WHAT DOES “PERFORMANCE” MEAN?

Performance is one of those words snatched out of the ordinary language of people and defined as something so subtle as to be barely perceptible. Confronted with the word, as I’ve been using it for a few posts, most people will go to what it commonly means and who can blame them? Google gave these confusing definitions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ6H084EDVA

Defines performativity in a suitably unintelligible way.

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“Performativity is the power of language to effect change in the world: language does not simply describe the world but may instead (or also) function as a form of social action.”

I take this to mean something like the public speaking that Trump thinks he is doing, though it’s as unintelligible and incomplete as the definitions of performance in the theoretical sense. What about the performance he is putting on in the sense of any dementia patient trying to convince everyone that he or she is normal? And the performance that presented himself on TV as a rich man?

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“Performance management methods are receiving increased attention as organizations seek performance gains from their workforces during challenging economic times. In this paper, the construct of performance management is challenged along two lines: how applied models do not take full advantage of existing theories of work motivation; and how the impact of performance management will continue to be constrained as long it remains a predominantly top-down process. Several relevant theories of motivation are examined to illustrate gaps between theory and practice and to provide a basis for looking at performance management from the performer’s perspective.

So this definition is talking about performance as in “job performance” and how to get people to work harder and better. No relevant to Trump at all.

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“Performance theory originates from a variety of fields, but is most associated with the work of Victor Turner (1988) and Richard Schechner (1985).”

“Richard Schechner, one of the founders of Performance Studies, is a performance theorist, theater director, author, editor of TDR and the Enactments book series, University Professor, and Professor of Performance Studies. Schechner combines his work in performance theory with innovative approaches to the broad spectrum of performance including theatre, play, ritual, dance, music, popular entertainments, sports, politics, performance in everyday life, etc. in order to understand performative behavior not just as an object of study, but also as an active artistic-intellectual practice.”

Victor Turner is an anthropologist who studied ceremonies and defined “liminal time and space”. Performing liturgical acts with religious, deep psychology, and transforming properties is related to but not the same as acting on a stage in a play. But both of these men also are using performance in more of a conventional way, as in performing in fact something abstract. It has the unfortunate overtone of implying that the performance is “fake,” not real, and maybe motivated by an intent to deceive. The performer in this sense is the trickster, the whore, the con artist. For many people religious leaders of a certain sort belong in this sense to “performers” rather than “believers.”

For the people involved as believers, maybe two sincerely in love people getting married, the performance is an act performed with real consequences beyond the legal and moral, an acting out that binds and transforms. Like performing an oath in court.

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“The following three theories underpinning performance management are as follows: goal theory, control theory and social cognitive theory (Buchner 2007)”

“Goal setting refers to goals being set for the future for subsequent performance of an individual or organisations. The pioneer of goal setting theory Edwin Locke states that when individuals or organisations set more difficult goals, then they perform better.Sep 29, 2016”

“Control theory helps in sustaining the performance management system by defining forms of control between the organization and the systems within. According to control theory, actions of all systems should be in sync with the overall goals and objectives of an organization (Barrows & Neely, 2012).”\

“Social cognitive theory (SCT), used in psychology, education, and communication, holds that portions of an individual’s knowledge acquisition can be directly related to observing others within the context of social interactions, experiences, and outside media influences.”

This sense of performance splits the topic between the person trying to control what is done and the person who may or may not be aware of being controlled. The concept belongs to the floor manager, the director, the teacher. It’s another of those features of organizations that makes us all paranoid about being used for the benefit of others without our permission, as though we were horses in a race. It’s one of the features of management that makes me turn away from the role and try to evade management in many work roles.

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“Gender performance is the idea that gender is something inscribed in daily practices, learned and performed based on cultural norms of femininity and masculinity. The idea of gender as performance was popularized by American poststructuralist philosopher Judith Butler.Apr 21, 2016”

Maybe in this sense “performance” is really more like “presentation” as a second aspect of identity. We are defined as what we appear to be as well as what we actually “do” as in carpentry or weaving. But presentation, what one wears and how one speaks, certainly is also a performance.

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In our culture everything is related to merchandizing, to increasing wealth. Thus performances must be worth paying to see or must produce something to sell. Presentation is then designed to encourage a transaction that makes money. I’ve learned that if I’m going to buy a car or rent an apartment, I’d better dress up. Otherwise I’m considered stupid, without resources and willing to accept the marginal.

We have a hard time thinking of other values in either performance or presentation that status/wealth. Not only do we confuse the two, but also we accept untrue markers as trustworthy evidence of what a person can do. This is one of the vicious aspects of stigma, especially when it’s about something that can’t be addressed by dressing up. This also becomes relevant when dealing with people who rant and rave but never deliver, in fact, may not really know what they are talking about, may be only pretending.

All this using ordinary words in specialized theoretical ways is really jargon, definitions that only the initiated know. It’s one of the factors that make ordinary people suspicious of education as unearned higher status.