbook detailing one sociological perspective from which social life can b…"
"Society is organized on the principle that any individual who possesses certain social characteristics has a moral ri…"
"In many kinds of social interaction, unofficial communication provides a way in which one team can extend a definite …"
"In our society, defecation involves an individual in activity which is defined as inconsistent with the cleanliness a…"
"Often, when two teams enter social interaction, we can identify one as having the lower general prestige and the othe…"
"In recent years there have been elaborate attempts to bring into one framework the concepts and findings derived from…"
"When an individual appears before others, he wittingly and unwittingly projects a definition of the situation, of whi…"
"The self... is not an organic thing that has a specific location, whose fundamental fate is to be born, to mature, to…"
"The degree that the individual maintains a show before others that he himself does not believe, he can come to experi…"