From: Dan Fabulich (daniel.fabulich@yale.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 28 1999 - 23:03:58 MDT
Some people here have objected to Crocker's Rules, arguing that Crocker's
Rules would allow/require people to abandon politeness in outgoing
communications. Of course, abandoning politeness is probably impractical,
as well as undesirable for a variety of reasons.
Now, Crocker's Rules don't *require* this, as Eliezer has correctly
pointed out. On the contrary, it is argued, Crocker's Rules simply
require the adoption of an attitude of tolerance towards others. Just
because one ought to be tolerant does NOT mean that one ought to be
impolite; thus, the objection fails.
However, this rebuttal misses the point. If Crocker's Rules are as good
as Crocker and Yudkowsky argue, then EVERYBODY ought to be following
Crocker's Rules. What would this mean, practically speaking? That if I
get offended by an impolite speaker, this my problem, and not the
speaker's.
Yudkowsky has further argued that not everyone has the mental discipline
to follow Crocker's Rules. If so, it would then seem that anybody *not*
following Crocker's Rules is either lacking in discipline or mental
prowess/capacity; anybody short on mental discipline is clearly either
lazy or stupid. (Some causal explanation for exactly WHY they're lazy or
stupid won't help here.)
Even if you don't believe this argument, it's hard to imagine an argument
for Crocker's Rules which wouldn't apply universally, and so when dealing
with somebody who doesn't follow Crocker's Rules, a follower must accept
the claim that the non-follower is doing something wrong, whether morally,
ethically, practically, etc. Thus, on some level or other, non-followers
are acting incorrectly, if Crocker's Rules are actually a good idea.
With that in mind, we now might ask: What are you being polite for?
"So that the lazy/stupid people don't get upset at you," it might be
argued. That makes practical sense, but only on the assumption that most
people are lazy/stupid. Being polite to a person whom you regard as your
inferior is much much harder than being polite to a person whom you regard
as your peer. Humility, I would argue, is the foundation of courtesy.
If being polite is a good idea in the first place, then we ought to regard
others as our peers, rather than as our inferiors. Of course, if
politeness is outdated evolutionary baggage, then we can safely reject
such notions. Nonetheless, the argument that I should be polite because
people are *not* my peers does not hold up empirically, for the attitude
of superiority over others renders politeness too difficult, if not
impossible, to implement in practice.
I'd argue that the following claim: "following Crocker's Rules is better
than not following Crocker's Rules," leads us to conclude that most other
people are not our intellectual/moral peers, which, on a practical level,
annihilates the possibility of civility between persons.
On the other hand, if one DOES believe that politeness is a good idea,
then one should also accept the claim that we should regard others as our
peers. This begs some explanation of how/why our peers have not adopted
Crocker's Rules already, or do not adopt them as soon as they are informed
of them. No such explanation, at present, has been provided: rather,
instead, it has been argued that those not following Crocker's Rules are
not peers to begin with.
There may be some truth to this claim, and in that case, perhaps we should
not be polite to our inferiors. Politeness may, in fact, be a kind of
social wisdom tooth: painful to extract, but less painful than leaving it
in. Eliminating politeness may add to the efficiency of discussion as
well, as both Crocker and Yudkowsky have argued. Humility may not be a
virtue at all, especially in light of extropy and boundless expansion.
Finally, there is ample evidence of variance between persons, and so if
politeness requires us to assume interpersonal equality, well, so much the
worse for politeness.
Nonetheless, I think I have shown how Crocker's Rules ARE opposed to
politeness, and how we cannot realistically both have our cake and eat it,
too.
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
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