Compare and Contrast Two Social Science Views about the...

Without knowing it, social order is very important in everyday life. As Elizabeth Silva says ‘social order is a key principle of living together’ (Reflections on Ordered Lives, 2009, Audio). The ordering of social life can be looked at in many ways. However, two theories stand out when looking at the making of social order, that of Erving Goffman and Michel Foucault. Both of these theories are concerned with how society is produced and, more specifically, how social order is made and remade. While the two theories aim to understand a broad picture of understanding society, they do so in very different ways. They both split the big questions down into smaller ones, Goffman looks at how an individual creates order, and Foucault looks at how†¦show more content†¦Foucault argues that it is the people who have authoritative knowledge, particularly those in positions of power that create social order. Both of them want to know how social order is created, but Goffman wants to know how the individual creates it and Foucault wants to know who defines the rules that the individuals follow (DD101, Online Activity 23, 2009). Both Goffman and Foucault want to understand how social order is made, and they both look at bigger ways in which to understand it. However, Goffman focuses on society at a micro level, to help him understand the bigger picture of how social order is created. His work is very much centred on the individual. Goffman believes that social order is created by everyone’s individual actions. He likens people’s everyday interactions to a stage, where the front of stage is where people put on ‘performances’ to meet the demands of maintaining social order, and backstage as a place where an individual could let go of that (Silva, 2009, p.317). Foucault looks at the micro level, but also sees the big picture, the macro level of social order. He claims that social institutions (schools, workplaces, families), have a certain knowledge and power over an individual, and it is by using that power that social order is created, through the discourse of creating rules and re gulations. (Silva, 2009, p.319). By concerning himself with people who have