rudeness and objective value

this is a [modestly modified] transplant from a short series of notes on my bookface

Rudeness doesn’t exist.  Let me make the case by explaining what it means to be polite first.  What is someone saying when s/he is polite to you?

1.  You are valuable to me.

“Some or all of this interaction is a gift that I want to give to you.”

This makes sense to me.  That person has earned your love, respect or admiration.  You want to treat them with the kind of deference that you would a rare work of art.

However, some people believe that other people are supposed to value them, because they have objective value as a human being.  If you have value just because you exist, then you don’t have to earn it.  You don’t have to be efficacious. You don’t have to be courageous. When someone doesn't value you as much as you think they should, it's a reflection on THEIR character.  They're not demonstrating to you that they value you as much as it's their responsibility to value you.

To be rude is to not demonstrate your valuation of something in accordance with its objective value.  Since objective value doesn’t exist, neither does rudeness.  I live in a world where most people are the kinds of cowards who convince themselves of the validity of objective value because it’s easier than facing their fears and achieving their goals. Which is why I hear something very different when people are polite to me. Namely,

2.  You are stupid.

“I want something from you.  You will misinterpret my politeness as a genuine positive appraisal of your character and you will be persuaded by this to provide me with something. Generally, the reciprocation of disingenuous positive appraisals.”

3.  You are crazy.

“You will misinterpret a lack of demonstrations of a positive evaluation of your character as a negative evaluation.  This will remind you of your negative self evaluation which will cause you to reexperience shame or possibly even lower your self evaluation and cause an experience of new deeper shame.  Wishing to avoid the knowledge of your negative self evaluation, you will interpret the interaction as an attack.  You will become angry. You may become covertly or openly hostile and may even become violent.”

Which is why I never feel completely comfortable with somebody until they're a complete cock to me.