Comment by JadeNB
3 years ago
> I'm actually not quite so sure about this. Admittedly, as a lifelong member of the waiters, I find "interrupt culture" incredibly frustrating. But I also think there's a framework by which we can establish interrupt culture as ostensibly more rude, even if that's the custom you're used to and expect.
I think you can definitely make this argument, and it will establish, conveniently, that everyone should do things our way. But then interrupters can make an argument about how, if only we could all agree to do things their way, then things would be so efficient, and no-one would need to waste time waiting for someone else to finish up a sentence whose content they've already guessed, or that they can already tell will be irrelevant to the discussion at hand, or … well, whatever the argument is. Of course, I find your argument more persuasive than the interrupters’; but … well, I would, wouldn't I? If it just so happens that the answer to a vexing societal question is for people to realize that I'm right and do things my way, then I have to become suspicious of whether I'm really arguing as logically as I think I am.
Yes, that's exactly my point. It's easy to say "I think X so X is right" but I'm trying to find more objectivity by drawing analogies/looking for asymmetries with other things. What happens if we perturb the system in a given direction? Of course, pronouncements of absolute moral certainty pretty much fall to unprovable religion - "murder is always bad because God doesn't approve, even if everyone agrees to it!" - but I find it likely that there are approximate moral certainties (like murder or theft generally being harmful, or, in this case, interruption culture being the more rude of the two).
> If it just so happens that the answer to a vexing societal question is for people that I'm right and do things my way, then I have to become suspicious of whether I'm really arguing as logically as I think I am.
I appreciate this position greatly and I think it's very noble. I try very hard to argue with myself along the same lines to arrive at better conclusions. My concern with the alternative - that people are hard, there are no answers, and all we can do is communicate - is that it means nothing is knowable with a side effect of supporting the status quo.