Stigma:
Notes on the management of spoiled identity - Erving Goffman
– summary part 3
Stigma and moral development
Moral development according to Goffman is both a cause and
effect of being stigmatized by a sequence of personal adaptations. One stage in
this process of socialization is the stage through which the person with the
stigma learns and directs the point of view of the normal, and thereby acquires
the views of the wider society in relation to his identity, and a general
concept as to what it is like to have a certain stigma. Reveals that he has a
stigma. The
combination of these two stages in moral development creates according to
Goffman different patterns of socialization:
1.A pattern that includes those who have an innate stigma -
connecting into their inferior state while learning, and internalizing the
standards from which they fall.
2.A pattern that stems from the ability of a family (and to a
lesser extent a neighborhood) to transform itself into a body that protects its
young members. Such a framework can protect a child with a birth stigma. The
moment in life when the home circle can no longer protect the individual will
cause a moral experience as soon as it occurs.
3.A pattern exemplified by someone who becomes stigmatized
later in life or who discovers it later - this person is likely to have
difficulty redefining himself.
4.A pattern exemplified by those who are connected in the
first place in a foreign community, and therefore must learn through a second
existence which is perceived by those around them as the true and valid way.
In a person's attachment to his category, which has the
stigma, there is a built-in ambivalence. As a result, there may be fluctuations
in his support of those who belong to him. There will be "cycles of
engagement" through which he will learn to accept the special
opportunities of group participation or to reject them after he has already
received them. There will also be parallel fluctuations in belief in the nature
of the affiliation group, and in the nature of regular people.
The attitude of the stigma holder towards the informal
community and the official institutions of its kind, can be a sign of a big
difference between those who are different from the group and those who find themselves
part of a well-organized community.
When the stigmatized individual reviews his own moral
development, he can select and process, in retrospect, the experiences that are
implied to him as an explanation for his contemporary practices in relation to
his peers and group. Thus the event in life may have a double meaning in
relation to the moral development, first as an immediate objective moment to an
actual turning point, and later (and also easier to prove) as a means of
explaining the present position.
See also: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman
Erving Goffman's Dramaturgy theory explained
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