The tyranny of fake politeness
Posted by Dalton48 on 16 Mar 2008 at 08:15 am | Tagged as: Stuff, Toronto
Sunday morning, Museum station. Stairs are under repair. An elderly couple stand on the one escalator, and move sharply over to the right side to allow others to pass on the left. A young woman begins to pass on the left, then hesitates, as she realizes (to her apparent horror) that the fabric of the sleeve of her heavy winter coat might brush the fabric of the sleeve of the elderly woman’s heavy winter coat if she presses forward. Young woman throws an anguished look back to her overcoat-clad husband, who is standing on the right behind the elderly couple. The husband makes a face indicating she should not press forward. 8-10 people are now stuck behind the younger woman, while the elderly couple’s considerate gesture is completely undone.
Frustrated passengers ask young woman, “Why don’t you go past? This couple is standing to one side so people can walk on the left.”
Young woman’s husband answers for her, “Because it’s Sunday.”
Holding back other passengers and ignoring two older people’s considerate attempt to ensure others can move at their own pace around the station in favour of the concerns about the propriety of gentle fabric-to-fabric pressure? What’s polite about that?
It has nothing to do with manners, which exist to make navigating society easier for all. It is, rather, a perfect example of fake politeness, which is more concerned with oneself and one’s public image than in actually greasing the wheels of social interaction. In the scenario described, the only winner is the pompous Sunday-venerating young husband, who is able to bask in the self-generated glow of his righteous behaviour.
Another common example of fake politeness in action:
Someone is at the front of a line for a cashier when a cashier becomes free. But is this person the first in line, or could someone else be? Why not argue with the second person in line about who was there first, and should thus go to the free cashier? This is the fake polite thing to do, inconviencing, as it does, as many other people in line as possible, while allowing the fakely polite person with the impression he or she has demontrated to anyone within earshot his or her exquisite manners.
This week’s challenge to the practical readers of Mock Turtle: your own examples of fake politeness. Remember the rules: an act of fake politeness must benefit no one except the fakely polite person, and must inconvenience others. Bonus points for self-satisfied comments about propriety.
I still think your civics course in manners for Canadians has a lot of merit. That said, I will be feeling self-conscious for the rest of the day, perhaps my life, about practicing fake politeness. Jeff
The one I dislike and is very common (and I’m sure in some sense well-meant) is people holding doors open for me when I am too far away to get to them without quickening my pace significantly. Generally the person is standing there with their arm propping open the door, clearly wanting to move on themselves, but now they’re stuck — you’re more or less obligated to break into run.
Think of their wasted time! And the warm/cool air rushing out of the building! And then you have to have the obligatory “sorry/thank you” exchange and it all takes an eternity. And if they haven’t gone though the door but are holding it — god forbid — in a manner that suggests epaulettes and white gloves,then you have to have the little dance of “you first/no you first/no I insist”. And then I need a cup of coffee and a lie down and it’s only 8.42am on a Monday morning.
This is not a “I am woman, hear me roar, and while you’re at it don’t open any doors for me” thing, by the way. I think it’s common courtesy to not let doors slam in people’s faces, regardless of gender, and I’m a frequent door-holder-opener myself. But my rule is a two-second rule: if I don’t estimate their arm can stretch out and relieve me of my doorwoman duty within two seconds, I gently let the door go and move smartly on.
Car drivers who won’t take their right-of-way if they spy a cyclist doing something perfectly normal like waiting to make a left turn. They’ll do something wildly unpredictable like stop in the middle of the intersection and wave me forward. Then I have to sit there and shake my head and wait for them to move on because there is no way on earth that I am going to put my body in front of a large hunk of metal driven by someone behaving that erratically. Their little effort at fake politeness both wastes my time and endangers me — and everyone else on the road who might not be expecting some dumbass to screech to a halt mid-intersection.
In a reasonable world — the one laid out for us by the Highway Traffic Act, say — they would continue straight on and be out of my way in 0.5 seconds.
I have a variant on TMQ’s example — the person in the elevator who, with 20 other people already waiting behind, decides to hit the open door button to let one more person on, generally when that person is 20 feet away and the elevator has already been prevented from leaving 4 or 5 times. The appropriate response if you are the “beneficiary”, of course, is to walk slowly towards the elevator, pretending blandly not to notice, then veer away at the last minute to take the perfectly serviceable next elevator in the bank, leaving the “helper” to get mentally lynched by his fellow passengers.
I suspect a rummage through back episodes of Curb would turn up others…
Any politeness, fake or not, is very welcome.