I mean the public performance required of those subject to elabo-rate and systematic forms of social subordination: the worker to the boss, thetenant or sharecropper to the landlord, the serf to the lord, the slave to themaster, the untouchable to the Brahmin, a member of a subject race to one ofthe dominant race. With rare, but significant, exceptions the public perfor-mance of the subordinate will, out of prudence, fear, and the desire to curryfavor, be shaped to appeal to the expectations of the powerful. I shall use theterm public transcript as a shorthand way of describing the open interactionbetween subordinates and those who dominate. 1 The public transcript, whereit is not positively misleading, is unlikely to tell the whole story about powerrelations. It is frequently in the interest of both parties to tacitly conspire inmisrepresentation. The oral history of a French tenant farmer, Old Tiennon,covering much of the nineteenth century is filled with accounts of a prudentand misleading deference: "When he [the landlord who had dismissed hisfather] crossed from Le Craux, going to Meillers, he would stop and speak tome and I forced myself to appear amiable, in spite of the contempt I felt forhim.
he’s drawing a line between everyday politeness and historically imposed performance. What begins as etiquette becomes survival strategy under domination. This “public transcript,” as he calls it, isn’t just a set of social cues it’s a choreography shaped by fear, prudence, and sometimes sheer exhaustion.
And Wald-Tinan’s anecdote is such a vivid example smiling at the landlord who dismissed your father, not because you respect him, but because appearing “amiable” protects you. It’s a performance built on unequal power, and it says so much about the psychic toll of domination.