Culture Modern Manners

Yinko

Well-known member
I try to be a polite person, especially on the internet since it is so much easier to be impolite and get away with it. The trouble is, that appears to be a meaningless thing, the term seems to have lost its value at some point.

If you take politeness to mean that what you say will offend none of your audience, then that is currently impossible. If we are talking about slavery and you say "the enslaved" in order to cater to the Leftists you will upset me as a butcher of the twin muses of History and Poetry, ergo it has failed to be polite. This is similar to the toleration argument, no one asks the opinion of those that disagree with toleration since they are seen as irrelevantly backwards but it stands that they are constantly being deeply offended. So it cannot be about totally preventing offense.

Is it about refusing to use profanity? While it certainly helps to keep things civil, especially as expletives have infinite shades of meaning and could thus mean almost anything in a given context, there are many sub-cultures that use many types of profanity as a variation on propriety. Should we say that the propriety of the group is the definition of politeness? If so then there can be no general definition as the mode of propriety varies with every sub-culture and region, which brings you back to the "offend no-one" conundrum.

Is it about a core set of tenants? While we certainly do think of certain periods of history as being more polite in general, there are often complexities to this. For instance, the rules of propriety had different applications to out-groups such as certain minorities. And in "polite society" it was within the social code to be able to rather easily insult other people in public, so long as you used to the correct form and decorum. Additionally, just "looking to the past for answers" begs the question of which past? You have many time periods and places in the western world to choose from, what is to make one the correct choice?

Is it about populous consent? The majority has a problem with PC culture, so this seems rather implausible, unless that is to say that being PC is impolite. At most I would say that it has historically had no intersection at all with the issue and thus cannot be described one way or the other. A further problem is that of subcultures, with certain groups or regions finding things offensive that others do not. Nike creating "black & tan" sneakers is an obvious example, but any time someone moves any great distance they will find themselves having to relearn social niceties, worse if it is in the same country as most do not expect it.

The best, admittedly unsatisfying, answers I can come to are that either it is merely the agreement held among your peer group (communal explanation), or is the code of behavior you hold yourself to for any given reason (individualist explanation).

Please do let me know if you have a clearer solution.
 

robertliguori

Active member
I'm sorry, but you kind of put the finger on it with the first one. Politeness and manners are social agreements, and like other social agreements, they vary from group to group.

The answer, I guess, is to recognize that politeness is personal, and act accordingly, and not stress when you find yourself having to violate what feel like rock-hard mores of politeness to you when you are sure they are not the same everywhere, or when you can see that politeness isn't working.

Be good and be kind, and only then be polite.
 

Whitestrake Pelinal

Like a dream without a dreamer
The best, admittedly unsatisfying, answers I can come to are that either it is merely the agreement held among your peer group (communal explanation), or is the code of behavior you hold yourself to for any given reason (individualist explanation).

Please do let me know if you have a clearer solution.
Politeness is indeed defined differently in different groups, and there is no universal solution to this challenge. The differences are, as you have observed, large enough that a single template for polite conduct cannot be applied to every group with any expectation that all groups hold it up as polite.

My solution is to acknowledge the differences of groups, their differing standards of politeness. If I wish to engage in politeness I must pay attention to whose space I am communicating in, and grant some measure of deference to their definition of politeness. This is not a perfect solution, but it closes enough of the gap that I find it sufficient.

After this, though, another challenge is introduced: the use of contrived definitions of 'politeness' and false accusations of impoliteness as bargaining chips.
 

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