Questions of etiquette

[vvvexation]

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.)

Comments

[haggis-bagpipes.livejournal.com]

teensy = Small, petty, minor detail, hardly world-shattering, barely worth getting angry about. You hardly need to get so angry because of someone else's definition of 'politeness' not quite being in accordance with your own.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

No, you've missed the entire point.

My problem, as I repeatedly stated, is not that her definitions are not in accordance with my own, but that she thinks her definitions are the only correct ones--she is the one who would presumably have a problem with my definitions. And I do not think that is a minor detail; it represents a closed-minded worldview which, taken as a whole, ought to make anyone angry. You yourself certainly don't seem to think closed-mindedness isn't worth getting upset about, since you've taken the trouble to accuse me of being hypocritical about it.

[haggis-bagpipes.livejournal.com]

You could always ignore people like this rather than getting upset about their views which, close-minded or not, don't actually collide with your own in any real way. Practice this by not replying to this comment.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

You could have done the same thing by not replying to my original post (which certainly was not directed at you as this comment of yours was directed at me). Since you haven't chosen to ignore me, I see no reason to ignore you, and I furthermore find your attempt to take what you seem to perceive as some kind of moral high ground laughably childish, as is the tone of most of your comments throughout this thread. I would have a great deal more respect for you at this point if you showed any willingness to listen to anything I say, but instead you only seem to want to lecture me.

In response to the rest of your comment, I refer you once more to my original post, at the end of which I state that the views of people like this have in fact collided with my own in very real ways in the past. To elaborate further, those have been some of the most painful and humiliating experiences of my life, and if I stand any chance of being able to keep someone else from inflicting that kind of unhappiness on others, I consider myself well justified in trying.

Are you ready to offer any more arguments based on selective hearing of the things I've said? Why not just ignore the entire post while you're at it?

[haggis-bagpipes.livejournal.com]

Alright, alright, I've just been trolling you to see how long you'd keep on arguing given no real contribution from my side...the point I am actually making is that you're a very easily needled person.

You make a lot of very good points in your response, but I can't help feeling that your point only touches on the point the original person was making: she (at least I assume it was a she) was saying "I hate it when people don't reply to every little thing I post online" (revealing themselves to be very insecure) and using perceived lack of other people's politeness as a way to justify that the fault is in other people and and not in herself.

You criticised their definition of politeness because the subject of politeness and close-mindedness has been an issue for you in the past. So I rather mischievously) decided to troll you and see how long you'd carry on a one-sided argument.

I confess this wasn't a very kind thing for me to do, and having had some time to think over the morals of it over the last few days (during which I've been on holiday), I'd like to apologise.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Odd that you didn't feel like "apologizing" two or three hours ago, but okay. Actually, I should congratulate you--you did a great job of convincing me you were incredibly obtuse in addition to being immature. (Even if I'm not terribly convinced that the fact that someone can be needled by a troll proves anything more about them than it does about the troll, and also not certain I see the connection you're trying to draw between my criticism and your particular method of trolling.)

You've got a good point about the OP's motivations. Interestingly enough, though, I think it's in fact the case that everyone I've seen copping the "other people are objectively rude" attitude was indeed using it as a cover for their own wants in that same way--"I want everyone to act like this, but the only way I can justify asking them to is if I assert that it's the Only Right Way to act." I actually noticed that quite a while ago, and it was silly of me to overlook it in this case. It still doesn't make people like that any easier to deal with, though--if anything, harder, because they know they're asserting falsehoods and have a personal stake in not admitting it.

Come to think of it, I suspect the idea of "politeness" as a whole is probably based on that same "I need to use tricks to get what I want because it's somehow not okay to just ask for it" mentality, on some level. Perhaps that's why I set so little store by politeness-for-its-own-sake.