Word: goffman
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Behavior staff will be writing about almost everything that falls beneath that broad heading, from hippies' communes to animal studies that shed light on man's actions, from ESP to minorities and prejudice. As the major story in the first section, the editors present Sociologist Erving Goffman and his studies of the rules underlying behavior at the impromptu social events that he calls "gatherings." The story was written by Associate Editor John Koffend and edited by Senior Editor John T. Elson, both of whom this week launch a section that TIME intends to use in the months ahead...
None may be more important to life than the type of event that Sociologist Erving Goffman calls "gatherings." These human groupings are often so fleeting and informal as to be unrecognizable as social functions-a ride in an elevator, two strangers passing on the street. They also include such emphatic events as the cocktail party. No less than the state and the family, the gathering has its own rules and laws. It is Goffman's contention that without the implicit obedience that these laws of behavior systematically command, the grander and more visible forms of human association would probably...
These students made friends with other patients and participated in the hospital's social life. They became part of the community that Erving Goffman describes in his book Asylums. One student still tells anecdotes about the people he met. Another said, "You could have great times there. People sat around reading I Never Promised You a Rose Garden and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. There were some great tall-tale tellers...
Perhaps the most persuasive theory is advanced by Sociologist Erving Goffman, who worked for a year in Las Vegas as a dealer. He describes gambling as a "meaning machine that grinds out random decisions very rapidly. Betting on the outcome transfers mere random decisions into fateful ones. This provides an essentially meaningless but exciting situation that allows people to read into the action whatever fantasies they want, to groove, to go crazy in an intensely personal way." In other words, gambling becomes life itself, made into whatever one wants...