Itinerantdaughter's Blog

From a book I love, by Erving Goffman:

“Also, it seems possible for an individual to fail to live up to what we effectively demand of him, and yet be relatively untouched by this failure; insulated by his alienation, protected by identity beliefs of his own, he feels that he is a full-fledged normal human being, and that we are the ones who are not quite human. He bears a stigma but does not seem to be impressed or repentant about doing so. This possibility is celebrated in exemplary tales about Mennonites, Gypsies, shameless scoundrels, and very Orthodox Jews.”

I think “shameless scoundrels” is my favorite.

This entry was posted on December 19, 2022 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Jesting, Infinitely. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.