As in; I wonder how much politeness norms evolved as being a set of the most culturally and morally defensible default actions. They're both practically useful (e.g. you can't be blamed for not caring when you ask how your day was), and also a signal that you know how to defend.
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Very true. Conflict avoidance is among our strongest social motivators - perhaps our only stronger motivators are status and sex.
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What kind of memetic device can we use to make this work online?
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I saw a few minutes of a reality TV show where a celeb was interrogated by ex-SAS. When he responded with rudeness, they told him “that would get you killed”. I think politeness as a defence has always been a thing - it’s probably how it started in the first place. /1
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I also read about politeness in traditional Pakhtun culture: in theory you could travel from one end of the country to the other unmolested if you demonstrated perfect etiquette. One mistake, however, and you were dead. /2
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I agree, additionally politeness seems very effective in the face of direct physical hostility. When I've had physical confrontations with people in the past, they've been defused simply by being very polite
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It's quite funny when it happens. A drunk man tried to fight me in a club a few years ago - in response I told him "I'm just here to dance friend, hope you have a good night". He was so shocked by my response that he just left the situation
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It's interesting think about this after studying other languages that have more structural styles of politeness (i.e. In Korean politeness is shown by leaving on endings to words often removed in casual speech)
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In English politeness is mostly a matter of tone and word choice, and is also strongly taught to be a socially preferable manner of speaking. Comparing to Korean, polite language is used in specific ways : expected in interactions with one's elders, but not in business exchanges
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Look at Britain and Japan. Two high population density island cultures renowned for intricate systems of manners.
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