Thank You for Your Sarcasm

'Tell me I'm polite or I'll punch you in the face.'

Author's Note

All anecdotes herein are genuine and factual. I report them as faithfully as memory permits.

I met a gentleman last week who's so polite, so courteous and so considerate, that he even shook his fist in my face. It was my fault: I failed to acknowledge his politeness, his courteousness and his considerateness. I'll return to this incident; for the moment, let us consider a common variety of contemporary etiquette - I refer to door-opening protocol.  I recall no difficulty until about ten years ago. Why this should be, I cannot say. I travelled to middle age, unmolested. I lived in two other countries, unmolested. I can only suggest, that society is becoming far more polite. It is becoming so polite, that one day I might get my face bashed. My workplace is particularly problematic, partly because of the time I must spend there, but also because, in walking around the building, I must negotiate numerous doors, hanging around which you will find polite persons keen to parade their politeness, and for whom I represent an easy pretext.

I approach a doorway, through which a secretary is just passing. As I follow her through this doorway, she says: 'Thank you'. I note her tone: it is prissy and prim-lipped.

One might suppose, and it would be natural to do so, that boors like me with our impolite, ill-bred natures, lack emotional intelligence; I nevertheless apprehended the woman's tone: it was unmistakably censorious. She thought I should've thanked her. Why? Because she opened the door. She said 'thank you', to censure me for not thanking her. This practise, concisely described, is 'sarcastic rebuke'. As an ill-bred boor, it is only right and proper that I be given lessons in politeness. To impress upon me how polite she was, and so that I might learn by example, she awarded herself a licence for incivility.

My problem is this: she did not open the door for me, she opened it for herself; I just followed her through - she did not stand there like a commissionaire, holding the door. Insofar as she imagined she did me a kindness, demanded that I thank her for it, and got all sarcastic about it when I didn't, then thank you.  As already related, I journeyed all the way to middle age not thanking others for opening doors for themselves, and I cannot explain why I must now do so. (Perhaps polite persons like the secretary could explain it.) But if we begin thanking one another like this, where will it end? If I thank someone for opening the door, then I'd expect a thank you in return, for thanking them, etc. Why, we might stand there all day! And, if they didn't thank me for thanking them, I'd be justified in getting all sarcastic about it, wouldn't I?

For several weeks I've been conducting a census: on nine out of ten occasions, I'm thanked when going through a doorway I was going through anyway, by the person immediately following. Yesterday, while going from the office to the test area, someone followed me for the entire sojourn. We went through double doors ('thank you'; 'thank you'); along a corridor; through more double doors ('thank you'; 'thank you'); another office; a door at the top of the stairwell ('thank you'); a door at the bottom of the same stairwell ('thank you'). This was laying it on thick; once would've sufficed; but it would not have spoilt my day if he'd kept his cakehole shut.

These days he couldn't afford to risk keeping his cakehole shut; I might after all be a polite person. Nowadays, I find myself saying 'thank you' purely in order to ward off sarcastic rebuke. It is a protection word, extorted by politeness fascists - I don't like the wincing feeling I get when rebuked sarcastically. I am thinking to myself, 'Please, please don't stamp on me with your sarcastic little goose-stepping jackboot'. Even so, a 'thank you' issued for this reason is worthless. To extract 'thank you' by shaking your fist in a man's face, is to strip it of all significance.

In the survey I mentioned, liberal use is made of a curious portmanteau: 'cheers thanks'. Is a simple 'thank you' deemed insufficiently gushing? We thank our helpmate for doing something he was doing anyway, and toast his unswerving dedication to our well-being. As an ill-bred boor I am ungushing; I restrict myself to a simple 'Ta'. So far, this has warded off all sarcastic rebuke.

Now, if someone stops while they're passing through a doorway, and holds the door, so that I am saved the task of opening the door for myself, then that's different. In these circumstances I always issue 'thank you'. Opening doors, after all, is an onerous duty. Even ill-bred boors like me must acknowledge our helpmate's unswerving devotion to our well-being.

There is however a judgement call i.e., about speed and distance, or rather, the time it will take for the following party to reach the door. You cannot afford to get this wrong, or the sarcastic jackboot will step on you.

As I walk towards a doorway, a man is approaching some ten feet or so behind me. I let go of the door: the man leaps forward, catches it, and mumbles some imprecation.

As I say, one must estimate waiting time precisely. In the above incident I underestimated, hence, sarcastic rebuke. It is better to overestimate. I must stand there and, placing my hand to my forehead, scan the distant horizon for an approaching politeness fascist. As additional surety, I might take a pair of binoculars or a telescope.

My ill-breeding betrays itself in an unwillingness to impose obligations. When I've briefly stood there and held the door, the other party has doubled his pace, so that I am not kept waiting. In other words, I have imposed an obligation to hurry up. That is to say, in being polite, I have been impolite. For the same reason, I dislike it when others stand there, holding the door, expecting me to 'jump to it'. I have had an obligation imposed on me.

Let us examine the core nature of 'thank you'. I wonder whether roboticisms convey any real meaning. With robotic courtesy, both in restaurants ('enjoy your meals'), and in nations ('have a nice day'), there is no underlying earnestness. Indeed, there is nothing in facile politeness, just as there is zilch in facile apologies. When the public-address system announces, 'We apologise for the late-running . . . ', the voice nowadays really is computer-generated.

I might enquire of my sarcastic rebuker, 'Why should I say thank you?' The reply would certainly be, 'Because it's polite'. But that is not the reason! A grateful person who eschews 'thank you', is indistinguishable from an ungrateful one who says it. The offence, then, cannot be ungratefulness. The correct reason is this: our rebuker demands 'thank you' as recognition that he is polite; for this is an exercise in ego massage. The person who truly knows, within himself, that he is polite, requires no avowal.

There is a tribe in Malaysia, the Semai, the hunters of which struggle the whole day, sweating through the jungle heat, lugging the carcass of a pig to their village - the meat is then distributed to all villagers; but no-one ever says 'thank you'. To do so is considered rude, for it implies the hunter was unexpectedly generous (Harvas, p.344). Whether this custom has arisen because Semai villages have no doors, I cannot say.

Leaving the gentlemen's lavatory, I pull on the door handle. Immediately thereon, a man emerges from the other side; and we pass one another in the narrow passageway. I sense his indignation, that I did not thank him for opening the door for me.

We both applied torque: while I pulled from my side (assisting him), he pushed from his (assisting me). In these circumstances, who should thank whom? If the door carried two force transducers, one on his side (tension), the other in on my side (compression), then, using high-school physics, we could figure out who expended the greater iota of energy - and then we'd know for absolute certain who should've thanked whom. And if these iotas were the same, then our thank-yous would cancel out. On the other hand, we might prefer not to leap on pretexts for taking offence.

Door-opening protocol would be easier, although not entirely unproblematic, if all doors were self-opening. Problems might remain, as I'm unsure which aspect of door opening is deemed meritorious: in self-opening doors the electric motor does the all work; but, on the other hand, the door only opened because it sensed the person immediately preceding us . . .

I'm through with doors, at least for the moment. What I wish to explore now, is a parallel phenomenon in my home town, where passengers alighting from a bus must now thank the driver. If a dozen passengers alight, then the driver receives a dozen thank yous. Make no mistake, the drivers now fully expect this avowal and feel themselves fully entitled to thank passengers - sarcastically that is - who alight silently. In other words, the drivers give themselves permission to be rude to passengers. Timing is everything: the drivers indulge you, until you're crossing the threshold, and then get their rebuke in before you're out of earshot. No 'thank you' was deemed necessary in the 1970s, or the 1980s, but nowadays - since we're a far politer society - drivers award themselves a license to abuse their passengers.

This behaviour contrasts with the number of occasions on which I've said 'good morning' to the driver, and received no reply. I guess they find robotic repetition rather tiresome. If this is the case, I know how they feel.

Why, precisely, are we thanking the drivers? For permitting passengers on the bus? For delivering passengers to their destination? For accepting the money that pays their wages? I am all for 'thank you' when someone does something they don't have to; but why is it necessary when they do what they're supposed to?

I'm walking toward a zebra crossing, and see a motorist pulling up to allow me to cross. I proceed, and, on re-joining the footpath on the opposite side, the motorist leans out of the window and shouts after me, 'Hey you, I suppose a thank-you is out of the question!'

Let me explain: it has inexplicably come about, that pedestrians must now thank motorists for stopping at zebra crossings. Now, obviously you can't say thank you to a driver as he's in his car, several feet away and behind glass; there's also traffic noise. So what you do is this: while crossing the road, you give a teeny-weeny itty-bitty hand wave.

When I first saw pedestrians giving their teeny-weeny itsy-bitsy hand waves, I thought it a dangerous development because, when a thank you is at first given occasionally, and voluntarily, it will, if given often enough, ossify into an expectation; and when that expectation is ungratified, sarcastic rebuke will be deemed necessary.

In the impolite society of the past, drivers did not lean out and demand an ego-massage. If pedestrians didn't massage motorists' egos then, why must we do so now? Moreover, if pedestrians weren't impolite in the past, by keeping their hands by their sides, then why are they deemed impolite today? Above all, why must we thank motorists for doing something they must do by law? When a motorist myself, I wave thank you when a thoughtful driver helpfully cedes the right of way; for they might just as well keep it to themselves; but when a driver pulls up at the 'give way' sign, I see no reason to thank him as I pass. Motorists do not (yet) thank each other for stopping at red lights.

Today's hand wave, still a diminutive gesture, may grow along with the egos that must be massaged. Yes, you may give your itty-bitty wave, but motorists may feel they're insufficiently thanked for doing what they're supposed to do - pedestrians must, after all, show themselves sufficiently obsequiousness. I saw an elderly woman raise her hand aloft to subscribe an enormous arc, as if waving at someone on the distant horizon. Apparently, she could not afford the risk that small-scale gestures entail - these might be considered insufficiently effusive. The politer the motorist, the more placatory the gesture must be. Perhaps motorists should not be so ready to imagine themselves injured.

I wonder whether politeness, considerateness and courteousness render contemporary society dangerous for the hard-of-hearing. I refer not to a failure to discern an oncoming bus or truck; but rather, the rebuker's tendency to believe himself intentionally insulted.

It is Christmas, and I've been shopping. I return to my car, place my shopping in the boot, and drive to the carpark exit where I stop to pay the drudge. Extracting the money from my trouser pocket, I hand it over and the drudge returns a receipt. From the drudge's manner, I sense something amiss. 'Is anything the matter?' I ask him. 'I said Happy Christmas to you, but you didn't even reply'. 'I didn't reply because I didn't hear you'', I explain incredulously, and drive on.

The mediaeval philosopher William of Ockham observed that, when there are various possible explanations, the likeliest is also the simplest - this curious phenomenon is termed 'Ockham's razor'. What I could have said to the drudge is this: 'Look - my window's only partly down; you're sitting behind a perforated screen; my engine's idling; there are other cars with idling engines; this garage is full of echoes; I wasn't looking at you while reaching into my pocket - if you offer festive greetings and receive no reply, what do you conclude? When I drove up just now I wanted to piss you off. I hoped you'd say Happy Christmas, because that'd be my big opportunity - I wouldn't reply. Tee, hee, hee - I hope you're real offended.'

When politeness fascists do not receive the encomia they deserve, or rather deem they deserve, and yet their behaviour toward us has been especially meritorious, or rather they deem it especially meritorious, then sarcastic rebuke just won't do. In these instances, far sterner censure is fully warranted.

I am on a bus, and sitting in the aisle seat. We arrive at my stop, but I'm briefly prevented from standing up by other passengers as they walk down the aisle. When a gentleman passes by, he mutters 'fuck you' in my ear, before proceeding down the aisle. I give the passenger next to me the what-was-all-that-about look. She explains: 'he stopped to allow you to get up, but you didn't.'

The fuck-you passenger was a real gentleman - the genuine article, no less - judging by the way he politely, considerately and courteously invited me to precede him in alighting. It was deeply regrettable that, owing to my ill-breeding, I failed to respond within the one-second window he allotted me. I accept, however, that some people, even well-bred gentlemen like the fuck-you passenger, are ignorant of Ockham's razor. Otherwise, he might have concluded I hadn't heard him: surely the simplest as well as the likeliest explanation. Instead he thought, 'this guy's not responded to my politeness - that can only be because he wants to piss me off. Yeah, that's sure to be the explanation - it's a deliberate insult. I must get back at him somehow; an imprecation of some sort is definitely justified - I must let him know just how polite I am. I know, I'll say "fuck you" '.

I think, then, that we're now fully agreed: an eagerness to engage in sarcastic rebuke is the hallmark of a polite person. As for myself, when I'm unthanked I never engage in it - but that's not because I'm an ill-bred, oafish boor. No; it's because I invoke Ockham's razor i.e. preoccupation is probably responsible; for example, we've all left shops without our change, only to find ourselves called back.

At work, after I've wrestled at my desk for a couple of hours with the 'Journal of Catalysis', my bladder's promptings must be administered to, while my mind still whirls with speculations about heterogeneous reactions. My eyes look outwards, but in actual fact, I'm preoccupied by the contents of my head. It was doubtless at such a time that I 'sailed past' someone holding the lavatory door, not noticing him. This polite man, deeming 'thank you' an essential nicety, denounced me to a colleague as 'arrogant', citing this incident as sole evidence, and even after the passage of several months; for he now bore an ever-lasting grudge, one destined to descend into our bloodlines. Naturally, I had no recollection of the incident.

A colleague and I descend the stairwell into the engine test area. As we approach the door, my mind is plate-balancing: I wish to ask my colleague about his arthritis, but must also attend to the current topic. Both thoughts are hurled into oblivion by an angry interjection: 'Oi! What do you say!?' It is uttered by the man immediately preceding me through the door; he has a menacing manner, as if he'd like put a dent in my face. I grow angry in spite of myself, and reply: 'I was preoccupied, if you don't mind!' The man walks off in another direction, muttering execrations. My colleague is sympathetic: 'he barely gave you an opportunity to get your mouth open', he says.

This man was so polite, so courteous and so considerate, that only an angry and threatening rebuke would suffice. The question moreover, 'What do you say?' - commonly issued to children to inculcate good manners - surely infantilises a grown man. The man wanted to see me quail, but I refuse to be intimidated.

Shortly thereafter, I held the lavatory door for two men as they exited. Engrossed in animated conversation, neither noticed me. As I turned to look, one of them had his mouth open, mid-sentence; but I did not tap his shoulder to get his attention, so that I might deliver an angry demonstration of my politeness.

Whenever polite persons emphasise how polite they are, by subjecting me to sarcastic rebuke, I'm tempted to explain myself mischievously: for example, 'I was in hospital all night saying goodbye to my wife; she had pulmonary cancer you know; and so I'm a little preoccupied at the moment; but any way, thank you for holding the door; and for a full two-hundred milliseconds at that'. This is another reason why, when I'm not thanked but probably should be, I eschew sarcastic rebuke. The world does not revolve around sarcastic rebukers, any more than it revolves around ill-bred boors like me.

Inattention is a plea that will not, however, placate politeness fascists under all circumstances; for the mind automatically assigns priorities: it is sometimes a question of the survival instinct.

I am walking through a wood; two men and a dog are approaching from the opposite direction. The dog is unleashed, and the walkers are carefully shepherding it to one side. The dog nevertheless approaches my leg and growls, baring its incisors. My eyes pop out on stalks, and through a mist of fear I hear something like, 'Don't worry, 'e won't 'urt yer.'As I continue down the path, I overhear the two men exchange sundry exclamations of disbelief, and the further I go, the louder these become. Eventually I turn around and shout, 'Is anything the matter?' One man complains that he'd said 'Good morning', but that I hadn't replied. I expostulate, mentioning the dog, but the man, grievously hurt and unplacated, shouts after me: 'Come back 'ere, yer rude bugger!' I continue walking away, but I'm rattled and it ruins my whole walk. I begin worrying that I might come across them in another part of the wood, and that they might wish to impress their politeness on me again.

It is only the dog-walker's tone of voice, unconveyable in writing, which rules out ironical intent. The dog-walker, after all, accused me of rudeness while calling me a 'bugger'. As I say, instinct asserted itself and, in this sense, preoccupation was unavoidable; for the dog clearly had designs on me, as a potential meal that is. I'm sure the walker did indeed say 'Good Morning', as he alleged; but I remember nothing of it; for my mind thought only of the dog, and my impending mastication by it. In this incident, I almost traded masticated buttocks for a dented face.

The coincidence is uncanny I know, but I genuinely experienced the following incident while preparing this very manuscript. I'd rather not impugn the hostelry concerned, and so I'll refer to it ambiguously as the Weatherspoon's at Liverpool Street Station.

As I approach the gentlemen's lavatory, I observe the door is being opened from inside. Initially I intend to pass the exiting man in the doorway, but see that it's too narrow, and so I stand aside. As the man passes me he says 'thank you', presumably because I stood to aside, and he deems this a highly meritorious act that, as a polite man, he must acknowledge. I think to myself, okay, he can thank me if he really must, but it was not essential. As I take hold of the door and enter the lavatory, I hear the same man, now behind me, shout 'thank you!' at the top of his voice. I interpret this as sarcastic rebuke, and I refuse to acknowledge it - by not turning around. Another second elapses, and the same voice roars out 'thank you!!'; I hear the voices in the pub subside. Again, I refuse to acknowledge this. I approach the urinal, but as I unzip, I find that nothing issues forth: my threat response is at full throttle. Fortunately the man does not re-enter the lavatory, to make sure I understand how polite he is. As I re-emerge, I realise that he can identify me easily, whereas I have the only dimmest idea of what he looks like. I leave the public house with no further trouble; but, even so, I am shaken by this man's polite behaviour, and wonder whether I narrowly avoided a dent in my face.

I pondered lengthily, trying to discern why such a polite man should need to behave so threateningly: never has my transgression of door-opening protocol been so egregious. I came up with three theories. (a) I should've thanked him for thanking me. This practise risks infinite regression, as I've already related. (b) I should've thanked him for opening the door. My perception though was that he opened it for himself. These doorway encounters are highly transient, and I'm uncertain how many milliseconds a man must have his hand on a door, for it to be re-classified as holding it for me, instead of opening it for himself. (c) I should've said 'you're welcome'; a roboticism currently making good headway through our culture.

Nothing comes from nothing (nihil fit ex nihilo) is a philosophical expression attributed to Parmenides; but it is untrue; for offence is manufactured from nothing. Studying my social map, I discover no safe pathway through this territory. If I push back, this risks an escalating tit-for-tat. If I say 'thank you', this invites further grinding e.g., 'didn't cost you anything, did it?' If I refuse to engage, this implies he's below my notice, and might prove equally inflammatory. That evening, I left the pub thinking it is only a matter of time before a polite person puts a dent in my face, to show how polite he is.

Psychologists find that individuals prone to violence tend to be impulsive, vindictive, easily angered . . . and likely to blame others. They have lower levels of self-esteem, act dominant, refuse to back down, are obsessed with respect, cultivate a reputation for toughness, and retaliate for minor slights (Pinker, pp.315,328), even misconceived or imaginary ones. Prisons are chock-full with men who've reacted violently to . . . nothing. Steven Pinker, in his famous book about human psychology, writes: 'For as long as urban crime statistics have been recorded, the most frequent cause of homicide has been "argument" - what police jotters classify as "altercation of relatively trivial origin ; insult, curse, jostling, etc. He also cites the testimony of a Dallas homicide detective (Pinker, p.326): 'Murders result from little ol' arguments over nothing at all. Tempers flare. A fight starts, and somebody gets stabbed or shot. I've worked on cases where the principals had been arguing over a ten-cent record on a duke box, or over a one-dollar gambling debt from a dice game.' In the words of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes (Pinker, p.324), 'men fight over a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue'.

Thank you.

References

Martin Harvas, Our Kind, Harpar Collins (1989).
Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate, Penguin (2002).

(c) cufwulf

cufwulf@aol.com