The other day, I read the book, “The Wrong of Rudeness: Learning Modern Civility from Ancient Chinese Philosophy” by Amy Olberding. I was particularly struck by her comments on Analects 4.17, where Confucius said, “When you see an unworthy person, look inward and examine yourself.”
Reflecting on this passage, Olberding wrote about how there are times where we get offended by someone only because we misunderstood the intention of their words or actions. And it is very scary to think that the words or actions of someone who meant well could be so wrongly interpreted as rudeness, disrespect, or worse, malevolence!
Looking back, I can definitely think of many instances in the past where I have either misunderstood someone, or I was misunderstood by others.
By far, the most revealing example comes from my teenage years. My peers and I used to get very upset by the uncles and aunties in the neighbourhood who would see us and ask very obvious questions like, “Going out ah?”, or “Going home ah?”, or “Going to eat ah?” It felt very intrusive and it upset a lot of us as we didn’t understand why these older folks liked to state the obvious in the form of questions – at that time, it felt like they had nothing better to do but to poke their noses into our lives. It was only much later when I took a module on sociolinguistics that I discovered that it was a practice of their generation, one where asking the obvious was a way in which they greeted someone and expressed care for them.
And just to share another story, some time ago, I spoke to a very well-respected individual in her 60s, and she commented that she found it very rude when junior people write, “I look forward to hearing from you soon” (or anything to that extent). She said that it reads like a passive aggressive way of demanding a response.
I was surprised! I’m guilty of writing such things in my e-mails. I always thought it was a friendly gesture to show excitement in hearing from the person, but it seems that people of her generation do not use it the same way that we do! (And of course, it made me wonder how many people I may have accidentally offended in the past.)
The point in sharing these two stories is to highlight that communicative practices can differ across different groups of people. The same words can be used differently and can mean very different things to different groups of people. It may be respectful to one group, but disrespectful to another.
From a Confucian perspective, we refer to these communicative practices as li 礼 or ritual propriety. It refers to social rituals, i.e. social conventions and social etiquette for appropriately expressing ourselves. It includes words like “How are you?”, which is used as a greeting in some circles (but misunderstood by other circles as a question of actually wanting to know more about the person’s state of life); it also includes certain actions like hand shakes, a high five; and it also includes other social conventions like queueing in line (which is why people get upset if someone cuts the queue in front of us), staying silent in a talk to not disrupt the speaker even if one disagrees with the content to allow the person to finish, and more.
It’s one thing to have good intentions for someone, but without learning the appropriate conventions for expression, we can come across as either rude, creepy, or something worse. For example, I once told a student (male) that I was very busy and quite stressed out by work to explain why I don’t have the bandwidth to mentor him. In response, the student loudly exclaimed, “I care for you! You can tell me your problems, and I will be there for you to help you in whatever way that I can!!! Just tell me! I won’t abandon you!!!” I know he meant well, but lacking the appropriate li conventions to express himself, it just came across as super creepy.
We learn about the best li, the best communicative practices from the people in our social circles, and we practice these forms of expression with them. And given how we are understood by the people in those circles, it’s easy to forget that people outside our circles may not actually understand us in the same way.
Again, another example that struck me recently was how my students have picked up the li practice of speaking a bit too freely and in an unfiltered way because they have been practising this li on social media. My colleagues and I have oftentimes been quite affected by the abrasiveness of their words over e-mail, and so one day I talked to students about this and they shared with me that their time on social media taught them that it is appropriate to speak and write in that way. Never once did it occur to them that other people did not converse in a similar way, or that it could appear rude and offensive to others.
So for me, the biggest lesson I’ve gained is the realisation that people around me – especially those outside my regular social circles – may have different li communicative practices, and so they may say or do things that may seem rude, disrespectful, offensive, hurtful, or even malevolent.
Personally, I think social media has made this problem worse. These days, we interact with more people through our screens than in person. Furthermore, the personalisation algorithms operating behind the scenes tend to recommend us more of the same – people with similar interests to us, content of a similar nature, etc. We are either connecting with very similar people, or at least learning the communicative practices from similar groups of people – and because we connect and interact with so many of them around the world, it’s easy to get the wrong impression that everyone behaves and communicates like us. It’s a false sense of homogeneity.
And if we do want to be effective communicators with other people, what it means is that we do need to get out of our shell to learn about the diverse li communicative practices in other circles, and by the various generations of people.
Of course, that’s just the first lesson. There’s still a second lesson that is most impactful for me. To reiterate Analects 4.17, Confucius said, “When you see an unworthy person, look inward and examine yourself.”
Isn’t it interesting that Confucius prescribes that the first response to feelings of offence or hurt is to examine ourselves?
It is one thing to feel hurt, offended, or disrespected. But it is another thing entirely how we respond to such negative emotions. I was sharing this thought with some people, and one person shared a story of how he was driving in the car, and the driver behind was horning at him repeatedly. A horn is just a sound that can be used to signal to other people around us. It doesn’t always mean that it’s a rude gesture. He highlighted how interesting it is that we can feel so upset when someone horns at us, that the first thought to rise up in our mind might be: “The driver is so rude!”, or “The driver is so impatient!” But it could very well be that the driver horning him from behind was trying to alert him to some imminent danger – which turned out to be the case!
The valuable insight here is how easily we take offence by what others say or do is more a reflection of our own moral imperfection than it is a reflection of the other person’s moral flaws. In fact, it’s easier to feel offended than it is to reflect and ask ourselves, “Why am I so easily offended or upset in the first place?”
Olberding shared some stories in her book of giving others a chance. They may unintentionally come across as rude or abrasive. If we reciprocate apparent rudeness with rudeness, we only make the situation worse. But if we give them a chance and treat them with kindness and patience, we may start to see that they may not actually have intended to upset us. This will then allow us to have civil and respectful conversations.
And, as I mentioned earlier, as I looked back on the times I was misunderstood by others for being rude/offensive, and the times where I misunderstood others as being rude/offensive, I realise that many of these situations could have been defused with patience and kindness.
Admittedly, it is not easy to be patient and kind especially when people have said or done things to rile us up. It doesn’t mean we are bad people, but that we need to be more mindful in practising kindness and patience so that it becomes second nature to us. And in many ways, I do admire those people who are able to spontaneously respond to hurt or offence with patience so naturally. They are a rare breed.
Seeing the degree of misunderstandings and miscommunication that’s been going on in this world, I do think the world needs a lot more kindness and patience.
Perhaps, one good way to get started with becoming a more patient person is to assume that everyone around us – including ourselves – are simply bad communicators. And our task is to try to understand why they said what they said, or why they did what they did, rather than to immediately jump onto the anger bandwagon.
Jonathan Y. H. Sim 