On tact
Tact: Acute sensitivity to what is proper and appropriate in dealing with others, including the ability to speak or act without offending.
I see the whole song and dance as manipulative, probably because of the way I was raised: around people who talked about hellfire and damnation with smiles on their faces. Something about nice ain't right. The point is, tact - by which I mean simply "actively trying not to offend people" - strikes me as dishonest. If you think someone is going to be offended by what you're about to say, and so you say it differently so they won't get all uppity, I think you're trying to manage them, not communicate with them. And if you have to manage someone just to hold a conversation, is that conversation really worth the trouble? At work, sure, you're thrust into a forced situation with people you may or may not otherwise hang out with, so tact surely has its place. But with friends, tact is the enemy of honest communication, because if you're spending words trying not to offend, that takes words away from saying what you mean.
Now, don't get me wrong: the alternatives to "trying not to offend people" are not limited to "trying to offend people;" you can also "not try not to offend people" while at the same time "not trying to offend people." The question of offense might never enter the equation. I think it shouldn't, in fact.
Of course, this isn't how a lot of people see it. And that's fine. "Proper" communication is one of those intersubjective things that kind of coalesces out of the acted-out values of lots of people - yeah, it's subject to the majority vote, but it also changes over time, and it's fundamentally arbitrary. I guess what I'm saying is that you can make a principled case for tactlessness, and there's nothing objectively wrong with it, so I guess I just want what people say to be more important than how they say it.
My point with all this is not that this is how communication should work, all the time always, but simply that this is how I like it. What is socially appropriate is largely an intersubjective matter, though, and what constitutes effective communication depends not only on each individual, but also the relationship between them. Most small variances are covered by the principle of charity (specifically, assuming that the person with whom you are conversing is not out to get your goat), but my particular peculiarities do tend, at times, to go a bit beyond the pale. At the moment, I'm a minority, so of course I'm the bitch; but if the majority were like me, the tactful prigs would be the pussies.
(And for the record, I'm not actually offended by tact; I'm socially educated enough to recognize that most people are really just trying not to hurt each other's feelings, and that's by and large a good thing. Yet, as we all know, too much of a good thing... is an awesome thing. But too much of an awesome thing is really, really dumb. And bad. I still think of it as dishonest and manipulative, but in such an innocent way and to such a minute degree that it's really not worth getting worked up about, because everybody does it. Really, the preceding was just to highlight how propriety is arbitrary, so I could make my next point about our particular brand of propriety.)
Now I have a different point to make, and this hinges upon the social consequences of the two attitudes: on the one hand, those who say, "I don't want my toes stepped on, so I had better not step on anybody else's," and on the other hand, those who say, "I will probably step on many people's toes, so I had better be prepared to have my own stepped on in turn." When considered by the standards of the other group, these two camps will be seen as pansies and assholes, respectively (and this is how I'll refer to them). Internally, the pansies and the assholes each think they're just fine. And really, there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself - but what's likely to result from each mindset when applied to a group? Let's think about what would happen to groups who tended toward each side of the spectrum.
The pansies, unaccustomed as they are to directness, will be rather unlikely to engage in genuinely open deliberation - some verbal sparring, as a social game, would probably develop; but this is not the same thing as vigorous debate. In all probability, the pansies will end up tending to stagnate in their mindsets, having never been openly challenged, and having subjugated honest communication to the fickle master of "propriety." They will also be overly sensitive to the criticism of others. Were a pansy, having grown up in a society of pansies, to encounter an asshole, the pansy would probably feel that the asshole was an inconsiderate prick with no respect for diplomacy and no consideration for the feelings of others.
The assholes, on the other hand, will have been accustomed to dealing with each other in plain, open, and often heavy-handed terms, and this will make them likely to develop something of a thick skin when it comes to the words of others. They'll still have their arbitrary social conventions, to be sure (I don't think that can really be escaped in any culture), but by and large their dealings will be characterized by candor and frankness. Because of this, they will not be able to remain as intellectually insular as the pansies - or at least, not for very long. Anyone who is unable to defend an opinion will be mocked for continuing to hold it in the face of superior argument, and thus shamed into a change of mind (provided this hasn't already been done by the superior argument itself). I see this as the "tough love" school of social interaction: spades are called spades, and feelings are not spared - and really, if others need to spare your feelings for the sake of your opinion, what business do you have holding it?
I won't even try to hide (or pretend that I've tried to hide) my bias towards the asshole camp, but I do think that the general predictions - that pansies will tend to be insular, whiny bitches, while assholes will tend to be obnoxious, but more progressive for it - hold true. I do think that there is a sort of Aristotelian mean between the two extremes, for it is impossible in practice to communicate with either of perfect sensitivity or perfect frankness all the time always. However, I also think that this mean is somewhat asshole-shifted from the state of our current culture (and by the same token, having at least a few in the pansy camp will also always be valuable in principle, lest our culture become too asshole-shifted). I think that, in general, it is good to be somewhat thick-skinned, it's good to be offended from time to time, to get shook up a little, to be forced to question one's beliefs so that they may be reinforced or replaced - just as the unexamined life is not worth living, the unexamined belief is not worth believing. This is one reason why absolutely free speech is important: having people out there who look like assholes acts as a social safety net against epistemological embarrassment.
OK, maybe that's getting a bit romantic, but still: we should not, as a species, ever be resting on our philosophical laurels. Even our most cherished beliefs are perpetually subject to being overturned by uncaring reality, and we should be prepared to revise or replace them accordingly. As has been pointed out before, it's questions all the way down, so we ought to resist fooling ourselves into thinking we've got any particular question answered once and for all, because new evidence can always overturn old knowledge. And sometimes, there's no tactful way to do this, but it must be done nonetheless; so much the worse for tact.
I guess what this is ultimately about is free speech, which I treat in roughly the same manner that the NRA treats guns: I don't strictly need every possible bit of it, but fuck you if you try to take away even the teensiest bit. My freedom to say what I like, how I like it, is more important than how you feel about it; and your freedom to say what you like, how you like it, is more important than how I feel about it. And the more openly and starkly we disagree, the more opportunities we have to either reinforce or revise our own opinions (as necessary), and I think that we could all benefit from a little bit more of that.
I see the whole song and dance as manipulative, probably because of the way I was raised: around people who talked about hellfire and damnation with smiles on their faces. Something about nice ain't right. The point is, tact - by which I mean simply "actively trying not to offend people" - strikes me as dishonest. If you think someone is going to be offended by what you're about to say, and so you say it differently so they won't get all uppity, I think you're trying to manage them, not communicate with them. And if you have to manage someone just to hold a conversation, is that conversation really worth the trouble? At work, sure, you're thrust into a forced situation with people you may or may not otherwise hang out with, so tact surely has its place. But with friends, tact is the enemy of honest communication, because if you're spending words trying not to offend, that takes words away from saying what you mean.
Now, don't get me wrong: the alternatives to "trying not to offend people" are not limited to "trying to offend people;" you can also "not try not to offend people" while at the same time "not trying to offend people." The question of offense might never enter the equation. I think it shouldn't, in fact.
Of course, this isn't how a lot of people see it. And that's fine. "Proper" communication is one of those intersubjective things that kind of coalesces out of the acted-out values of lots of people - yeah, it's subject to the majority vote, but it also changes over time, and it's fundamentally arbitrary. I guess what I'm saying is that you can make a principled case for tactlessness, and there's nothing objectively wrong with it, so I guess I just want what people say to be more important than how they say it.
My point with all this is not that this is how communication should work, all the time always, but simply that this is how I like it. What is socially appropriate is largely an intersubjective matter, though, and what constitutes effective communication depends not only on each individual, but also the relationship between them. Most small variances are covered by the principle of charity (specifically, assuming that the person with whom you are conversing is not out to get your goat), but my particular peculiarities do tend, at times, to go a bit beyond the pale. At the moment, I'm a minority, so of course I'm the bitch; but if the majority were like me, the tactful prigs would be the pussies.
(And for the record, I'm not actually offended by tact; I'm socially educated enough to recognize that most people are really just trying not to hurt each other's feelings, and that's by and large a good thing. Yet, as we all know, too much of a good thing... is an awesome thing. But too much of an awesome thing is really, really dumb. And bad. I still think of it as dishonest and manipulative, but in such an innocent way and to such a minute degree that it's really not worth getting worked up about, because everybody does it. Really, the preceding was just to highlight how propriety is arbitrary, so I could make my next point about our particular brand of propriety.)
Now I have a different point to make, and this hinges upon the social consequences of the two attitudes: on the one hand, those who say, "I don't want my toes stepped on, so I had better not step on anybody else's," and on the other hand, those who say, "I will probably step on many people's toes, so I had better be prepared to have my own stepped on in turn." When considered by the standards of the other group, these two camps will be seen as pansies and assholes, respectively (and this is how I'll refer to them). Internally, the pansies and the assholes each think they're just fine. And really, there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself - but what's likely to result from each mindset when applied to a group? Let's think about what would happen to groups who tended toward each side of the spectrum.
The pansies, unaccustomed as they are to directness, will be rather unlikely to engage in genuinely open deliberation - some verbal sparring, as a social game, would probably develop; but this is not the same thing as vigorous debate. In all probability, the pansies will end up tending to stagnate in their mindsets, having never been openly challenged, and having subjugated honest communication to the fickle master of "propriety." They will also be overly sensitive to the criticism of others. Were a pansy, having grown up in a society of pansies, to encounter an asshole, the pansy would probably feel that the asshole was an inconsiderate prick with no respect for diplomacy and no consideration for the feelings of others.
The assholes, on the other hand, will have been accustomed to dealing with each other in plain, open, and often heavy-handed terms, and this will make them likely to develop something of a thick skin when it comes to the words of others. They'll still have their arbitrary social conventions, to be sure (I don't think that can really be escaped in any culture), but by and large their dealings will be characterized by candor and frankness. Because of this, they will not be able to remain as intellectually insular as the pansies - or at least, not for very long. Anyone who is unable to defend an opinion will be mocked for continuing to hold it in the face of superior argument, and thus shamed into a change of mind (provided this hasn't already been done by the superior argument itself). I see this as the "tough love" school of social interaction: spades are called spades, and feelings are not spared - and really, if others need to spare your feelings for the sake of your opinion, what business do you have holding it?
I won't even try to hide (or pretend that I've tried to hide) my bias towards the asshole camp, but I do think that the general predictions - that pansies will tend to be insular, whiny bitches, while assholes will tend to be obnoxious, but more progressive for it - hold true. I do think that there is a sort of Aristotelian mean between the two extremes, for it is impossible in practice to communicate with either of perfect sensitivity or perfect frankness all the time always. However, I also think that this mean is somewhat asshole-shifted from the state of our current culture (and by the same token, having at least a few in the pansy camp will also always be valuable in principle, lest our culture become too asshole-shifted). I think that, in general, it is good to be somewhat thick-skinned, it's good to be offended from time to time, to get shook up a little, to be forced to question one's beliefs so that they may be reinforced or replaced - just as the unexamined life is not worth living, the unexamined belief is not worth believing. This is one reason why absolutely free speech is important: having people out there who look like assholes acts as a social safety net against epistemological embarrassment.
OK, maybe that's getting a bit romantic, but still: we should not, as a species, ever be resting on our philosophical laurels. Even our most cherished beliefs are perpetually subject to being overturned by uncaring reality, and we should be prepared to revise or replace them accordingly. As has been pointed out before, it's questions all the way down, so we ought to resist fooling ourselves into thinking we've got any particular question answered once and for all, because new evidence can always overturn old knowledge. And sometimes, there's no tactful way to do this, but it must be done nonetheless; so much the worse for tact.
I guess what this is ultimately about is free speech, which I treat in roughly the same manner that the NRA treats guns: I don't strictly need every possible bit of it, but fuck you if you try to take away even the teensiest bit. My freedom to say what I like, how I like it, is more important than how you feel about it; and your freedom to say what you like, how you like it, is more important than how I feel about it. And the more openly and starkly we disagree, the more opportunities we have to either reinforce or revise our own opinions (as necessary), and I think that we could all benefit from a little bit more of that.