Form of Life a public ethics instrument
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The Eighteen Convergent Patterns

15. Refusal to be the conversational centre, even where the medium invites it

He directs attention away from himself even in structures that would ordinarily direct it toward him. The refusal is of the position, not of the attention: the medium's invitation is declined rather than unnoticed.

The relational particulars through which this pattern first became visible remain private. This page stays with the form of the pattern and the interpretations it opens.

Read through the lenses

Ethical

Levinas’s other-priority structure.

Levinas

Why this lens appears here

Levinas · Care-ethics · Hyde · Murdoch

Sociological

Bourdieu’s refusal of dominance-display.

Bourdieu

Why this lens appears here

Goffman · Bourdieu · Giddens · Hochschild

Performative-dramaturgical

Counter-performance against ego-centering default.

Why this lens appears here

Schechner · Phelan · Carlson · Goffman

Discourse-analytic

Turn-yielding and floor-management.

Why this lens appears here

Halliday · Fairclough · Wodak