Your translation is quite right. Indeed I think Goffman would have had something to say on the incident. What basically happened was that some people broke the unwritten rules of the interaction order.

Without realizing it, we’re always skating on thin ice in everyday life as we adhere to social norms that we take as given. Now when somebody comes and brakes those norms in whatever way (which hardly evver happens), we are suddenly confronted with something we didn’t expect.

Dancing in the Jefferson memorial is completely harmless and doesn’t hurt anyone. Yet the reaction of the security personnel is excessive. This wonderfully illustrates how strong some people feel about norms, normality and everyday routine and what kind of consequences we can suffer when we try to break out – even with completely harmless activities.

I think that is what Goffman would have had to say. It’s a bit like one of those crisis experiments he so loved.

What’s wrong with David Hasselhof, by the way? He single-handedly brought down the Berlin Wall, so Germans really have something to thank him for.

atb, Martin