A Randy McDonaldesque post

 Randy McDonald has a great blog. I have only one criticism: he tends to try to relate every story back to something in Canada. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it makes no sense. Thing is, it’s usually a justification to ask his readers about their home countries, and as a rhetorical trick, it’s pretty effective. 

So in the spirit of the kind of discussion he has on his blog, I draw your attention to this post about Askers and Guessers. (Hat tip: Kevin Drum.) It points up a big divide in American culture as it currently stands. Text below the fold:

In some families, you grow up with the expectation that it's OK to ask for anything at all, but you gotta realize you might get no for an answer. This is Ask Culture.

In Guess Culture, you avoid putting a request into words unless you're pretty sure the answer will be yes. Guess Culture depends on a tight net of shared expectations. A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won't even have to make the request directly; you'll get an offer. Even then, the offer may be genuine or pro forma; it takes yet more skill and delicacy to discern whether you should accept.

All kinds of problems spring up around the edges. If you're a Guess Culture person -- and you obviously are -- then unwelcome requests from Ask Culture people seem presumptuous and out of line, and you're likely to feel angry, uncomfortable, and manipulated.

If you're an Ask Culture person, Guess Culture behavior can seem incomprehensible, inconsistent, and rife with passive aggression.

Obviously she's an Ask and you're a Guess. (I'm a Guess too. Let me tell you, it's great for, say, reading nuanced and subtle novels; not so great for, say, dating and getting raises.)

Thing is, Guess behaviors only work among a subset of other Guess people -- ones who share a fairly specific set of expectations and signalling techniques. The farther you get from your own family and friends and subculture, the more you'll have to embrace Ask behavior. Otherwise you'll spend your life in a cloud of mild outrage at (pace Moomin fans) the Cluelessness of Everyone.

I am an Asker. Nobody who knows me will disagree with this. So is my wife. But she is much better at dealing with Guessers than I am. Frex, a friend just bought a house. Why in the name of God wouldn’t you ask how much he paid and how he financed it? I mean, worst thing, he won’t tell you. My wife pointed out to me that this could make the fellow in question very uncomfortable.

My impression is that Ask is beating Guess to death in the modern United States. Strangely, Asking is something that I associate with people and places that are strongly influenced by Latin America and southern Europe ... places which are way more Guess than Ask. Conversely, AFAICT Germans seem to be smack in the Ask zone. (They certainly will tell you what the think, which is correlated.) 

Is my impression correct? Or is just that I’m too clueless to realize how brashly I’m barreling through people’s expectations? I still think it’s weird my friend didn’t want to say how much he paid for his house, let alone that he thought it was inappropriate for me to ask. I mean, we’re in the market!

Comments

[Doug M.]

1) Last point first: Saying what he paid would let you do a quick estimate of how much he makes. Many people are uncomfortable with that.

It's not him. My Mom was in real estate for forty years -- I mean, we were the kind of family that got stories of botched escrow deals and easements over the dinner table. And there's a whole nexus of stuff related to this topic that real estate agents must learn to be really sensitive about. Because while some people don't care at all, others most definitely do -- and they'll be alarmed and then ticked, if they think the real estate agent might be wandering around blurting out how much they paid.

2) Kids are born askers, and must learn to become guessers. Just throwing that out there.

3) Speaking only for myself, I was an asker for many years, but have been gradually evolving into a guesser. This has pluses and minuses but overall I consider it a net positive both personally and professionally. I could go into why, but that would probably end up a post in its own right.

I will note that this issue cross-references in my mind with the recent Ta-Nehisi Coates post where he talks about how ignorance is a luxury of power. (His starting points are Andy Rooney and rap. I like Coates.) Also that being a guesser has uses that go far beyond enjoying a well-written novel, though it's good for that too.

4) "You gotta realize you might get no for an answer". Askers split into several subgroups, depending on whether (a) they generally are, in fact, cool with getting no for an answer; and (b) whether or not they're fooling themselves about that.

The second variable is key. Certainly a plurality and probably a majority of askers are going to be much more annoyed with "no" than they would ever have acknowledged when they asked.

Doug M.

[Noel Maurer]

Ah. Hypothesis: people who really deep down believe in the favor bank are much more likely to be askers. That is, if you expect that your friends will crash on your couch after losing their jobs and spouses, then you're much more likely to ask them to pay for Yankees tickets.

Or vice versa.