Talia's Culture

In My Culture is an article by Duncan Sabien that explains a technique for communicating about one’s understanding of the world in a non-judgmental way. The technique involves starting a sentence with “In my culture…” and then explaining a specific fact about how things work in the speaker’s particular worldview.

The goal is to convey the speaker’s personal views while making it clear that the speaker doesn’t expect the rest of the world to follow suit. They know that many broader context cultures don’t align with their internal world, and they aren’t requesting a change.

Here are a few things that are true in Talia’s Culture.

In my culture, violations of social norms are categorized as either idiosyncrasies, transgressions, or defections.

Idiosyncrasies are such minor violations that they are considered strange but not bad. If Alice suggests scheduling brunch for 10:37, my culture would consider this an idiosyncrasy. Although it would be reasonable to ask “why not 10:45 instead?”, Alice suffers no negative judgment.

Transgressions are a more standard category of norm violation. A transgression includes behaviors ranging from rude to taboo. If someone commits a transgression, a member of my culture will update against them and might take actions to distance themself from the transgressor. Usually, any updates against a transgressor are limited to the domain in which the transgression occurred. If Alice is late to brunch, members of my culture might decide not to invite Alice to future events where time-sensitive attendance is important, but wouldn’t start thinking of Alice as irresponsible in general.

Defections are incredibly severe. Although my culture socially disincentivizes transgressions, it’s not appropriate to respond to a transgression with another transgression. In contrast, someone who commits a defection is considered to have operated so far outside what’s reasonable that they have forfeited the protections of social norms. Reciprocal transgressions or defections committed in self-defense against a defector become permissible. Furthermore, because being victimized by a defection inflicts such a severe cost, making inter-domain updates against a defector is permissible. If Alice used brunch as an opportunity to coerce or harass another guest, it would be reasonable to publicly warn others about her behavior, cut off social contact across contexts, or cooperate with formal sanctions against her. These actions are permissible because of Alice’s egregious defection, even if they would normally be considered transgressive in other contexts.

Updating to believe someone is a defector is a very dangerous update, and claiming or implying someone has defected is a very strong accusation; these acts are tantamount to branding the alleged defector an outlaw.

In my culture, if Alice says, “I didn’t understand that. Please explain it again,” it’s reasonable to update toward the belief that “Alice is a generally knowledgeable person.” This is because if Alice is unafraid to ask for explanations (and is willing to pay the cost that many context cultures place on people who reveal ignorance), she is likely to have gained a deeper understanding of the world than if she remained silent and pretended to understand.

In a broader sense, if Alice indicates that she is trying to play on Hard Mode, it’s reasonable to update toward “Alice usually plays on Hard Mode” and toward the logically connected belief that “Alice is likely better at most things than her level of societal validation would otherwise suggest.” This is because if Alice holds the same credentials as Bob, but Alice is known to play on Hard Mode, and Bob is known to play on Easy Mode, it took Alice a lot more effort to obtain those credentials, and she likely has a commensurately higher level of skill, knowledge, motivation, etc.

In this way, my culture assigns a positive value to the statement “I didn’t understand that. Please explain it again” and similar statements that have a cost in many context cultures but reveal a commitment to completing a goal for its own sake.

In my culture, publicizing a private conversation is a transgression. That is, all one-on-one conversations are assumed to be TLP:RED unless there is evidence to the contrary (such as an explicit statement by the person sharing information, the overwhelmingly trivial nature of the conversation, or the receipt of identical information from a public source). Furthermore, if a speaker explicitly requests that a conversation be kept private and the listener agrees, publicizing the conversation constitutes defection.

In my culture, asking for something is never a transgression, even if no reasonable person would ever consider it likely that the request will be fulfilled. Asking for something is even viewed as a point in that person’s favor. If Alice makes a request that many context cultures would frown upon, it’s reasonable to update toward “Alice is good at communicating her wants and needs.”

Furthermore, asking for something multiple times is not a transgression; people are encouraged to follow up four times.

However, asking for something after someone has told you “no” is a transgression.

In my culture, it’s an idiosyncrasy to use past-tense phrasing for a question about the present. If the real question is “Do you want to carpool together?”, it’s strange to phrase it as “Did you want to carpool together?”. My culture recognizes that many context cultures socialize indirectness as a form of politeness, but my culture still finds this strange.

In my culture, we recognize that not all conversations have the same goal and believe it’s the equal responsibility of all parties to clarify the conversation’s goal.

For example, Alice might share a problem with Bob because she wants empathy, or because she wants problem-solving assistance, or because she thinks Bob might find it useful to know that Alice is facing a problem, or for any number of other reasons. If Alice recognizes there’s ambiguity about the purpose of what she’s saying, she should clarify her goal; similarly, if Bob can’t determine what Alice is requesting, he should ask Alice to clarify. Accurate communication about this subject (as with almost all subjects) is a shared responsibility. It would be a transgression for Alice to demand that Bob intuit her goals, and it would be a transgression for Bob to demand that Alice accept a certain type of response.

In my culture, we don’t ask to ask and we don’t say hello. To do otherwise is an idiosyncrasy in environments that are either synchronous or non-professional. In an asynchronous, professional environment (such as sending a message to a colleague), it is instead a transgression.

How does your culture differ?