FROM SELF TO MASK

We have seen in Chapter 1 that the self is influenced and shaped by bodily impulses and

4.3 To stage a stable, relatively consistent performance, we wear masks, which are made of socially mediated suppression of impulses (Venice, Italy)

social forces. This creates continuous pressures from all sides that inevitably lead to tensions and imbalances of changing moods, energies and circumstances. Here to acquire a level of balance and stability, and to be able to manage this potentially turbulent and continuous change, individuals rely on masks, which are made of socially mediated suppression of impulses to stage a stable, relatively consistent performance (Figure 4.3).

These tensions may have always existed in human societies, where living within a group demanded from the individual to strike a balance between self and others. The cities, after all, have been the meeting points of strangers ever since their appearance ten millennia ago (Southall, 1998). The maintenance of this balance, however, has become particularly crucial in the cities of the modern period, where large urban populations are no longer tied by traditional rules of conduct and rigid social hierarchies, but are strangers engaged in contractual, even though unequal, relationships. Georg Simmel at the beginning of the twentieth century noticed a particular tension in metropolitan life, where the swift and continuously shifting external and internal stimuli intensified emotional experience. To cope with this intensity of stimuli, as prompted by every crossing of the street or the fast tempo of life in the city, the metropolitan inhabitant takes refuge in an impersonal, rationalistic envelope. To be protected from the threat of profound disruption, the metropolitan person is de-sensitized. The reaction of the metropolitan person is thus ‘moved to a sphere of mental activity which is least sensitive

and which is furthest removed from the depths of personality’ (Simmel, 1997:70).

Simmel found a striking parallel between the intellectualist approach of the metropolitan life and the mode of operation of the money economy. Both money and intellect can only develop where two factors coexist: neutrality and lack of character, by which he means both are detached and without any specific direction. Intellect is ‘the indifferent mirror of reality’ and money ‘the mechanical reflex of the relative value of things’ (Simmel, 1978:432).

The necessity of coping with the continuous emotional stimuli of living in the modern society means the need to develop a detachable mask that can be used in exchange relations. According to Robert Park,

It is probably no more historical accident that the word person, in its first meaning, is a mask. It is rather a recognition of the fact that everyone is always and everywhere, more or less consciously, playing a role…. It is in these roles that we know each other; it is in these roles that we know ourselves. (Park, 1950:249)

The masks we wear to face others are usually made of normal routines. When moving from the private sphere to the pubiic space, these routines change, from changing clothes to shaving or putting make up, to changing the vocabulary, accent and forms of expression, and adopting a more polite, careful manner. The change of mask is done with care and often with the assistance of the mirror, so as to see with the eyes of the others how we might appear to them. This is not preparation for a special occasion. It is just a routine social habit of human beings in their daily social life.

Person and self, as Goffman put it, are ‘portraits of the same individual’; whereas person is ‘encoded in the actions of others’, self is encoded ‘in the actions of the subject himself’ (1972:341). But there is an obvious gap between the actual self, which is pulled in all directions, and the mask, which is a remedy for this volatility, expected to be a more stable, elaborate social construct. The mask, then, acquires a normative dimension, one with which the actual self aspires to be associated. According to Santayana,

Under our published principles and plighted language we must assiduously hide all the inequalities of our moods and conduct, and this without hypocrisy, since our deliberate character is more truly ourself than is the flux of our involuntary dreams…. Our animal habits are transmuted by conscience into loyalties and duties, and we become ‘persons’ or masks. (Quoted in Goffman, 1969:49–50) The notion of mask as the true person is also asserted by Robert Ezra Park,

In a sense, and in so far as this mask represents the conception we have formed of ourselves—the role we are striving to live up to—this mask is our truer self, the self we would like to be. (Park, 1950:250)

This picture of an idealized self, however, is by no means unproblematic. The socialized self that thus emerges has major discrepancies with our more actual, ‘all-too-human’ self.

The outcome is to expect a ‘certain bureaucratization of the spirit’ so that a perfectly homogenous performance can be given at each social encounter. ‘Through social discipline’, Goffman maintains, ‘a mask of manner can be held in place from within’ (1969:49–50). The structure of the self, therefore, can be analysed as having two basic parts: individual as character and as performer. The performer is ‘a harried fabricator of impressions involved in the all-too-human task of staging a performance’ (Goffman, 1969:222). Character, on the other hand, is a normative notion, a set of fine qualities that the performer wishes to evoke. The gap between the actual and ideal individual seems to be covered by staging a performance.

The mask is the boundary between the public and the private in an individual. The treatment of this boundary is what makes the public realm and what also limits and characterizes the private realm of the individual. The notion of mask shows how the divided and multi-layered interior of a subjective space can be hidden by an apparently coherent exterior. This elaboration of the boundary between inner realm and the outer realm shows the ability of the agent to manipulate the image of the self and how this manipulation is a response to the social world around the agent. It also shows how a public exterior is an integral part of trying to maintain internal peace and continuity, of attempting internal structural integrity.

Working with pressure from two sides, social and biological, therefore, the human subject develops a mask over time, as a means of mediation between, and managing, these pressures. In a way the mask may correspond to Freud’s ego, which mediates between id and superego. Or it could correspond to Bourdieu’s habitus, where upbringing and manners can reflect an individual’s social environment, inscribing it on the body (Bourdieu, 2000). Rather than a mask that can be dropped at will, as a separable set of appearances, manners and settings, Bourdieu speaks of habitus, a mask that is inscribed on a person’s body, as it is an embodiment of his/her social environment. For Bourdieu, it appears, the structures of society are far stronger than the individual freedom of action. It may also relate to something much more flexible, which changes according to different circumstances. To the extent that we understand various situations and engage with people and places, we try to adjust to, or reject, them. This means the social masks of a person are varied, not only in number but also in their shape and makeup. Individuals make constant adjustments to their attitudes and behaviour.

The mask, therefore, can be full of inconsistencies and under constant attention and repair. Furthermore, different masks are needed for different audiences. As William James put it,

…we may practically say that he has as many different social selves as there are distinct groups of persons about whose opinion he cares. He generally shows a different side of himself to each of these different groups. Many a youth who is demure enough before his parents and teachers, swears and swaggers like a pirate among his ‘tough’ young friends. We do not show ourselves to our children as to our club companions, to our customers as to the labourers we employ, to our own masters and employers as to our intimate friends. (quoted in Goffman, 1969:42)

These groups do not often come together and the individual can try to keep the masks and their presentation separate. The boundary between the public and the private in individuals, therefore, is constantly changing, adjusting to the public scenes and the private moods.