Deduction Exercise 5: “Playing Police”

OBJECTIVE: FIND AND RECORD AS MANY VIOLATIONS OF LAWS AND SIGNS AS YOU CAN FIND

Details: Go out to a public space, anywhere that has a lot of people, even just the middle of the street. While in this place keep in mind the rules and regulations attached to it (eg. the driving laws of your country if you’re walking down the street, if you’re at school then rules and regulations like “No phones in the classroom” or specific dress code regulations, the laws for smoking indoors if you’re at a cafe). Also make sure to look around for any location specific signs that enforce a certain behavior (eg. “No Smoking” or “No Parking”). Make sure that these rules and regulations are at least partially official, not unspoken rules or social norms, but actual regulations that are probably written down in some code of conduct at the location you find yourself in (eg. a workplace).

Now that you’re in this headspace and are keeping all of these in mind, look around a record as many instances of people breaking these rules as you can find. Anything from someone clearly smoking in a non smoking area, to a car not using their blinker, or not stopping at a stop sign when they technically should have.

Play devil’s advocate as much as possible and don’t be afraid to stick to the “technically” argument (eg. “technically he should’ve stopped at that stop sign”, “technically those shoes are not appropriate according to the dress code”). The point of this exercise is not to call people out, but to

1. Train yourself to observe the world around you in a more careful manner
2. Train yourself to observe people’s behavior and the differences between people who follow rules and people who don’t
3. Arguably most importantly, train yourself to look for things that are marginally out of place or missing, things that should be different, but that mostly go unnoticed

Now, go try it out

Happy Observing!

-DV