A book that would be read by many more people if it were renamed 'Muggle Studies.' Well worth the time.

This predates Google Plus's "Circles" by years. The public and private spheres are intersecting. So, how to behave in public spaces? Behave well. Rules to live by.

انتهت رحلتي الشّاقة في الترجمة التي امتدت لسنة،
والنسخة العربية قريبًا إن شاء الله.

I bought this book many years ago, when I had the idea of writing a dissertation about live music in the New York City subway. My idea was to interview the musicians, understand how they came to be subway performers, analyze their thoughts on what must be a difficult job. At the same time, I would study how passersby interact with—or pointedly ignore—the entertainers, and try to get a general sense of what role live music plays in the ecosystem of the underground. Then, to complete the picture, I would interview passengers who normally listen to music through headphones on the commute, in order to illustrate the difference between private and public music consumption.
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In retrospect, this idea was probably both too broad and too vague to actually work as a serious study. Even so, as somebody who grew up in the suburbs, I found the ritual of the subway rather fascinating. In such a seemingly chaotic and hectic space, I sensed unspoken rules of etiquette—rules which, it is true, are constantly bended and broken, but which nevertheless serve to make the subway a safe and reliable place (well, at least most of the time). Being constantly and intimately thrown together with strangers is an experience fundamental to city life—arguably the defining difference between urban and rural—so it seemed worthwhile to come to grips with how it actually plays out.
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Alas, my study will never be realized. But I can console myself that Erving Goffman did wonderful work in this vein many years ago, and it has largely stood the test of time. Goffman was one of the most influential sociologists of the previous century, but his books read like the work of a frustrated novelist rather than a serious academic. He uses a minimum of jargon and is more likely to cite a memoir or a play than he is a fellow academic. In addition to being an eclectic reader, Goffman must have been a supremely observant man, as he had an uncanny ability to home in on the often-overlooked aspects of social life and to draw intelligent conclusions from them. His writing sticks with the everyday in the way a short story might.
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In this book, Goffman is concerned with illustrating the rules that govern social life in public places (such as a subway!). These will be obvious to virtually everyone, though they are not normally spelled out so explicitly. For example, Goffman devotes much time in analyzing what he calls “civil inattention,” which is the unspoken rule that one must not seem to be scrutinizing, eavesdropping, or intently observing another person in a public place. This is “inattention,” but it is also “civil,” because one must do this without seeming to pointedly ignore them, or to act as if there were really nobody else present (such as those who, say, clip their toenails on the subway, which is certainly “uncivil inattention”).
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The subject matter of this book strongly overlaps with what can be termed “politeness,” and indeed Goffman often cites etiquette manuals as illustrations of his wider points. This is one of the ways in which the book is most dated, as the world has become far less formal in the intervening decades. (It was apparently considered rude for a man to appear at a gathering with two days’ worth of stubble on his chin.)
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This ties in with another major theme in the book: the relationship between behavioral norms and insanity. Goffman did field work in the psych ward of a hospital, and according to him it was characteristic of the inmates to either be unable, or unwilling, to comply with these norms. The latter case is the more interesting, and Goffman gives examples of patients who act “crazy” seemingly in order to spite the rules of the institution, and not due to any lack of self-control. More generally, the existence of social norms gives people the option of intentionally breaking them in order to make a point (the essence of counterculture, you might say).
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As a corollary point, the decline of formal manners and stringent rules of etiquette allows for a sort of anonymity that was not possible before, as dressing in ripped clothes or having a long, scraggly beard do not necessarily indicate anything about your economic class or, indeed, your sanity. However, despite the chaos of the NYC Subway, I think the loosening of manners is more apparent than actual, and there is still a broad—if vague—consensus about what is considered appropriate or inappropriate, normal or abnormal, polite or rude, acceptable or unacceptable in public places. Thus, I found Goffman’s analysis still fit my own experiences rather well.
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Admittedly, this book is open to the criticism that it is merely a compilation of things which, though not always articulated, are already known by most everyone. Goffman also develops his analysis without taking much regard for differences in economic status, sex, race, etc., which I think deprives it of some richness. But I still found the book rather pleasant. So much of life (at least, my life) consists of wondering what the right way to behave is, wondering whether or not we should say something, do something, be offended by something—whether we should smile, or wave, or look the other way—and yet, most of us successfully navigate this minefield. It is something so basic it escapes notice by academic and laypeople alike, but it is the stuff of daily life and worthy of attention.