ABSTRACT
Like Durkheim and Parsons before him, Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical theory of action grapples fundamentally with the problem of social order. Goffman’s sociology is spectacular in its unbridled optimism about the knowledge actors possess about how to conduct themselves in face-to-face gatherings. Years ago Dennis Wrong (1961) criticized Parsons for having an ‘oversocialized’ conception of human beings. A few years later Harold Garfinkel (1967) accused Talcott Parsons of viewing humans as ‘cultural dopes’, meaning that, from Parsons’ perspective, human beings are seen as little more than automatons programmed to carry out whatever roles their cultural heritage has delivered to them (via socialization), all in the service of the various social institutions within which these actors operate (economy, family, polity, education and religion).
