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I'm writing this off the cuff after sitting through a particularly tedious lunch conversation and having the feeling that there's a culture war angle here.
The conversation was basically dominated by two people excitedly trading drawn out and inane stories from their personal lives while the rest of the group occasionally tried making little interjections. If one person told a story the other related to, the other person had to quickly follow with their almost exact same story from their own life, start to finish with the same inane outcome, instead of saying something like "that happened to me too" and letting someone else talk.
I think there's a missing personality trait that I thought was conscientiousness, but it turns out that means something different (being organized and careful). The trait I am thinking of is more like "conscious awareness of reality," which is like, can you tell how your behavior is interacting with the people around you, do you work with theories of mind, are you able to weigh your thoughts and feelings and choose what to say next, etc.
Maybe this all boils down to rising autism numbers but I feel like this is something that is supposed to be learned, and I would hope that if you haven't learned this by the time you are an adult there is something wrong with you. Instead it seems to be almost the default human condition to anxiously spit up each little itemized story you've accumulated that is interesting only to you, or seal-clap when others do so, when instead you could be doing something interesting like asking open ended questions to the group because I feel like I encounter this constantly.
My gut feeling on this is that it's not just a kind of autism style drug or biological induced disease, it's more a symptom of cultural decay, and seems more like we have bad values -> we get worse people type of movement over time. And I feel like it could be a generally self-reinforcing thing where people are getting less "nutrition" from their conversations with others, therefore they spend more time alone, conversational skills decay, etc.
So this is a bit of a rant but maybe someone here has thoughts to debate or add onto this?
Social commentators often deplore how people are isolated or choosing to be alone, but declining social skills, not smartphones, may be to blame. Conversations are two-way, so if some percentage of the general population is severely deficient in this regard, the probability of a bad conversation converges to near 100% after only a handful of exchanges, so it's not worth socializing at all, as the downside is not worth it. Videos frequently go viral of aggressive, confrontational behavior. People are just meaner in general and I don't think it can be explained by confirmation bias of viral videos, technology, or autism.
One thing that’s always struck me in my own life has been the contrast between where I grew up and the Bay Area in California.
At least when I was growing up and through young adulthood my local community was very collectivistic. We all knew each other. Attitudes toward one another were very different than how they are here in the Bay. Very few people who weren’t adults did anything without supervision or at least a stamp of approval by some authority figure. You always deferred to those older than you if the matter rang of something potentially serious and you were generally obedient to what you were told out of respect. One of the phrases I remember hearing as a kid that you never wanted to hear from anyone was “… put your house in order, or, we’re going to do it for you…,” and that usually preceded something that was about to go down. The oldest person in the group you always followed and did what they told you when you guys were out. In private you do what your parents tell you. As guys we were taught to love the women close to us and girls were taught to respect the choices and decisions of the men in their lives and do what the men tell you. It wasn’t all rank and file thinking and it didn’t always take but it was a general rule people in the community had an implicit understanding of. Boys still fought with each other here and there. Girls didn’t like being told to go home or do X by their younger brother but they knew they were just looking out for them. Babysitters still did immature and playful things they didn’t tell the local kids parents about that the kids loved. Timmy’s supposed to be in bed by 8:30pm. We stayed up past midnight and made forts in the living room. Timmy’s not supposed to watch that scary movie he desperately wants to see. We watched the scary movie Timmy wasn’t supposed to see. Don’t let Timmy have more than a few sodas. Timmy and I drank the whole box and had to buy more to replace the noticeably missing one in the fridge. But we were generally responsible and we policed each others behavior in the group. There was none of this “you can’t tell me what to do!,” horseshit. You’d end up with some very red ass cheeks if you said something like that. Mothers and grandmothers still washing their sons mouths out with soap is something I can remember. It happened to me when I was very young. We could be very immature and rowdy at times but we knew certain red lines socially you just ‘didn’t’ cross. And there was a loose hierarchy of sorts to things.
There was a general sense of the separation of people by gender. If you were out and about with your friends and someone’s sister or a local girl in your neighborhood happened to join your party, you immediately went to the phone and called their brother/cousin/father/male guardian and told them where you were, that they were with you and you’re hanging out and looking out for them; and you always asked if they had a curfew. You don’t leave suspicion or a lingering sense that you’re messing with someone’s daughter/girlfriend/sister/wife. It wasn’t just the right thing to do but it also cultivated respect from the men in their family. They looked at you as someone they could trust. That’s also something that’s very well known in gang culture which I was also affected by. If one of your boys had to go down ‘that’ side of town, you called up “guy” over there (what they now call “shot callers”) and make sure it’s safe first. Then you go.
When it came to dating people generally met 1 of 3 different ways. Either through peer group, e.g., your brother has a girlfriend who has a friend who has a sister. Or your friend knows so-and-so across the street who knows so-and-so from down the hall at school. They’re going to the movies soon, ask her if she could come along if she has interest in hanging out. Most of the time that type of approach worked. Sometimes it didn’t work out and you didn’t vibe well and they parted amicably. The 2nd way was through church. It was a way for the community to come together of people who otherwise didn’t know each other and have an opportunity to meet and learn about one another. That covered the vast majority of cases. And if they didn’t happen, you usually met later in life through work. But dating by Brownian motion simply wasn’t a thing. It was heavily regulated by religion and peer group. Women weren’t supposed to be too forward with their attitudes and that’s why messages were usually exchanged through a friend as an intermediary. And boys were under constant threat as a way to keep their hormones in check that they not act like a showboating asshole and you always treat them nice and respectfully and get to know their family or there will be hell to pay. With girls you use the carrots, with boys you use the sticks. Harsh discipline happened more often that I thought took place at that time as a young kid, but there were far fewer beatings that took place out of vengeance or retribution because of it.
When it came to jobs networking was always a massive thing and often the best way in. One thing I distinctly remember was if one of your family members or friends put his reputation on the line or vouched for you, there was a ritual that almost ‘all’ of us went through. You were brought into a room and were seriously threatened to overperform and work like ‘hell’ and you ‘never’ make your family or friends look bad. I can remember that happening to me when I first began serious work and I can remember doing it to a couple of others as well several years later. Reputation was a ‘big’ deal. One maxim I remember being taught by an older peer was “if you like your job, you aren’t doing it right then.” I can also remember him telling me “… you’ve heard the phrase “learn the tricks of the trade?” No. Learn the trade…” I can remember getting in trouble working with my father and him telling me, “… do things the correct way, or not at all…” On days I’m not working particularly well and am having a difficult time finding my focus, I can physically hear them in my ear as if they’re standing right next to me. It sometimes even causes me to turn my head and I forget they aren’t there. Work is easy and doing ‘good’ work is hard. Excellence and a sense of accomplishment is its own reward when standing before your results. We were all taught from a very young age to work and work ‘hard’. ‘Very’ hard. I can recall a few instances where beatings actually happened over letting people down.
There were days I can remember we’d get off from school, casually walk through the door of our friend’s house, walk to the refrigerator and drink out of the milk container and talk to their mother sitting on the couch. You do that shit here you’d get knocked out or have the cops called on you. We were like a large extended family though. To this day even 20 years later, I can walk down the street of certain neighborhoods in some cities and when people see me outside they instantly recognize me and know who I am despite being gone for years. Not here though. I’ve had the cops called me on while sitting in my car, less than 30 seconds away from my house because the dipshit neighbor from across the street doesn’t know this face has been living here within eyesight of him for a decade now.
Eating separately inside a house was something I remember we never did. We all sat together as a family in the dining room and ate and enjoyed each other’s company. Too many people today live together as strangers and I hate that intensely. If I had children of my own I wouldn’t allow that in my house.
I had an Assyrian friend growing up with an ailing mother at the time. My friends and I used to go grocery shopping for her as a group so she didn’t have to. We’d come back with all the receipts and money and she’d invite us to stay and she’d make dinner for us all. She was a wonderful woman. We called her Mama Khalood.
If you ever had a disagreement with a friend or spouse about something or they did something you didn’t like in a public venue or social setting, you ‘never’ rebuked them in front of everybody, interrupted them or otherwise embarrassed them. You always addressed it in private, behind closed doors and matters were usually peacefully resolved.
In interpersonal relationships, one thing I was always taught is you never go to bed angry or upset with your girlfriend or wife. You listen to and never talk over them. You begin each and every morning with a deep hug and support each other through their hardships. You ‘never’ yell or raise your voice to them. Ever. And you ‘never’ call them disparaging names, e.g., bitch, whore, dumb ass, slut, etc. It doesn’t matter if you believe it. You ‘never’ call them that. You take note of the things they’re interested in. Literally. ‘Take notes’. Some of my close friends actually have a private notebook of their wives habits and interests that they began when they were still dating. Likes and dislikes. Places they’ve always wanted to go, etc. They surprise them all the time with things during the holidays and to this day have great and stable marriages among those of us who found a spouse.
When the school year was in session, my older sibling would often stay over at their friend’s house for 1, 2, sometimes 3 days that I can remember. They wouldn’t come home. They’d stay there, do homework together, talk, have fun, go do random stuff in the city and hang with the other kids. My mother knew where they were. I wouldn’t see them for a few days, staying at home myself. But they’d spend the night there and then faithfully walk to school with them the following morning, from their house. That stuff wasn’t uncommon.
In the Bay Area, people are much more hyper individualized and mean spirited than I’m used to. There’s very little in the way of manners or social cohesion. People sometimes think I’m rude in my outward behavior, but what people here don’t realize is more than half the things they do every day I find incredibly rude. On a national level that culture is all but dead but it still exists in pockets elsewhere. People sometimes think I’m odd because of those tendencies that were inculcated in me. Why I go out of my way to help others at work for instance. It’s what I was taught. It’s a collectivist attitude. You care for and support your group and your own people. But it’s a very foreign concept in the Bay Area. But if they’d had the experiences I’ve had and were from the little neck of the woods I came from they’d quickly realize that at least out there, ‘they’re’ the ones that aren’t normal. Not me.
Could you provide some examples?
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