When to Be Meek

I’m a waiter at a mid-tier restaurant (where the higher classes eat when they want something cheap and the lower classes eat when they’re celebrating), and I see pretty stark and generalizable differences between the children of lower classes and those of higher classes. Goes without saying that there are exceptions – snobby rich and very meek poor.

But those at the lower end of the spectrum tend to be more demanding, and their kids are demanding. Fewer “please” and “thank you’s”. They tend to have less patience, and I suspect that this stems from a socialization towards resource competition. They’re used to fighting for space at the figurative trough of life.

And as Bryan says, the lower classes are less well-heeled towards displays of submission. Instead of asking, they prefer taking. This preserves their self-perception.

I would guess you’d be aware of this, since a George Mason professor was a co-author but this study was interesting:

“Not surprisingly, the biggest salary increases went to those who negotiated in the most competitive manner, acting purely out of self-interest. This could mean trying to use a job offer from another firm as leverage or even misrepresenting some facts. This type of negotiation often left both sides feeling on edge.

But it’s not all about the money, the study’s authors found. Those who were willing to cooperate with their new employer and sacrifice some monetary compensation for non-salary benefits felt better about the outcome and their role at the company. They also gained in other ways. “When they collaborate, they raise their salary a bit; get some non-salary benefits like more vacation, better healthcare, or help with education expenses; and walk away thinking it’s a win-win,” says one of the study’s coauthors, Crystal Harold, an assistant professor at Temple University’s Fox School of Business. When companies don’t have a lot of money to offer, the collaborative approach is an especially useful tool at the negotiating table.

http://www.strategy-business.com/article/11115?gko=f225b

The article has links to the paper itself.

I’m not sure I agree with that analysis at all. I find the so called professional meek are often extremely passive aggressive with little professional pride and tyrants when they get in actual position of authority, que civil servants, middle management, et al. Basically you succeed by not being the tallest nail whereas in the skilled trades you can often succeed by merit.

Do you have close, personal experience with the American working class? Like, do you have cousins who go to jail sometimes or work in food service as adults? Or have you, in your post-college life, volunteered with working class teenagers? It’s not a precondition for researching the topic but I think it should be a precondition for sermons about specific behaviours. Otherwise, it’s very easy to go adrift, theorizing from vague impressions or pushing published research farther than the authors intended.

I think you have the causality the wrong way round. Working class people adopt agressive machismo in an attemp to gain some status/respect that they don’t have from money. Although counter productive, giving off an air of ‘I might stab you’ does generate a wary respect from richer people around you. Sadly, our society admires (in a sense) a capacity for violence as much as wealth.

This post is meant to be satirical, right?

A parody of what libertarians believe?

“Maybe they put pride and machismo above success; maybe they falsely believe that pride and machismo are a shortcut to success.”

I don’t think that thought of “success” has much to do with it. The working class doesn’t “succeed” – we “survive”. And part of the reason we survive is that, when hit, we hit back. Its the same reason that a bee stings – so that next time you will watch your step.

I like Seem’s comment. Maybe substitute “sadly” for “currently”.
@Ollie: One could ask the same of your comment. Substance please or else there is no way to respond that is not offensive.

This post mixes up the concept of assertiveness and bad behavior, as if they were the same. They aren’t. Non-assertive people may not sink, but they drift down to the bottom of the barrel.

One can be assertive AND have good manners. But the non-assertive meek will be drowned out in any competitive commercial environment.

Here’s my issue with Bryan’s point (similar to what EastEasy said). Meekness does not always imply that one does not ‘stand up for oneself’. Assertive does not always mean ‘arrogant’ or even ‘aggressive’, and it’s not necessary to conflate assertion with ‘a bad attitude’. There are good natured ways to ‘demand what you think you deserve’, and very bad natured ways to be ‘meek’.

Confrontation is never easy. If you’re alone in a room, someone else just entering will likely slightly raise your blood pressure.

If you understand that most confrontations involve a status transaction, and all status transactions between people begin with the physical (which is my assertion here)… posture, eye-contact/blink rates/pupil dilation, position of the head in relation to the shoulders… then it’s plausible to say that if one learns how to adjust these physical cues, one can then learn to address whomever in whatever manner they so choose and increase their chance of ‘success’ in subsequent encounters.

Say we’re approaching your boss for a raise. We can storm in, raise our voice, toss her desk papers on the floor, call her names, or what have you. This will likely have the opposite effect than what we intend.

We can also approach our boss, standing at the door until we’re specifically invited in, and when we do, shuffle, not make sustained eye-contact, touch our face periodically, stand behind the chairs unless asked to sit, and if we do sit, we sit on the edge of the seat, and so forth. No matter how many ‘pleases’ and ‘thank you’s’ are inserted into our sentences, no matter how many facts we bring up, and unless our work is absolutely stellar, it won’t compensate for our bearing. We may not get fired like the above character, but we won’t likely get a raise either.

These are rather extreme examples highlighting a larger point. When one allows anger or bravura to drive our confrontations, then just the act of making the demand sours the interaction because it’s indicative of insecurity. When one allows fear to creep into the interaction, the interaction itself may be drastically different, but the result is essentially the same. What one needs is courage combined with humility, which is what we typically understand as ‘confidence’.

Let’s approach the boss again. This time, we adjust our posture, holding ourselves erect, but perhaps tilting our head slightly and holding a smile. We make sure our toes are pointed out, and that when we speak, our head is still. Perhaps we imagine there is warm, glowing ball an inch beneath our chest. You now address your boss, maintaining eye-contact. We ‘relax’ in the chair without making it seem as if we’re in our own living room. As if we’re comfortable with this space which isn’t our own. With these few simple adjustments, you have just raised your likelihood of a ‘successful’ outcome, and we’ve barely said a word. While none of these strategies can guarantee how the boss might respond, she won’t have bad behavior or awkward bearing as an ‘out’ to deny or reject your demand.

There are many more examples I could conceive of along these lines. Colloquially, I’ve had this work in my own life when these (and other) techniques have been put into practice. When I have failed to practice the above, I have by-in-large failed in my more intense encounters.

As a corollary (or perhaps a coda), it’s an old joke that diplomacy is the art of telling someone to go to hell in such a way that they will look forward to the trip. The point of the joke, the reason why it’s funny, is that it’s actually possible.

I have to agree with some posters that some evidence is in order that blue collar workers are more assertive.

I think it is true that professionals are expected to be more meek in their opinions, at least in front of the boss. At least anyone who expects to become a manager some day learns quickly that metaphorically kissing butt is very good for one’s career. I think that blue collar workers are much less likely to have that aspiration so they don’t need to pretend to be as meek.

Although I have little direct knowledge, I suspect the poster that said that trades are more often measured by merit to be totally incorrect. I have been a professional most of my life, with a few years at unskilled factory work. But the experience I have had, and from what I’ve heard of the good old boys network, I suspect that blue collar work is just as controlled by cronyism as with professionals. It’s a different culture, but it comes to the same thing.

They think it is selling out or fakery. In truth, it is, but those are part of the dues that people must pay to earn a good income. I think this anti-sell out ethos has grown among that lower class.

This is kind of the essence of conservatism, at least in the institutional if not the social sense. And while I agree, because I only have one life to live and don’t want to spend it a broke pariah, I still respect folks who won’t put up with kissing ass, laughing at the boss’s bad jokes, etc. There’s a refreshing honesty there.

Caution that I’m not saying I admire the kind of person that would beat the hell out of someone for accidentally stepping on their new shoes. That’s lower class pathology at its worst.

Floccina, regarding your “evidence” about your “friend”:

I too have a “friend.” She is both working class and meek. Satisfied?

To be honest, I didn’t see much evidence in the post. See Noah’s comment.

I second jb, telling someone to stand-up for themselves is how I tell a colleague to either do something about it or just shut-up, but in either case leave me alone.

And “meekness” isn’t what’s necessary in the professional world, it’s temperament. Assertive without anger, deferential without obsequiousness, humorous without buffoonery, polite without intrusiveness, etc etc.

I’m not saying this post is right or wrong, Bryan. All I’m saying is, when we all get locked up for opposing the regime, you’d better hope the other inmates don’t see this post.