What is Social Order?

This essay will compare and contrast two social science views about the ordering of social life. It will look at what social order is and how it effects our daily lives and explore the differences and similarities between the work of Erving Goffman and Michel Foucault. It will consider Buchanan’s and Monderman’s views on ordering public space to highlight Goffman’s focus on the way individuals interact with each other and Foucault’s emphasis on authoritative knowledge by authorities or experts.
Social order is the term used to describe a ‘stable social situation in which connections are maintained without change, or else change occurs in a predictable way’. (Taylor S, 2009, p173)
Each of us is an individual with our own thoughts and experiences however we are also beings that need to interact with each other for social contact and reassurance. It is in these moments that the behaviours we use, and the behaviours we expect others to use, enable us to live together with an understanding of the rules that are imagined and practised in daily life.
Social order is constructed and shaped by society, therefore there are many different types of order within different environments and cultures, as well as different social orders which co-exist in the same society. Individuals can change and adapt, choosing a social order that fits with their needs at any particular time. In order to maintain the social order there is a set of unwritten norms we are expected to live by. These norms are defined as ‘shared sets of values or expectations about how people will or should behave’. (Silva E, 2009, p307).
Sociologist Erving Goffman and social philosopher Michel Foucault both concern themselves with the wider understanding of how society is produc...

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...lva E, 2009 p322)
In conclusion, it would be very hard to co-exist in society without some sort of order and structure. Both scientists present their cases for social order through a significant amount of evidence collated from either practical observations, as in Goffman’s case, or historical observations, as in Foucault’s case. Neither Goffman or Foucault's theories offer a perfect solution to production of social order but both can be used at particular times and places because social order differs with time and place. Goffman’s theory looks at the individual and their impact on society whilst Foucault looks at the individual as a feature of society. They both use knowledge, discourses and authority to convey their imagined social order in public spaces and it shows that when we put these theories into place we can all live together within a harmonious society.