From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Date: Tue Mar 02 1999 - 10:57:52 MST
SJ>> With kids, it is much more difficult to explain why they
>> need to wash before meals than to just issue the command,
>> then shriek "Because IM the MOM, THATS why now DO IT!"
HN> Hmmm... I'm now wondering if etiquette and polite society
> memes are similar to the God meme. It's too complicated to
> explain why we have to do these things... I think like
> religion, most complicated etiquette rules evolved from some
> real function, which purpose has become forgotten over time.
This is similar to what Friedman calls "rational ignorance":
if the cost of acquiring accurate information exceeds its
value, it is rational to settle for a cheaper approximation
of the truth. Even if we /know/ that some norm is only an
approximation, it may still be rational to accept it if not
accepting it requires us to memorize a lot of special cases
or make complex computations. For example, some uses of
the word "nigger" might be perfectly appropriate and useful
(in literature, discussions of prejudice, etc.), while others
will get your nose broken. Since the "good" cases are few
and not that valuable, and knowing them might be tricky, it
is probably quite rational to make the choice simply never
to use the word. That's a very rough approximation of the
correct strategy, but it's useful enough.
Fortunately, the cost of knowledge acquisition, communication,
and computation all decrease with time and technology, so there
is hope that we will be able to abandon some of the old norms.
"Politeness" is definitely one of my peeves, and I'll be glad
when we can have discussions unencumbered by the silly idea
(which I can see is useful in face-to-face interaction to keep
violence to a minimum, but which gets in the way online).
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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