Front stage, back stage

A phrase I occasionally heard when I was growing up was that someone "was two-faced." It took me a while to realize they were talking about people who were hypocrites. People who said one thing and did something else or people who criticized others for doing the same kinds of things they were doing. It took me even longer to realize that we are all two faced. In Sociology, we call it front stage, back stage behavior.

We all really do live two separate lives. We live part of our life on the front stage, that part that is open for public viewing, and part of our life on the back stage, that part we keep to ourselves. For many people, it consists of two very different personas, perceptions, and lifestyles. One of the virtues of being a police officer in a large city at a young age was the constant exposure to this concept. It was not unusual at all to come upon people who were leaders in the community, pillars in their neighborhood or church or service organization whose back stage behavior didn't match their front stage behavior at all. So, even before I took my first course in Sociology, I had been exposed to the concept often, without having a name for it.

I discovered the name during a discussion of symbolic interaction in my very first sociology class. I re-embraced the concept because I remembered many of my encounters as a police officer and I remembered so well the shock that friends and neighbors expressed when someone was arrested for drugs or pornography or spouse abuse or child abuse or rape or even murder. And the comments hardly ever varied. The most common ones were "I just can't believe he/she would do something like that." I've never seen that side of them at all. I would never ever, in a million years, have believed they were capable of that."

Since then I've always subscribed to the premise that things are hardly ever as they appear to be. There are skeletons in most closets. There are things people do they don't want anyone else to know about. And because they're so secretive about their behavior, they literally lead double lives. One public and one private. Or one public and two or more private. You can see how it gets complicated pretty quickly. There are certain people we don't want to disclose our back stage behaviors to. It might be our friends.

It might be our family. It might be our spouse or even the public at large. But one thing we do know is that if we're to keep these different lives apart from each other, we have to be deceptive and close-mouthed, lest people find out. Because if people find out, we're going to be criticized and most people don't like criticism addressed to them.

Of course, there are always a few people who refuse to lead a back stage life. Their life is an open book for anyone to see, read, analyze, and criticize. They're able to do this because they're more concerned about their own definition of self than they are how others define them. They tend to chart their own course rather than allowing it to be charted for them. And they seldom get caught in lies and deception because their behavior is right out front for all to see, whether others like it or not.

It seems to me this is the best way to live our lives. Regardless of what we're doing, if we're doing it in the open, then there's no back stage behavior to be held accountable for. Even if our front stage behavior openly offends, disappoints, or even temporarily hurts others, at least we're being open, honest and above board. Seems to me that beats lying, cheating, and hiding one's "other" self.

Life's not a simple thing. We often read in columns and letters to the editors thoughts that suggest the author has no problems or has all the answers. But they don't. It's just easier to take pot shots and criticize others than it is to take care of our own problems.

In fact, if we spent as much time in our own house, dealing with our own problems as we do in the houses of others, it would be more than a full time job and that would require us to stay out of other peoples business to begin with. "Judge not, lest ye be judged", and " Let he/she who is without sin cast the first stone" are mantras we should all follow, rather than conveniently ignore.

After all, when it's time to be held accountable, it's not our neighbors, nor our friends, that will do the accounting.