Tuesday, 4 February 2020

Book ~ "F You Very Much: Understanding the Culture of Rudeness—And What We Can Do about It" (2018) Danny Wallace

From Goodreads ~ You're not just imagining it: People are getting more and more rude - from cutting in line, gabbing on their phones and clipping their nails on public transportation, to hurling epithets on Twitter and in real life (including a certain President who does both). And the worst part is that it's contagious, leading reasonably courteous people to stoop to new lows in order to respond to the ever-coarsening encounters we face every day. 

In this engaging and illuminating new book, bestselling author and all-around curious guy Danny Wallace looks at the reasons behind the rudeness and what we can do to stop it. His quest to stop the madness includes interviews with neuroscientists, psychologists, NASA scientists, politicians, and other experts. He joins a Radical Honesty group, talks to LA drivers about road rage, and confronts his own online troll in a pub - all to better understand the scourge that's turning normal people into bullies, tantruming toddlers, trolls, and other types of everyday monsters.

Danny Wallace was at a restaurant with his family ordering supper.  After more than an hour of checking in with the cook, they were still waiting for their food.  When he asked for the status of their meal, the cook was quite rude ... and this stayed with Danny for a long time (long enough to tell everyone about it and write a book!) and it became referred to as the "Hot Dog Incident".  It set him on the path to discover why people and society are so rude.

Rudeness is contagious.  If someone is rude to you, you are going to carry that with you and it will affect how you interact with others afterwords and that will affect how they interact with others and so on.

Danny obviously did a lot of research, quoting many surveys and papers, and even conducting his own survey which he dubbed "The Wallace Report".  He covers everything from the history of rudeness to road rage to people talking on their cell phones to Internet trolls (he had one) to what countries and cities have done to combat rudeness (China apparently distributed rules before the Olympics of the traits of foreigners so the Chinese wouldn't offend or be offended) and more.

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