Guess culture has, I think, been the standard way for humans to hume for many thousands of years. My inclination is to imagine that, therefore, it’s probably optimal, at least for typical people.
Am I missing something? Is there some factor that is pushing rules of social etiquette in a bad direction throughout human history?
In my experience, Guess culture (which I think is more fair to describe as “Hint culture”) works really well when most people around me were raised in the same culture. We all know each other’s expectations because we grew up together, and we all know how to communicate messages to one another implicitly, in ways that allow for a request to be turned down without the need for explicit rejection and all the emotional consequences of that, and we make use of that shared context in our daily interactions to reduce social friction.
Of course, it makes life difficult for outsiders who interact with us, and haven’t grown up with that context, and therefore don’t know how to communicate messages implicitly in our culture, and don’t know how to interpret the implicit messages we send them. Outsiders are either mute or boorish (or perhaps both).
Conversely, Guess/Hint culture works really poorly in culturally heterogenous environments, when basically everyone is an outsider.
I observe that culturally heterogenous environments are a lot more common in the world than they were, say, 200 years ago; advances in transportation and communication tech probably account for that.
So that’s one factor that seems relevant. (Of course, one could apply your argument again to claim that cultural heterogeneity is a new development and therefore suspect, and it’s probably optimal for us to live in small isolated tribes.)
Good point. But I wonder whether, when two Guess culture variants collide in a heterogeneous society, it’s better to (a) switch to Ask culture, or (b) adopt the dominant culture’s Guess dialect.
I would suspect the latter, because I think most people feel more at home in an alien status hierarchy than they do in an alien status hierarchy pretending it isn’t one (a somewhat uncharitable gloss of Ask culture).
Honestly, I think it’s a weirdly constructed question. It seems more than a little like asking, when two linguistic communities collide in a linguistically heterogenous society, whether it’s better to (a) develop a creole for communication purposes, or (b) adopt the dominant culture’s language.
Sure, b will lead to easier communication if we can do it. But if we can all speak the same language, what exactly did I mean when I called this a collision of linguistic communities in the first place?
I have had the experience of trying to operate within an alien Guess/Hint culture. It’s frustrating. I am aware of what’s going on at a high level—there are cues being sent and expected that I’m unaware of and can’t recognize, and nobody is willing to explain what the cues are, and might well not even know. But knowing that doesn’t help.
Sure, it would have helped if I just switched to their dialect. But of course I couldn’t do that, since I didn’t know their dialect.
Given that, it would have helped me if we could all have switched to Ask norms instead. It would have made me less of a boorish outsider, and made it easier for me to communicate.
But of course, there’s no particular reason why they should have wanted to help me in this way.
an alien status hierarchy pretending it isn’t one (a somewhat uncharitable gloss of Ask culture).
FWIW, I agree that Ask culture has this property. Then again, I would claim Guess and Hint culture have this property as well, and I think it’s orthogonal to the aspects of Ask/Guess/Hint culture I’ve been discussing.
Hint culture acts as a secret handshake that will reliably detect outsiders (they can’t possibly learn the rules without identifying themselves as outsiders for a period of years). It will also help identify people who have less interest in helping others (because it costs more to recognize requests plus fulfill them and costs less to ignore requests). I don’t think these are especially important reasons, but I mention them because I don’t think anyone else has. These aspects would obviously have been more useful and less costly when mankind was more tribal, and less so with increasing globalization.
Guess culture has, I think, been the standard way for humans to hume for many thousands of years. My inclination is to imagine that, therefore, it’s probably optimal, at least for typical people.
Am I missing something? Is there some factor that is pushing rules of social etiquette in a bad direction throughout human history?
In my experience, Guess culture (which I think is more fair to describe as “Hint culture”) works really well when most people around me were raised in the same culture. We all know each other’s expectations because we grew up together, and we all know how to communicate messages to one another implicitly, in ways that allow for a request to be turned down without the need for explicit rejection and all the emotional consequences of that, and we make use of that shared context in our daily interactions to reduce social friction.
Of course, it makes life difficult for outsiders who interact with us, and haven’t grown up with that context, and therefore don’t know how to communicate messages implicitly in our culture, and don’t know how to interpret the implicit messages we send them. Outsiders are either mute or boorish (or perhaps both).
Conversely, Guess/Hint culture works really poorly in culturally heterogenous environments, when basically everyone is an outsider.
I observe that culturally heterogenous environments are a lot more common in the world than they were, say, 200 years ago; advances in transportation and communication tech probably account for that.
So that’s one factor that seems relevant. (Of course, one could apply your argument again to claim that cultural heterogeneity is a new development and therefore suspect, and it’s probably optimal for us to live in small isolated tribes.)
Good point. But I wonder whether, when two Guess culture variants collide in a heterogeneous society, it’s better to (a) switch to Ask culture, or (b) adopt the dominant culture’s Guess dialect.
I would suspect the latter, because I think most people feel more at home in an alien status hierarchy than they do in an alien status hierarchy pretending it isn’t one (a somewhat uncharitable gloss of Ask culture).
Honestly, I think it’s a weirdly constructed question. It seems more than a little like asking, when two linguistic communities collide in a linguistically heterogenous society, whether it’s better to (a) develop a creole for communication purposes, or (b) adopt the dominant culture’s language.
Sure, b will lead to easier communication if we can do it. But if we can all speak the same language, what exactly did I mean when I called this a collision of linguistic communities in the first place?
I have had the experience of trying to operate within an alien Guess/Hint culture. It’s frustrating. I am aware of what’s going on at a high level—there are cues being sent and expected that I’m unaware of and can’t recognize, and nobody is willing to explain what the cues are, and might well not even know. But knowing that doesn’t help.
Sure, it would have helped if I just switched to their dialect. But of course I couldn’t do that, since I didn’t know their dialect.
Given that, it would have helped me if we could all have switched to Ask norms instead. It would have made me less of a boorish outsider, and made it easier for me to communicate.
But of course, there’s no particular reason why they should have wanted to help me in this way.
FWIW, I agree that Ask culture has this property. Then again, I would claim Guess and Hint culture have this property as well, and I think it’s orthogonal to the aspects of Ask/Guess/Hint culture I’ve been discussing.
Hint culture acts as a secret handshake that will reliably detect outsiders (they can’t possibly learn the rules without identifying themselves as outsiders for a period of years). It will also help identify people who have less interest in helping others (because it costs more to recognize requests plus fulfill them and costs less to ignore requests). I don’t think these are especially important reasons, but I mention them because I don’t think anyone else has. These aspects would obviously have been more useful and less costly when mankind was more tribal, and less so with increasing globalization.