Pioneering sociologist Erving Goffman saw magic in the mundane | Aeon Essays

is a lecturer in ethics at King’s College London. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Moral Philosophy and the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, among others. Edited byNigel Warburton Think back to the last time you fell over in a public place. What did you do next? Perhaps you immediately righted yourself and carried on exactly as before. I bet you didn’t, though. I bet you first stole a furtive glance at your surroundings to see if there were witnesses. If there were, then you may well have bent over and inspected the ground as if to figure out why you tripped, even if you already knew why. Or maybe you smiled or laughed to yourself or uttered a word like ‘Oops!’ or ‘Damn’. At the very least, I bet your heart rate increased. These behaviours seem irrational. If you were uninjured, why do anything at all after the stumble? For some reason, such public mishaps – stumbling, knocking something over, spilling something, pushing a ‘pull’ door, realising you’ve gone the wrong way and

is a lecturer in ethics at King’s College London. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Moral Philosophy and the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, among others. Edited byNigel Warburton Think back to the last time you fell over in a public place. What did you do next? Perhaps you immediately righted yourself and carried on exactly as before. I bet you didn’t, though. I bet you first stole a furtive glance at your surroundings to see if there were witnesses. If there were, then you may well have bent over and inspected the ground as if to figure out why you tripped, even if you already knew