Today was my first slow walk (another type of experiment, similar to the soloing, that I am going to start). Basically, I just walked from one location to another really slowly. We did some slow moving type activities last quarter, but we did out of the ordinary actions (like pretending to race really slowly) while today I engaged in everyday actions, with one simple difference: speed.
So, I went to Brenen's (a nearby cafe), and walked from the entrance to the counter. Early on in my journey, the girl behind the counter told me that I "was creeping her out. But I don't know if that is the point." I ignored the comment as I slowly walked while unzipping my jacket. Then, as I walked I saw a very tall bald man look at me from behind the counter as well (I believe he is a manger of the cafe) and I could tell he wasn't really feelin' it. I heard him say something about what I was doing being borderline somethin' somethin', but couldn't decipher what he was saying.
When I actually got up to the counter and he addressed me "Can I help you?" I turned my head slowly to look him straight in the eyes to which he replied "I consider this loitering and I'm going to have to ask you to leave." I stared for a second longer..."Can I have a bagel with peanut butter?"
This moment is where I find the most interest. It was one of the most intense moments of needed control. Control as far as fighting the fear of a much taller man, a manger for a cafe, and the fear of going against everything in my head telling me to not go against the social norms put in place for when someone asks a question; especially when staring that person straight in the eye. There were ways that I slightly gave into these pressures - not taking as long to look him in the eye, being slightly more compliant after asking for a bagel than I may usually be (not specifically asking for an 'everything' bagel). However, I could while I did feel the pressure, and did give in slightly, I also pushed beyond these moments, ignoring those pressures in many other ways. Rejecting them. Taking control of the helm instead of letting myself be guided (hijacked?) by my socially-conscious self.
He was so angry with me, furious even. Why did he have such a violent reaction to a fairly innocent act? This I do not know. What societal norm was I going against to even provoke such a rise in him? This I also don't know. The only thing I really know is that there are societal norms in all societies, and when individuals go against those norms, it can cause uproars of varying levels - often quite negative for some reason. I know this happens, and I know most individuals in these societies are afraid of (don't want to experience) the consequences involved when being "anti-norm."
The consequences in this case were not being able to stay in the location I was in, and not being able to get a bagel, which I was quite looking forward to.
While these are perfectly nasty consequences, I could have easily gotten a bagel from a different place, not even a block away. What I think was the worst consequence in my mind, what I was most afraid of, was that of getting publicly humiliated. If I had not complied with his look of "get your act together and act like you're supposed to" he would have broadcast to everyone in that cafe that I was a non-compliant member of this society. Nothing more than that. A bunch of people I never met before, and probably would never see again. It was their opinion that caused me to feel - quite honestly - a bit of terror.
It troubles me how important that was.
You should put "psychology" as a tag. So he didn't let you have your bagel?! Even though you were going to pay for it? LAME.
ReplyDeleteHaha, no, he let me have my bagel. He almost didn't though.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if he would have considered it "loitering" if you were walking slowly because you were on crutches, or otherwise disabled.
ReplyDeleteOh I'm glad you got your bagel. I was worried, picturing you wandering around, slowly, hungry.
ReplyDeleteProbably not - that would be discrimination of the illegal sort.
So this was many months ago, I realize, and while I remember reading this when you first posted it, I now have all kinds of newer ideas, informed not only by my experience dancing with you all on Friday, but also the slow walk in Maree's rehearsal, and readings I've done for Norah's "Theories of the Body" course (Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Marcel Mauss, etc.). I'm thinking something like an awareness of the intense socialization/culturation process that our bodies go through not only through our childhoods, but through the constant policing throughout our daily lives. The codes of physical decorum, especially in public, are extremely narrow, they are gendered/part of the way that gender is established, they are the mark of functional society for many, and perhaps most of all they are a knowledge that lives within our bodies. The structures for (public) physical conduct are rarely written down and they are rarely even spoken of, but we feel them. We feel when we step outside of those strictures (I daresay that I suspect it goes deeper than simply being aware of being watched; I think our bodies know and register our transgressions. I think this kinesthetic feedback softens over time, with any kind of consistent transgression of "the rules"). Equally, we not only see when someone else transgresses those strictures; we feel it, we feel the uneasiness of people on the bus or on the sidewalk walking or standing in a way that doesn't "feel right;" at a dance concert or a movie, we can be hyper-aware of people "breaking the rules" of "etiquette;" we feel the uneasiness of the transgression because the codes that are being broken live and are reiterated in/as our bodies. My suspicion is that because of this there can also be a kind of sympathetic sense of liberation through your (someone else's) transgression. But more often, and I think this pertains to this situation at Brenan's, it feels like a personal/physical offense. Because the rules no longer live apart from the bodies that enact them; the rules are the bodies and their reiterative behaviors. In that sense, any transgression, likely to various degrees of intensity, will register as an offense, a threat, especially for someone who has given no conscious thought to the physical codes of conduct in our culture, let alone the reformulation of those codes.
ReplyDeleteSo what I think I'm saying is that your slow walk likely registered to this man as a bodily threat, on some level (not to mention the fact that he was in management, his sense of responsibility extends out into the functioning of the space, etc.).
Then there is the question of the policing/self-policing of these codes of conduct. This is the shame reflex, but I think there's a lot more to be said about that. Judith Butler has written about the threat of unintelligibility, the threat of unthinkability, thus non-existence in transgression. We follow the rules under the threat of duress, and when we break them, we feel the repercussions of those transgressions.
I don't know if you have any deep interest in these aspects of what you're doing in this project, but these are the aspects I find most interesting.
Just some thoughts I felt like sharing as I catch up with my own blogging.
-M
apparently I am not notified when people post on here. Pretty lame.
ReplyDeletehaha, that would have been horrible. such a sad life without bagels.
yeah, I think if that would be pretty discriminatory if he did that.
When you say that we have physical reactions to others actions, following or transgressing against physical etiquette, what exactly are you referring to? Especially when you talk about how we "feel" like something is not quite right, are you speaking on a mental level in response to the physical action, or a kinesthetic response? If the latter, how are you thinking that manifests? I've heard so much about that class, and the talk about how things manifest in a kinesthetic way, but haven't gotten very many examples.
That's all very much interwoven with the project - a massive part in fact. I'm definitely interested in anything related to social constructs of what's allowed, what isn't, where/why those rules incubate, who perpetuates them, and in what way.
Brief reply. By which I mean, I'll try to be brief.
ReplyDeleteI think that upon closer examination, we find that the mental, the physical, the kinesthetic, the social, etc. are all aspects of an integrated system. There's been amazing research about how emotional and physical responses interconnect, the most revelatory being that that situations provoke a physical response, and it is by this that what call emotion is produced and recognized. The most cited example (first written about by psychologist William James, who was also an early theorist deconstructing the body/mind dualism of Descartes) is coming upon a bear in the woods: the body reacts in direct response to perceptual stimuli, and emotional response is secondary to the physical encounter. Similarly, it is through our bodies that we are educated on how to behave within our society. My speculation is that because of this bodily familiarity with "the rules," the transgression of the rules registers first bodily (which, while situated sequentially, is still not separable from emotional or mental processes; they are all interdependent). It is a physical discomfort, perhaps even a projected empathetic discomfort. An example I can think of at the moment is something like the discomfort that we experience as children when we've broken a rule and we get caught, that deep physical anxiety . . . and how maybe that same or similar response was provoked when your best friend got caught breaking a rule. First, we know what it feels like to step outside of social etiquette, either the rush or anxiety or whatever we experience in that situation. Secondarily, when we witness someone else transgressing that etiquette, it call to mind/body that sensation that we know from our own experience and discipline in those systems of rules.
Best I can do after a long day. But I hope it helps. I think maybe the biggest thing is exploring/recognizing that there are not discrete mental/physical/emotional states, but that these are all definitive of one another. If you're looking for more reading this summer, Mark Johnson's "The Meaning of the Body" is great for that project (of looking at the embodied nature of meaning and the mind).
Hope that helps.
Thanks for letting me be part of this dialogue.
-M