There exists a widely held belief that each person has a true, singular identity at all times. And while many would argue that our individual personalities, identities, and ideas prove that to be true, theorists like Erving Goffman argue otherwise. In Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman argues, though never explicitly, there is no such thing as a true self. Taking an overtly materialist stance on what it means to be human, Goffman argues that not only do you have to be around others to be human, but who you are depends on the specific interactions. He goes on to say that you don’t have power in how you are perceived because everyone in an interaction conforms to the majority opinion. By showing how people are stripped of power in social situations, how we are always performing (even when we may not be aware of it), and how our performance varies on who our audience is, Goffman doesn’t need to directly state that there is no such thing as a true self.

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What Goffman terms the ‘working consensus’ disregards the individual and demonstrates how individuals are stripped of control and sincerity in how others perceive them. While you personally can have a definition of what a situation is, others can (and usually do) interpret the situation differently. Goffman emphasizes that what people care the most about is getting along. Therefore, if there are multiple meanings of an interaction, the working consensus (an often unspoken agreed upon meaning of a situation) is adhered to. And if your definition of a situation is the working consensus, it is not that way because you defined it. It’s because it’s the consensus. This is how the individual becomes insincere when sticking to this working consensus and in the same vein is how people are stripped of power in social situations. Defining something to yourself doesn’t mean anything if it’s not how people perceive it. Whether or not you have the same interpretation of an interaction, it is the group’s interpretation that matters, stripping you of sincerity and control. 

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Goffman uses the terms performances, actors, and audiences to show that you don’t just have to act in a different way based on their situation, you have to perform based on their audience, which negates any notion that how you act is who you really are. Goffman shows that since different audiences have different expectations and demands, your actions and mentality around them change. We can see this in action because stages and audiences mixing is usually uncomfortable. It’s why you’re uncomfortable when your friends meet your parents or you see a teacher outside of the school setting. Goffman furthers this idea of different performances and audiences by showing that people who say things like ‘you’re not your true self’ in certain interactions are merely uncomfortable when they see you performing to another audience. Everyone else sees you as your true self when you’re with them but because you act differently based on who you’re around, everyone’s definition of who you are is different. And this doesn’t necessarily mean that being alone allows you to be your true self. Goffman notes that because key moments happen when you’re with others, your sense of self comes from and is defined by interactions with others and not when you’re alone. And since that changes based on who you’re with, your sense of self is not one singular identity.

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Finally, Goffman shows that even when we think we’re not, we are constantly performing and are oblivious to the performance of core identities. While you may see people interact and see a performance at the surface level, you don’t question the underlying constant identifiers that are still performed. Core identities like race, class, and gender are so habitualized, so baked in and sacred (Goffman’s nod to Durkheim) that we don’t even question it. These surface level performances we might be aware of are what Goffman uses to define the unit of analysis, the defined units of studying people. While many sociologists say that it’s society as a whole, Goffman says it’s the immediate situation or interaction, and society is made up of these encounters. Baked in, sacred roles are not immediate or based on one specific encounter, which is how we avoid questioning or even acknowledging them. 

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In short, Goffman shows that because you have to be around others and it largely depends on who you’re around, there is no true self. Goffman first shows this by describing how power is stripped from individuals in any social situation because we defer to the group. He then goes on to show how we change who we are and who others perceive us as based on who we are around. Finally, Goffman shows that even things we see as sacred identities and take for granted are actually performances. While it seems aggressive to say that there is no true self or true identity, Goffman breaks it down in such a way that it can be proven. It’s not that we have multiple identities that we decide, it’s that we are expected to perform in certain ways for certain people and so we do. We don’t challenge this because we expect and act in ways that demand others to perform for different audiences and comply with the group census as well. We are both subjugated by larger interpretations of interactions and subjugate others in the same way. We perform as actors and audiences for other people’s experiences, shaping other people’s sense of self. But with multiple, often contradictory definitions of who we are in situations we are powerless to control or define, there is no singular ‘true self’ people are at their core.