SOCI 2150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Anomie, Dog Park, Murder Of Kitty Genovese

Normative shells, actors (co-presents) fill in blanks. How we see ourselves and how we see the others around us and how we fill in the blanks about what we have to do: cooperative movement. Normative preferences example: around, not through, groups of people. If you do, you say excuse me, and/or make yourself small. Going through requires special script , extra effort: around objects, through groups of objects, almost never go over, if you can avoid it, civil inattention. Mutual noticing among co-presents essential: sitting on the bus staring and noticing someone is kind of looking past you but not directly at you. This is civil inattention: yet, there are normative constraints on mutual noticing (not disattention; simply normative disinterest) If anormative, arouses special curiosity, intent (looking, glancing versus leering) Practiced in every public realm: on buses; in restaurants, bars; sidewalks, physician, dentist office; hospital waiting room.