I think that there is one more culture: Ignore culture. It has only two types or replies: “Wonderful” and no reply. The same is this reading posts in the internet. One could either comment or ignore them, and most times people choose to ignore. But as a result it breaks communication in small pieces. So it is worst but most popular form of culture.
Tell culture works only for equal rational and mutually interested friends, unfortunately.
I don’t see this is worst. If most people reading your comment responded to it, like I’m doing now, you would have too many replies. That would be unhelpful. So it works better if most people ignore it.
It become bad when it is translated into actual communication: I ask a person if I can stay in his place, there is no reply, and I have to guess that it is “no”.
EDITED: And it is bad because I have to spent more time and emotion in getting this answer.
I ask a person if I can stay in his place, there is no reply, and I have to guess that it is “no”.
I see it as a pretty standard polite answer: you’re asking for a favour, the lack of an affirmative “yes” surely means “no” and the absence of a clear rejection de-escalates and allows you to save some face.
Not Tell Culture, certainly, but the usual garden-variety Guess Culture.
The problem for asker is uncertainty in this case. Did they read my letter? Do they ignore only this request or decided to ban me forever because of my impolite request? Do they think that my status is so low that they even don’t bother reply anything?
But for the receiver of the request there are several benefits: no emotional energy is invested in making communication, and he could always change his mind, and said that he didn’t see my letter.
In Guess Culture if you didn’t receive an answer, the answer is “no”. You check that the communications are still working by asking about some unrelated minor thing.
I think that there is one more culture: Ignore culture. It has only two types or replies: “Wonderful” and no reply. The same is this reading posts in the internet. One could either comment or ignore them, and most times people choose to ignore. But as a result it breaks communication in small pieces. So it is worst but most popular form of culture.
Tell culture works only for equal rational and mutually interested friends, unfortunately.
I don’t see this is worst. If most people reading your comment responded to it, like I’m doing now, you would have too many replies. That would be unhelpful. So it works better if most people ignore it.
It become bad when it is translated into actual communication: I ask a person if I can stay in his place, there is no reply, and I have to guess that it is “no”.
EDITED: And it is bad because I have to spent more time and emotion in getting this answer.
I see it as a pretty standard polite answer: you’re asking for a favour, the lack of an affirmative “yes” surely means “no” and the absence of a clear rejection de-escalates and allows you to save some face.
Not Tell Culture, certainly, but the usual garden-variety Guess Culture.
The problem for asker is uncertainty in this case. Did they read my letter? Do they ignore only this request or decided to ban me forever because of my impolite request? Do they think that my status is so low that they even don’t bother reply anything?
But for the receiver of the request there are several benefits: no emotional energy is invested in making communication, and he could always change his mind, and said that he didn’t see my letter.
In Guess Culture if you didn’t receive an answer, the answer is “no”. You check that the communications are still working by asking about some unrelated minor thing.