Stigma by Erving Goffman

Author:Erving Goffman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone

We who stutter speak only when we must. We hide our defect, often so successfully that our intimates are surprised when in an unguarded moment, a word suddenly runs away with our tongues and we blurt and blat and grimace and choke until finally the spasm is over and we open our eyes to view the wreckage.72

The epileptic subject to grand mal seizures provides a more extreme case; he may regain consciousness to find that he has been lying on a public street, incontinent, moaning, and jerking convulsively—a discrediting of sanity that is eased only slightly by his not being conscious during some of the episode.73 I might add that the lore of every stigmatized grouping seems to have its own battery of cautionary tales of embarrassing exposure, and that most members seem able to provide examples from their own experiences.

Finally, he who passes can find himself called to a showdown by persons who have now learned of his secret and are about to confront him with his having been false. This possibility can even be formally instituted, as in mental health hearings and the following:

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