Summative Reflection

Agency and the Civil Sphere: Aggregate Prediction

Victor Cheng – 1001516807

Discussion Post 1: Blau

Essay 1: Lipset and Rokkan

Discussion Post 2: Habermas

Essay 2: Focault
Introduction

In the 21st century, the average individual freely contributes to aggregate data, based on

agentic decisions. Freely distributed applications on electronic devices provide the user with

some service, in turn collecting data on their decisions to engage with certain elements of the

service, including browsing habits, media content consumed, and purchases made. In this way,

agentic decisions are points of data collection, which help build a framework in which collection

and ownership of aggregate agentic data can be used to predict behavior within a system.

Combining Goffman’s presentation of self, Somer’s narrative constitution of identity, and

Alexander’s civil sphere, I will outline a framework in which control of the binary code of the

civil sphere helps to shape the narrative and idealizations of self and identity.

Goffman - Somers

Goffman sets an important foundation for the concepts of role-taking and evaluation

within society. Each individual in society takes on a variety of roles in their life, dramatically

realized through various accentuation of the activities they undertake in the performance of a

given role. Goffman also notes that there is an evaluative component in the performance of roles.

There is an unwritten script which consists of a societal collection of expectations, physical

attributes, and characteristics which are associated with specific roles. Society and the individual

are always being compared to this invisible script. The script then controls the what and how of

which roles we take on. Presented individually, this force of evaluation, which is important in

defining roles, seems weak and abstract. However, when presented alongside Somer’s narrative

constitution of identity, salient features arise, and “joining narrative to identity reintroduce time,

space and analytical relationality” (Somers 1994). Through conceptual narrativity, we can

evaluate the performance of a role, in comparison to their time period, their class, and how these
two intersect to create the expectations they are fulfilling in their role. The combination of

Goffman and Somers creates empirical categories of evaluation for the roles we take on, which

form our identity. These empirical categories of evaluation then provide solid data points of

comparison when dealing with aggregate data on consumer information. Non-agentic data

categories such as age, gender, socioeconomic status, combined with agentic data categories of

browsing behavior, personal interests and political affiliation can be combined, creating

psychographic profiles of individuals. From these profiles, archetypes can then be established

which help predict behavior over large groups of individuals in society.

Somers – Alexander

The narrative we use to construct our selves and identities do not function on an

individual level. They “are not incorporated into the self in any direct way; rather they are

mediate through the enormous spectrum of social and political institutions… that constitute our

social world” (Somers 1994). While we have established the existence of narratives, and the

possibility of their creation through analyses of aggregate data, on an individual level, we lack

the agency to choose our own pathways. While we have the agency to maintain and enact our

narratives, Somer’s suggests that the narratives we end up taking are a result of a larger

systematic function. This point is important to consider when dealing with conceptions of

agency. While Goffman and Somer’s thoughts on narrative and identity offer agency to the

individual in terms of the microdetails of expression, Somer’s also notes the importance of larger

systematic functions in determining the narratives available to the individual. In this way,

Alexander’s civil sphere complements Somer’s thoughts on incorporation of narratives. He states

that “civil society should be conceived as a solidary sphere, in which a certain kind of

universalizing community comes to be culturally defined and to some degree institutionally

enforced” (2006:592). Within this civil sphere described by Alexander, there is a framework in

which systematic and institutional factors are incorporated in analyzing relationships between

individuals and the self. As seen in the binary codes of the civil sphere, Alexander delineates

binary lines of civil and anti-civil traits when considering motives, relationships, and institutions.

(Parker 2020). These values create a desirable and non-desirable behavior within the civil sphere,

which is then realized and perpetuated through our narrative choices. Agency in this case, is

limited to a binary choice, in which one can either be civil, or anti-civil. Through the polarization

of these choices, control of the civil sphere amounts to control of agency.

Goffman – Alexander

As Somer’s highlights the power of social and political institutions in shaping narrative

choice, Goffman also highlights the ability of our role enactment in producing and maintaining

status quo. Goffman uses the term idealization to describe the process in which an individual’s

performance “will tend to incorporate and exemplify the officially accredited values of the

society” (Goffman 1956). While Somer’s explains the sources of narrative choice in identity,

Goffman highlights how norms are idealized and perpetuated in society. To this point, the point

of idealization can be thought of as a personal manifestation of the binary code of the civil

sphere. It is through idealization that the distinction between civil and anti-civil traits are

reinforced, in a very Durkheimian ritualistic manner. The individual recreates and espouses these

‘sacred’ values, “as an expressive rejuvenation and reaffirmation of the moral values of a

community” (Goffman 1956). While idealization acts to sustain and enforce the binary code, it

further exemplifies the transformative power of the civil sphere. As Alexander states, “it is often

necessary for the civil to ‘invade’ noncivil spheres, to demand certain kinds of reforms… the

forces and institutions of civil society have often initiated repairs that aim to mend the social
fabric” (Alexander 2006). Alexander notes that the civil sphere has the power to affect change.

Consider the riots of 2020 for the murder of George Floyd, and the economic and systemic

change which originated out of action from the civil sphere. Social media platforms provided a

stage in which individuals were able to ‘play’ the role of protestor, posting messages, photos and

resharing content by others, all in real time. Values which we idealize, such as racial equality,

social justice, and anti-racism played out on this stage, and influenced a wave of riots, arrests,

and policy change from major companies around the world. These actions taken in the civil

sphere of discourse and social media prompted tangible changes in economic reparations, and

actual physical damage to property, in addition to wide-sweeping reforms to policing policy

across North America. Enforcing the binary code of the civil sphere, protestors made it very

clear to companies that silence was not an option. They were either for the movement, or they

were against it.

Conclusion

Aggregate collection of personal information will come to define this century in many

ways. For the first time in human society are we able to quantify many metrics of human activity

which were not previously possible. Through the prevalence of data harvesting and the increased

ability in which we can process large volumes of data, it is possible to control individuals by

limiting their agency through binary choices. In the 21st century, agency is a tool which is

utilized to lead individuals down pre-determined paths to take pre-determined actions, while

maintaining the illusion of choice. In doing so, those who provide these choices and pathways

control the variability of human action and maintain power through this illusion.
Works Cited

Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2006. The Civil Sphere. New York, United States: Oxford University

Press.

Goffman, Erving. 1956. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. United States: Doubleday.

Parker, Sebastien. 2020 Contemporary Sociological Theory. Week 11.

Somers, Margaret R. 1994. “The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network

Approach” Theory and Society 23(5):620-633.