Convention

Abstract

I live up to your expectations and expect you to orientate yourself to mine. You adapt yourself to my expectations and expect me to plan on the basis of yours. My expected conformity is the cause and effect of your present-day choices. Your expected conformity is the effect and cause of my future-shaping initiatives. The future is unknown and unknowable. Institutionalised expectations, ‘regularities in behavior which are agreed to by all members of a society and which specify behavior in specific recurrent situations’ (Schotter, 1981:9), at least light up the midnight and make it into a dusk.