sqbr | Rambly thoughts on niceness

Well, lookit that. I'm not a geek. I've long said I wasn't a geek, not really, because while I like traditionally geeky topics, actual geek gatherings make me want to flee, flee, flee...

And reading those five fallacies? None of them resonate with me, except in a "so THAT'S what they think they're doing? Who'da guessed?" sort of way.

...oh, erm, sorry. You were posting about niceness, weren't you?

Hmm, interesting post, thank you. ^_^

I am too brain-dead right this minute to say more than,

"I can totally relate to the conflict-avoidance thing."

and like you, I value honesty, truth, non-hypocrisy etc.

I'm finding in 2008 and 2009 that I've been making friends with three LOUD women who speak their mind without second-guessing their audience - women who can be tactful / compassionate / kind / thoughtful, but who are also honest, strong and forthright and brave[1].

(One of these women I've known since 2003 through a mutual friend, but until 2008 I found her far too loud and in-your-face and confrontational to want to spend time with.)

and I look at these women and see role models, and I think "*I* would like to be more like that."

I've discovered the words 'preference' and 'prefer' is very useful when trying to reach an agreement or compromise.

"I would prefer that we do Z-thing because... [reason]"

It lowers the stakes for everyone involved: if person A prefers Z-thing and person B prefers H-thing, there's room for negotiation, disagreement without anger, compromise, solutions that meet everyone's needs.

(As opposed to saying "I want to do Z-thing" "We *must* do Z-thing" "We *should* do Z-thing".)

[1] Which is in no way intended to imply that my other friends aren't. Did I mention that I was brain-dead at the moment? ^_^

You should read The Dance of Pretence. I think I might have it here, but I'm not sure. I still have babalon_93's copy of Dance of Anger though!

I am also learning a lot about my own behaviours from race!fail09. I've picked up some of the things I do in arguments to quash it - and strawman arguments too.

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.

I understand that... I am fairly similar, though I've also found that I've gone from not being able to express what I want, to, in a certain extent, not 'wanting' anything much, so that I don't get too disappointed when I don't get.

Except more sleep. Still want that.

There is a marked difference between being
a) polite and compassionate; and
b) cowardly.

I too used to hide behind the concept of "niceness" to justify conflict-avoidance. Not that I don't still hide from conflict, but I don't dress it up as a virtue anymore.

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)

I think you can disagree with someone and still be friends, or at least friendly, as long you don't excuse them simply because you're friends.

*hugs* it's a sodding enormous, complex interaction and I keep writing the first half of a post that in my head is called 'the Rules of Engagement'.

I'm used to some basic rules being in place during emotionally difficult conversations and I do very well with people who use the same rules and surprisingly well with a lot of people who don't. It breaks down completely with people who believe you shouldn't talk about x at all.

The rules are very simple.

1. The person who brings up the issue gets heard
2. The person who listens, listens. They also clarify / reflect.

(both parties try to be compassionate)

3. Resolution is negotiated based on a whole bunch of things and may even be deferred to some point in the future in order to create a safe space for person 1. to talk and for person 2. to deal with what was said.

Being person 1 is hard, you have a responsibility to bring up an issue and be willing to articulate it and explore it and do so in good faith. It's not about proving someone else is a bad person or punishing them. You aren't allowed to bring up everything that's ever annoyed you ever, you get one issue at a time.

Being person 2 is is hard, you have to remember it's not about you. At all. It's about person 1. and maybe, if it looks doable - some sort of resolution. You have to be willing to treat whatever person 1. says as if it's real, and important and you have to help person 1. feel safe enough to want to talk to you again.

I can talk about anything if I know I can trust person 2. to treat me like my feelings are important to them and not to tell me I'm wrong / crazy / not allowed to feel that way / not entitled to feel that way / not gay enough / not feminist enough / not bright enough / too loud / too rude / check bingo card here.

I can listen to anyone if I know they are not just wasting my time/energy by stirring up hurt without being interested in eventual resolution

The exact opposite of this model is one I think of as the military model - it's not very useful.

1. Admit nothing
2. Deny everything
3. Make counter-accusations

Probably more for me to take from this post than I want to admit to. And dear god thankyou for that Geek Fallacies link, I've been almost convinced that it was all in my head.

This post bugs me for reasons which I'm not quite sure I can consciously explain yet. Perhaps when I figure out whether or not I fit your definition of "nice" I might have more to say.

It does feel a bit like you're conflating politeness (certain standards for the form of one's behaviour) with political correctness (adhering absolutely to certain ideologies and silencing those who speak out against them). Politeness seems to me like something which should be defended rather than criticised.

It also seems to me that your definition of "niceness" is quite independent from conflict avoidance and worrying about what others think - which are what I think some of your problems with niceness stem from. These are also two traits I certainly don't have, if only because I'm completely oblivious to what other people think of me. (Similarly I think the big reason that the geek social fallacies haven't affected me is that I don't like other people enough to have the kinds of friendship groups that suffer from geek social fallacies. My natural response to cliquey groups of friends is to run like hell.)

Interesting post - thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Being 'nice' in the way you describe seems to be quite insidious. It's as much a rejection of effective (and empathetic) communication as being rude and aggressive.

(I'm going to start with a disclaimer because I'm stressed out by some very harsh RL stuff at the mo and also probably heading for a crash - this may not make sense.)

I can equate with some of this, but sort of coming from the other direction. It has taken me a long time to realise that I can't cope with emotional situations, but the way I can't cope is not to try to be nice and avoid them, but to fight. I get a huge adrenaline surge, my brain seems to go into overdrive and I move into a mode where I tend to mock, intimidate, and generally beat people with my tongue and my brain until they are quivering. Afterwards, I tend to feel bad about this :(

So in the past few years I have come to accept that I am not safe in an emotional situation, I need to walk away. And I have spent some effort learning how to do that. I don't always get it right of course, sometimes I leave it too long and cause hurt, frequently to people I actually like and admire, which sucks. :( But I am getting better.

The trouble is this means there are lots of conversations/arguments where I can't join in, because they are taking place in an emotional way. But I still may be very interested in or even strongly invested in the topic, and have lots that I would like to say and discuss if only I could do it in a non-emotional fashion.

So I have become invested in finding or creating safe spaces where I can have those important conversations in a non-emotional fashion. Hence I highly value niceness, and actively seek it out. It's a skill I really want to learn. It makes me sad seeing you rate it as a weakness - being able to control your emotions is a really, really valuable skill. I envy you.

There's more than one self-declared "white ally" I'd like to understand that they're not being an ally when they're sounding and/or behaving like a concern troll.

Thank you for helping me put that into words.

politeness meant lying about what you really feel

hey it's me

Slightly more on topic, now (but not THAT much more)...

I understand "nice", "polite", "kind", and "respectful" to be different things, even though they get used more or less interchangeably.

"Nice" is something like wanting to be liked, and wanting everyone's emotions to be quite and smooth.

"Polite" is... something like the Geneva Conventions. A formal code of acceptable conduct, which has nothing to do with being nice to people. As Miss Manners points out over and over again, one can be polite and cruel, polite and aggressive, polite and ruthless, etc. There is no requirement to be kind, or put people at their ease, or any other such thing. There is a strong emphasis on leaving people room to save face, so it tends to act as a choke on how fast hostilities can increase, or how damaging hostilities can get, but it was never intended to prevent hostilities.

"Kind" is caring about how the other person feels and trying to not let/make them feel bad.

"Respect" is.... er... respect. (Crap. The verbalization was almost working!)

Anyway, of all the the above ways to treat people, "respect" is pretty awesome, "polite" has a lot to be said for it (there is a basic level of respect built in, if you learn the code well), "kind" isn't bad (although it can slide into condescension RIGHT quick if you're not careful to keep "respect" at hand, too), and "nice" is... Pretty damn shallow. Of all the goals you might have in your interactions with other people, "wanting to be liked" is far less important, in my mind, than "treating people with respect." That's just basic ethics there.

In terms of ally-work, "nice" tends to turn into "wanting to be liked by everyone, including the people who hold -ist beliefs AND the people who are victims of those beliefs," which is a frickin' DISASTER. I think that the better someone gets at letting go of the goal of "nice" in favor of "respect" (with or without liking), the better one gets at being an ally, and the better able one is to own one's privileges.

I also believe that aiming for respect, with or without liking, is way more likely to put you in a place where a lot of people like you than "nice" does. But to make it work, you do have to first be willing to not be liked.

One big problem I have with "niceness" -- as you put it -- is that it involves an awful lot of framing and preparing any sort of topic for discussion, and that imposes a not inconsiderable additional burden of speaking and listening on the discussion's participants, while communicating very little. It is phatic speech emphasising sociability over information transfer.

I think that this problem is evident in the way that you express yourself on this blog. You often commence with several disclaimers, continue with constant qualifications, and conclude with apology and self-deprecation. You have to write those words, and we have to read them.

I wouldn't get hung up about it, as to a large extent it's a beneficial practice. You have tended to write about sensitive subjects of late, which deserve extra care. But perhaps it can be taken too far. It can make your arguments less compelling by clouding them in pusillanimousness, needlessly weakening the authority of what could perhaps be condensed to more striking propositions.

My challenge: write your next post on race / gender / class without any framing niceness. That would include avoiding any mention that you're not being nice for once, or any reference to this post.

here via metafandom.

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.

I've been realizing the same thing about myself and completely agree with your post.

I find a lot of niceness is politeness, is strategies to prevent confusion, is conflict avoidance, rather than being about truly caring about the other or actually being 'nice'. I am far less 'nice' to many of my close friends, because there is less possibility of getting things confused, of us getting the wrong impression about the other, etc -- we already know each others real position, we already trust in how the other feels about things, we don't have to put in disclaimery language to cover our arse as much. But then some of 'niceness' really is about being 'nice', It is hard to tell which is which, because we just don't think about it as much.

The boundaries of what is acceptable debate can, and should, vary by forum. I don't think it is OK for someone to say 'that is not acceptable debate', but I do think it is ok for someone to say 'that is not acceptable debate *here*', presuming it is their forum and they are not abusing their position to win a specific argument, and providing there is consistency etc. The problem with sprawling internet/LJ debates is many things are both sort of half private/half public space with no set rules about what is acceptable (or rules that are not obvious). People follow a thread from one forum to another, and don't realise that perhaps the rules have changed, and come charging angrily into a place with a quite set culture and idea of acceptable discourse, or into spaces that people think of as quite personal, and an inevitable explosion of anger (usually on both sides) follows. On the other hand, you also have people applying said rules inconsistently (or consistently unfairly, to suppress a particular POV that they dislike), and the same sort of explosion happens, and it is hard to tell the two apart -- or perhaps they do, in fact, overlap for different POVs. There are still no universally recognised universal rules of politeness for internet discussion, and even if there were, polite rules followed by obnoxious people are almost as bad in practice.

I've been reminded of certain academic discourses I have seen, where the rules of politeness for that forum are followed religiously -- lots of polite roundabout discussion, very formal and constrained -- but the actual content is mostly seething resentment expressed through very formally expressed attempts to find fatal flaws in the others arguments. Rules of discourse can have very little to do with being nice.

Every geek should read the five geek fallacies, yes. Our culture is dysfunctional. Probably not more than any other sub-culture, but it is important to recognise consistent problems.

The Nice Guy thing is important, though I read it more as a discourse about gender relations and roles than about community debate. But it does make the point very clearly that for many people, a certain level of 'niceness' is just a strategy, and doesn't involve actually thinking about the other person whatsoever (and can, in fact, be used as a controlling, manipulative, argument that displays no actual care at all). I worry a bit about the Nice Guy thing, actually -- it is very much the sort of person I do not wish to be, or be mistaken for, but I know just not wanting to be doesn't mean I won't (and everyone can fall into the dark side when stressed to hell),