Knowing a place’s codes does not guarantee one can operate within them

Evidence

The trick in using one’s know-how regarding locational meanings as a guide to movement in the modern city involves the capacity to gauge one’s own presentational and interactional abilities. Of course, if what I know leads me to avoid a location, there’s no problem. Nothing ventured, nothing lost. But if I am actually considering going somewhere, knowing what to expect will not necessarily tell me whether I can operate in the setting as well as I might wish. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 625

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is the psychic crack where civil inattention fails and the observer becomes unmooored — worth pressing on how Lofland’s competence model meets the unreliable witness.
• XREF: connects to: Civil codes promulgated as exclusive sources still cannot anticipate all disputes — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 4638