Silent Knowledge
by
Charles Lamson
Self-regulation requires being equipped with knowledge of how to interact with others in various situations. This knowledge is usually unspoken; it is a matter of knowing how to do something without necessarily being able to explain it. We rely on a great deal of this kind of silent knowledge to get through everyday life.
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For example, you probably know how to go into a store, find the best deal on tofu and eggplant, make your purchase and leave. You probably also know how to line up to buy tickets, how to behave at a funeral, how to make small talk at parties, how to dress yourself in the morning, how to behave on a first date, how to deal with your boss, how to ask for and give directions, how to blow your nose in public, and so on. These might seem like simple acts but that is only because we forgot how much knowledge they require.
Imagine programming a robot to mail a letter. At first, it might seem only two instructions are needed: "Put stamp on envelope. Put envelope in mailbox." But robots are stupid, so you would have to provide more explicit instructions. You would have to say what a stamp is, how to choose the right kind of stamp, what an envelope is, where to put a stamp on an envelope, what a mailbox is, where to find one, how to put an envelope in it, and so on. Your robot would need to know all this.
Eventually, your list of instructions might run to hundreds, perhaps thousands of lines. Even more amazing than the effort it would take to program a robot to do a job as "simple" as mailing a letter, is the fact that you have all this knowledge in your head already. Imagine someone trying to program a robot to do all the things you know how to do. It is unlikely that all that knowledge - billions of lines of instructions? - could be put into a form any less complex than the brain itself.
As one more example of silent knowledge, think of what you must know to be able to speak a sentence in the English language. Can you explain how to do it. how to get all the right words in the right order so that a coherent sentence comes out of your mouth? Probably not. But still you know how. Somehow.
Knowing how to interact with others is much the same. Just as we need to know the rules of`English to formulate proper sentences, we need to know the rules of social life to be able to fit our actions together into coherent wholes.
Some of the rules we need to know are normative such as, "Do not treat other human beings as objects," or, "Always respect other people's feelings." These rules tell us what is right, and what is wrong, and how to make situations unfold in the ways we want them to.
If everyone knows the same procedural rules, we can smoothly go about our business of buying eggplant and tofu, lining up for tickets, driving in traffic, having conversations, falling in love, running universities, and so on. Each of us will have a rough idea of how to proceed when we try to do things together. Once we are equipped with the procedural rules needed to handle routine situations, we can carry on our lives without having to call home for instruction. In other words, we become self-regulating.
These rules do not control us from the inside. Rather, they are resources we use to get things done with other people. Sometimes we get things done by breaking a rule.
Suppose, for example, a rule says, "Do not stare at people." when walking down a busy street you use this rule to avoid attracting the attention of strangers. you hope that if you avoid eye contact strangers will not feel invited to annoy you under other conditions perhaps someone invades your space on the bus - you might reak the rule against staring so as to say "please get away from me" in this case you stare as a way to send a message. this works because people know the rule against staring and know that breaking it is meaningful.
*SOURCE:THE SOCIOLOGICALLY EXAMINED LIFE, 2NDEDITION, 2001,, MICHAEL SCHWALBE, PGS. 67-6*
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