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War over Being Nice

54 pointsby nphasealmost 5 years ago

14 comments

throwaway12757almost 5 years ago
I get it, but the author completely misses the point when it comes to the exchange of power between people.<p>Think man vs women Black person vs police Boss vs employee<p>suddenly culture A breaks down because people in power get upset and then abuse their power. I guess you can say &quot;they are only in charge of their emotions&quot; but when people can be fired or killed, it stops being a thing.<p>I&#x27;ve been in culture A (the military &#x2F; still identifying as male): and there is a good time for it, you don&#x27;t care about someones feelings in the middle of the mission<p>I&#x27;ve been in culture B (civilian life &#x2F; out as a transwoman): Culture B is nice because when done correctly (sure it&#x27;s hard), it lets people show their own emotional vulnerability and allows others to understand and take into account that there are people out there that grew up with widely different experiences other than yourself.<p>Also when the default norm is basically white male culture, once you see it from the other side you realize how bad it actually is.<p>(I&#x27;m aware I will probably be down-voted)
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lazyjonesalmost 5 years ago
It&#x27;s a good analysis but misses the central issue with today&#x27;s &quot;culture war&quot;: people in a B type society aren&#x27;t actually overly concerned with their emotions, they just pretend to be mentally fragile in order to exert power by demanding compliance. It&#x27;s a sanctioned form of violence. Sure, some fragile nutcases exist too, but they&#x27;re just exploited by the majority of SJW folks.
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beardedetimalmost 5 years ago
These differences between culture A and B are something me and the Wife have been talking about for years. They are mostly in the B group and I in the A. I&#x27;m glad that others are seeing the distinction and starting conversations about it.<p>I found the language the author used to describe each interesting. The &quot;masculine&quot;&#x2F;&quot;feminine&quot; dichotomy seems to cause those in group B to take offense, in my experience, due to the &quot;cultural norm to think masculine is strong&#x2F;good and feminine is weak&#x2F;bad&quot;. I like the &quot;bro&quot;&#x2F;&quot;inclusive&quot; dichotomy because the &quot;bro culture&quot; is now a short-hand for &quot;toxic&quot; so those in group B feel &quot;superior&quot; (_such a bad word but not enough coffee yet_) and are then able to have a discussion about the dichotomy itself.<p>Something the Wife and I have butted heads against and something I had wished the author would have spent more time on was the dolling out of &quot;responsibility points&quot; during a disagreement. I, in group A, think that as long as I&#x27;m not saying &quot;I will hurt you&quot;, I can _say_ whatever the fuck I want and you just need to get over it. I think this is how _everyone_ feels, even those in group B, but group A is just open about it. The Wife, however, feels that I should be responsible for what I say that isn&#x27;t a part of the &quot;group thing&quot; (_once again, an emotional word to get my point across but a tad too far, I know_).<p>Example: If I say &quot;I dislike your shoes&quot;, the Wife has _every right_ to be upset. However, I should not be held accountable&#x2F;be given &quot;responsibility points&quot; for that. It&#x27;s on them for being hurt by me not liking their shoes.<p>Just because I said something that hurt someone&#x27;s feelings doesn&#x27;t mean I&#x27;m _responsible_ for their feelings. If that is the case, what is stopping _any_ of us saying &quot;You not giving me everything I want hurts me&quot;? If _emotions_ are the end-all, be-all of importance, isn&#x27;t being emotional until you get your way the ultimate strategy?<p>I am rambling now. Great article, timely reading for myself. Hope to see more conversation about this and to learn how I can be a better ally to culture B without having to give me my own desires&#x2F;ideologies in culture A.
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tomohawkalmost 5 years ago
Tolerance traditionally means tolerating people. This has been shifted (some would say cynically) to mean tolerating ideas.<p>The traditional meaning allows you to have a society. You can live next to someone who you disagree with.<p>The new meaning is a profoundly negative one. It means that if you are tolerant, then there is something wrong with you, because you are tolerating bad ideas. A society that embraces the second definition doesn&#x27;t seem like it will last very long.<p>The traditional definition allows conversations to take place. It gives people space to grow and change their minds. It puts people as more important than ideals.<p>The new definition makes ideals more important than people. It requires cancelling people if they believe the &quot;wrong&quot; things, or at least unfashionable things.
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sidibealmost 5 years ago
I think we always need to strike a balance between nice and direct, but one thing I&#x27;ve noticed is many people who claim to be A culture people (are proud of not sugarcoating things or &quot;saying it how it is&quot;) are the people who especially don&#x27;t like it when others are like that to them, which I think is just a lack of empathy.
text70almost 5 years ago
The extremes of A- are that when applied to the wrong group it can lead to actual violence. The extreme of B- is that group cohesion stagnates because the individual takes precedence. Group A is more cohesive than B, but is under internal strain.<p>If you have a highly dynamic group, meaning it changes every year, then you should consider culture B to reduce alienation. If you have a static group consider culture A to improve cohesion and cooperation.<p>A smart and intelligent manager can accommodate both simultaneously and realize that there is a happy medium between the two. As the culture matures, ie people stay around for a long time, it will go from B+ to A+ naturally.
zozbot234almost 5 years ago
I&#x27;m generally comfortable with endorsing Culture A, but the whole &quot;teasing and jostling each other for <i>fun</i>&quot; is something that can definitely backfire. It makes the most sense as a strategic signal of common values, but it should definitely be avoided when interacting with those who are plausibly outsiders to the culture. (People can nonetheless be gradually educated into it by expressing praise when the inevitable social conflicts are resolved quickly and easily, or even when they start dishing out some good-natured ribbing of their own.)
grok22almost 5 years ago
This is a complicated issue with various shades of gray in between and no black-and-white answer unfortunately. One can go wrong either way depending on the expectations of all the involved parties.
skim_milkalmost 5 years ago
Is this related to attachment theory? Culture A seems like Insecure-Avoidant attachment and B seems like Anxious attachment. Could B&#x27;s anxiety cause the group to overanalyse every negative situation and do what they need to do to avoid stress? Did A&#x27;s people grow up in an emotionally distant household with snobby parents that cause them to compare themselves against and constantly one-up each other?
iammrualmost 5 years ago
&quot;Arguing under the banner of &quot;fighting for diversity&quot; that culture B is the only acceptable culture is ironic and a little sad. We aren&#x27;t all the same&quot;...<p>So true..but even making these statements will get you cancelled or fired these days.
avmichalmost 5 years ago
I&#x27;m not sure I understand what&#x27;s wrong with constantly asking consent. I guess saying &quot;no&quot; could be roughly like responding on request for the Moon - no, darling, you can&#x27;t have the Moon on your palm or in your room. Is it a contradiction - factually &quot;revoking consent&quot; while doing that (as much as possible) in culture B style? Is it possible?
robert_fossalmost 5 years ago
I think framing this A&#x2F;B divide in terms of sex is needlessly conflating different topics. Surely there&#x27;s a statistical bias of some sort, but it doesn&#x27;t really add to this conversation.
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jarielalmost 5 years ago
Really great insight and framework for discussion.<p>However: &quot;B in a healthy way requires huge skill&quot; ... it requires more than skill it requires magic.<p>When people are allowed to determine, arbitrarily, that they have been &#x27;transgressed&#x27; by some other action, they will abuse that any which way. Or at least some people will.<p>The &#x27;threshold&#x27; for &#x27;intolerance&#x27; will move consistently in a direction until the offended party can claim power.<p>The workplace becomes a system of control based on who stepped in front of who.<p>The best people usually are easy going people who have played team sports: they are competitive but relaxed and confident, not afraid of the unknown or competitive, not vindictive or aggressive. They&#x27;ve also had their teammates take them down a notch when they get out of hand, but propped up as well. They know the odd &#x27;equal&#x27; dynamic of a team. They are impossible to offend: think Rugby players who bite and punch each other in the privates - and then <i>out out for beers</i> with each other after the game.<p>For a professional domain, I think &#x27;World A&#x27; is much more appropriate. Basically &#x27;World A without Jerks&#x27; is the objective, or more positively: &quot;World A Nice People&quot;.<p>Jostling and mocking is fine in it&#x27;s place, so long as people know when not to.<p>Any place that goes full &#x27;World B&#x27; will lose track of their objectives and collapse into a spiral of ridiculous introspection unless the organisation itself is ultimately deeply &#x27;B&#x27; oriented, like an NGO.<p>Two Canadian examples:<p>1) Not well known: Canadian PM Justin Trudeau is a Rugby Player. That guy gets his &#x27;Easy Going Alpha&#x27; charm from that kind of confidence.<p>2) The &#x27;We Charity&#x27; (all about the power of &#x27;We&#x27; to change the world for the better!) is the most &#x27;B type&#x27; of place imaginable. Even their charter is warm and fuzzy.<p>They sponsored a tour by a young Black woman to talk around Canada, in order to share her story about racism - literally a empathetic &#x27;Type B&#x27; activity. The story as written wasn&#x27;t quite suitable for the initiative, they tried to work with her to create a workable narrative (ie speech writing) and she accused the charity of some devious stuff, and a ton of knives came out for the founders of the charity.<p>So the most well-intentioned people on earth, back stabbing each other over the bits and bytes of racism messaging because people&#x27;s feelings were getting stepped on. It&#x27;s not an easy issue obviously, but it&#x27;s still odd to see the supposedly sensitive types ravage each other.<p>A final example - CNN literally yesterday published a piece indicating the term &#x27;Master Bedroom&#x27; among other things could be deemed offensive and of course we are now arguing about &#x27;light and dark terms&#x27; as being racist in the context of anything i.e. &#x27;white hat &#x2F; dark hat&#x27;. While there are some decent intellectual concerns, for the most part, this is not about &#x27;offence&#x27; it&#x27;s about &#x27;power&#x27;.<p>Nobody was ever offended by the term &#x27;Master Bedroom&#x27;. But if we can show some arbitrary linkage of the term to &#x27;Slavery&#x27; - then the &#x27;theoretically offended&#x27; can wield power by forcing others into a ridiculous conformity of their own making. These issues will not stop at common words and the thread will be pulled upon until the sweater unravels or the pulling stops. Everything is a transgression if we want it to be.<p>Edit: I should add in all self awareness the danger of &#x27;Type A&#x27; environments is are the more traditional, bold-faced power grabs via communication: acerbic, vindictive, abusive, belittling etc.. I don&#x27;t mind people yelling, and don&#x27;t mind if someone gets yelled at occasionally if they really screwed things up, however, it&#x27;s too easy for that to be abused by the person with more power and you can develop &#x27;fear hierarchies&#x27;.
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skywal_lalmost 5 years ago
Nobody is going to mention that guy&#x27;s last name? ;)