vvvexation | Questions of etiquette (Reply)

A while ago, I stuck my head into one of those periodic community discussions of how and when one ought to reply to LJ comments, and found myself more annoyed than I'd expected. Now, I personally don't see the point of replying when one has nothing to say, but I understand that a lot of people feel differently. I'm fine with that; it's no skin off my nose if I occasionally interact with people whose commenting habits are different from mine--but apparently there are some folks out there who do think it's a problem, and this one in particular really touched a nerve with me:

[...] I think etiquette, in general, is being polite, and either you're brought up to be polite in all aspects of your life, which would include your activity online, or you're not. I see it as an extension of face to face etiquette. Someone is sitting at a computer reading what I've written, and is taking the time to 'talk' to me about what I've written. I think it's rude to ignore that person. So I reply. The only hard part, for me, is knowing when the conversation is over.

I do find that I take offense when I comment in other people's journals and they don't reply to me. I try to figure out what it will take to get them to reply, not always consciously. And if I consistently offer support or encouragement, or try to relate some commonality, and never get a reply, I will stop commenting, and if I don't care enough for the journal, in general, I drop it.

I think if we leave the comments enabled, it means we welcome them, and not to reply seems rude, to me, but that is because I was raised to be polite and responsive to people, to say 'please' and 'thank you', etc. It's just human kindness, and that extends to the world of the Interweb, and LJ.

Well, of course she's free to behave as she likes, but I still felt I had to say this:

One thing you seem to be overlooking is that "polite" is not a Boolean value. People are not raised to either be polite or not be polite; rather, they are raised with an infinite variety of ideas about which collections of behaviors are polite and which are not. Someone who doesn't have the exact same prescribed set of polite behaviors that you do is not necessarily lacking in "human kindness"--which in any case is a separate thing from politeness. (Would you call someone with poor table manners unkind?)

You seem, in fact, to have a circular definition of polite behavior: "I think behavior X is rude, but that's because I was raised to be polite"? No, you think behavior X is rude because you were raised to be polite and you were raised to think that behavior X is not polite. Someone else, however, might not have been raised to think that behavior X is rude, and yet might still have been raised to "be polite," by whatever means they define the term. To assume that anyone who does X must not have been raised right is to assume that the definition of politeness you grew up with is the only valid one.

I see far too many people living their lives on the basis of that assumption, and severely disliking otherwise very likable people as a result, and it frustrates me so much; if only people would listen to each other's reasoning, try harder to accept goodwill even when it isn't displayed with the "proper" sort of action, and most importantly be forthright about what kind of behavior they want from other people rather than expecting everyone to live up to their standards without having been told what those standards are! The problem with standards of politeness is that too many people don't realize their own standards aren't universal, and so just assume everyone who doesn't meet them isn't worth their time, rather than actually communicating with others and trying to figure out where their standards diverge and how their actions really should be interpreted.

Okay, so I'll admit there does have to be some more or less universal standard of acceptable behavior in order for any large number of people to get along at all. But the idea that politeness is an either/or thing and that someone who commits one particular breach of etiquette must be lacking in all social graces? Excuse me while I scream. Do some people ever comprehend the idea that their opinions are not objectively true?

(And yes, I have had much more unpleasant dealings with people like this in the past--why do you ask? Someday, when my fists unclench, I might even vent about them.)