Talk:Face (sociological concept)

Multiple merge?
The current WP articles about sociological "face" are disorganized and redundant. While I may have overlooked some, What do you think of merging all these into one comprehensive Face (sociological concept) article? Keahapana (talk) 00:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Face (sociological concept) has redirects from:
 * Loss of face
 * Lose face
 * Losing face
 * Face (self image)
 * Face (Asian social concept) has redirects from:
 * Mianzi
 * Lianzi
 * To lose face
 * Lost face
 * Losing Face
 * Face (social custom)
 * Face (social concept)
 * Face (Chinese social concept)
 * Face saving has a redirect from:
 * Save face
 * Facework has a redirect from:
 * Face/Facework Theory

Merge discussion
I've tagged the above merge proposal. Any comments? Keahapana (talk) 00:47, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No, entirely different concept. --  李博杰    | —Talk contribs email guestbook complaints 11:22, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but I don't understand what's different. The English expression lose face is borrowed from Chinese diulian 丟臉. Doesn't the literature in this field treat sociological and psychological "face" as a cultural universal? Keahapana (talk) 23:15, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Done, apparently (: not by me, mind you) --Sigmundur (talk) 01:11, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

it makes no sense that the chinese concept has no article but the roman one does 142.120.132.255 (talk) 08:12, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

An early usage
According to City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City, page 63, Sir Claude McDonald said the following in early 1898:
 * "...saving 'face', a very important consideration with Chinese..."

He seemed to be speculating on a possible reason for the Chinese wanting to retain jurisdiction in Kowloon Walled City. Not sure if this is an early enough usage to be included, but there it is if someone more knowledgeable about this subject feels it's notable. — tk tk  tk  00:16, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

This article should not be merged with any other topics, as it is a very important and distinct concept in contemporary Western psychology, as well as an old and well-established figure of speech in the English language with potential contexts and inferences that are different from its origins within the Chinese language. This article should instead be expanded to include its detailed history and origins, including the non-English equivalents and predecessors of the term, and provide links to related articles that are separate from the general subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cerauno (talk • contribs) 06:05, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

"Face" as a Game of Courtship
Courtship is a Game of Emotional Enhancement between Males and Females in non-Christian Semetic and Aryan societies.

For males, the ultimate objective is to win the hand of his chosen female so that he may obtain the rights to her earth chakra energies. For females, the ultimate objective is to receive as many emotional enhancements as possible from the male before accepting his offer. The more enhancements received, the more bonds are created between the male and the female.

The game, at its most base level, is played with earth chakra energies only.

The game at its most sophisticated is when complex chakra emotions and intellectual energies are engaged.

The game intensifies if the male's offers of admiration are accepted by slow degrees. This stimulates even more male energies and the game spirals upwards with increasingly sophisticated exchanges of energies between the two participants.

As this sophisticated game of enhancement progresses, the female receives many emotions of admiration for her feminine attributes of physical beauty, earth chakra energy, Isha qualities and intellectual capabilities. The male receives many emotions of admiration for his masculine attributes of strength, successfulness, skill in stimulating the female's emotions, oratorical eloquence, and intellectual capabilities. Both participants greatly increase each other's "Face", or sense of self-worth by these exchange of admiration.

The ultimate short-range goal of this sophisticated version of is to stimulate as many earth, sacral, heart and intellectual energies as possible before the female finally accepts the male's offer.

The ultimate long-range goal is to develop as many complex bonds as possible of mutual admiration, love and respect before the female gives her hand in acceptance.

The various levels played, from simple to sophisticated, are contingent upon the type of each individual's Energy as qualified by the earliest forms of social rank or caste. The game is at its most successful when the rankings are equal, and is impossible to play if the energies are too diverse in nature or quality.

Isobel Chaveh (talk • contribs) 21:00, 25 October 2016 (UTC)


 * What you just said, is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point, in your rambling, incoherent response, were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought.  Everyone in this room is now dumber, for having listened to it.  I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
 * Mercster (talk) 02:00, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

This makes no sense whatsoever. Could you provide some justification and documentation for such broad sweeping statements, encompassing the supposed contexts motives and functions of courtship behavior in a broad variety of cultures, many of which do not even have the concept or category of "chakras" as part of their cultural or religio-spiritual belief systems? What you wrote smacks of Woo, and projection of very particular assumptions on other quite unique cultures. Which in turn smakcs of privilege and intellectual arrogance. 208.65.192.1 (talk) 18:04, 18 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Smacks of complete bollocks, in fact.
 * Nuttyskin (talk) 03:31, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

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Rewriting "Facework" section?
I was going to edit this section for wording, punctuation, and grammar, but I found that I couldn't understand half of it. I checked its main cited source for clarification, only to discover that almost all of it is lifted from said source. It looks like whoever pasted it over tried to reword the passage they sourced and gave up halfway. This might also be the case for other sections of the article, if the same contributor tried their hand at a section other than just this one.

I don't know nearly enough about facework to competently rewrite this section, but it'd be great if another capable contributor could pick this up. Unslept em (talk) 09:35, 31 December 2023 (UTC)