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Rambly thoughts on niceness
I've been meaning to post some coherent thoughts on niceness for a while but I think I need to post some incoherent ones first to get my thoughts in order :)
So: I'm a "nice" person, in that I'm friendly, and polite, and non-threatening, and passive (and that's what I'm going to mean by "nice" in this post. I realise that's not the only definition). I used to feel rather smug about this, and wish other people were more like me(*). But the older I get the more I realise that not only is this "niceness" harmful to me (as I get all repressed and ignored) but it can also be harmful to those around me, and stems largely from entirely selfish motivations.
Disclaimers like whoa, I'm definitely just stream-of-consciousnessing here. And have a headache :)
EDIT: This is a bunch of thoughts about the flaws of niceness, mainly as it relates to me and my behaviour. Niceness has a lot of benefits too, I just didn't go into them. Also people make some good points in the comments.
I do not deal well with conflict. If I'm afraid, or angry, or embarrassed, my brain shuts down and I freak out, either I freeze and can't think of what to say, or I burst into tears, or say something really really stupid. Often all three.
Now I've been working on this and don't freak out as much as I used to, but the main coping technique I've developed over the past 3 decades or so is to be really good at avoiding conflict. If everyone likes me, and I never say or do anything aggressive or uncomfortable, and only ever ask for things in a passive indirect way, noone will ever get angry at me, or decide to pick on me, or whatever. This is accentuated by the way women are in general socialised to be "nice", and coming from a "nice" emotionally repressed, passive aggressive family.
And this works. But it means I end up keeping silent on things that upset me, and not disagreeing with people who I know won't take it well, and overall not getting what I want and being emotionally repressed. This led to Much Badness with my ex boyfriend taking advantage of my "niceness" and since then (1998! I am so old) I've been working towards expressing my anger with people, and overall saying what I think and what I want.
Now some of my primary values are honesty, truth, non-hypocrisy etc. I've always felt that if everyone is calm and logical and polite then it's much easier to get to the truth and avoid all the confusing emotional crap and intimidation that goes along with conflict and rudeness.
But, again around 1998, I started meeting guys(**) in unisfa who in a lot of ways had similar values to me, but felt that politeness meant lying about what you really feel, and that the best way to get to the truth was to avoid all the polite fictions and speak the honest unvarnished truth. (This is probably a gross misrepresentation of their ideals. It's just the impression I got ten years ago!)
Of course it doesn't work that way for me: once people start yelling at me, I can't think, so there's no way for me to express my opinion. But it occurred to me: what if they (or other people) couldn't express themselves as well in my sort of argument? What makes mine inherently better?
And as time's gone on I've seen a lot of examples of calm, "rational" people passive aggressively silencing their critics/opponents by insisting on a "polite" discourse which subtly favours their POV. One of the big ones is to act as if some horrible, hurtful, but "politely" expressed opinion deserves a calm rational, carefully cited refutation, and that anyone who gets angry about it is being rude, and that that rudeness is a much more serious offense. Once someone has been "rude" you can then throw your hands in the air and dismiss everyone who disagrees with you as aggressive and overemotional. And a lot of the time of course the definition of "rudeness" is applied inconsistently, and really means "anyone who tells me I am wrong, or gives the impression of having been made angry by my words".
Once you start limiting the boundaries of "acceptable" debate, it's not too hard to use it as an excuse for excluding people you don't like. It's also an excuse to derail a conversation by being a concern troll. One of the common arguments is "You shouldn't do anything that hurts other people's feelings" while completely ignoring (or glossing over) the fact that these "hurtful" actions are in self defense in response to earlier hurtful actions.
Passive aggression is still aggression, it's just sneakier and easier to deny.
Little white lies done for politeness's sake are still lies. If I'm "nice" to someone to their face but complain about them behind their back, that's actually not very "nice".
And if someone is treating someone else like crap in front of me, but I don't call them on it to avoid conflict? Then I am complicit. If I call them on it but am nice to them later? Well, I may still be being complicit (I'm still thinking about that one)
On the other hand, I do NOT like the free-for-all 4-chan-esque approach of everyone being as aggressive and offensive as they like. Not just because it doesn't suit me personally, but because, like overly narrow "politeness", it asymmetrically silences those with less power in the conversation and supports the status quo. Aggression has much more effect if you have more power behind it (ie you're big guy vs a little guy, or a man vs a woman, or a white person vs a black person, etc) and so I still think that too much of it is harmful.
I guess, in short: do not mistake "niceness" for moral superiority.
And that's the end of my incoherent ramble :)
Some links (many of these grew from discussions of racism, but I've seen the same techniques in everything from shipping wars to my grandma bullying my mum about who pays for dinner)
(*)A lot of people assume my "nice" demeanor indicates a humble spirit, but apart from a few typical geek issues with self esteem I am egotistical as heck :D
(**)And again we hit the different ways men and women are socialised. Obviously it's not always that simple, my dad is a lot like me for example. But I think the female dominatedness of fanfic fandom is one reason the whole "tone" thing can get really out of hand.
So: I'm a "nice" person, in that I'm friendly, and polite, and non-threatening, and passive (and that's what I'm going to mean by "nice" in this post. I realise that's not the only definition). I used to feel rather smug about this, and wish other people were more like me(*). But the older I get the more I realise that not only is this "niceness" harmful to me (as I get all repressed and ignored) but it can also be harmful to those around me, and stems largely from entirely selfish motivations.
Disclaimers like whoa, I'm definitely just stream-of-consciousnessing here. And have a headache :)
EDIT: This is a bunch of thoughts about the flaws of niceness, mainly as it relates to me and my behaviour. Niceness has a lot of benefits too, I just didn't go into them. Also people make some good points in the comments.
I do not deal well with conflict. If I'm afraid, or angry, or embarrassed, my brain shuts down and I freak out, either I freeze and can't think of what to say, or I burst into tears, or say something really really stupid. Often all three.
Now I've been working on this and don't freak out as much as I used to, but the main coping technique I've developed over the past 3 decades or so is to be really good at avoiding conflict. If everyone likes me, and I never say or do anything aggressive or uncomfortable, and only ever ask for things in a passive indirect way, noone will ever get angry at me, or decide to pick on me, or whatever. This is accentuated by the way women are in general socialised to be "nice", and coming from a "nice" emotionally repressed, passive aggressive family.
And this works. But it means I end up keeping silent on things that upset me, and not disagreeing with people who I know won't take it well, and overall not getting what I want and being emotionally repressed. This led to Much Badness with my ex boyfriend taking advantage of my "niceness" and since then (1998! I am so old) I've been working towards expressing my anger with people, and overall saying what I think and what I want.
Now some of my primary values are honesty, truth, non-hypocrisy etc. I've always felt that if everyone is calm and logical and polite then it's much easier to get to the truth and avoid all the confusing emotional crap and intimidation that goes along with conflict and rudeness.
But, again around 1998, I started meeting guys(**) in unisfa who in a lot of ways had similar values to me, but felt that politeness meant lying about what you really feel, and that the best way to get to the truth was to avoid all the polite fictions and speak the honest unvarnished truth. (This is probably a gross misrepresentation of their ideals. It's just the impression I got ten years ago!)
Of course it doesn't work that way for me: once people start yelling at me, I can't think, so there's no way for me to express my opinion. But it occurred to me: what if they (or other people) couldn't express themselves as well in my sort of argument? What makes mine inherently better?
And as time's gone on I've seen a lot of examples of calm, "rational" people passive aggressively silencing their critics/opponents by insisting on a "polite" discourse which subtly favours their POV. One of the big ones is to act as if some horrible, hurtful, but "politely" expressed opinion deserves a calm rational, carefully cited refutation, and that anyone who gets angry about it is being rude, and that that rudeness is a much more serious offense. Once someone has been "rude" you can then throw your hands in the air and dismiss everyone who disagrees with you as aggressive and overemotional. And a lot of the time of course the definition of "rudeness" is applied inconsistently, and really means "anyone who tells me I am wrong, or gives the impression of having been made angry by my words".
Once you start limiting the boundaries of "acceptable" debate, it's not too hard to use it as an excuse for excluding people you don't like. It's also an excuse to derail a conversation by being a concern troll. One of the common arguments is "You shouldn't do anything that hurts other people's feelings" while completely ignoring (or glossing over) the fact that these "hurtful" actions are in self defense in response to earlier hurtful actions.
Passive aggression is still aggression, it's just sneakier and easier to deny.
Little white lies done for politeness's sake are still lies. If I'm "nice" to someone to their face but complain about them behind their back, that's actually not very "nice".
And if someone is treating someone else like crap in front of me, but I don't call them on it to avoid conflict? Then I am complicit. If I call them on it but am nice to them later? Well, I may still be being complicit (I'm still thinking about that one)
On the other hand, I do NOT like the free-for-all 4-chan-esque approach of everyone being as aggressive and offensive as they like. Not just because it doesn't suit me personally, but because, like overly narrow "politeness", it asymmetrically silences those with less power in the conversation and supports the status quo. Aggression has much more effect if you have more power behind it (ie you're big guy vs a little guy, or a man vs a woman, or a white person vs a black person, etc) and so I still think that too much of it is harmful.
I guess, in short: do not mistake "niceness" for moral superiority.
And that's the end of my incoherent ramble :)
Some links (many of these grew from discussions of racism, but I've seen the same techniques in everything from shipping wars to my grandma bullying my mum about who pays for dinner)
- The five geek fallacies EVERY GEEK NEEDS TO READ THIS.
- No More Mr. Nice Guy how "nice guys" actually aren't that nice
- How to Not Sound Racist (if you don't listen very hard) 5 techniques white people use to mask their racism, I found it very compelling.
- cofax7: links, and some meta on rhetoric "Anger is often a more effective tactic than courtesy in getting people to challenge their assumptions"
- I am not the moderator About "nice" white people coming into discussions of racism and thinking they can be the "objective voice of reason".
- Why can't we all be nice in which I rant about the "tone" argument, has more links at the bottom
(*)A lot of people assume my "nice" demeanor indicates a humble spirit, but apart from a few typical geek issues with self esteem I am egotistical as heck :D
(**)And again we hit the different ways men and women are socialised. Obviously it's not always that simple, my dad is a lot like me for example. But I think the female dominatedness of fanfic fandom is one reason the whole "tone" thing can get really out of hand.
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Anyway, it sounds as if that isn't you, so that is a relief :)
I definitely agree that there are some people who think an argument has more value depending on the strength of the emotional content. My own observation is that they may not be as uninfluenced by their emotions as they think they are, and that they might have done better to keep a cool head had they been able. But if you want 'fire' then tapping into anger or a similar strong emotion is a very good way to do it. I am reminded of the conversation between Buffy and Kendra on just this topic in season 2, and I would say they both had a point - emotions make you sloppy, but they can also make you determined.
I also think this is a particular problem for women. Because if you are going to deal with conflicts then while managing your emotions is useful, it is far more useful to not have the emotions in the first place. This, I believe, is the evolutionary reason why males don't experience as much emotion, especially in conflict situations. Men have evolved to fight in a ritualised fashion that limits their own vulnerability while keeping the battle well away from their women and children - hence all the rules of combat, aggressive posturing that can force the opposition to back down without actually engaging etc., and respect but not empathy for their opponent. Women, by contrast, if they have to fight at all, will be a last line of defence, and they are then battling for their own and their offspring's survival. As such they need every ounce of aggression and lack of sympathy or respect that they can muster to push the battle to the crunch point. And indeed studies have shown that women are far more aggressive in battle situations - for example they are less likely to take prisoners or stop and help wounded comrades. There are of course interesting exceptions to these sweeping statements involving people who cross the gender boundaries, and anybody who is highly trained will respond according to their training, but as a general rule I believe it holds.
All of which becomes a problem when the 'battle' isn't a real fight at all but just an internet argument without the social restraints of community to rein us all in. :( The males are going around posturing and not empathising, while the women are leaping for the jugular whenever they feel attacked. The wonder is not that kerfuffles escalate, but that any of us have a shred of emotional sanity left to keep going ;)
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