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Dialectics: Politeness and Directness
Nov. 23rd, 2018 09:05 amPublic Post
Welcome to the inaugural weekly-ish dialectic examination! Hopefully this will serve as an example of the sort of article//discussion I intend to hold here. The format will likely change over time, so feel free to make suggestions on that front.
Introduction
Civility is a loaded topic right now, because almost everything is a loaded topic right now. Also, in the US we just had Thanksgiving, and I hear that this struggle comes up a lot when trying to decide how to deal with family members you disagree with vehemently. Trying to define terms without taking a side is a difficult endeavor; and yet, that's what we've got to do if we want to examine a dialectic. The goal here is to come up with a way of holding the two concepts in our mind without immediately deciding which one is right and which is wrong. Weighting the semantic scales too far to one side makes that tough.
So what exactly is the potential contradiction we're trying to explore? I think it's got something to do with whether we should stick up for our values or respect other people's comfort. But let's shake it up and see.
Connotative Limbering
Here's an exercise, akin to stretching before a workout, where we see how far to each side we can bias our phrasing.
So let's stre-e-e-etch...
Politeness vs directness. Being nice vs being a jerk. Respecting others' boundaries vs forcing your views down people's throats. Respecting consent vs violating consent.
A-a-and to the other side...
Politeness vs directness. Passivity vs assertiveness. Shutting up vs speaking out. Allowing evil to flourish vs standing up for what's right.
Awesome!
So what do we learn by doing this? Well, the overt intent is to remind ourselves that the concepts in and of themselves maybe hold less inherent moral value than they can seem to. But also, stretching the concepts like this can provide some clues to what the contradiction's really all about.
For example, I hadn't consciously put it together that politeness shared so much semantic space with consent, but the more I think about it, it clearly does. On some level, the rules of politeness serve to allow people to set conversational boundaries that it is improper to cross: a very specific form of consent. Since, in my experience, the people who argue heavily for the "directness" side of the dialectic at hand also tend to be those who value consent (at least romantic/sexual consent) more highly, this points toward a potential rhetorical trap that it might be useful for folks to have a plan for. Namely, if consent is an important value to you, how do you respond when the thrust of someone's argument against you is "Why do you respect consent in this context but not in this other context?"
Fortunately for you, this whole series of articles and discussions is about evaluating morals in different contexts. Wow!
Opening it up
Here are some questions that it might be useful to answer in the comments.
1. What's a context in which it's obvious to you that the value of politeness holds more weight than the value of directness? What's a context where the opposite is true? Can you generalize; that is, make a guess as to what sorts of contexts support each side of this dialectic?
2. What's a situation in which you personally have struggled with whether to speak/act directly, and potentially challenge someone? What did you decide to do, and how did you make that decision?
Go for it! Feel free to respond to each others' comments, but remember: read charitably and speak sincerely. No snark.
Welcome to the inaugural weekly-ish dialectic examination! Hopefully this will serve as an example of the sort of article//discussion I intend to hold here. The format will likely change over time, so feel free to make suggestions on that front.
Introduction
Civility is a loaded topic right now, because almost everything is a loaded topic right now. Also, in the US we just had Thanksgiving, and I hear that this struggle comes up a lot when trying to decide how to deal with family members you disagree with vehemently. Trying to define terms without taking a side is a difficult endeavor; and yet, that's what we've got to do if we want to examine a dialectic. The goal here is to come up with a way of holding the two concepts in our mind without immediately deciding which one is right and which is wrong. Weighting the semantic scales too far to one side makes that tough.
So what exactly is the potential contradiction we're trying to explore? I think it's got something to do with whether we should stick up for our values or respect other people's comfort. But let's shake it up and see.
Connotative Limbering
Here's an exercise, akin to stretching before a workout, where we see how far to each side we can bias our phrasing.
So let's stre-e-e-etch...
Politeness vs directness. Being nice vs being a jerk. Respecting others' boundaries vs forcing your views down people's throats. Respecting consent vs violating consent.
A-a-and to the other side...
Politeness vs directness. Passivity vs assertiveness. Shutting up vs speaking out. Allowing evil to flourish vs standing up for what's right.
Awesome!
So what do we learn by doing this? Well, the overt intent is to remind ourselves that the concepts in and of themselves maybe hold less inherent moral value than they can seem to. But also, stretching the concepts like this can provide some clues to what the contradiction's really all about.
For example, I hadn't consciously put it together that politeness shared so much semantic space with consent, but the more I think about it, it clearly does. On some level, the rules of politeness serve to allow people to set conversational boundaries that it is improper to cross: a very specific form of consent. Since, in my experience, the people who argue heavily for the "directness" side of the dialectic at hand also tend to be those who value consent (at least romantic/sexual consent) more highly, this points toward a potential rhetorical trap that it might be useful for folks to have a plan for. Namely, if consent is an important value to you, how do you respond when the thrust of someone's argument against you is "Why do you respect consent in this context but not in this other context?"
Fortunately for you, this whole series of articles and discussions is about evaluating morals in different contexts. Wow!
Opening it up
Here are some questions that it might be useful to answer in the comments.
1. What's a context in which it's obvious to you that the value of politeness holds more weight than the value of directness? What's a context where the opposite is true? Can you generalize; that is, make a guess as to what sorts of contexts support each side of this dialectic?
2. What's a situation in which you personally have struggled with whether to speak/act directly, and potentially challenge someone? What did you decide to do, and how did you make that decision?
Go for it! Feel free to respond to each others' comments, but remember: read charitably and speak sincerely. No snark.
