The
other week my one Greek student was going in to work in the morning on the subway, and this
one guy in sloppy clothes holding a garment bag got a cell call and began
speaking loudly on the phone and was like, “What?! You mean the meeting’s
happening earlier?”.
Then, as soon as he got off the phone, he started opening
the garment bag to get his dress shirt out, then he began taking off his shirt and put on his dress shirt and laced up his tie.
As soon as he was going to go unzip his pants, though, this guy
standing next to him pulls out a badge and is like, “Stop! I work with the transit authority.”
At
that point, the guy breaks character and said he was doing a sociological experiment, and this girl
a few seats down stood up and said she had been taking notes as part of a group
project for class, to see how people reacted when group norms were violated.
After
those two got off the train, my one Greek student talked with the transit cop,
and it turns out that he wasn’t involved with the experiment, he was just going to a dentist’s
appointment and happened to be there and have his badge on him.
“You
know,” my one Greek student was like, “I don’t think it’s about group norms so
much, it’s about how much you’re worried that someone who’s doing something
crazy could do something crazy to you if you try to intervene.”
He
then told me about this (young) (black) guy who looked like he was on
drugs who once came on the train with a boombox turned on full blast, and he kept
looking around like he wanted someone to ask him to go turn it down so he could go off on them.
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