Word: goffman
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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...
Transgressing the Order. "More than to any family or club," writes Goffman in his book Behavior in Public Places, "more than to any class or sex, more than to any nation, the individual belongs to gatherings, and he had best show that he is a member in good standing. Just as we fill our jails with those who transgress the legal order, so we partly fill our asylums with those who act unsuitably-the first kind of institution being used to protect our lives and property; the second, to protect our gatherings and occasions...
...Goffman has developed this proposition in six books.* They have cemented his reputation as one of the most illuminating-and disturbing-cartographers of that shadowy terrain where man plays at being a social animal without fully understanding exactly what he is doing. Some sense of the disquieting Goffman perspective can be gained from his elliptical revisions of prevailing human values, which are sown Like land mines through his books. Social man is not an entity but "a dramatic effect"; all social encounters are theatrical performances. In a marriage proposal, the suitor, who may think that he is swearing his love...
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...