Rules are rules.

I tried, I really did. I thought I would be able to crack the codes of Garfinkel’s breaching experiments – surely the theory of a highly accredited and esteemed sociologist can’t be true? Humans aren’t that predictable! Are we? Turns out we are.  After entering a game of naughts and crosses with my brother, who happens to be a very competitive and serious player (expect him at the next world championships), I pulled out some trickster moves by moving his pieces so I could win. Needless to say, I don’t think I will be playing that game with him any time soon. After screams of frustration and yelling, “Can you just be serious for once!”, I explained to him that he was indeed a hamster in my experiment. Ruddigah* would hence be in the 95% of subjects who objected to or demanded an explanation in Garfinkel’s experiments.

I think in a sense Garfinkel and Goffman work hand in hand, in that we live our everyday lives by social scripts but when one deviates from the ‘norm’, then things start to get a bit weird, awkward and potentially all hell breaks lose. We have social rules, just like rules to a simple game, which are so ingrained in us that instructions are rarely needed. Ultimately, when we don’t play the social life game according to the rules or attempt to change the rules, we are classified as deviant and basically weird.  

I think that these experiments prove and reveal “how deeply rooted these tacit common assumptions are” (Flam 2005, p58). Yet, I think that Flam does raise an interesting point: to assume every individual interprets a sociological image or text in a certain way is too simplistic (Flam 2005, p66). Although there can be a preferred or majority reading by the audience, it depends on the meaning the responder has constructed and attributes to the particular situation. What if my brother wasn’t a serious naughts and crosses expert? What if the game was suddenly life threatening – you win you live, you lose you die? What if he didn’t originally know the rules? All these are contributing factors to how he reacted when I changed a cross into a naught.

Who would have thought a game of naughts and crosses and a slight look into our reactions to weird things would end in such a thought-provoking week of sociology.

*Name has been changed due to humiliation (I think the name Ruddigah is enough satisfaction for me)

Heritage, J 1984, ‘The morality of cognition’, in Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology, Polity Press, Cambridge, pp57-102.

Flam H, & King, D (ed.) 2005, Emotions and social Movements, MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin.