What is Done When Nothing Special is Being Done. Social Theory and the Power of the Unmarked

A pervading dichotomy shapes our experience of social reality: a finite number of highlighted and salient phenomena (what we mind and consider, the socio- cognitive foreground) stand out against an unarticulated background (what we overlook, the sociocognitive default). The opposition, the attentional asymmetry, is further reinforced by both common sense and academic thinking, since usu- ally the culturally salient elements get more attention, while unnoticed ‘negative spaces’ get even less. The realm of the unmarked and taken-for-granted encom- passes the vast majority of social reality, yet it is indirectly qualified as unevent- ful, bland, and generic: statistically prevalent and, therefore, less semiotized. One might even wonder whether there is anything notable (and consequential) at all in the sphere of what is, by definition, collectively deemed as irrelevant (and incon- sequential). The (mildly counterintuitive) title of this introductive essay4 can also be stated in an interrogative form: what is done when nothing special is being done? Other compelling questions follow: what is remembered when nothing is being recalled? What information is transmitted by not transmitting information at all? What people think of when they are not thinking anything in particular? What is told when anything specific is being told? Why do we have more labels and concepts for what does not really matter to us, having at the same time less or no interest in what runs deepest with us? How does the unmarked affect the social fabric?