DO YOU THINK WE ARE All ACTORS IN LIFE’S STAGE PLAY?

Opinion: By Akande Aanu

I’m sure I’m not the only one who notices that humans, during social interaction, portray different versions of themselves in different social settings. This makes me ask questions like, are we all guilty of pretense? Can we ever have Individuals who live without following life’s script? Has society robbed us of our individuality, or is our individuality what society makes of us? 

I see humans ( including myself) act entirely differently with different people. If you believe that humans are meant to behave like that, does this mean our actions justify Charles Cooley’s looking-glass theory, where he states that a human’s perception of self is based on the judgment passed by other people in society?

 This means that we behave and view ourselves based on other people’s perceptions of us. For example, if a  person is said to be funny amongst his classmates, he will therefore crack jokes when he is around them, but that does not necessarily mean he will act funny around his parents. This is because his friends’ perception of who he is differs from that of his parents. Hence, he behaves differently depending on who he is with.

Therefore, according to Cooley, humans aren’t pretentious; they cannot but rely on society’s perception of who they are as society dictates how to behave through set norms and values.

Moreover, Erving Goffman confirmed that humans live their lives like a play; with the world as the audience and themselves as the actors. They decided to follow their script or those written by the audience, depending on their stage. Humans, while on the front stage, would follow the cues of the audience, but while backstage, they can reveal their individualities. So does this mean humans have their own identities not defined by societal norms and values? Is that why they hide this identity from the front-stage audience? 

The answer comes from George Herbert Mead’s theory of I and me, explaining that someone forms their social self through an ongoing interaction between the Me and I. The ‘Me’ is based on how others see us ( our socialized self), while the “I” is our unsocialized self. Therefore, our personalities are made up of our unsocialized and socialized selves.

 I, therefore, believe that humans are not pretentious. However, they are excellent actors as we would always behave differently in different social settings because we can never separate ourselves from societal values and expectations. Our individuality is therefore formed from how we see ourselves and others. However, what is your opinion on this?