Ask culture is actually kind of a fantastical achievement in human history, given the degree to which humans are social animals and our minds are constantly processing social consequences. Getting people to just say what they’re thinking, without considering the impact of their words on other people’s feelings, how is that even possible?
This seems to be a function of predictability. I think ask culture developed (to some extent) in America due to the ‘melting pot’ nature of America. This meant that you couldn’t reliably predict how your ask would ‘echo’, and so you might as well just ask directly.
On the other hand, in somewhere like Japan where you not only have a very homogenous population, but also have a culture which specifically values conformity, then it becomes possible to reliably predict something like 4+ echos. And whatever is possible is what the culture tends toward, since you can improve your relative value to others by tracking more echos in a Red Queen’s Race. (It seems like this can be stopped if the culture takes pride in being an Ask culture, maybe Israeli culture is a good example here, though it is still kind of a melting pot.)
You can see the same sort of dynamic play out in the urban vs rural divide, e.g. New Yorkers are ‘rude’ and ‘blunt’, while small towns are ‘friendly’ and ‘charming’… if you’re a predictable person to them, that is.
My guess is that the ideal is something like a default Ask culture with specific Guess culture contexts when it genuinely is worth the extra consideration. Maybe when commenting on effortposts, for example.
Among other points in the essay, they have a model of “pushiness” where people can be more direct/forceful in a negotiation (e.g. discussing where to eat) to try to take more control over the outcome, or more subtle/indirect to take less control.
They suggest that if two people are both trying to get more control they can end up escalating until they’re shouting at each other, but that it’s actually more common for two people to both be trying to get less control, because the reputational penalty for being too domineering is often bigger than whatever’s at stake in the current negotiation, and so people try to be a little more accommodating than necessary, to be “on the safe side”, and this results in people spiraling into indirection until they can no longer understand each other.
They suggested that more homogenized cultures can spiral farther into indirection because people understand each other better, while more diverse cultures are forced to stop sooner because they have more misunderstandings, and so e.g. the melting-pot USA ends up being more blunt than Japan.
They also suggested that “ask culture” and “guess culture” can be thought of as different expectations about what point on the blunt/subtle scale is “normal”. The same words, spoken in ask culture, could be a bid for a small amount of control, but when spoken in guess culture, could be a bid for a large amount of control.
I’m quite glad to be reminded of that essay in this context, since it provides a competing explanation of how ask/guess culture can be thought of as different amounts of a single thing, rather than two fundamentally different things. I’ll have to do some thinking about how these two models might complement or clash with each other, and how much I ought to believe each of them where they differ.
My guess is that the ideal is something like a default Ask culture with specific Guess culture contexts when it genuinely is worth the extra consideration.
IMO the ideal is a culture where everyone puts some reasonable effort into Guessing when feasible, but where Asking is also fully accepted.
This seems to be a function of predictability. I think ask culture developed (to some extent) in America due to the ‘melting pot’ nature of America. This meant that you couldn’t reliably predict how your ask would ‘echo’, and so you might as well just ask directly.
On the other hand, in somewhere like Japan where you not only have a very homogenous population, but also have a culture which specifically values conformity, then it becomes possible to reliably predict something like 4+ echos. And whatever is possible is what the culture tends toward, since you can improve your relative value to others by tracking more echos in a Red Queen’s Race. (It seems like this can be stopped if the culture takes pride in being an Ask culture, maybe Israeli culture is a good example here, though it is still kind of a melting pot.)
You can see the same sort of dynamic play out in the urban vs rural divide, e.g. New Yorkers are ‘rude’ and ‘blunt’, while small towns are ‘friendly’ and ‘charming’… if you’re a predictable person to them, that is.
My guess is that the ideal is something like a default Ask culture with specific Guess culture contexts when it genuinely is worth the extra consideration. Maybe when commenting on effortposts, for example.
This reminds me of Social status part 1/2: negotiations over object-level preferences, particularly because of your comment that Japan might develop a standard of greater subtlety because they can predict each other better.
Among other points in the essay, they have a model of “pushiness” where people can be more direct/forceful in a negotiation (e.g. discussing where to eat) to try to take more control over the outcome, or more subtle/indirect to take less control.
They suggest that if two people are both trying to get more control they can end up escalating until they’re shouting at each other, but that it’s actually more common for two people to both be trying to get less control, because the reputational penalty for being too domineering is often bigger than whatever’s at stake in the current negotiation, and so people try to be a little more accommodating than necessary, to be “on the safe side”, and this results in people spiraling into indirection until they can no longer understand each other.
They suggested that more homogenized cultures can spiral farther into indirection because people understand each other better, while more diverse cultures are forced to stop sooner because they have more misunderstandings, and so e.g. the melting-pot USA ends up being more blunt than Japan.
They also suggested that “ask culture” and “guess culture” can be thought of as different expectations about what point on the blunt/subtle scale is “normal”. The same words, spoken in ask culture, could be a bid for a small amount of control, but when spoken in guess culture, could be a bid for a large amount of control.
I’m quite glad to be reminded of that essay in this context, since it provides a competing explanation of how ask/guess culture can be thought of as different amounts of a single thing, rather than two fundamentally different things. I’ll have to do some thinking about how these two models might complement or clash with each other, and how much I ought to believe each of them where they differ.
IMO the ideal is a culture where everyone puts some reasonable effort into Guessing when feasible, but where Asking is also fully accepted.