Ialdabaoth
Posts: 1073
Joined: 5/4/2008
From: Tempe, AZ
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Post-Modern Etiquette: Why we're fucked
In general, most people want to be polite to each other. It helps, it's simple, and it goes over far better than being rude. The problem is, multicultural societies tend to have multiple, conflicting definitions of what "polite" is.
Some examples:
You should always hold the door open for a lady.
Holding the door open for a lady is insulting and patriarchal.
You should always call someone "sir" or "Mr. X"
"Mr. X is my father, man."
It's worse if she's female: Ma'am implies you think she's old; Miss implies you think she's diminutive and beneath her, Missus implies you have the right to presume that she's married.
The problem is, you have to make some assumptions to start with, but any assumptions are likely to be wrong, and rude.
Think about that - you have to make assumptions about what is polite, but any wrong assumptions about what is polite are rude, and you're more likely to make wrong assumptions than right ones.
So what do you do? Well, normally, you'd ask. The problem is, when it comes to etiquette, asking is very often one of the rudest things you can do. And even when it's not directly rude, it at least comes across as odd, stilted, and awkward, which is the exact opposite of what etiquette is supposed to accomplish.
Etiquette in Sociohistoric Context
All forms of etiquette evolve within sociohistoric context, by which I mean they develop slowly as a culture develops and asserts itself, in response to practical concerns that that culture has at the moment a particular custom is developed. Then, that custom becomes anchored into that culture's assumptions, and passes into the collection of associated customs that culture calls its etiquette. As this etiquette evolves and matures, it becomes more and more important to raise people to intuitively understand its assumptions - and it becomes less and less polite to show ignorance of those assumptions. I'm calling this a "Guess" culture, because at its height its members are expected to correctly guess what to do in any situation, and failure to guess correctly is seen as a sign of rudeness, or at the very least lack of good culture and manners. Most "Guess" cultures also expect you to never ask for something unless you're sure the other party wants to give it, and to always give yourself an out - so that you aren't caught "making demands" of people.
If you aren't from that culture, many of those cultural assumptions will seem utterly bizzare to you, as your own culture's history probably developed completely different customs based on completely different needs and historical accidents. So it's impossible to just drop into a culture that you know nothing about, and behave courteously without making any sort of faux pas - you just don't have the same sorts of assumptions that they do.
In most post-modern cultures, we're dealing with something that's currently called "multiculturalism". This is a forced blending of different cultures, which often results in people trying to be polite to each other using their own culture's mores, but being judged on their politeness by the other cultures' mores. This rarely goes well.
The only way you can really deal with this is to find out what the other culture's responses are, and to explain what yours are. This requires an actual dialog. In a young, multicultural society, the only safe thing to do when confronted with new behavior is to attempt to initiate a dialog about that behavior. Once this idea becomes ingrained, it creates its own form of etiquette. I'm calling this "Ask" culture, because it's okay - and even expected - to ask for clarification or explanation regarding anything. Most "Ask" cultures also expect people to make their needs and desires clear, and tend to expect people to be able to handle getting a "no" answer.
Two Etiquette Cultures: Ask vs. Guess
Note: I first heard about the idea of "Ask vs Guess" culture here.
So, here's the thing. If you're from a reasonably established culture, that's been steadily evolving itself towards "Guess", it's going to be pretty uncomfortable for you to actually negotiate an etiquette - why doesn't everyone just know what the right etiquette is? On the other hand, if you're from a newer, still-evolving culture, it's going to be completely hopeless to expect anyone to know what the correct forms of adress and protocol are, so of course you're expected to ask. When these two people meet each other, hilarity ensues.
The Curse of Recursion
Of course, for an Ask person, it seems patently obvious that if one side or the other doesn't understand the proper etiquette, that the only thing you can do is sit down and rationally negotiate a new form of etiquette.
Here's the problem with that: any process of negotiation requires an active protocol, and the more touchy and important the negotiation process is, the more protocol becomes important. I've personally driven people to tears trying to hone in on this concept. You try to negotiate for something, only to discover that your negotiation languages are different, and your expectations about the process of negotiation itself are different. Okay, so, you try to negotiate a negotiation process. Well, you're going to need a negotiation process for THAT, so you try to negotiate one. Oh dear.
TL;DR
Anyway, the point of all this long-winded diatribe is to point out that etiquette is hard, and that oftentimes people aren't being rude because they're bad people, they're appearing rude because they have different assumptions. Of course, for some cultures, "having different assumptions" means "being bad people", so YMMV.
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RE: Manners or obnoxious? - 
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