Misery and Company: Sympathy in Everyday LifeIn a kind of social tour of sympathy, Candace Clark reveals that the emotional experience we call sympathy has a history, logic, and life of its own. Although sympathy may seem to be a natural, reflexive reaction, people are not born knowing when, for whom, and in what circumstances sympathy is appropriate. Rather, they learn elaborate, highly specific rules—different rules for men than for women—that guide when to feel or display sympathy, when to claim it, and how to accept it. Using extensive interviews, cultural artifacts, and "intensive eavesdropping" in public places, such as hospitals and funeral parlors, as well as analyzing charity appeals, blues lyrics, greeting cards, novels, and media reports, Clark shows that we learn culturally prescribed rules that govern our expression of sympathy. "Clark's . . . research methods [are] inventive and her glimpses of U.S. life revealing. . . . And you have to love a social scientist so respectful of Miss Manners."—Clifford Orwin, Toronto Globe and Mail "Clark offers a thought-provoking and quite interesting etiquette of sympathy according to which we ought to act in order to preserve the sympathy credits we can call on in time of need."—Virginia Quarterly Review |
From inside the book
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Page x
... someone is hospitalized but also during other events that disrupt or upset the smooth flow of everyday life . Death , unemployment , natural disaster , divorce , un- just treatment — all are reasons for onlookers to feel sympathy and to ...
... someone is hospitalized but also during other events that disrupt or upset the smooth flow of everyday life . Death , unemployment , natural disaster , divorce , un- just treatment — all are reasons for onlookers to feel sympathy and to ...
Page 9
... someone refuses to give sympathy or to receive it ? I found few people had thought or talked much about what sympathy is or how it works , but everyone had experienced it . Among the Ik , no family members , including children ...
... someone refuses to give sympathy or to receive it ? I found few people had thought or talked much about what sympathy is or how it works , but everyone had experienced it . Among the Ik , no family members , including children ...
Page 11
... someone's problems , but I have to do it . A friend has to do it . " Another interviewee I will call " Jim Mulcahy , " a middle- aged married Irish American man employed as an executive for an interna- tional textile manufacturer ...
... someone's problems , but I have to do it . A friend has to do it . " Another interviewee I will call " Jim Mulcahy , " a middle- aged married Irish American man employed as an executive for an interna- tional textile manufacturer ...
Page 12
... someone who's strung out on drugs , I feel sorry for them . I hear about the poor , I feel sorry for them . People who have AIDS . Every day I feel sympathy " ( interview ) . " Rebecca Jones , " a divorced middle - aged woman of British ...
... someone who's strung out on drugs , I feel sorry for them . I hear about the poor , I feel sorry for them . People who have AIDS . Every day I feel sympathy " ( interview ) . " Rebecca Jones , " a divorced middle - aged woman of British ...
Page 17
... some- one a lift or even a " new lease on life . " Sympathy transactions also symbolize , create , or enact networks and intimacy boundaries . For one thing , sympathy indicates that a sympathizer and a sympathizee share a social bond ...
... some- one a lift or even a " new lease on life . " Sympathy transactions also symbolize , create , or enact networks and intimacy boundaries . For one thing , sympathy indicates that a sympathizer and a sympathizee share a social bond ...
Contents
2 | |
Forms and Process | 26 |
Sympathy Entrepreneurs and the Grounds for Sympathy | 80 |
4 The Socioemotional Economy Social Value and Sympathy Margin | 128 |
5 Sympathy Biography and the Rules of Sympathy Etiquette | 158 |
The Sympathetic Response | 194 |
7 Sympathy Microhierarchy and Micropolitics | 226 |
8 Epilogue | 252 |
Research Strategies | 261 |
References | 281 |
Name Index | 299 |
Subject Index | 304 |
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Common terms and phrases
accounts actions actor American Appeal asked attention believe cards chapter characters claim consider create cultural described display economy emotions empathy example exchange expect experience explained feel sorry felt Field notes follow friends gifts give giving sympathy grounds husband important individual instance interaction Interview involved judge kind label less lives logic look luck married mean moral mother never notes obligation offer parents percent person plights poor presented Press principle problems reactions receive reciprocity relationship respondents role rules sense sentiment situation social society socioemotional Sociology someone sometimes story sympa sympathetic sympathizee sympathy margins talk things thought tion trouble understand usually victims vignette woman women worker worth York young