ABSTRACT
Recently, when on a lecturing tour to Copenhagen, I came across a sign on the sliding doors of the underground trains stating to passengers: “Show consideration-it’s contagious”. Apart from providing a general guideline as to how passengers leaving and entering public transport are expected to behave in order to secure the smooth and effective fl ow of thousands of people in and out of train carriages, the message also contained a more metaphysical and perhaps even moral dimension-that what takes place in one concrete encounter or social situation may, like the idea of ever-widening circles or a butterfl y effect, spill over into the next and the next and so on. Perhaps this speculative insight gained from a snapshot story may not in general claim to shake or shatter our ingrained and common sense understandings of the normal functioning of society as such; however, when read through the lens of Erving Goffman’s original sociology, and especially through his ritual metaphor of everyday life encounters, it provides a substantial and powerful example of the principles of civility, consideration and courtesy underpinning the construction and maintenance of micro-level social order and of the foundations for recognising others in everyday life.
