saying thank you
As I cross on crosswalks, I'll often thank the stopped drivers with a wave or a salute. On a number of occasions (in which Bo and I are in the same location, so a finite number :P) this has prompted a discussion about thanking people when they do something that they are supposed to do or even required by law to do. I recognize that drivers are
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And I don't know if heterosexuality is what you're "supposed" to do. I mean, it's what we're "supposed" to do if the goal is to have babies. While I agree that we're biologically programmed to probably want babies more often than not, I feel we get to define our own goals much more broadly. For me, human relations are much more than just sex -- and for many people (and bonobos) sex is a social expression aside from procreation. Sex for some people is a way of getting to know someone better and exploring a part of their relationship. In many cultures not as confined by Abrahamic religions, sexual relations and same-sex relations (sexual or otherwise) were not uncommon. I see it less as a "law" and more as an option. I can choose to drive with the windows open, with the radio playing, or with a stuffed Garfield on the window.
I do think there's a question of where to delineate social convention and law (e.g. taboo). I think the best way of differentiating when to thank someone is whether there is an intrusion into their space. Pedestrians can choose not to cross when they do (for the most part), so when they cross, they are often choosing to force traffic to stop. So smiling or waving is a means to say "thanks for letting me inconvenience you". It's like letting someone cross lanes in front of you on the highway when their lane is ending. Similarly, saying "excuse me" after burping or farting is a way of acknowledging an inconvenience -- most people are not inconvenienced by burps and are willing to overlook farts if the farter is not being obnoxious about it. A smile or wave is the flip side of a "sorry" or "excuse me" -- it says, "hey, I noticed that you were there". The best way for people to work together in a dense space is to recognize that the other people are there along with their right to the space too.
I recently read an article about gentrification. The author conducted interviews with people who were "native" to neighborhoods being gentrified. For people who weren't being driven out by rising living costs, the biggest gripe about the gentrifiers was that they were usually unfriendly and unwilling to be involved in the existing neighborhood culture. It was about respect and the new people respecting the right of the original inhabitants to live there and exist alongside the newcomers.
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What I was getting at with the mention of sexuality is the tendency of artists/bohemians/misfits of all stripes to feel that society's pressure to conform is oppressive. I agree with you that what consenting adults do with each other is their own business, but not everyone does. The kind of approval we're talking about with respect to not running each other over can be used to pressure someone to conform to the local society's view of "normal" by rewarding them when they do so. See "Revolutionary Road," (not that I have but I gather that it's about a marriage cracking under the strain of suburban role expectations) or any number of stories about people coming out/not coming out to their families.
I think that's an interesting point on gentrification. Residents with the weaker financial position tend to have their culture undermined as the wealthier group moves in. It must reach a point of no return once you've lost sufficient cultural density to maintain the previous feel of the neighborhood. Gentrifiers respecting the culture they are moving in on probably wouldn't change that process all that much, but it might ease the sting a little bit.
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Regarding gentrification, it also depends on how the would be gentrifiers view the people already there. As an anecdote: After the San Francisco Fire, much of Chinatown was destroyed. A lot of developers wanted to come in and build on the prime downtown property, but there was (understandably) intense resistance from the Chinatown residents. To keep the developers at bay, the Chinese residents brought in non-Asian-American architects to rebuild Chinatown in a way that European-Americans would find pleasing. Whence was born the current San Francisco Chinatown: the developers and their ilk loved the new Chinatown (the quaintness, the Otherness, the "exotic"-ness, the "Oritental"-ness, or some combination of all of them), so they let the residents stay. Sadly, the Chinatown is having its residents bought out to make way for stores and businesses. Gentrification "wins" again.
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