I tend to assume people who whine about a decline in manners are just committing a fallacy of some description. Most people think the work is getting more and more violent when the opposite is true. Also any old man who pines for the old days when everyone had manners is remembering a time when he wasn't an old man, and as such had a different perspective from that of an old man, and I suspect the then old men of the time would think him as having bad manners. Every generation perceives itself as being more sensible and mannered than the generation displacing them, but every generation is also completely biased.
I think you're right. And I think there are several reasons for that. First, as they discussed in part 2, manners are not really "good" or "bad" in themselves, it's more a matter of how well they fit into a given society. So "well mannered" brits might find it socially difficult to live in Nigeria, and old people might find it difficult to live in modern times, where so many of our norms have changed. It's difficult to learn the customs of the young as well, since they are not very inclusive of the old. Of course, change hasn't always been as rapid as it is now, so this wouldn't have been as strong of an effect in older times. Second, humans tend to forget bad experiences and remember good ones. This is also why we experience nostalgia - filtered through our subjective memory, the past seems carefree and simple, whereas the present pretty much universally feels challenging and not simple. For this reason, I think we tend to think of our childhood interactions and selves in a pretty biased way. Finally, I think there's also something to be said for the fact that life gets harder when you age. Sore joints, bad memory, low energy, you quit your job, your friends start dying, all kinds of ailments... I think it takes a bit of spare mental energy to be polite, and that diminishes with hardship, in my experience. In other words, people who are stressed or suffering are less polite, in my experience. And probably more...
I was talking to an old man the other day who was saying that the country's going down the drain, and cited cyber-bullying as being one of the main issues. Really, he was just scared of technology- I tried to explain that cyber bullying is probably better than in his day when people just, y'know, went to war. Or that self service tills are not as bad as polio. But he would *not* even attempt to understand the fallacy of his logic.
Aristotle wrote a screed against the young people of his day (after he was an old, famous philosopher), and went on about how they were so disrespectful to their elders, and lazy, and didn't appreciate hard work and good exercise, not like HE was when HE was a child. Literally everyone looks at the past through rose-colored glasses, and will find faults in the young they don't remember themselves having.
Youknow...I'm foreign (I dó speak english, but it's still harder for me to follow than Dutch) and I understand about 80 percent of everything that's being said. Including the meaning of words ánd what they actually are saying/what they mean. But it just makes me feel so damn posh and literary, that I'm just going to continue trying to puzzle out their conversations. Edit: The main reason for me not understanding them are the difficult words, the quick changing of the point of view and the quick tempo.
I worked at a McDonalds in the middle of Leeds on weekend nights and it's definitely true, middle-aged rural people tend to be a hell of a lot ruder as a result of their ignorance and stubbornness I think. I've also lived in both large cities and tiny villages so I've experienced this a fair bit
I second that! Great programme. I don't get british radio, so I'm not in a position to suggest anything specific... but short series on interesting and unusual subjects, that's usually a winner I think :) And thank you! (must mind the manners)
I laughed out loud at the "offering your seat to an older person who resents it." When I'm on the subway with my mom, I try to make sure she gets a seat, and she gets really mad at me for drawing attention to her age!
I’m now never sure whether to give it up or not, so I tend to hesitate, then someone else offers theirs and they gratefully accept whilst I feel my self worth drop through the floor for making these poor old people stand up a little longer.
I think the reason people tend towards civility in large urban areas is because you never know who will be insane and kick your teeth in because you were rude to them, so everyone is relatively civil towards one another. In the country where there are fewer people and folks quite likely know a few of the others at their local pub or restaurants or wherever, there is a seeming sense of “this is MY town and MY local pub, and if you’re coming here doing this and that differently - trying to change things - then you can get out” and that attitude plus alcohol can be accompanied by some more audacious and rude behaviour, which can even escalate to physicality. I literally had a drug dealer in a small town try to pick a fight with me because I yelled “look out” as he was drunkenly crossing the road and almost got hit by a car he didn’t even check to see was coming towards him. He said “nobody tells me to ‘look out.’ nobody tells me what to do. I RUN this town, do you understand?” I was able to talk my way out of it because I am fairly good at deescalating, but in a bigger city where I live now, it is exceedingly rare for anyone to think, let alone say aloud, that they “run this town.” The city is too big and there are too many people. There are also many more people around to see a confrontation like that happening and either step in or get help. Outside that small country pub where the drug dealer tried to fight me for trying to HELP HIM NOT DIE no less, there was absolutely nobody around outside except my one friend (who incidentally tried to make things worse and seemed to WANT to fight this loser while I was trying to deescalate).
"I wnat to punch them in the face. But I'm noy allowed to do that, people don't like it---especially if you're a vicar." I love her she makes me wanna attend her church services 😅
Dislike of eating noise is called misophonia and is something that I live with. I work from home which has been a godsend, as when I worked in a shared office it was absolute torture 😫 I would have had an ASBO and probably the sack if I had continued there. When I eat with my family I wear headphones which they take no notice of, but eating out that way is simply not done! I totally sympathise with the vicar, it's extremely stressful 😫
Well said. I live in the Toronto area and we just respect everyone's culture. My building is full of differences, you know what we all love silence lol. I moved here from the east coast which is more of a loyalist English/Irish background. I love the different cultures, you learn a lot if you just ask. The woke want us to think we're so different but, we're not really. We all just want respect and a quiet space lol. My Muslim neighbors are so sweet they write notes to let us know its a holiday and have to run their blenders late. I think they're awesome. We're not that different.
16:02 Brexit champion Gisela Stuart MP ‘you could be creative within the rules’ - ‘rather than spending your energy breaking down the rules’ - the irony isn’t lost
06:40 "It's very rude to be late, because by being late you show that you care more about your own time than anyone else's." Mitchell's response is rather daft because he's emphasising the wrong word. Of course everyone _cares_ more about their own time, the impoliteness is *_showing_* it.
I think I do worry about other people having their time wasted by me. Because it makes me melt down. I said I was coming to visit a couple and said I couldn't be sure of any time, but would after 2 pm and before 5 pm be ok? I asked about 5 times, explained I had so much to do, that my time was not mine to allocate out with sureness, because I had to wait on other people. I gave up doing things I needed to do, to get there at 2:30 pm and knocked, waited, waited, waited. Then I phoned them. They had faffed about all morning, and as soon as it hit 2 pm, decided they were going shopping. I had to meet them, could hardly speak to him. He blamed his wife, and I blew a gasket and said, WE had the agreement. It was not her responsibility. If things must change, I understand. But you had no right to leave me wasting my time. You could have sent a simple sms, to let me do something else. I asked you REPEATEDLY, and you agreed that open time was fine. And he did not apologise. And it really has destroyed his reputation with me. He is under the impression that not apologising, not acknowledging a wrong doing, makes him a bigger man. In many ways, he is prehistorically sexist. Can be very kind, but can be suck in your breath, sexist, where you want to catch someone's eye and laugh, or tear him a new pair of bollocks. But he has lost a very large chunk of respect. I see him as a saddo, trying to be a big man, by being ignorant, rude and having the manners of an oaf. He is forever a lesser man, to me. I genuinely think he thinks, that not acknowledging it makes him a bigger man. Instead, he is now a far more roughly brought up 2nd rate man, to me. He will never have that assumed level of civilised upbringing I had assumed. It has forever limited the level of friendship I would ever feel. I am usually early to everything. Hang about until right time. If late, I am SO apologetic and angry at myself. Nobody needs to bollock me. I am bollocking me like the bollocking team captain!
@@georgielancaster1356 Entirely fair, and this chap sounds like an absolute pillock. As I say - it's reasonable for your time to be the most important _to you_. however, consideration is you understanding that _My_ time is most important to _me_, and if you care about - or at least respect - me, you wouldn't want me to think think that you don't understand that.
geez it annoyed me when David ordered lunch without a "please" at the end of the order... (I think he did say "buggers manners, I'm hungry" but he did it the time before too) Interesting how my Mum drilling "pleases and thankyous" into us now has an almost Pavlovian effect on me 30 years later.. I guess that it's interesting is why David did this series in the first place :-) thx +thatguyfromthatthing
You've got me thinking about whether or not I say please when I order food, now. I always make a point of saying "thank you" or "cheers" when I'm given something, however. And I -feel- like Mitchell ordered food exactly the way a middle class person in a quite nice restaurant sort of does normally, like that's the convention. However, my perception of quite nice middle class restaurants is crafted entirely by the media as I have never been to one and only seen them on television.
people keep referencing that, but it's just as likely there were rude people before the expansion of the internet as well. Most likely, the fact that it was a closer knit group just made it forgivable. Like how you can insult your friends in a teasing manner and everyone laughs versus saying the same thing to a stranger and sounding like a horrible person.
The stuff about community support and not being the stripogram tickled me because Mitchell and Webb have done sketches about both, lol. Old people who complain about young people being on their phones all the time strike me as incredibly rude and out of touch. What's so interesting about you that should cause me to look up from my device which contains the sum of all human knowledge? It is rude to be on your phone genuinely all the time and ignore people, but then people have been doing that for generations with newspapers and books. In a way phones can work as social lubricant because you can bring up something you just saw on Twitter as a topic for conversation, and it can stop you from becoming incredibly bored. And, for example, when your right wing friend is banging on about immigration and you're too polite to shout at them, rather than sit and listen and get angry at them, you can look at Facebook until he's done. The "poorer people use the internet more" thing I had never even considered before, and at first I dismissed it out of hand, but the more I think about it the more I think it's right. And finally, people who are incredibly rude to the police on principle strike me as incredibly rude as well, and it feels like they're all trying to be alpha male macho men impressing their friends, AND they're always working class people who commit a lot of lowkey crimes anyway, and complain about getting caught. One of my friends was out graffiti-ing his name on walls (defacing public property) and had the gall to give the police officer who reprimanded him abuse for being undercover and a coward. And I'm expected to just nod and agree! Long comment I know but this is an incredibly interesting programme that brings up a lot of interesting ideas. Thanks for uploading.
"People who don't smile when you smile at them" Seriously? I have zero social obligation to smile at you. That's ridiculous. If you're not smiling because you're expressing happiness, stop smiling. That will spare us both.
I would say it varies a lot. It could indeed become quite awkward if you're having a friend over and you're trying to be jolly and they stare at you with a blank face, or the like. On the other hand, people who constantly smile for seemingly no reason at all(and seek constant eye contact, of course) just makes me want to look and smile at them even less. *Why are you looking at me? Why are you smiling? We aren't even engaging in a conversation! Please stop. You're making me uncomfortable.*
+yunikage Oh please. What's with the odious cynicism? Perhaps, the person smiling at you has not had their existence acknowledged by another soul that day, that week, or longer still. Should an angry or sad person not try to smile lest you condemn them for their lack of sincerity? There are scientifically validated psychosocial, and physical health benefits to be gained for both parties when we persist with smiling even when there are few apparent reasons to do so. It doesn't have to be thought of as some arbitrary obligation. Instead, you could just spare a moment to smile at another person who acknowledges your existence and appreciate it for being a selfless pro-social act. You might be grateful yourself one day for such a simple act of kindness. Invest in a little social capital. It might just pay off. You'll be a more tolerable and likeable human being, and less of a prick.
I'm always amused when pointing out the cynicism of others is termed cynical. The reduction of an expression that is supposed to signify joy or pleasure to a social transaction requiring reciprocity is pretty profoundly cynical. And yes, if you smile at me and then get angry when I don't smile back, that's exactly what you're doing. You're enforcing a normative standard of behavior that requires dishonesty. How kind. How pro-social. Excuse me if I do not weep in gratitude. We have all sorts of ways of acknowledging other people's existence that do not require disingenuous expressions of emotion. The word "hello" leaps to mind, as does raising one's hand or nodding in greeting. And it hardly strikes me as particularly kind or deserving of gratitude for a person who very likely wouldn't piss on me if I were on fire to contort their features into a parody of genuine expression in order to conform to some social norm. All of which is to say that I find you and your position at least as odious as you find me and mine.
Sorry to butt in, but in the context of the PCSO who didn't like it when people didn't smile back it might be because she's making an effort to do something she considers to be warm, sincere and prosocial (ie not a 'transaction') and hopes to have that returned. She's trying to make a positive difference. She's also in uniform. Someone returning a smile is essentially saying, 'Hi, fellow person,' which would be especially nice in that context. Though, yeah, it's annoying to feel like your emotional reactions are being policed. I've always been horrendously bad at pretending in social situations...
yunikage I grew up in the sixties, and was taught to be polite and respectful of others. We had freedom to play outside, move around our neighbourhood, calling for friends, visiting the park. Of course we encountered many people we didn't know but would always smile and say hello, if someone didn't smile or speak back we'd consider them to be grumpy. So I instinctively am disappointed if people don't smile back, but I wouldn't say anything or scowl at them, however I immediately flip, what if the people have say Asperger Syndrome and can't relate to you, what if they are having a really bad time and your smile has just rubbed in how difficult their situation is and everyone else is happy, who the hell am I to judge them or them me. So if you smile and don't get one back just carry on, and if some happy f&@#%^ smiles at you and you don't like it just carry on. You can't get it right every time. Actually when I was a child, my siblings and I (we'd be between four and seven years old) could be too interactive, if someone we didn't know parked outside our house we'd go and say hello, then quiz them on who they were, who they were visiting, and how long they'd be parked on our bit of road. We'd even check they left on time!
Job BZ yep women vicars, why do they do that, join a cult that has it written down that they can't be vicars, that they are considered second class, take a role that's meant to be forgiving then get angry (even if they conceal it) when others don't conform to their norm. Religion should be like that episode of Red Dwarf where you're judged on your standards, so religious people get judged on there own standards but non religious don't. Then heaven would be full of atheists and all the religious would be in hell - they've all: worked on Sunday, eaten bacon, shellfish, not killed unruly children etc etc.
"I will if everyone else does. Yes, the reasoning of the lynch mob." Such a Mark Corrigan quote.
14:16 "{"I will if everyone else does"}, yes the reasoning of the lynch mob."
That was such a Peep Show moment!
I tend to assume people who whine about a decline in manners are just committing a fallacy of some description. Most people think the work is getting more and more violent when the opposite is true.
Also any old man who pines for the old days when everyone had manners is remembering a time when he wasn't an old man, and as such had a different perspective from that of an old man, and I suspect the then old men of the time would think him as having bad manners.
Every generation perceives itself as being more sensible and mannered than the generation displacing them, but every generation is also completely biased.
I think you're right. And I think there are several reasons for that.
First, as they discussed in part 2, manners are not really "good" or "bad" in themselves, it's more a matter of how well they fit into a given society. So "well mannered" brits might find it socially difficult to live in Nigeria, and old people might find it difficult to live in modern times, where so many of our norms have changed. It's difficult to learn the customs of the young as well, since they are not very inclusive of the old.
Of course, change hasn't always been as rapid as it is now, so this wouldn't have been as strong of an effect in older times.
Second, humans tend to forget bad experiences and remember good ones. This is also why we experience nostalgia - filtered through our subjective memory, the past seems carefree and simple, whereas the present pretty much universally feels challenging and not simple.
For this reason, I think we tend to think of our childhood interactions and selves in a pretty biased way.
Finally, I think there's also something to be said for the fact that life gets harder when you age. Sore joints, bad memory, low energy, you quit your job, your friends start dying, all kinds of ailments... I think it takes a bit of spare mental energy to be polite, and that diminishes with hardship, in my experience. In other words, people who are stressed or suffering are less polite, in my experience.
And probably more...
I was talking to an old man the other day who was saying that the country's going down the drain, and cited cyber-bullying as being one of the main issues. Really, he was just scared of technology- I tried to explain that cyber bullying is probably better than in his day when people just, y'know, went to war. Or that self service tills are not as bad as polio. But he would *not* even attempt to understand the fallacy of his logic.
Aristotle wrote a screed against the young people of his day (after he was an old, famous philosopher), and went on about how they were so disrespectful to their elders, and lazy, and didn't appreciate hard work and good exercise, not like HE was when HE was a child.
Literally everyone looks at the past through rose-colored glasses, and will find faults in the young they don't remember themselves having.
Oh, bollocks.
@@jessicalee333 🤣
Reminds me of Peep Show the way David talks over what is happening
Youknow...I'm foreign (I dó speak english, but it's still harder for me to follow than Dutch) and I understand about 80 percent of everything that's being said. Including the meaning of words ánd what they actually are saying/what they mean.
But it just makes me feel so damn posh and literary, that I'm just going to continue trying to puzzle out their conversations.
Edit: The main reason for me not understanding them are the difficult words, the quick changing of the point of view and the quick tempo.
I worked at a McDonalds in the middle of Leeds on weekend nights and it's definitely true, middle-aged rural people tend to be a hell of a lot ruder as a result of their ignorance and stubbornness I think.
I've also lived in both large cities and tiny villages so I've experienced this a fair bit
Thank you for the uploads. I'd feel unclean having to download the BBC Media player to listen to these on my phone.
thank you really enjoyed theses
you're very welcome. any other programmes people want me to upload?
I second that! Great programme. I don't get british radio, so I'm not in a position to suggest anything specific... but short series on interesting and unusual subjects, that's usually a winner I think :)
And thank you! (must mind the manners)
please upload more david mitchell
I love Rev. Kate!
I laughed out loud at the "offering your seat to an older person who resents it." When I'm on the subway with my mom, I try to make sure she gets a seat, and she gets really mad at me for drawing attention to her age!
she's a fat botox user, basically.
I’m now never sure whether to give it up or not, so I tend to hesitate, then someone else offers theirs and they gratefully accept whilst I feel my self worth drop through the floor for making these poor old people stand up a little longer.
I think the reason people tend towards civility in large urban areas is because you never know who will be insane and kick your teeth in because you were rude to them, so everyone is relatively civil towards one another. In the country where there are fewer people and folks quite likely know a few of the others at their local pub or restaurants or wherever, there is a seeming sense of “this is MY town and MY local pub, and if you’re coming here doing this and that differently - trying to change things - then you can get out” and that attitude plus alcohol can be accompanied by some more audacious and rude behaviour, which can even escalate to physicality. I literally had a drug dealer in a small town try to pick a fight with me because I yelled “look out” as he was drunkenly crossing the road and almost got hit by a car he didn’t even check to see was coming towards him. He said “nobody tells me to ‘look out.’ nobody tells me what to do. I RUN this town, do you understand?” I was able to talk my way out of it because I am fairly good at deescalating, but in a bigger city where I live now, it is exceedingly rare for anyone to think, let alone say aloud, that they “run this town.” The city is too big and there are too many people. There are also many more people around to see a confrontation like that happening and either step in or get help. Outside that small country pub where the drug dealer tried to fight me for trying to HELP HIM NOT DIE no less, there was absolutely nobody around outside except my one friend (who incidentally tried to make things worse and seemed to WANT to fight this loser while I was trying to deescalate).
"I wnat to punch them in the face. But I'm noy allowed to do that, people don't like it---especially if you're a vicar."
I love her she makes me wanna attend her church services 😅
Dislike of eating noise is called misophonia and is something that I live with. I work from home which has been a godsend, as when I worked in a shared office it was absolute torture 😫 I would have had an ASBO and probably the sack if I had continued there. When I eat with my family I wear headphones which they take no notice of, but eating out that way is simply not done! I totally sympathise with the vicar, it's extremely stressful 😫
Well said. I live in the Toronto area and we just respect everyone's culture. My building is full of differences, you know what we all love silence lol. I moved here from the east coast which is more of a loyalist English/Irish background. I love the different cultures, you learn a lot if you just ask. The woke want us to think we're so different but, we're not really. We all just want respect and a quiet space lol. My Muslim neighbors are so sweet they write notes to let us know its a holiday and have to run their blenders late. I think they're awesome. We're not that different.
16:02 Brexit champion Gisela Stuart MP ‘you could be creative within the rules’ - ‘rather than spending your energy breaking down the rules’ - the irony isn’t lost
06:40 "It's very rude to be late, because by being late you show that you care more about your own time than anyone else's."
Mitchell's response is rather daft because he's emphasising the wrong word.
Of course everyone _cares_ more about their own time, the impoliteness is *_showing_* it.
I think I do worry about other people having their time wasted by me. Because it makes me melt down.
I said I was coming to visit a couple and said I couldn't be sure of any time, but would after 2 pm and before 5 pm be ok?
I asked about 5 times, explained I had so much to do, that my time was not mine to allocate out with sureness, because I had to wait on other people.
I gave up doing things I needed to do, to get there at 2:30 pm and knocked, waited, waited, waited. Then I phoned them. They had faffed about all morning, and as soon as it hit 2 pm, decided they were going shopping.
I had to meet them, could hardly speak to him. He blamed his wife, and I blew a gasket and said, WE had the agreement. It was not her responsibility. If things must change, I understand. But you had no right to leave me wasting my time. You could have sent a simple sms, to let me do something else. I asked you REPEATEDLY, and you agreed that open time was fine.
And he did not apologise. And it really has destroyed his reputation with me. He is under the impression that not apologising, not acknowledging a wrong doing, makes him a bigger man. In many ways, he is prehistorically sexist. Can be very kind, but can be suck in your breath, sexist, where you want to catch someone's eye and laugh, or tear him a new pair of bollocks.
But he has lost a very large chunk of respect. I see him as a saddo, trying to be a big man, by being ignorant, rude and having the manners of an oaf. He is forever a lesser man, to me. I genuinely think he thinks, that not acknowledging it makes him a bigger man. Instead, he is now a far more roughly brought up 2nd rate man, to me. He will never have that assumed level of civilised upbringing I had assumed. It has forever limited the level of friendship I would ever feel.
I am usually early to everything. Hang about until right time. If late, I am SO apologetic and angry at myself. Nobody needs to bollock me. I am bollocking me like the bollocking team captain!
@@georgielancaster1356 Entirely fair, and this chap sounds like an absolute pillock.
As I say - it's reasonable for your time to be the most important _to you_. however, consideration is you understanding that _My_ time is most important to _me_, and if you care about - or at least respect - me, you wouldn't want me to think think that you don't understand that.
Reckon Dave needs to get on with getting it on with that vicar 😝
geez it annoyed me when David ordered lunch without a "please" at the end of the order... (I think he did say "buggers manners, I'm hungry" but he did it the time before too)
Interesting how my Mum drilling "pleases and thankyous" into us now has an almost Pavlovian effect on me 30 years later.. I guess that it's interesting is why David did this series in the first place :-)
thx +thatguyfromthatthing
You've got me thinking about whether or not I say please when I order food, now. I always make a point of saying "thank you" or "cheers" when I'm given something, however. And I -feel- like Mitchell ordered food exactly the way a middle class person in a quite nice restaurant sort of does normally, like that's the convention. However, my perception of quite nice middle class restaurants is crafted entirely by the media as I have never been to one and only seen them on television.
I wouldn't have kept a straight face when the guy said he's a "family butcher".
two words: Eternal September
people keep referencing that, but it's just as likely there were rude people before the expansion of the internet as well. Most likely, the fact that it was a closer knit group just made it forgivable. Like how you can insult your friends in a teasing manner and everyone laughs versus saying the same thing to a stranger and sounding like a horrible person.
I know someone who named his kid Kahos. Seriously..
The stuff about community support and not being the stripogram tickled me because Mitchell and Webb have done sketches about both, lol.
Old people who complain about young people being on their phones all the time strike me as incredibly rude and out of touch. What's so interesting about you that should cause me to look up from my device which contains the sum of all human knowledge? It is rude to be on your phone genuinely all the time and ignore people, but then people have been doing that for generations with newspapers and books. In a way phones can work as social lubricant because you can bring up something you just saw on Twitter as a topic for conversation, and it can stop you from becoming incredibly bored. And, for example, when your right wing friend is banging on about immigration and you're too polite to shout at them, rather than sit and listen and get angry at them, you can look at Facebook until he's done.
The "poorer people use the internet more" thing I had never even considered before, and at first I dismissed it out of hand, but the more I think about it the more I think it's right.
And finally, people who are incredibly rude to the police on principle strike me as incredibly rude as well, and it feels like they're all trying to be alpha male macho men impressing their friends, AND they're always working class people who commit a lot of lowkey crimes anyway, and complain about getting caught. One of my friends was out graffiti-ing his name on walls (defacing public property) and had the gall to give the police officer who reprimanded him abuse for being undercover and a coward. And I'm expected to just nod and agree!
Long comment I know but this is an incredibly interesting programme that brings up a lot of interesting ideas. Thanks for uploading.
All the wet sounds of people eating was disgusting.
"People who don't smile when you smile at them"
Seriously? I have zero social obligation to smile at you. That's ridiculous.
If you're not smiling because you're expressing happiness, stop smiling. That will spare us both.
I would say it varies a lot. It could indeed become quite awkward if you're having a friend over and you're trying to be jolly and they stare at you with a blank face, or the like.
On the other hand, people who constantly smile for seemingly no reason at all(and seek constant eye contact, of course) just makes me want to look and smile at them even less. *Why are you looking at me? Why are you smiling? We aren't even engaging in a conversation! Please stop. You're making me uncomfortable.*
+yunikage
Oh please. What's with the odious cynicism? Perhaps, the person smiling at you has not had their existence acknowledged by another soul that day, that week, or longer still. Should an angry or sad person not try to smile lest you condemn them for their lack of sincerity? There are scientifically validated psychosocial, and physical health benefits to be gained for both parties when we persist with smiling even when there are few apparent reasons to do so.
It doesn't have to be thought of as some arbitrary obligation. Instead, you could just spare a moment to smile at another person who acknowledges your existence and appreciate it for being a selfless pro-social act. You might be grateful yourself one day for such a simple act of kindness.
Invest in a little social capital. It might just pay off. You'll be a more tolerable and likeable human being, and less of a prick.
I'm always amused when pointing out the cynicism of others is termed cynical.
The reduction of an expression that is supposed to signify joy or pleasure to a social transaction requiring reciprocity is pretty profoundly cynical. And yes, if you smile at me and then get angry when I don't smile back, that's exactly what you're doing. You're enforcing a normative standard of behavior that requires dishonesty. How kind. How pro-social. Excuse me if I do not weep in gratitude.
We have all sorts of ways of acknowledging other people's existence that do not require disingenuous expressions of emotion. The word "hello" leaps to mind, as does raising one's hand or nodding in greeting. And it hardly strikes me as particularly kind or deserving of gratitude for a person who very likely wouldn't piss on me if I were on fire to contort their features into a parody of genuine expression in order to conform to some social norm.
All of which is to say that I find you and your position at least as odious as you find me and mine.
Sorry to butt in, but in the context of the PCSO who didn't like it when people didn't smile back it might be because she's making an effort to do something she considers to be warm, sincere and prosocial (ie not a 'transaction') and hopes to have that returned. She's trying to make a positive difference. She's also in uniform. Someone returning a smile is essentially saying, 'Hi, fellow person,' which would be especially nice in that context.
Though, yeah, it's annoying to feel like your emotional reactions are being policed. I've always been horrendously bad at pretending in social situations...
yunikage I grew up in the sixties, and was taught to be polite and respectful of others. We had freedom to play outside, move around our neighbourhood, calling for friends, visiting the park. Of course we encountered many people we didn't know but would always smile and say hello, if someone didn't smile or speak back we'd consider them to be grumpy. So I instinctively am disappointed if people don't smile back, but I wouldn't say anything or scowl at them, however I immediately flip, what if the people have say Asperger Syndrome and can't relate to you, what if they are having a really bad time and your smile has just rubbed in how difficult their situation is and everyone else is happy, who the hell am I to judge them or them me. So if you smile and don't get one back just carry on, and if some happy f&@#%^ smiles at you and you don't like it just carry on. You can't get it right every time.
Actually when I was a child, my siblings and I (we'd be between four and seven years old) could be too interactive, if someone we didn't know parked outside our house we'd go and say hello, then quiz them on who they were, who they were visiting, and how long they'd be parked on our bit of road. We'd even check they left on time!
A Chilean talking about civility! LOL
women vicars HA
Job BZ yep women vicars, why do they do that, join a cult that has it written down that they can't be vicars, that they are considered second class, take a role that's meant to be forgiving then get angry (even if they conceal it) when others don't conform to their norm.
Religion should be like that episode of Red Dwarf where you're judged on your standards, so religious people get judged on there own standards but non religious don't. Then heaven would be full of atheists and all the religious would be in hell - they've all: worked on Sunday, eaten bacon, shellfish, not killed unruly children etc etc.
Thomas Carroll your powers of elaboration and assumption using a limited amount of material are phenomenal.
You should be a priest!!
Vicars, ha! Intermediaries to an imaginary god in a religion that says you don't need intermediaries.