Politeness Disease (Was Re: Buzzwords...)

From: Zero Powers (zero_powers@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed May 03 2000 - 12:55:22 MDT


>From: "E. Shaun Russell" <e_shaun@uniserve.com>
>
>Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>
> >Politeness is a disease I have no use for[...]
>
>My $0.02: though I agree with almost all of your post (i.e.: addressing
>ideas, not people; responding to issues objectively etc.) I personally find
>no reason *not* to be polite. I can't think of any conversations or
>correspondances I have had which have suffered as a result of inherent
>politeness. Come to think of it, most correspondances have been enhanced
>by politeness, in my opinion; (but that *is*, after all, just my
>opinion...criticize at will).

I think I can see Lee's point. Politeness can be somewhat
inefficient(having to type superfluous characters such as "please" and other
magick words). But since our conversations are still limited to other
humans (with all their bothersome emotions and other quirks) I think
politeness is a worthwhile tool for enhancing human-human communications.
The programmers on the list may be used to impolitely ordering computers
around with no negative result, but as Stephen Covey likes to say, while
"efficiency" may work best with *things* it is "effectiveness" (which
includes such niceties as courtesy and politeness) which works best with
*people*.

-Zero

"I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past"
--Thomas Jefferson

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