ABSTRACT
Goffman's colleague at the University of California, anthropologist Gregory Bateson, was an important influence on the development of this perspective. The issue of how people create and sustain the idea systems under which they live is a general theme of the sociological tradition known as symbolic interactionism. However, Goffman's work sits uneasily in that tradition. To quote Goffman's own language, the frameworks described are not merely a matter of mind but correspond in some sense to the way in which an aspect of the activity itself is organized especially activity directly involving social agents. In such ways, Goffman carries forward Simmel's theme that the various forms of social interaction take shape as the logical workings-out of their own preconditions and premises. Although Western societies tend to celebrate the role of individuals as willful agents, social scientists have emphasized also the extent to which cultural and social structures over which the individual has relatively little control bind personal choice making.
