This book was written in the 60's, and appears to me as California-centric, written at Berkeley, and between the Universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania. The author, Ervin Goffman, spent a lot of time in mental institutions, observing the residents there.
Partially related image credit: Perseverance on Mars - 2021
He wrote lots of books, and this isn't the most popular. I'm not sure how I came to it. It's supposed to be about deviance, but really it's everyday social interactions, broken down to a level of analysis and explanation that will make you feel like the alien, looking back at yourself.
I read the whole thing sitting outside a cafe, across from a public park, watching in real time as the hypotheses in the book were being confirmed over and over.
Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings
Ervin Goffman, The Free Press, New York, 1963.
- On Co-Working Spaces and Assigning Non-Person Status - involvement shield, darkness for sex, for darkness can allow participants to enjoy some of the liberty of not being in a situation at all...Thus the sharing of an office with another often means a limit on work, because extreme concentration and immersion in a task will become an improper handling of oneself in the situation. Some coworkers apparently resolve the issue by gradually according each other the status of nonperson, thus allowing a relaxation of situational properties and an increase in situated concentration. This may even be carried to the point where one individual allows himself half-audible "progress grunts" such as "What do you know!" "Hm hm," "Let's see," without excusing himself to his coworker. -Edgar Schein has suggested that if an individual feels obliged to affect deep immersion in some focus of attention, he may of course affect these expressions. (p62-63)
- On Women in the Factory (and Masturbating with the Sewing Machine) - "a suffocated cry, followed by a long sigh, was lost in the noise of the work room." The foreman advised her to "sit fully on her chair, and not on its edge." As I was leaving I heard another machine at another part of the room in accelerated movement. The foreman smiled at me and remarked that this was so frequent that it attracted no notice. (p68) -Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Random House, 1936; -L'Onanisme chez la Femme, Pouillet, Paris, 1880
- On Social Clothing: A class of auto-involvements, "creature releases," fleeing acts that slip through the individual's self control and momentarily assert their "animal nature." They appear to provide a brief release from the tension experienced by the individual in keeping himself steadily and entirely draped in social clothing -- momentary capitulations to the itches that plague a performer who does not want to sneeze in his role. (p87ish)
- On Civil Attention (and Social Clothing) - for example, it's bad form for a newly married couple when going to a party to enter the room together. Someone else should take her in. ... On all occasions appearing in public, the pair should not be exactly together. The recognition of that relation should as much as possible be confined to the fireside. It is not pleasant to see persons thrusting their mutual devotedness into the eye of society. (p169)
- On Handshakes (and Avoiding Situational Impropriety) - for example, should long separated friends meet [at a funeral] it would be difficult for them to do justice to their relationship without committing a situational impropriety. ... Apparently the very warm handshake provides a solution to this problem, allowing a strict situational solemnity to be maintained in appearance, while in fact a shielded involvement is occurring whose depth and alienation from the occasion can be sensed only by the two participants.
- On the Transcending of the Workplace via Clothing in Blue Collar vs White Collar Workers: Tightness, looseness, and social rigidity...fitting into social gatherings, alienation...In this context it is worth considering the relation of work and clothing to the problem of fitting into gatherings. Some clothing, like that worn by deep-sea divers or firemen, is inextricably geared to the task at hand. These personal fronts can hardly serve in nonoccupational situations nor can the possessor, unless he changes clothes. Even during the coffee break, we will be showing a certain kind of devotion to the job. In the case of white collar tasks however, work clothes transcend the workplace and enable the worker to merge into gatherings occurring off the job. Correspondingly, when he is on the job, there will be part of himself that he need not submerge into the work, and this in fact provides him with one basis for self possession and dignity. Those who must wear a uniform at work, and who cannot leave it in the locker room when they leave the premises, are likely to feel that they are under special constraint to give much of themselves to work and to carry this contribution to any nonwork situation in which they happen to find themselves. (p205)
- On Pajamas in Class vs Pajamas in Finals: A male college student who enters the classroom in need of a shave and in trunks, or a female who enters with her hair in curlers, is nakedly showing lack of attachment to the behavior setting; but when an exam is being held, and all students in the exam hall are engrossed quite deeply in school work, having studied devotedly for the previous two weeks, then there is already sufficient sign of involvement in schooling, and thus the informalities of appearance I have mentioned may well be permitted, no longer being symbols of alienation. ... The lawyer dressed with no jacket is disoriented, but on the weekend, "his mere presence in the office at an off hour is sign enough of regard for the work world." (p213)
- Drunk, Bums and Ambulatory Psychotics: Parks may maximize the acceptability of nefarious acts, minimizing the price of being caught. (p215)
- On the Implication of a Beard: And the status symbolism of personal front, Church of England's clergymen wearing laymen's clothing only while playing lawn-tennis, ... individual insignias such as uniforms in erupting social movements meant to proclaim distance from the ordinary course of social life, in sailors who use tattoos to express solidarity to each other and separation from land society, "Something of the same effect is obtained by college students and beatniks (and their fellow-travellers) who express distance from the employed adult population by a full beard, or a two-day growth, and by bedraggled clothes (p222) -The Holy Barbarians, L Lipton, Messner New York, 1959
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