Urban privacy is secured by erasing visible individuality from one’s body

Evidence

Keep one’s facial expression impassive. Look neither happy nor sad, angry nor peaceful. A void laughter and tears (unless called for by the setting, as in a movje theater). Singing or talking to oneself is taboo. This impassivity should also be expressed in one’s dress, which should not stand out as odd or different vis-a-vis the dress of others in the setting. If one is with one or two other persons, conversation should be conducted in a quiet tone, kept, if possible, inaudible to strange others in the setting. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 898

Categorization

• XREF: Directly feeds the reader’s core thesis: collective rules of civil inattention erode individuality, connecting to Simmel’s blasé attitude and Lofland more broadly.