[HN Gopher] The Tyranny of Nicespeak (2001)
___________________________________________________________________
The Tyranny of Nicespeak (2001)
Author : robtherobber
Score : 72 points
Date : 2023-01-06 16:04 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (web.archive.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (web.archive.org)
| dpedu wrote:
| I couldn't help but think of one of Carlin's acts while reading
| this - Advertising.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtK_YsVInw8
| wallfacer120 wrote:
| [dead]
| awb wrote:
| Just like shaking hands was a tradition to show that you hold no
| weapons, speaking nicely is a social signal that you mean no
| harm.
|
| Both peace signals can be ruses, but if you approach with a
| closed fist or a sharp tongue, it makes a peaceful interaction
| more challenging.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Verbal battles are not like physical battles. The later lead to
| harm and death, the former - to some form of truth.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's a lot of dumbing things down there. If you think
| verbal battles have never caused harm, then I would love to
| live in your bubble. As much as I'm ashamed of it now, I was
| verbally abusive in my younger days. You can speak to anyone
| of the people on the receiving end on just how not non-
| harmful it was. I still blame that behavior a lot on how I
| was treated by a parent. Once I recognized that I was just
| behaving the same way was when I finally consciously tried
| changing. I was close to 30, so there was a long wake of
| damage.
| lostmsu wrote:
| People tend to confuse cognitive dissonance with damage.
|
| If you speak of speech consisting of only personal attacks
| rather than a heated debate, you are right. But I think
| this discussion is not about simple slanging matches.
| [deleted]
| nullish_signal wrote:
| Great read, until the conclusion that Irony and Sarcasm are
| better weapons against Nicespeak than George Orwell's plain
| English is.
|
| Getting people to speak in vitriolic Opposites is no better than
| making them speak empty Compliments...
| drewcoo wrote:
| > Getting people to speak in vitriolic Opposites is no better
| than making them speak empty Compliments...
|
| Whereas policing their emotions to make sure they feel the
| right thing when they make words . . . ew!
| omginternets wrote:
| I don't think sarcasm has to be vitriolic. In response to the
| example of a store announcement that says "in order to better
| serve you, we will be closed this afternoon", one might respond
| with "I feel better-served already!" There's hardly any
| vitriol, and the absurdity of the situation is promptly
| exposed.
| z3c0 wrote:
| I agree. The correction to "fake sincerity" isn't "ironic
| sincerity" - it's just regularly sincerity and old-fashioned
| earnestness. The article really dates itself with that
| assertion, because this was written right before the internet
| saturated every exchange with holier-than-thou sarcasm and
| multiple layers of irony. Now that we've lived through
| phenomena like the Wendy's Twitter account and cutesy 404
| pages, this just seems terribly off-base.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Earnestness is so underrated.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| You put that better than anyone else could have!
|
| ;)
| watwut wrote:
| I agree. Both irony and sarcasm are purely emotion based
| "arguments" and often just socially acceptable lies. Ok, so now
| you made some service worker feel bad for no reason. They are
| kind of paid for that, but still.
|
| And with that, I find the language author complains about
| better. If it achieves nothing I just ignore that.
| warmcompress wrote:
| "We should try", "may be ... effective"; propositions are not
| hard conclusions.
|
| The biggest whiff for me in this essay is the idea that people
| aren't acutely aware of the fakeness. It would be like her
| acknowledging no irony in holding the Rupert Murdoch
| Professorship in Language and Communication.
| johnea wrote:
| Irony indeed.
|
| This pretty much provides the final proof of the corporate
| takeover of academia.
|
| If you're planning on being faculty in modern higher
| education, you very well better have some rich person's name
| in your title!
|
| Your alternative? You can always be an underpaid, un-insured,
| temporary adjunct!
|
| This 20 year old article certainly calls out the complete
| insincerity of the modern corporation's interface to it's
| customers. Especially when those customers are the retail
| masses.
|
| The really scariest part to me, is that many modern consumers
| seem to think this is all OK.
|
| "As long as the bot keeps kissing my ass I feel so taken care
| of" <-- This is the ultimate irony...
| Ekaros wrote:
| And some terminology is so fun when they are essentially messing
| over you. Mandatory gratuity, hmm why not just call if service-
| charge? Or just directly include it in price and not even mention
| it?
| floren wrote:
| Or, in SF, you'll get an item near the bottom of your receipt
| labeled "SF Mandate". What's the mandate? Employers have to pay
| for employee health care. Why isn't it rolled in to the prices?
| Partly passive aggressive sniping at city hall, partly to keep
| the menu prices low. The "SF Mandate" portion _is_ taxable,
| though, so it really is just them adding a hidden fee.
|
| https://www.sfchronicle.com/restaurants/article/Explainer-Wh...
| akomtu wrote:
| It's guilt tax. If you price your coffee honestly, at 8 usd,
| but your competitor at 5 usd with gotcha fees, guess where
| customers will flock to.
| jameshart wrote:
| This is timely. One of the fascinating things about chatGPT is
| its facility with _precisely_ this kind of language usage.
|
| The trite 'nicespeak' phrases and word choices all contribute
| precisely _zero_ additional information content or value; that
| they can be convincingly simulated by the LLM just picking the
| most appropriate next token suggests honestly that that's also
| exactly how they're employed by humans - just as meaningless
| padding around the core message.
|
| I see a lot of people looking at GPT outputs and saying things
| like 'this is great it can take my three bulletpoints and turn
| them into a complete presentation script!' - to me that suggests
| you should skip the presentation and just send a text with the
| three bulletpoints.
|
| GPT is great at adding this performative 'packaging'.
|
| I really hope what that teaches us is _we don't need to waste
| time with the packaging in the first place_.
| TehShrike wrote:
| To some extent, nicespeak is the shibboleth of the middle class.
|
| A few don't have to speak it, and many never learn. They usually
| stand out in professional settings
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Fussell calls out all kinds of indirect or euphemistic "polite"
| speech as middle-class. "Passed away" versus "died", even.
|
| "High" speech is much more direct. You don't butter people up
| before asking for something, or apologize for being a bother,
| for example. You just ask. You don't dance around what you
| want, or what happened, you simply state it.
| johnea wrote:
| Very well timed post! The author really should produce an update
| for the new millennium.
|
| I was just ranting about this yesterday, after having to endure a
| chat session w/ a "customer care associate".
|
| The blatantly patronizing platitudes are really rudeness with
| flowers, and highlight the corporations use of exploited offshore
| call center workers as a human shield against the frustration of
| their customers.
|
| I'd also be curious to know about the tech of delivering "We're
| so sorry for your inconvenience, thank you for your patience..."
| messages automatically after certain periods of quiet in the chat
| channel.
|
| How many other patronizing platitudes are delivered
| automatically? Or with single click buttons on the "care
| representative's" console?
|
| Does anyone actually like these interfaces?
|
| Do people really want a bot to kiss their ass while they're
| trying to report a broken product?
|
| Someone seems to think so...
| ryanianian wrote:
| > "We're so sorry for your inconvenience, thank you for your
| patience..."
|
| My god this pattern has to stop. Systems are making it
| impossible to just wait for a human while doing something else.
|
| The worst seems to be telephone companies advertising their own
| offerings on hold, but even my dog's vet has introduced this
| "CHECK OUT OUR APP FOR APPOINTMENTS" thing in their hold music.
| You have to constantly be on guard because everything that
| sounds like a human might or might not actually be a human.
| Please just give me light, instrumental music to know I'm not
| disconnected and stfu.
|
| I think this is further evidence of what happens when
| corporate/pr/product people are rewarded for marginal
| improvements in bottom-line metrics despite the long-term
| expense of customer satisfaction. Eventually the margin curve
| flips negative. Hopefully.
| DebbieNicespeak wrote:
| Hi all, I'm the person who wrote this. Thanks for this unexpected
| trip down memory lane, which is also an insight into how things
| have changed. Remember I wrote this more than 20 years ago when
| scripted service of any kind was new in the UK, and we really
| didn't interact with websites much or chatbots at all. Mission
| statements and suchlike were also fairly new, especially in
| public institutions.Evidently familiarity has made us more
| accepting of some things but even less so of others, as you'd
| expect. Anyway,it was fun reading the comments,so thanks and have
| a nice day
| mannykannot wrote:
| Now I'm wondering if the study of insincerity has become a
| recognized academic field. It would seem to be inherently
| cross-disciplinary, with elements of psychology, sociology and
| politics, in addition to the linguistic aspect.
| islanderfun wrote:
| I'm a little confused here and I'm sure I'm missing the point.
| This article seems to argue (and some comments here) that being
| rude should be normal? Why? Why wouldn't we be nice to customers
| for their business?
|
| On the other hand, hasn't bullshit/passive-aggressiveness/etc
| been always called out?
| silmari wrote:
| I share the confusion, that the article seems to bash at nice,
| everyday phrases without giving the same nice kind of
| alternatives to lubricate communication, but rather it gives
| irony and satire, which are of the other end. The point of the
| article isn't about rudeness but making a meaningful
| conversation, and that passivity and talking from rulebooks
| doesn't really help from the author's point of view.
| treve wrote:
| I think the author is just not very self aware. The rules of
| communication do change, but they probably weren't aware of the
| unwritten social cues that they picked up earlier in life. Cues
| that probably were equally annoying and frustrating to someone
| a generation earlier.
|
| I think lots of people would be a bit more at peace once they
| start embracing the fact that language and culture are always
| going to be moving and changing. Thing are going to feel
| awkward and forced until they feel normal and you'll continue
| to be expected to adjust to the norms. Some of those norms will
| suggest that you've been doing certain things 'wrong' all your
| life and it's gonna be hard to swallow, but everyone will
| always go through this stuff and this is why you can probably
| find some rants against political correctness for as long as
| there have been columns in newspapers.
|
| It's a complete waste of energy, I hope the author found some
| peace in the 22 years since this article.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> This article seems to argue (and some comments here) that
| being rude should be normal?_
|
| No. The article is not talking about ordinary courtesies
| between individuals (those are mentioned briefly, but only to
| contrast with the article's main subject). It is talking about
| a tactic used by organizations.
|
| _> Why wouldn 't we be nice to customers for their business?_
|
| Being nice as you and your company solve the customer's problem
| is great.
|
| Being nice as you and your company epically fail to solve the
| customer's problem, and continuing to talk as though everything
| is just dandy even though it is nothing of the sort, is not
| great--but unfortunately it is a common tactic that
| organizations use and train their customer support
| representatives to use. That is what the article is talking
| about.
|
| _> hasn 't bullshit/passive-aggressiveness/etc been always
| called out?_
|
| Not when it is cloaked in a veneer of seeming niceness, no.
| dkarl wrote:
| > This article seems to argue (and some comments here) that
| being rude should be normal? Why? Why wouldn't we be nice to
| customers for their business?
|
| The difference is intent. Being polite to someone to put them
| at ease in a difficult situation, to give them a better
| experience of their day, or to lubricate an awkward
| interaction, is a good thing. Relentlessly and deceptively
| framing yourself and your actions in the highest possible light
| is selfish and corrosive. There is overlap, such as greeting
| somebody in a cheery way as they enter a business. But where
| there is overlap, the selfish intention corrodes the positive
| one. When somebody greets me as I enter a store, I can't help
| seeing them as a worker who is forced to perform emotional
| labor on behalf of a business that wants to extract maximum
| economic value from me. It doesn't feel personal.
|
| Likewise, when a customer service rep on the phone expresses
| positivity and a desire to help, I'm aware that they may be
| instructed and empowered to solve customer problems as well as
| possible, but they also may be following a script to guide me
| towards the cheapest outcome for the company, and their
| apparent compassion and helpfulness might be calculated to
| engender feelings of trust in me, so that I feel like I'm in
| good hands and allow them to guide me towards an outcome that
| is less than I'm entitled to. Their tone may even be being
| graded and used to evaluate them.
|
| > hasn't bullshit/passive-aggressiveness/etc been always called
| out?
|
| When something becomes normalized, it doesn't get called out.
| In the context of economic competition, it even becomes excused
| as mandatory.
| omginternets wrote:
| I'm not sure where you got that idea from. The thesis is that
| there is a distinction to be made between ordinary civility and
| "nicespeak". The distinction is that the latter is insincere,
| and serves the interests of a corporate power structure.
| jspash wrote:
| Recently I've been encountering more and more service workers who
| are AMAZED at my INCREDIBLE and AWESOME choice from the menu.
|
| Until now I didn't think I had any sort of special ordering
| skills. I mean, they hand me a menu and I have no choice but to
| select 2-3 items from said menu. Just like everyone else. But
| I've come to realise that MY particular choice of those items is
| somehow better than the common man. I have a skill that was
| previously untapped and has only now come to light.
|
| SUPER!
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| I agree about things like mission statements being rather silly
| and tedious, particularly in a corporate context where, as the
| author notes, the only real mission is to make money for
| shareholders. In fact I think a mission statement is marginally
| less pointless in the context of a public institution because,
| frankly, it's _not_ always clear what the end goal of a lot of
| those institutions are.
|
| I don't really see the problem with this, however:
|
| > What, for instance, was the mysterious "quality" that we
| discussed at every meeting? What did people mean when they spoke
| earnestly about "aims and objectives" and "learning outcomes"?
|
| If people are discussing "quality" I presume they are referring
| to quality of output, ie, you want whatever good or service you
| are delivering to be good, not bad. And knowing the aims,
| objectives and outcomes of meetings, projects, etc, is absolutely
| a positive thing.
|
| There is no "fake sincerity" as far as I can see. There is
| politeness - sure, maybe it is fake politeness (discounting the
| possibility that your server actually wants you to enjoy your
| meal). But it's still better than rudeness which is quite often
| the alternative.
|
| Frankly it sounds as though the author is simply annoyed at (i)
| the private sector, for being the private sector, and (ii) the
| public sector, for looking to introduce the same focus on
| customer service and accountability that has long been present in
| the private sector.
| wallfacer120 wrote:
| [dead]
| at_a_remove wrote:
| My un-favorite non-pology language is "I'm sorry you feel that
| way."
| mariodiana wrote:
| The purpose of Newspeak was to bypass the rational faculty and
| trigger an emotional reaction in the listener (as well as
| confining the speaker to the appropriate emotional state). The
| purpose of Nicespeak is the same.
| [deleted]
| dstroot wrote:
| > in a world where a notice can announce in all seriousness: "In
| order to better serve you, we are closed this afternoon."
|
| This is so spot-on. I am not sure this qualifies as "nicespeak"
| but if you pay attention you will hear this type of messaging
| everywhere. As we hear it we seem to just nod along and miss the
| fundamental irony of it.
| floren wrote:
| "Please listen closely, as our menu options have changed. Did
| you know you can check your account balance, order checks,
| apply for a loan, or get a new debit card online? Visit w w w
| dot your bank name dot com forward slash banking for more
| information." ---> Please hang up before we actually have to
| make somebody pick up the phone
|
| "Due to the ongoing pandemic, for the safety of guests and
| staff we will not make up your room unless requested" --->
| Thank god, we can cut our cleaning staff
|
| "Due to the ongoing drought conditions, water will only be
| served for customers who request it" ---> We wash half as many
| glasses this way
|
| COVID in general was a great excuse for a lot of companies to
| do something they've wanted to do for years (reduce business
| hours, cancel contracts, cut staff, reduce stock on hand, etc.)
| while acting like they're doing the world a favor.
| tomwheeler wrote:
| Ticketmaster: "We've switched to app-based digital tickets
| for a safe, contactless experience" -------> The pandemic
| provides the cover we need to corner the resale market and
| collect the personal data of every customer.
| floren wrote:
| How about the bald absurdity of tacking on a "convenience
| fee" for purchasing things online instead of in person? The
| theater near me will add a couple bucks if you buy tickets
| online, but that fee is not present if you buy in person at
| the theater! There's never more than one person behind the
| counter, so I have no doubt they're saving money by leaving
| registers unstaffed, yet they still have the gall to charge
| us extra for using the online reservation system--they want
| to have their cake and eat it too! Of course, complaining
| about the ethics and pricing practices of theaters and the
| entertainment industry in general is like shooting fish in
| a (very expensive) barrel.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| I always thought there must be big money to be made as a call
| volume forecaster, given how many major companies are stumped
| when its "unexpectedly high".
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I love these. Another one I've seen recently is large
| Manhattan office buildings asking people to use revolving
| doors "to help save the environment".
|
| (i.e. help us save on electricity costs for heating and A/C)
| function_seven wrote:
| I saw this on the doors of my local shopping mall:
| MALL HOURS ========== For your convenience,
| The Galleria's operating hours are available online
|
| Followed by a huge QR code. Um, no. It's really _in_
| convenient to have to grab a phone, scan a code, wait for the
| slow site to load, give apologies to others who want to walk
| in the door, etc.
|
| Oh, and let's say I get there before they open. Before I
| could just drive by and see the hours on the door. Now I have
| to stop, get out, scan the code, ...
|
| It's a small gripe for sure, but those are my favorite types.
| floren wrote:
| Oh of course that reminds me of the explosion of QR code
| menus we saw during the pandemic! A laminated code, the
| lamination bubbling up, covered in peeling tape, damn near
| impossible to scan depending on the lighting conditions.
| Much better than a sheet of paper!
| jsight wrote:
| And this directs you to a PDF that was designed for
| print. :(
| ectopod wrote:
| Or a menu developed with react that takes a full minute
| to load.
| mannykannot wrote:
| Maybe the 'y' was a typo.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I like how self-checkouts or ordering kiosks are framed as
| automation, but are actually just making your customers do
| work your paid workers used to do. There's no automation
| involved, just a shift in who does the work.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Quite a few shopping centres where I live (Norway) have the
| opening hours in half metre, or more, high type high up on
| the wall outside.
|
| The sort of thing you describe has a lot to do with the
| culture of the place. In Norway being cooperative and
| helpful is highly prized, in the US individuality and
| getting ahead are. I don't mean that both countries don't
| appreciate both things, just that the emphasis differs.
|
| At least that's my biased opinion, :-)
| omginternets wrote:
| I have toyed with the idea of carrying a sharpie with me,
| and adding ironic graffiti to such messages. This article
| might just push me over the edge.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| A few years ago I got a letter from my bank which said
| something along the lines of "At [bank], we understand that
| your banking needs evolve over time. That's why from [date], we
| will be moving you from a graduate account to a regular
| account".
|
| The graduate account and the regular count are exactly the same
| except that the regular account has extra fees. Apparently over
| the years I had evolved a need to pay fees. Good thing my bank
| were looking out for me.
| ThinkingGuy wrote:
| When you receive a letter from a bank that starts out with
| "Here at [Big Bank] we value your privacy," you can assume
| that the rest of the letter is a just a detailed account of
| all the ways that they plan to violate it.
| akomtu wrote:
| The bank is not lying. It values your privacy at $X/year
| and even itemizes it to categories.
| dylan604 wrote:
| When you receive a letter from anyone that starts out with
|
| FTFY
| silmari wrote:
| It seems like the problem is not on Nicespeak itself but more on
| the power structure that enforce such style of communication.
| Nicespeak itself feels like an essential lubricating part of the
| language but what makes it Nicespeak and not "nice words" is the
| authority.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Niceness itself is a lubricant. Nicespeak may be more analogous
| to a higher performing synthetic lubricant that however has
| some severe downsides, such as inferior performance, when used
| outside of its design parameters.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| It's a very diffuse and unaccountable authority though. I've
| seen the take that nicespeak is a stand-in for social class -
| upper classes have the tutors and entertainment preferences to
| learn nicespeak. Failure to conform to the requirements of
| nicespeak is like signaling membership in the
| working/uneducated class, which leads to social exclusion
| particularly in managerial positions. But it's not from a
| central authority, more a consensus partially based on fear of
| association.
|
| Seems like a decent analysis to me - does anyone have a
| critique?
| jollyllama wrote:
| I'm with you on the first part. If I'm subordinate or
| dependent in a relationship, just openly treat me that way;
| there's no shame in that. The patronizing nicespeak is more
| objectionable.
| omginternets wrote:
| I think the very definition of nicespeak is that it serves a
| corporate power structure. That's what distinguishes it from
| ordinary civility.
| johnea wrote:
| Do we need customer end bot tools to maintain any hope of
| interacting with corporations on equal footing?
| watwut wrote:
| Learning accent, idioms and cultural references were always parts
| of learning a language or judging how you learned that. Even
| years ago and in normal language class lessons.
|
| Watching entertainment or reading books were always part of that.
| And my friends going for American universities 20 years ago were
| memorizing cultural references idioms etc along with unusual
| words and what not. Cause it was a on the test.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > as a friend of mine observed when asked to speak at a
| conference on "pursuing excellence in facilities management":
| "Who the hell would pursue second-rateness?"
|
| Most people, actually - though few are so bold as to announce it.
| That said, I agree with the point: although individuals may not
| pursue greatness, public institutions always should.
| seti0Cha wrote:
| The alternative to pursuing excellence is not usually pursuing
| second-rateness, but simply not pursuing excellence. It's a
| lack of effort, rather than misdirected effort.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| "So how do you hire more B players?"[1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _" A players hire A players,"_ he said. _" B players hire C
| players. Do you get it?"_
|
| > Apparently not. Somebody in the back of the room raised his
| hand and asked, _" so how do you hire more B players?"_
|
| I think that guy did get it, but he worded it wrong, he meant
| to say, "so, who hired those B players?"
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Right. He's spotted that the "rule" may have a _little_
| truth to it, but is also kinda just bullshit.
| jasmer wrote:
| Public institutions need to pursue competence. If they could
| effectively do the things they are supposed to, we'd be mostly
| pretty good.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| My rule is that whenever something has "excellence" in the
| title it's 100% BS. Works like a charm.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| Reminds me of that old Simpsons episode, where Homer is given
| a fake award for "Outstanding Achievements in the field of
| Excellence"
| Spivak wrote:
| Excellence is overrated for anything you don't really really
| care about. The price to get to the next level of noticeable
| quality goes up really fast after a bit above average.
| seti0Cha wrote:
| It seems to me that nicespeak is nothing more than our culture's
| embodiment of courtesy, or etiquette. Our society self-
| consciously strives to be egalitarian, so formality and
| honorifics sit poorly with us. However, unscripted social
| interactions are fraught with danger. They can easily become
| awkward or lead to misunderstandings. Etiquette provides a
| framework a person can operate within wherein you don't have to
| worry about what the other person will think or feel. This is
| particularly valuable in a business context, so our institutions
| strive to fabricate this framework.
|
| There's nothing wrong with this, as long as everyone recognizes
| it for what it is. We harmlessly exchange stock phrases, like
| "how are you", to which the proper responses include "fine, and
| you?", or "not too bad, yourself?" or the like. The person who
| says "oh, terrible" and proceeds to tell you about it has
| violated the social contract and imposed a burden on the other
| party. The person behind the counter at the fast food restaurant
| doesn't want to have to think to say "I hope you enjoy that
| milk", or find some other way to close the conversation, so
| they're just as happy to say that stock phrase "enjoy your meal"
| and be done with you.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| > _We harmlessly exchange stock phrases, like "how are you", to
| which the proper responses include "fine, and you?",..._
|
| Q. How do you confuse an anglophone?
|
| A. Answer, when they ask how you are.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| << But it seemed strange that instructions had been issued at
| all, and stranger still that they were generally obeyed.
|
| It is, but when it is mandated it ceases to be courtesy ( it
| may still remain etiquette as that is mandated and enforced by
| society depending on definition used ); it becomes a forced
| behavior.
|
| That said, I still prefer the example you gave. I used to
| cringe internally over forced small talk in US ( "how are you",
| "fine/great/would complain, but -- no one listens" response ),
| but I kinda argue it is better than the weird 'everyone is out
| to get me; don't talk to me' approach from the old country.
|
| As always, but.. just because I prefer it now, does it mean I
| can reasonably "expect" it?
| seti0Cha wrote:
| > when it is mandated it ceases to be courtesy
|
| I don't think there's anything contradictory about mandated
| courtesy, unless you mean it in the sense of "consideration".
| I think the primary meaning is closer to etiquette than
| consideration though. The etymology of the term is derived
| from courtliness, i.e. behavior in a King's court.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Interesting perspective! I'm not sure I agree with it, but I'm
| glad I read it.
| omginternets wrote:
| I think the point is that we can distinguish ordinary civility
| from nicespeak. The latter is insincere, existing primarily as
| a means to reinforce a (usually corporate) power structure.
| seti0Cha wrote:
| I disagree. First, insincere polite speech greatly predates
| the existence of corporations, and second, it exists between
| parties who are on equal terms as often as between superior
| and subordinate. Consider the niceties of diplomats, for
| example. As I pointed out in my previous post, it actually
| serves a purpose for both parties.
| omginternets wrote:
| I don't disagree with you, but none of this contradicts the
| thesis. I am happy to accept that "nicespeak" predates the
| early 00's and that diplomats routinely engage in it.
|
| I am also happy to accept that it has evolved into a new
| form, via corporate influence.
| ohwellhere wrote:
| I think the author's chosen name for the phenomenon "Nicespeak"
| creates a cognitive distortion that muddies what I think her
| point is. She is not talking about being nice rather than being
| rude. Rather she is talking about being authentic and human
| rather than becoming an automaton channeling the will of the
| powers that are compelling your speech.
|
| Her example of the fast food worker is they're channeling the
| brand of the franchise "whether or not they made sense in a
| given context". "The idea was to subordinate the personality of
| the individual speaker to a centrally designed corporate
| voice."
|
| Her example of the workers in the public-private partnership of
| academia describes having to conform to the rules of the
| corporate information-hiding language game in order to compete
| with others for funding. "If they do not claim to be
| 'excellent', they will inevitably come out losers."
|
| In these cases the casualties are authenticity, connection, a
| frank assessment of and confrontation with reality, and
| humanity. In lieu of them, we've created a network of symbols
| and signs overtop of existence that pretends to be true
| reality, but really distorts it to the benefit of the holders
| of power. This network of symbols comprises brands, mission
| statements, corporate personalities, metrics that yield to
| Goodhart's law, empty buzzwords and hype, etc, etc, etc.
|
| I think that's what she's criticizing.
| seti0Cha wrote:
| > In these cases the casualties are authenticity, connection,
| a frank assessment of and confrontation with reality, and
| humanity. In lieu of them, we've created a network of symbols
| and signs overtop of existence that pretends to be true
| reality, but really distorts it to the benefit of the holders
| of power
|
| My point is, we have always done this, but with different
| vocabulary and different institutions. When has human
| relations at any scale been properly characterized as frank
| or authentic? I suppose you could say that the Mongols
| butchering their way across Europe and Asia were being frank
| and authentic in their relations with others, but I doubt
| they were so in their internal relations.
| snapcaster wrote:
| I think the reason that we do what you and the post you're
| replying to describe is because it massively lowers
| "transaction costs" of social interactions. It's a
| simplifying abstraction, and obviously all abstractions will
| hide information or result in things being lost
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| I don't think that's the main point of the article (though it
| is addressed).
|
| The problem with Nicespeak is it becomes a _mandatory_ form of
| expression. See, for example, mission statements at
| universities (TFA). Without these obligatory technocrat
| documents, universities will be stripped of funding and
| accreditation.
|
| To provide a slightly more contemporary take, see the
| censorship/moderation debate in public discourse today. I think
| a direct line can be drawn between societal Nicespeak and our
| almost compulsive need to scrub social media et al. of anything
| sufficiently nonconformist.
| seti0Cha wrote:
| > see the censorship/moderation debate in public discourse
| today. I think a direct line can be drawn between societal
| Nicespeak and our almost compulsive need to scrub social
| media et al. of anything sufficiently nonconformist.
|
| I'm sympathetic to this line of reasoning, but I think these
| are somewhat different phenomena. I am arguing that nicespeak
| is not actually something new, but rather the contemporary
| form of something that people have always engaged in. I would
| say a more direct line exists between current discourse
| policing and prior periods' "corruption of public morals"
| concerns, such as they Hollywood code imposed to restrict
| what sorts of behavior could be depicted on screen, the
| prohibition on swearing or nudity on television, or the
| banning of "immoral" books in libraries.
| pdonis wrote:
| I don't think the author's problem with things like mission
| statements is primarily that they are mandatory. I think her
| primary problem with them is that they misrepresent what the
| organization actually does and how well (or poorly) it
| actually does it. It is true, though, that a key reason _why_
| they have to misrepresent is, so to speak, grade inflation:
| any organization that doesn 't portray itself (however
| unjustifiably) as perfect at its nominal mission in all
| public statements loses funding to those that do.
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