Citing phatic expressions is not really enough. The issue is what creates the signal: presence or absence of something.
If the default is “Thanks” then saying nothing is the negative signal and saying “Thank you, you did such a great job!” is a positive signal.
But if the default is “Thank you, you did such a great job!” then just “Thanks” becomes a negative signal and for a positive signal you have to escalate to “Oh my God this was the greatest thing ever I thank you so much how could I ever...”
It’s easy to see how this could get to be very inefficient and, frankly, ridiculous.
“Collegiality and tact” is not a function of how extended the social default is—it is a function of knowing that social default (or, more specifically, the expectations of the other party) and not being an asshole.
Whether the runway process gets off the ground depends on the circumstances. Some cultures have (or had) elaborate long and greeting rituals for high-status/caste/position people and skipping some part would have been a serious offense. As a more prosaic example, notice how the film credits take the pain to include the names of all second assistants to the third helper of the aide to the attendant who carried the purse of the co-star...
The default amount of “gratitude” expressed on LW seems to be considerably less than that expressed by even “thanks”. Actually, most of the time it seems that the default response is to find some flaw of wording to nitpick, and usually such a flaw is only tangentially related to the thrust of the argument. That’s not what we should be encouraging.
Citing phatic expressions is not really enough. The issue is what creates the signal: presence or absence of something.
If the default is “Thanks” then saying nothing is the negative signal and saying “Thank you, you did such a great job!” is a positive signal.
But if the default is “Thank you, you did such a great job!” then just “Thanks” becomes a negative signal and for a positive signal you have to escalate to “Oh my God this was the greatest thing ever I thank you so much how could I ever...”
It’s easy to see how this could get to be very inefficient and, frankly, ridiculous.
But in reality this runaway process doesn’t get off the ground, and peters out at something called “collegiality and tact.”
“Collegiality and tact” is not a function of how extended the social default is—it is a function of knowing that social default (or, more specifically, the expectations of the other party) and not being an asshole.
Whether the runway process gets off the ground depends on the circumstances. Some cultures have (or had) elaborate long and greeting rituals for high-status/caste/position people and skipping some part would have been a serious offense. As a more prosaic example, notice how the film credits take the pain to include the names of all second assistants to the third helper of the aide to the attendant who carried the purse of the co-star...
The default amount of “gratitude” expressed on LW seems to be considerably less than that expressed by even “thanks”. Actually, most of the time it seems that the default response is to find some flaw of wording to nitpick, and usually such a flaw is only tangentially related to the thrust of the argument. That’s not what we should be encouraging.