JONATHAN CHAIT MAY 11, 2010
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Oliver Burkeman picks up a great idea first floated by blog commentator Andrea Donderiand and runs with it:
We are raised, the theory runs, in one of two cultures. In Ask culture, people grow up believing they can ask for anything – a favour, a pay rise– fully realising the answer may be no. In Guess culture, by contrast, you avoid "putting a request into words unless you're pretty sure the answer will be yes… A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won't 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."
Neither's "wrong", but when an Asker meets a Guesser, unpleasantness results. An Asker won't think it's rude to request two weeks in your spare room, but a Guess culture person will hear it as presumptuous and resent the agony involved in saying no. Your boss, asking for a project to be finished early, may be an overdemanding boor – or just an Asker, who's assuming you might decline. If you're a Guesser, you'll hear it as an expectation. This is a spectrum, not a dichotomy, and it explains cross-cultural awkwardnesses, too: Brits and Americans get discombobulated doing business in Japan, because it's a Guess culture, yet experience Russians as rude, because they're diehard Askers.
This is actually pretty simple: Guessers are wrong, and Askers are right. Asking is how you actually determine what the Asker wants and the giver is willing to receive. Guessing culture is a recipe for frustration.
What's more, Guessers, who are usually trying to be nice and are holding themselves to a higher level of politeness, ruin things for the rest of us. I'm not a super hospitable guy, but I frequently find myself offering things to other people that I'd like them to take -- say, leave their kids at my house to play with my kids -- but they refuse to take because they think I'm a Guesser, offering hospitality I secretly hope will be turned down. Guessers are what forces people with poor social discernment, like me, to regard all kinds of interactions as a minefield of awkwardness.
Maybe the next best thing to everybody becoming an Asker would be for more people to be aware of the two categories. That way, when you meet somebody in a situation where this sort of confusion might pop up, you could just state whether you're a Guesser or an Asker and adjust accordingly.
17 comments
An Ask culture is indeed much less frustrating than a Guess culture. However, in an Ask milieu, there is always the problem of people who ask for things they shouldn't. At the beginning of this year, my wife an I were rid of someone who stayed with us just days past a year. She was down on her luck and asked if she could move in. We said yes, and it was a terrible decision. Her room was constantly a terrible mess, she left the doors unlocked at night frequently when she went out (we live in a fairly large city), sometimes there was rotting food left in her room, etc. etc. A month and a half ago, my ex-girlfriend (the one I had for five years before she started drifting away and I met my future wife) and her partner were told they had to leave the place where they were staying and they had no place to go, so yes, you guessed it, we let them come here. They had acquired a dog a week before they came here and now they have gravitated back to the apartment where they had been living with two sisters, but because they were not on the lease, they were told that they had to leave. So they are going beneath the radar. They left the dog with us, of course, the better to maneuver under the radar, I'm sure. We like the dog; he was treated abusively by his owner previous to my ex. He is nine months old and it was sad when he first came here. He is a puppy but he just laid on his blanket all day. My wife and I have worked with him a great deal and he has made tremendous progress. When my ex and her partner are around, he is quite animated with them, but he didn't know us we he first came here, of course. So we don't mind having the dog but the thing is, they left him with us without asking. So sometimes the Ask culture leads to the Guess one. And they sort of expected us to buy dog food for their pet but we out our foot down on that one. In addition, the dog has gone to the bathroom two out of the last three days on the living room rug, which is a new thing, because he seemed to be pretty well trained and my wife takes him outside frequently, and I assist with this, too. So the next time someone asks you for something, be grateful you don't have to guess. But beware of what you are being asked.
- liberal reformer
May 11, 2010 at 11:11am
I typically enjoy Chait prose, but this is absolute unmitigated bs. "Guessers are wrong, and Askers are right." Really? Sorry, Chait, your own following paragraph acknowledge that both of these paradigms exist, and telling those you label "Guessers" that they're simply wrong is about as useful a statement as telling poor people they just need to stop being so damn lazy. Dealing with the variegated spectrum of people life throws at you absolutely requires assessing what the social situation is. If you think that asking for anything, with an equal chance of a positive or negative response, is a reasonable way to approach life, then you've obviously never been threatened with arrest by a cop for asking for directions, nor have you seen coworkers fired for asking for raises. Not every situation has such perilous pitfalls and potholes, of course, but to simply say they don't exist is to invite disaster.
- janus
May 11, 2010 at 11:11am
Funny how readers interpreted "ask a question" to mean "ask for something". If you have to guess whether someone is gay, don't ask if she is or not.
- rayward
May 11, 2010 at 11:25am
I think Jonathan's comments are broadly accurate; the problem that he doesn't mention, however, is that the great majority of societies and cultures in the world are Guessers. Asker nations are few and far between, which accounts for some problematic moments in (a) U.S. foreign policy history and (b) transnational romantic relationships.
- ironyroad
May 11, 2010 at 11:52am
Of course, you can avoid all of this unpleasantness by being a rich misanthrope. I think Chait is being a bit of a coward and misogynist here. What he is really saying is he wants his wife to tell him what she really wants and that he is good and God damned tired of guessing all the time. Give it up Chait, you will never understand women. EVER. Lets be honest, does anyone here really think this has dick all to do with Japan?
- blackton
May 11, 2010 at 12:16pm
"Guessers are wrong, and Askers are right." Jonathan has managed to epitomize ethnocentrism and sought to make it a virtue. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. When I was in Peace Corps training, we were taught that the while "optimum distance" between US speakers would be between 18 and 24 inches, in many Latin American cultures it could be closer to 12 inches. We were advised that inching backwards during a conversation to achieve our "optimum distance" would not be appreciated. I was glad to learn this and did not try to convert any of my new acquaintances into adopting our obviously correct "optimum distance". I'm imagining Jonathan as a Peace Corps Volunteer trying to proselytize host country nationals in a Guesser culture into becoming Askers. Actually, this could be the premise of a great comic movie script.
- JackR
May 11, 2010 at 12:32pm
"Guessers are wrong, and Askers are right." Jonathan has managed to epitomize ethnocentrism and sought to make it a virtue. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. When I was in Peace Corps training, we were taught that the while "optimum distance" between US speakers would be between 18 and 24 inches, in many Latin American cultures it could be closer to 12 inches. We were advised that inching backwards during a conversation to achieve our "optimum distance" would not be appreciated. I was glad to learn this and did not try to convert any of my new acquaintances into adopting our obviously correct "optimum distance". I'm imagining Jonathan as a Peace Corps Volunteer trying to proselytize host country nationals in a Guesser culture into becoming Askers. Actually, this could be the premise of a great comic movie script.
- JackR
May 11, 2010 at 12:34pm
libref -- I am waiting for the time when your ex and her partner are ready to move to a more permanent place and take the dog back, by which point you and your wife will probably have become quite attached to him. (In fact, it sounds like you already are.) So maybe you'll need to ask for visitation rights?
- shellski
May 11, 2010 at 1:11pm
- A third option should be "Act.". For years I had a draconian boss who was also stingy. We made a lot of progress and he made a lot of money but we didn't rely upon his approval before we took action. A coworker had a slogan, "It's easier to obtain forgiveness than permission.". It was the manager who set the standard, a predictable denial to any request and subsequent reluctance to penalize people in case it stifled our better judgment. He could argue it was both efficient and allowed him to take credit while reserving the right to punish. Another rule was, "Lead, follow or get out of the way.". Manners and protocol are necessary but often a solution will be guided less by tradition and more by conscience. Why waste time asking or guessing when taking action is immediate and accurate?
- michael
May 11, 2010 at 1:18pm
Chait is right in the sense that a world entirely made up of askers would be a lot easier to live in for people who are currently askers. The expectation that everyone be an asker is unreasonable and I can only imagine Chait understands this. The statement that guessing is wrong, I'm guessing, is hyperbole. As a child asker, I suffered quite a bit of embarrassment and scolding. And the reason is that guessers hold a monopoly on manners. It's not okay to scold someone for guessing, but there's no problem with scolding someone for asking. It's irrational and I completely sympathize with Chait's attitude. Guessing leads to inconveniences, screw-ups, and outright disasters. But manners rule the day.
- arock28
May 11, 2010 at 1:29pm
JackR, yeah, in Mexico this was a big adjustment for me, with the girl students I don't mind so much but when the boys hover so close I get claustrophobic. They, of course, sense this and find it hilarious (for a little while). And when I ride with some of my Mexican friends, the male driver keeps tapping my knee or leg, etc. when they make a point, I never say anything, just blow it off, but it so very different from China.
- blackton
May 11, 2010 at 1:46pm
JackR, yeah, in Mexico this was a big adjustment for me, with the girl students I don't mind so much but when the boys hover so close I get claustrophobic. They, of course, sense this and find it hilarious (for a little while). And when I ride with some of my Mexican friends, the male driver keeps tapping my knee or leg, etc. when they make a point, I never say anything, just blow it off, but it so very different from China.
- blackton
May 11, 2010 at 1:50pm
Am I the only one who thought that this might be tongue in cheek? I mean, he pretty much confesses to being perception challenged and is asking the world - plaintively - to make things easy for him.
- austinden
May 11, 2010 at 2:13pm
"Am I the only one who thought that this might be tongue in cheek?" No.
- arock28
May 11, 2010 at 2:14pm
JackR, yeah, in Mexico this was a big adjustment for me, with the girl students I don't mind so much but when the boys hover so close I get claustrophobic. They, of course, sense this and find it hilarious (for a little while). And when I ride with some of my Mexican friends, the male driver keeps tapping my knee or leg, etc. when they make a point, I never say anything, just blow it off, but it so very different from China.
- blackton
May 11, 2010 at 2:15pm
sorry, TNR went on the fritz.
- blackton
May 11, 2010 at 2:22pm
Yes, shellski, my wife and I are pretty attached to the dog already. You make a good point.
- liberal reformer
May 11, 2010 at 11:47pm