Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: politeness etc.



Several people have wondered, on- and off-list,
whether there is a tradeoff of politeness versus
honesty and/or incisive clarity.

I would say there is rarely much of a tradeoff,
and often the _opposite_ of a tradeoff.

First, some misleading examples:

1) At one extreme, it depends on who's listening.
There is a hyper-achiever personality type who
needs to be "right" all the time. (I've worked
with and/or befriended more than a few of these.)
You can't tell 'em anything without hurting their
feelings, so you get resigned to hurting their
feelings a lot, and also not saying a lot of
things you ought to say.

2) At another extreme, there some painful truths
that can't be alleviated by the usual forms of
politeness. ("Your entire family is being eaten
by hyenas. Have a nice day.")

3) There are some situations (e.g. tea ceremony)
where the whole point is to be super-polite, and
nobody is expecting frankness and openness.

4) Sometimes if you've got something important to
communicate, you can get away with being brusque.
If a child is about to pull a pot of boiling syrup
off the stove, I'm going to intervene, and I don't
much care if I have to tackle a couple of bystanders
in the process.

===========

The foregoing, while true, are misleading.

The extreme and unusual cases are a poor guide to
the usual case. In ordinary situations people
expect an ordinary level of politeness. Usually
there's a perfectly polite way of doing what needs
to be done.

On various occasions I've been much less polite
than I should have been, and I'm not going to make
excuses for that, not in terms of tradeoffs or
anything else.

Indeed I'm going to suggest that in most cases,
there is not a tradeoff but the opposite of a
tradeoff, i.e. a synergy, between politeness and
clarity. Both clarity and genuine politeness
come from thinking extra-hard about how the other
person will perceive what you're writing.