Page 59 - The Irony Board

Into the Body

Morality plays on words to conceal
The different ways an actor can steal
The scene of a crime by making him voice
The same line each time without any choice.

The topic is shifting away from the individual to interpersonal
relations. The next section covers a variety of public activities, so
this one will end with a few epigrams on morality and temptation. In
the present piece, theatrical imagery again sets the stage for
generalizing human dramatics. Sociology buffs may recognize the
influence of Mills and Goffman on Gluckman’s concepts.
Like a script, socially-sanctioned justifications of behavior must
be given lip-service, read as written. And, like stage performance, the
nonverbal elements of speech can modify or subvert the intent of
the words uttered. Thus, hypocrisy and dishonesty exist within the
parameters of acceptable behavior, encouraged by the formulary
nature of motivational explanation; acting is a technique here, not
just a metaphor. “Stealing a scene” and “voicing a line” work
because they are already in the language.
The irony worked out between “morality” and “choice” is that of
the contradiction implicit in defining morality as both a sphere of
individual decision and as social policy to be internalized in and
expressed by all individuals identically. Words are the means by
which morality plays on actors and audience alike, and morality plays
are personifications of those words. The real variations of
circumstances requiring fresh judgements to be made are ignored by
those under the spell of conventional moral pronouncements.
Crimes in this context are committed by two types of bad actor: the
scoundrel who hides behind his lines and the nonconformist who
cannot find the lines in which to reveal himself acceptably.
Durkheim found both kinds of deviants in jail, but certainly more of
the latter.

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