Rules of politeness exist for the purpose of showing respect, and for preventing people from getting offended or feeling uncomfortable. Rules of politeness can even serve to make people around us feel better about themselves. They are meant to make people enjoy our company. Sometimes they even play a critical role in forming diplomatic relations between nations.
The problem comes in scenarios where people are supposed to be offended, uncomfortable or disturbed. For example, if there is a case of animal abuse at an animal shelter, and someone is showing people graphic images of the abuse, another individual may say that these graphic images may disturb people and should not be shown to anybody. Such a mindset demands that the whisleblowers downplay the atrocity to something more benign and “less offensive” than it actually is, which can have the affect of reducing the motivation to stop it.
Evildoers have reasons to favor rules of politeness. Politeness provides evildoers with an easy way to put on the facade of goodness while still causing trouble on the side. Even the evilest people in the world know how to say “please” and “thank you.” Another way that certain rules of politeness can benefit evildoers is by creating an environment where anyone who attempts to condemn an evildoer’s actions is viewed as “rude” or “mean.”
For example, a toxic person you are in a relationship with may condemn you for being rude unless you act as if nothing is wrong with his/her behavior despite how destructive his/her behavior is. Such a rule of politeness goes against what is right. Some will even say that there are two kinds of evil in the world: those who actively do evil and those who stand by and do nothing. Hence, a rule of politeness that calls for people to always act as if nothing is wrong with someone’s behavior is essentially calling for people to become like a secondary form of evil.
Many people who exhibit harmful behaviors live in the delusion that they are regular good decent people. When we condemn their harmful behaviors, they may say we are being “mean”, and certainly we don’t want to be mean. What they are really doing is enticing us to play along with their delusions while they leave a path of destruction and suffering behind them wherever they go. When someone is living in misery because of them, they may go into denial that they are the cause of the misery and tell themselves that the person is in misery because he/she is human or because that is just the way life is.
Sometimes rules of politeness go against morality. They can make us only tell people what they want to hear, and not what they need to hear. Sometimes following rules of politeness can involve harmful deception. Even when we try to “bring it to them gently”, we are running the risk of downplaying the severity of the problem, which can lead to less action taken to rectify the problem than is necessary.
In my observations, I have found that young women in particular can get too preoccupied with being polite and nice to the point that they sometimes hold back from saying things that need to be said. One time I was sitting at McDonald’s with two women about the age of 20. One of them was abstaining from animal products (meat, dairy and egg) for lent. She bought a salad because it was one of the only vegan items she could find, and she was putting Italian dressing on it. I informed her that Italian dressing sometimes has cheese in it.
Immediately, the other young woman present said “Don’t tell her that!” I was a little surprised. After all, does this young woman want to abstain from animal products for lent? or think she was abstaining from animal products for lent? In the end, she did find that there was indeed romano cheese in the dressing, and only after she had put it on the salad.
In some circles of people, it is considered “wrong” to say anything bad about anybody at all, even when it is true. This mindset can allow repeat victimizations to occur. I was once in a social group where a woman named Krystina was victimizing one person in the group after the other by asking to live in someone’s home, taking advantage of the person she was living with, and then refusing to leave. One guy that she victimized said that he had to pay a lawyer $1000 to get her to sign herself off of his lease, and he had to pay $150 to get the locks on his door replaced because otherwise she would try to make her way back into his home. Yet he never warned me about what she was really like until after she had already been living with me for awhile.
When Krystina lived with me, she was emotionally abusive, she wore some of my clothes without asking, used my floss and laundry detergent without asking, ate food out of my food pantry without asking, and never offered to help pay the rent. When I told her to leave, I had to call the police because she refused to leave. Then the police would not come because the state had a law saying that if you have a guest in your home for more than two weeks, that guest becomes a permanent resident. Somehow I still got her to leave, though.
The leader of this social group, Steve, did not help with the situation. He sent out an email to the entire listserve that described Krystina in flowery metaphors as if she were one of the most wonderful people around. The email said she needed a temporary place to live while she tries to look for a permanent place. I explained to Steve what she was really like, and Steve said that multiple other people were denouncing her as well. I decided to post a message to the listserve describing what she had been doing to people, but Steve blocked my message and told me that the listserve is not meant for gossip or trash-talk. Later, he resent the same misleading message about her as before, which was just false information that would make it easier for Krystina to collect another victim. At this point, I left the group.
The leader of this group believed it is wrong to say something bad about somebody, and that warning people about somebody is unnecessary. He did not believe in people looking out for each other. He chose a rule of politeness over what is right.
Sometimes rules of politeness seem to make sense at first, but then are destructive in certain situations. For example, when there is a social event where people are bringing food to share with each other, it can be considered rude to bring food and not share it; but what if the person has food allergies that make him/her unable to eat the other food without running the risk of a dangerous reaction? If this person were to share food with others, there may not be enough for him/her to eat. Others would be able to eat his/her food, but he/she would not be able to eat their food.
What we can observe in real life is that rules of politeness, like subjectivity, sometimes protect evil and allow evil to thrive unchecked. Furthermore, when we are too preoccupied with fear of hurting another person’s feelings, we can make ourselves easier to manipulate. Rules of politeness go too far when, for example, we remain friends with someone — not because we want to be friends with him/her, but because we are afraid of hurting him/her if we terminate the friendship.
Meanwhile, the person may be exhibiting toxic behaviors that are not meant to be tolerated. By continuing with the friendship, we could be sending the false message that the toxic behaviors are okay when they are not. Continuing in such a friendship and/or tolerating bad behaviors does not benefit you or the other person. Furthermore, if the other person is a good person at heart, he/she would want you to bring to his/her attention any behaviors that are hurting you or others.
Also importantly, politeness does not replace compassion and empathy. Politeness is a set of outward observable actions that both good and bad people can do.