My immediate reaction to Goffman in The Presentation of Self was that he was saying we are all fakes; all “actors on a stage.”  However, after much consideration, I have changed my position. I believe his essay describes human nature, human interaction, in particular, without judgment.  I believe we are all basically good and good intentioned.  I also believe that we are, for the most part, sincere in our actions.  However, that does not mean that we do not “code switch” according to the situation.  But, there is nothing wrong with that.  Take Plato’s Myth of the Cave, for example. An excerpt from Plato’s Republic, the “Allegory of the Cave’ is a classic commentary on the human condition. It is a story showing how true reality is not always what it seems to be on the surface. It is a story of open-mindedness and the power of possibility.

I see humans as Plato’s “prisoners” in the cave, all we know is what we have been exposed to all our lives. Upon exiting the cave and coming in contact with different, broader “realities,” we metamorphosis into a different being; we come out of the cave and become a creature of social construct.  Once outside and exposed to different realities, we initially, and instinctively, attempt to revert to the cave-to the familiar-to the allusion. Why do we do this?  Because our basic instincts tells us to do so. Because the new, the unfamiliar, is uncomfortable as we struggle to accept it as our new reality.  So, what is reality and what is an illusion? Is the cave real, or is the outside world real? Is what is real to us have to be real for others?

Goffman says that “society is organized on the principal that any individual who possesses certain social characteristics has a moral right to expect that others will value and treat him in an appropriate way” (14). His words are just another version of Plato’s. Referring to the “light,” of truth and reason, Plato states “…and that the man who is going to act prudently in private or in public must see it” (517b-c).