Appearance no longer reliably signals identity in the modern city

Evidence

These little appearential portraits were developed by two sociologists in a study of Alcoholics Anonymous, as a means of “standardizing” observer judgments of participants’ class standing. The very fact that they felt it necessary to codify in order to standardize suggests something about the less than clear-cut character of appearance as an identity indicator in the modern city. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 480

These little appearential portraits were developed by two sociologists in a study of Alcoholics Anonymous, as a means of “standardizing” observer judgments of participants’ class standing. The very fact that they felt it necessary to codify in order to standardize suggests something about the less than clear-cut character of appearance as an identity indicator in the modern city. I suspect that in the preindustrial city, an intelligent and knowledgeable observer would no more have required codification of class indicators than a contemporary adult requires written instructions to distinguish between a Volkswagen and a Cadillac. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 480

Categorization

• XREF: Directly continues the reader’s cross-reading project: this corroborates Lofland’s core thesis about how urbanites categorize strangers, feeding the Simmel/Lofland/Cole synthesis on the limits of inferred identity from appearance.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 480