I'm all aboard with being pleasant and respectful of others, but find some aspects of this distasteful. Specifically, the portions of the author's "politeness" that involve performance, or adhering to a script I find off-putting. For example:<p>"Just ask the other person what they do, and right after they tell you, say: 'Wow. That sounds hard.' "<p>While it seems that many aspects of "politeness" are intended to trigger pleasant feelings in the other person (which seems harmless enough), I find it hard to be in favor of something so disingenuous. Even when it comes to small talk, I think one can be both respectful and charming without having to fall back on a script and cheapen the interaction.
If I could upvote this twice I would. I still haven't gotten to the point where I can be polite all of the time. However, I find that when I try to be pleasant to people on principle, it takes away a lot of stress. I stop worrying about whether they are treating me well, or if I should start pushing back, because I've already made the decision to be friendly and polite. If they choose not to take advantage of this, that is unfortunate. However, I no longer have to react to their perceived bad behaviour in kind. It is remarkably freeing when I can do this.
How to be polite IN NORTH AMERICA.<p>He talks about North American obsession with touch like a normal thing, but in fact it is the exception in the world.<p>Being polite changes with the culture. In Morocco it is totally ok for male friends to hold hands in the street.<p>In South America you touch a lot other people. The same happens in Africa. I had India children and adolescent jump over me just after meeting them just playing.<p>I had played soccer all around Africa and touched shoulders of my playmates, grab their head and hug celebrated with them goals without a problem. Also it was very manly thing to do.<p>In China or Korea people to burp is ok. Using a kleenex on your nose is not.<p>In Spain we kiss women when we meet them and we touch kids we recently met a lot. I used to photograph kids a lot. In the US or UK with the obsession in sex they have they can put you in jail for photographic a kid smiling.
Most of this is only true for Anglo-Saxon values of politeness, which many other cultures will see as insincere, fake, cold, manipulative and even downright insulting.<p>This may not apply to the author, who writes <i>"I am often consumed with a sense of overwhelming love and empathy"</i>, but certainly to the vast majority of people who don't have such extreme levels of empathy but use the same tactics.<p>Yes, like many people I will fall for the <i>"that sounds hard"</i> trick, but if I see you pull that multiple times I'll file you under "manipulative cunt" unless I have a good reason to assume you're that one in a million who actually gives a fuck. Because most of us really, really don't.
I agree strongly on his thesis, that being polite is a good thing to be and that too many folks are oblivious to its usefulness. I'm not so keen on his writing style, but he makes a number of good points.<p>"Useless in high school but extremely useful later on": yes, school is when you'd expect to learn such skills, but high-school is such a toxic environment that too many folks learn the opposite of politeness (like how to dominate in an interaction, or flee it).<p>"it provides insulation against bad situations" (the gloves/dirty laundry paragraph): very much so. Politeness and etiquette provides guidelines to interact in situations that would instinctively lead to aggression.<p>"it lets you gather information about people": I don't like the manipulation undertones of this part, but it's true that with a little skill you can turn many a conversation into a mine of information and bonding.<p>"touching and personal space": as others have mentioned, this is very flexible across cultures, but I believe that everyone has some level of personal space boundaries. Break these and the other person becomes defensive, uncomfortable.
Hair touching aside, the amount of space required between people is bordering on the absurd. I'm sorry you feel uncomfortable but two arm lengths of personal space at all times is not something you're entitled to.<p>It's like we all want to live in a bubble. In non-western countries bumping into someone isn't the traumatizing horror it is in the US. It's just about expectations, if people didn't expect to have a vastness of empty air around them they wouldn't suffer PTSD for the rest of the day when someone stood almost within touching distance of them.<p>I'm not saying it's OK to be breathing down people's necks and people should consider the comfort zones of others, but it's kind of extreme in the US. If there's an empty chair next to you, I'll sit in it, and if there's a public urinal available next to yours I'll make use of it. Deal with it.
Just remember, polite varies from situation to situation. Growing up in the Caribbean when I was a teen meeting other people my age was a very physical thing. You might have someone's arm around your shoulder or get jostled around a little within hours of meeting them. In fact that was how relationships formed.<p>Touching a girls hair, or even giving it a light tug was all part of the flirting game. To be clear it's not like you just met someone and started touching them everywhere and it didn't have to happen everytime, but during the course of conversation if it was appropriate and natural a light touch here and there was just part of how things worked.<p>Moving to the US I found out very quickly that you give most people space unless you were invited in closer, but I've found Europeans that I've met are more open to an appropriate natural touch
Excellent article, and I feel it also applies to me, so I wrote down some thoughts. maqr's comment about this being dangerously close to social engineering rings very true, although I doubt that it's intentional/by choice. Personally I've never had a lot of natural conversational skills, so I find myself falling back to old tricks that work at times when I'm not confident, and sometimes they happen to be tricks that relate to social engineering. I'd like to think that this doesn't make my interactions less genuine. Finding a polite way to proceed through the conversation has not been a problem for me since I learned this.<p>Lately, rather than moving towards politeness, I'm trying to move away from it. The examples of always replying positively to people, never steering towards or even approach hostility is a very, very tiring path to walk. In my experience, it does pay off on the whole, but I've spent a lot of time talking to people that were just never 'interesting' or 'rewarding' to be with, simply because it always seems easier to please than to confront.<p>These days I'm trying to move towards blunt honesty with people as soon as I can (after an initial period of polite conversation to gauge if they'd be comfortable with it). So far, I think the people I know appreciate me more for it, and the people who wouldn't appreciate me for it are not in my life.<p>Or perhaps it just feels good to try something different.
I'm surprised at all the approval of this politeness strategy given my modus operandi -- making sure I'm doing interesting-enough things to have a comfortable influx of people, then filter through them by being upfront and asking hard but honest questions.<p>I don't think we realistically can connect with everyone on a meaningful level, and given there's 7-8 billion people out there, a search/filter strategy just seems more reasonable than trying to please everyone.<p>That being said, I am not advocating to the burning of any bridges at all -- as the scenes we walk tend to get smaller and smaller the more focused and specialized they get.
It's a stereotype that us geeks are poorly socialized. After the all-too-common years of school bullying and stunted social growth that entails, I was lucky enough to meet the right people and learn better skills of communication and empathy.<p>Politeness for me started as a facade to hide behind, but over time it turned into a tool of empathy and connection. I believe this to be my most useful and powerful skill, far beyond any technical skill I have.<p>I wish more geeks (such as Lennart Poettering to name just one notorious hacker) would learn this.
Politeness serves as a buffer. It gives you time to evaluate the situation and gain more information while keeping you from making a rash judgement - both positive and negative. Later on, it keeps you from unnecessarily making enemies of the people you don't respect but must nevertheless deal with. It works hand in hand with patience, which I see as being in very short supply these days. In my experience, it is an extremely valuable trait.
Despite his points about politeness helping him, which I appreciate, politeness is still following rules, aka doing what other people tell you.<p>With social skills, as with any other discipline, merely following rules will make you a craftsperson, not an artist. Artistry comes from knowing the rules so well you can transcend them. I prefer the musician who knows how to improvise sometimes the "wrong" note, the quarterback who shines when the play falls apart, the chess player who develops new moves, ... you get the idea.<p>Personally, I'm more interested in becoming an artist than just following rules. For example, I prefer to find out how I can quickly create deep bonds, which you can do when you break some of the author's rules. I grew up with poor social skills and the geek scientist in me wanted to understand what was going on. Then the geek entrepreneur in me wanted to use what I figured out and develop it as far as I could. Then the business entrepreneur in me wanted to polish it so people would appreciate it. Now I coach people in it too. I feel like the guy wrote a story about how to play scales on the piano, though I enjoyed the writing style. Who wants to stop there?<p>My story about my friend and Jack Nicholson at the U.S. Open illustrates the social value in breaking a dress code (from my blog <a href="http://joshuaspodek.com/high-status-living-rules-jack-nicholson-u-s-open" rel="nofollow">http://joshuaspodek.com/high-status-living-rules-jack-nichol...</a>). There are a million other role models of people who shine in breaking rules, but I'll just tell that one story about him:<p>A friend who grew up in Queens and became the senior ball boy at the U.S. Open told me a story about his friend who worked there too.<p>One day he was working at the door to the U.S. Open’s VIP room enforcing the jacket-and-tie dress code. Jack Nicholson came by and started walking into the room wearing shorts and a t-shirt.<p>My friend’s friend, following the rules, in a nervous high school student voice, said “I’m sorry Mr. Nicholson. There is a dress code and I’m afraid I have to ask you to follow it.”<p>With a polite laugh, Jack Nicholson said “<i>I don’t think so,</i>” and continued in.<p>I'll bet Jack Nicholson didn't start breaking rules because he became a star. I'll bet he became a star by breaking rules -- not blindly, but intelligently.
Seems kind of annoying and inefficient to me. If I took someone out on a date and started talking about tumors I'd rather they say to talk about something else than just be polite like he did. Then I could integrate the suggestion and maybe we'd have a good time. He had to wait for years for another chance at something that could have been fixed with thirty seconds of honestly.