January 3, 2010

Diplomacy, a lost art.

Diplomacy might be referred to as a way of telling someone they’re full of shit and them feeling good about it.

In actuality, it is pretty simple, it’s one person being civil to another.

Now the English made a sport of it, the French a mockery of it, the Germans an abuse of it and the Italians a disregard for it.

It would be nice if there was some common ground that we could all find to deal with it. I refer to it as a code of civil ethics. It’s something that very few people practice, if at all.

Believe it or not, I like to live by this code, and, stupidly, I hope others would also operate under these guidelines.

First: a person does not act out of malice (unless you’ve pissed them off to do so or vice versa). Generally speaking their actions are of good intent and from those actions would expect positive responses. If one is in doubt of one’s action to the contrary, it is important to explore what the motivations (good or bad) are and obtain all the facts before jumping to conclusions.

Second: weight the results of your actions and their responses. Ask for an explanation before assuming that their action has damaged you, and see if they have a solution to what you might think has influenced you. Although you may think you may believe that you are in the right, the consequence of your response might very well be to your detriment.

Third: Never put a potential opponent on the defensive, if at all possible. Rather engage them in finding a common ground. Ask them how they think it can be best resolved. Or offer a resolution.

But any politeness that might have remained in this world has been lost for all but a few who might remember getting sent to their room without dinner for lack of it.

Forgiveness is all but a forgotten art, and vengeance is something that seems like it’s been resurrected from the crusades.

I have a saying, when you put rules on others, you put rules on yourself. Let me know what the rules are and I’ll try like hell to follow them. But, it’d be nice, just once, for someone to follow any rules at all.

Welcome to 2010. The “I’m the only one who matters on the planet” generation!