Examples of other people's mannerisms / behavior
- The woman in the Delakeyz video.
- Bruce Lee
- http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hv3pm
- He just generally adopts a dramatic demeanor which can across as impressive or extremely fake, depending on your perspective.
- He's well-dressed.
- His hair is well-groomed.
- He looks at the person he's speaking with.
- He looks at the person while they're speaking.
- When it is his turn to speak:
- he looks away for a moment while he's thinking
- he then looks at the person while he's speaking
- He speaks at a relaxed pace, not too quickly.
- I should time his rate of speaking and compare it to my own.
- He says "Yes", not "yeah".
- He generally avoids saying "uh" and "umm" when mentally hunting for words.
- He speaks in a straight tone.
- He doesn't let the pitch of his voice get high.
- He uses pauses in his speech.
- Example: 2:25: "A karate punch is like an iron bar–WHACK. <pause> A gung-fu punch..."
- I actually don't understand what he's trying to convey in this quote; it doesn't make much sense to me. But I think the pause is interesting.
- He sits with good posture, neither too uptight nor relaxed.
Others' rules of behavior
- 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation
- This was apparently one of the texts that George Washington based his behavior on.
The rules have in common a focus on other people rather than the narrow focus of our own self-interests that we find so prevalent today. Fussy or not, they represent more than just manners. They are the small sacrifices that we should all be willing to make for the good of all and the sake of living together.
Cursing / cussing / swearing
- A thought I've had is that cursing is the verbal equivalent of wearing a t-shirt.
Eye contact
Shyness
My thinking on shyness is that it's an instinct that keeps people from making social mistakes that could get them killed. I've noticed that I'm shy with people who I don't know, but once I have an idea of how they react, what they're sensitive about, etc. then I feel a lot more relaxed and can joke around with them.
typicalprog
- I used to be shy. Then I started forcing myself not to act shy. Got over it. Like anything else, practice.
- I spent my first year traveling reconnecting with old friends and acquaintances and making myself talk to at least one interesting stranger every day. Best thing I ever did.
- I still talk to random people, have met some great friends that way.
Manners toward marginalized groups / 'microaggressions' / political correctness
- After thinking about this for a while, at the moment I think that the idea of trying to get rid of subtly-hurtful behavior is a good one.
- On the other hand, I don't have a view of the big-picture of all of the problems society faces, so I don't have an opinion on whether the attention this issue is getting is the best use of society's time.
- I suspect that the cause of the controversy is that it is painful for people to change their behavior, and so basically what is being asked is for the microaggressors to feel more pain than they otherwise would (while changing their behavior) so that the recipients of the microaggressions can feel less pain than they otherwise would.
- When I was in grade school I picked up the habit of referring to things as "retarded" when I wanted to say that they were "nonsensical", and I feel good about having removed that habit from my behavior.
- At the moment I wonder if the term 'microaggression' is the best term possible, as (to me at least) the term 'aggression' has the connotation of being done consciously, while it seems that these are generally behaviors that are done almost reflexively, and are often(?) not done with the intention of causing harm.
- On the other hand, I haven't spent time trying to think of a better term, so that may very well be a better term than anything I could come up with.
Political correctness
Cultural appropriation
Arguments for why cultural appropriation is bad
The copycat argument
- Explanation: Dominant cultures copying the cultural innovations of non-dominant cultures makes it more difficult for the latter to use those innovations to raise themselves up (ie improve the average financial situation of their members and the status of the culture as a whole). So basically the dominant culture is being a copycat.
Articles
Examples
- 2015.03.06 - BuzzFeed - Here's What Makes A Song A Ripoff, According To The Law
- In the famous 1976 case Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music, the late Beatles member George Harrison was found to have infringed on The Chiffon's hit "He's So Fine" with his own solo song "My Sweet Lord" in part because The Chiffons song was so popular that there was little doubt whether Harrison had been exposed to it. The judge concluded that even though there was no evidence that "He's So Fine" had been on Harrison's radar, he had likely heard the song and internalized it "subconsciously."
- I was reading this article and thought about the anecdote in "Thinking Strategically" about two sailboats in a race, where the boat in the lead should just copy whatever the boat behind it does and it will be able to maintain its lead if the wind changes, whereas if doesn't copy the other boat, that difference may lead to the other boat taking the lead if the wind changes. You see the same kind of behavior in the music industry, where the people at the top can copy whatever new sound is becoming popular or whatever new idea might lead to someone else becoming popular, and thus maintain their position over those competitors. And "cultural appropriation" in the sense of "writing songs in the style of people who belong to another culture" (like "Elvis copying black rock-and-roll singers") could be a way that a dominant group maintains a privileged position over a less-privileged group.
- Patton Oswalt: Joke Theft Is No Laughing Matter
- This relates a story of how Conan O'Brien's writers stole a few jokes from a guy on Twitter. This doesn't show cultural appropriation, but it shows how someone in a privileged position can maintain that position by copying the inventions of others.
- YouTube - dunkey
- He's got a blaccent that's obviously fake. I'm not convinced it's bad for him to be using it, but it would definitely seem to fall within the realm of this argument.
- One thing I'm noticing while watching his videos is that he definitely seems to purposely drop hints in his videos that would lead the user to think he's black. I'm not sure what to make of it; I don't understand why he would do that.
The gossip argument
- Explanation: Dominant cultures that draw attention to the old / no-longer-in-use cultural traditions of non-dominant cultures may perpetuate unrealistic / unflattering conceptions of the current state of those non-dominant cultures. So the dominant culture is kind-of 'gossiping' about the non-dominant culture.
- Example: If the majority of Americans are not very familiar with the culture of Mexicans or the Japanese, and then you have a rock tour that features geishas and guys in sombreros, that may lead people to think that those practices reflect the current state of those cultures.
Examples