Passive aggressiveness and higher social economic class.

In My Humble Opinion
81

It’s rude, obnoxious, and immature, because unilaterally deciding to change topics to whatever interests you disregards the desires of the other conversational participants to continue on the current topic. Folks who are involved in a conversation because the subject matter interests them, rather than purely out of desire for social intercourse, will probably prefer speaking to others who share their topical interests.

If someone consistently tried to derail conversations I had with them on to topics such as “floppy cats” I’d probably just never talk to them.

If other social groups you were a part of tolerated this behavior, I would assume they were either kids, or adults with short attention spans.

82

There are two interests involved in the conversation. The interests of the guy talking and also the interests of the guy listening. One person desires to talk and the other person desires not to listen to anything boring or useless.

So why then is it impolite to tell people that they are boring you? You have an interest in not being bored, why not protect that interest. Why is the other person’s interest in sharing his opinion more important than your interest in being free from listening to things you don’t want to hear?

The reason is social convention. For whatever reason society finds value in allowing people to speak without interruption regardless of how bored the listener is. Maybe the value is that it’s a good way to have professional conversations on complex topics, I don’t really know, but it would be interesting to explore.

The point is that people get offended when their topic is cut off because of social convention. Breaking social convention is rude because they only work if everyone follows them. Everyone agrees to listen to people’s boring topics, so that when the time comes that they have a boring topic of their own, people will listen to them. So if someone cuts you off after you’ve done your duty and listened to someone else chat about something boring, then you should rightfully feel offended. You’ve done your duty but you’re not receiving the benefit. That’s why it’s rude.

Now what if the social convention was different? What if instead of everyone agreeing that we should listen to boring people, everyone agrees that no one should listen to boring people? What if this society values the time of listener more than the interest of the person sharing his opinion? This might happen for a number of reasons, one decent reason was presented by msmith537. He disagrees with me, but he still raises a good point:

Maybe this value, combined with the lack of need for professional dialog created the need for the listener’s interests to become more important than the speaker’s. I don’t really know why the value exists, but I do know it exists.

Now the social convention is “no one has to listen to anyone’s boring topic.” So when someone refuses to listen to your topic, there is no social convention broken like in the example above. There is no trade off where everyone listens to boring topics so that their topics will get listened to in return. When there is no such trade off, no one can expect anything for listening to boring topics.

When someone cuts someone off, no one gets mad. All they do is think “I was boring the person, this topic isn’t good anymore, so lets see if we can agree on something else.”

I don’t get upset when someone changes topics while I’m talking and no one gets upset when I change the topic. They either continue with the new topic, or denounce it and start another topic. But no one goes back to the first topic because it’s clear that at least one person in the conversation doesn’t want to talk about it.

This behavior doesn’t have to be childish or the result of a short attention span. A short attention span would mean that someone is incapable of tolerating someone else’s topic. But if the other person is capable of tolerating a boring conversation, but knows he doesn’t have to, then that’s not a short attention span. It’s just like turning off a bad movie.

83

I have been middle class, wealthy and poor.

My son is passive agressive and I don’t think it is that. That is inward anger.

Rich people are aloof in general. They are not friendly unless they know you.
Middle class people are more friendly but guarded. Polite and on their way.
Poor people will talk your ear off over anything. They have the time and are friendly.

Just be yourself. It is better then trying to appease people. I know easier said then done but when I stopped worrying about what other people thought of me I felt much better.

84

I don’t think this is really true, nor that this situation is governed by social convention. Whether someone is permitted to ramble at length depends on (a) the importance of the information to the audience (not society, just that audience), and (b) the status of the speaker (again, relative to the audience, not society in general). Social convention only governs the amount of talk that is considered excessive and the ways we disregard boring people or boring prattle. We might talk directly over them, start a competing conversation that excludes that person, or simply take leave, politely or impolitely. An Englishman might interrupt you politely, a Brazilian would simply talk over you, a Japanese would sit there nodding possibly for hours. But when the breaking point is reached, it isn’t due to social convention, it’s because the volume of talk has exceeded the importance of the speaker or the importance of the message to the audience, not society.

85

Social conventions may make little sense (my son can’t understand why I won’t let him wear his baseball cap in the house), but where they exist (and in your case, they do appear to) railing against them is spitting in the wind. You may think that interrupting a dull conversation is like turning off a bad movie, but your peers seem to be put off that you think them a bad movie.

You get to control your own behavior. You may decide “when in Rome…” or you may decide that its more important to be yourself and ignore these social conventions. You don’t get to control the behavior of others - i.e. them being cold to you in return. You are entering a profession where networking can be very important. It may (or may not) be worth the effort to swallow your disgust at your colleagues for being so very dull you can barely stand it and suck it up and try and get along - if only because they may be in a position to refer clients your way in the future or recommend you for an associates position in whatever firm they end up in.

If you can’t stand it, it might be good to learn to adopt the method of getting out of conversations that has been so wonderfully granted to us. Look at your cell phone, pretend its on vibrate, and say “I’m sorry, I have to take this” - then walk away putting your phone to your ear. Its still rude, but people are more forgiving of it. Its the 21st century equivalent of “oh, we have other plans” or the signal to your spouse from across the room at a party that means “rescue me!”

86

Social norms are what they are, and you can’t argue with them. Why do you have to bow in Japan, but shake hands in Europe? You can look into the histry of each practice but at the end of the day you just do, that’s what’s done in that culture. You can sit around saying “What if Japanese businessmen were to give up bowing, things would be different then, huh?” Well I imagine they would, but its not very relevant to anything. Refusing to bow in Japan certainly won’t help you get you what you want from members of that culture.

To be a member of a social group one has to follow the majority of their norms. If you choose not to, you will be considered an “outsider” which has both positive and negative aspects. But you cannot overtly reject social norms and expect to receive the benefits of membership in a social group.

When you move from one set of norms to another, you may have to do things that seem abnormal – like always hand your money to the clerk with both hands – and not do things that seem normal – like never finish all the food on your plate. You may feel awkward, and perhaps angry at the irrationality of the behavior changes you must make to be considered an “insider.” This is normal, and has a name: culture shock. The fact is, the norms you are used to are equally irrational at their heart. They don’t seem that way to you because its what you’re used to.

87

Maybe I’m being dense, but saying, “No one should have to listen to something boring” seems awfully self centered and short sighted. I mean, you’re leaving out an entire 50% of a conversation - the other person - and taking into consideration the desires of just one party. I sure wouldn’t want to be a party of that conversation.

If I were speaking to someone and they said, “Mmmkay, whatever you’re talking about is just sooo boring. How about we talk about what I’m interested in?” I’d be really annoyed and probably go to considerable effort not to talk to that person unless I had to.

Good conversation is like good business. You’ve got to give to get. Lend an ear and someone will do the same for you. If you can’t be bothered to spend 60 seconds listening to something you might find “meh,” why do you deserve the time of day from me? Why are your interests so much more important than mine?

88

“The behavior doesn’t have to be childish” but it is. Go figure. You were trying to shock them into making yourself the center of attention. Now, I suspect you can say “If I wanted to shock them, I’d…” but that is exactly what a child would do. Kind of like “You told me not to take the candy, Mommy, but, I didn’t take it. I moved it. Into my mouth.” And, it’s thinking that the other person is so stupid to swallow your attempt at sophistry. You close your eyes to the fact that they are not as stupid as you would like for them to be. What is that stage in Child development? Object permanency, or something like that?
Also, if you were so bored with the conversation, nobody asked you to change it to suit your satisfaction. You were trying to force it into the channel that you wanted by the nonsequitur. If you don’t understand that using non-sequiturs to interrupt and change the conversation is immature, well, you need to mature a bit. Listen, I used to do that a lot. The people that I worked with would even laugh, because it was comic relief. But, you know what? I was immature, and if you would have asked them, they would have said as much. My group wanted a clown around; yours didn’t.
You interrupted them, and, they ignored you: you perverted that into something that they didn’t do. You have persisted on that throughout the thread. If you don’t know the difference between ignoring, and whatever you are You are implying that they are actively persecuting you. That is some kind of adolescent, maladjusted behavior. You switched that around to some psychosis on their part. Mature/Immature?
Selfishness is the largest part of why you are being called immature.
In your 1. Interruption 2. Topic of Interruption 3. Technique of Interruption 4. Self Focus reason of Interruption 5. Ill-Reaction to their Socially approved response 6. Wild Imaginative claims to justify your pique, rather than adult admission 7. Trying to justify your justifications . 8. Thinking that people on this board could be manipulated into swallowing your arguments.
You seem like a fine enough person, and intelligent, but, you got busted, twice.

Best wishes,
hh

89

That’s not what you’re doing, though. Whether or not that is impolite is not at issue.

What is at issue is that your chosen method of indicating your disinclination to discuss particular topics is immature, self-centered and rude.

Your efforts at writing off responses to your own obnoxious behavior as “passive aggressive” is almost as obnoxious as the behavior itself.

handsomeharry has done a fine enough job explaining points I would make that I’ll not bother. Just read his post twice.

90

Alright you win. I can safely say now that I was being immature. It took me a while to realize that the other people weren’t doing anything wrong even though I resented their behavior.

I’ll start acting more grown up as soon as I figure out what that means. Where do I look? A dictionary? A Bob Dylan song? Judd Apatow movie (j/k)?

A coming of age indie flick?

91

For this purpose I suggest you start looking at the behavior of your peers.

92

Perfect. Glad you’ve come to terms with it.

93

The entire process of growing up means learning to consider the needs and wishes of others before your own and to delay immediate gratification in favor of getting the greater gratification later. That’s really what raising a kid is meant to do. An infant is born conscious only of what it wants and needs right now. It screams when it doesn’t get exactly what it wants this moment. Rearing a child is in essence civilizing that child, teaching it to consider that instant gratification is not necessarily the way to get what it wants in the long run., and that, to survive, it must learn to consider the desires and wishes of others in its society.

That’s why your initial behavior was considered to be immature by most Dopers, Lakai. Your “trademark” behavior is a childish one of demanding instant attention, but in the society you find yourself in now (and, I would venture, most adult society), gratifying that desire for instant attention means losing a longer term greater good, the good opinion of your social group. But generally, people are not going to tell another adult when he does something they don’t like unless it is egregious and extreme. They’re simply going to shun that person to whatever degree the behavior in question put them off. That’s not being passive-aggressive. That’s being an adult and treating others like adults.

Growing up is simple, although it’s not easy. If you want the good opinion of your society, you have to figure out what they want and try to give it to them. That’s not necessarily total conformity. It’s just being sensitive to social cues. There’s no manual, because there’s no massive consistency among people as to what they want in social interactions. We’re all making it up as we go along, and almost everyone falls flat on his face now and then. But the crucial thing is to pay attention.

94

It may mean you feel a little threatened by them. You’re no longer a big fish in a small pond, you’re now a medium sized fish in a much bigger pond. It’s quite natural to feel that way, a little intimidated, maybe we’re not as clever/smart as we thought.

And it’s natural to fall back on patterns that have worked for us in the past. It’s good for our ego to get the strokes of, “Whatever does that mean, clever Lakai”, to our witty and weird conversational gymnastics. Giving us a chance to explain some unknown detail to them, showcasing our awesome knowledge base. It flatters us, so we keep it up, until it becomes our ‘trademark’.

Think of people who sprinkle their conversations with jargon or foreign phrases, it’s really just a set up for them to condescend to the listener who is ‘lesser’ for not being in the know. It’s an attention seeking device, and the attention they are seeking is the opportunity to demonstrate how they know something you don’t.

Think again of people who are constantly making jokes that no one laughs at. When asked they will insist, “I was just trying to be funny!”. It’s clear to everyone around them that this is not the case, but that’s the delusion they choose over recognizing they just need and want attention.

Delusions are dangerous things, in that, they can start out quite innocent and unassuming. Who’s it hurting? It’s hurting us, because when we fail to face our delusions we are asking the universe to blind us. Blinders keep us from growth. You’re too young to choose blinders, and too smart I wager.

It’s not some deep character flaw, after all, it’s really only a bad habit. And one you could easily change, I’d wager, with a little effort.

Be vigilant, don’t let yourself get away with this anymore. Hold yourself to a higher standard. Refrain. Yes, it will be challenging at first, but in no time it will be a thing of the past. I can say that with confidence as you do, in fact, strike me as a very intelligent person.

95

Hi, sorry to dredge up this somewhat old thread, but I registered on this site solely for the purpose of posting on it.

First off, it’s too bad that the thread quickly diverged from the hypothesis that the higher one goes in class, the more passive-aggressive one is. For some reason the majority of people chose to focus strictly on some sort of personality quirk of the OP and then attack him for it. This happens extremely frequently on anonymous message boards, where for some reason people love to concentrate on bringing down others. Perhaps it’s a sign of the human condition.

So I’m going to ignore all that and address the far more interesting (to me) point about passive-aggressiveness and socioeconomic class. I am currently on a kick about social class and was reading a decent essay on it here… A Study of Social Class
… and then I searched more and found this thread.

My theory is that, yes, higher classes are less “in your face” and far, far more passive-aggressive (let’s call it PA). By PA I mean that they’ll smile in your face and later stab you in the back. Or they’ll not speak up about something that’s bothering them and then slam you with something unrelated later. It’s like they let it build up and then release it all at once rather than let off a proportional amount of steam little by little.

I was raised in an upper-middle, wannabe upper-class household and my family and friends of the family are very PA. For example, if you’re invited to a party and say things that aren’t ok, they’ll humor you, converse with you about whatever thing you’re talking about, smile and shake your hand, and then never speak with you again.

A somewhat upper-class guy I know has lower-middle class neighbors. When they get too loud, instead of going over and asking them to turn down their music, he will instead pour bleach on their flowers or stuff a potato in their tail pipe. When asked why he does this rather than just talking it out with them, he doesn’t really understand why but mumbles something along the lines of, “They should understand already that their behavior is inappropriate, I’m not here to do the job their parents didn’t do,” or something along those lines. He finds it hard to believe that they wouldn’t be aware that their behavior bothers others, so I think he feels it ok for him to be destructive in return.

Needless to say nobody in these upper classes ever calls people names or insults them or even talks in any harsh manner to anyone’s face. It all goes on behind everyones’ backs. If they do contact someone they’ll either write a humorous letter pointing it out, or they’ll simply do everything they can to avoid the person.

Another example, when I was a kid we had a neighbor whose dog always got loose and peed on our lawn, killing the grass. So instead of trudging over to their house, ringing the doorbell and asking them to stop, my dad found a card at Hallmark with some flowers on the front, then drew a sadly wilted flower next to them, and wrote something witty inside. He never confronted the people, and in fact when they would see each other, nobody ever brought the subject up.

Now I live on my own after grad school and can’t afford anything other than an apartment in a working-class section of town. It amazes me the amount of shouting, name-calling, and overt personal confrontation that goes on around me. People think nothing of standing on their balconies and loudly yelling at someone who “done them wrong.” Just the other night some woman was yelling at her boyfriend for screwing someone else. The whole neighborhood rang with her accusations. It’s truly a different world.

So I still haven’t figured out why this is the case. I was watching HBO’s “Rome” recently and even that story-line had the same thing. The peasants squabbling with each other with loud voices; the upper classes would shake hands and kiss each other on the cheek even when they knew that the other person had ordered their family-member killed.

I wonder if the upper orders sort of instinctively learn that they’re around very powerful people, so they never directly attack anyone and never cause anyone to lose face. But then the lower orders can be violent–even more so–so you’d think that they would have the better manners. I haven’t pinned it down yet, I don’t know why it’s the case. But from my limited experience it definitely is the case.

96

Absolutely, Lakai; an abrupt segue during an adult conversation isn’t a cry for attention. It’s a cry for medication.

97

Bolding for emphasis, is mine

Anecdotal evidence is never a good basis for making generalizations.

98

I think we’re partially having a definition problem. You call that “passive agressive” behavior, and to my mind this is purely NON-AGRESSIVE behavior. As in, they have done nothing the slightest bit aggressive towards “you” (meaning the person at the party.)

They invited “you” for whatever reason, most likely because something in your interactions made them think you’d be a person they’d enjoy being with. But during the party they found that “you” do/say/think things that make them NOT want a closer relationship. So, did they throw you out? Attack you verbally? Cause a scene in any way? Nope. They treated you respectfully and politely just as everyone should treat a guest.

And then, because they aren’t interested in pursuing the relationship, they simply don’t make any other invitations.

I can’t imagine any less aggressive way they could have reacted.

Now this guy IS aggressive, but there’s nothing at all passive about it! He’s over there vandalizing their property. This guy is pure and simple a jerk.

Now, you may think middle class jerks more often turn to sneaky ways of getting back where working class jerks more often turn to immediate verbal confrontation. I think your neighbor with the bleach/potato stunts is way way out the norm and shouldn’t be considered representative of anything but jerkishness, but I do agree that middle class people are much more socialized NOT to make scenes.

But neither of your examples show passive agressive behavior.

99

People who tend to be more educated and more mature tend to be less inclined to get into childish screaming matches, throw fits, vandelize property, resort to violence and other more “active” forms of aggression. Those things are, by definition, low class. Unintelligent thugs and goons settle disputes and through physical intimidation and violence. Intelligent people use reason, logic and persuasion and when all else fails, the force of law.

Take **Wunky’s **neighbor for example. A working class man catching him pulling that shit might get into a shouting match that escalates into an asskicking. While possibly satisfying, an upper class man knows that he could go to jail, get injured or accidently permenantly injure or kill the neighbor. All he has to to is call the police and his lawyer.

100

“For example, if you’re invited to a party and say things that aren’t ok, they’ll humor you, converse with you about whatever thing you’re talking about, smile and shake your hand, and then never speak with you again.”

It sounds like a form of relational aggression. Exclusion to be more specific. It’s a hostile act, that most people would not like to experience. It is made worse when the parties act like every thing is cool to the victim’s face, when it is not. This is deception, another hostile act.

This is not “in your face” aggression, but aggression nevertheless.