Finally following up on some of your excellent comments in response to my post “The powerless are rude.” Sorry I didn’t get to it sooner — I was powerless to do so. Get it?

First off, thank you all for reading my post in the spirit in which it was intended. I certainly never meant to say that those in or with power cannot be rude. I was saying their rudeness comes from a different place, and is likely to express itself in less crude ways. While the store clerk rings up their purchase, the powerful talk on their cell phones — in muted voices, turned away from the less-than-human clerk who cannot be allowed to eavesdrop. The powerless talk louder and look at the clerk, wanting them to be the audience to the Reality Show of My Life.

Nor did I mean to sound as though I were bashing on the underclass — if anything, that post was meant to be a plea for sympathy and tolerance for those whose rudeness comes from a sense of being unheard, unacknowledged, disrespected, either momentarily or over the course of a lifetime. To say: You know what? Try listening to the uncouth people. The coarse people. The ones who don’t dress up their failures in the smooth coat of civility.

Using foul language helps people endure pain. It’s science, yo.

Also, of course, it’s not as though the world were broken down into “the powerful” and “the powerless.” Most of us are advantaged in some ways and disadvantaged in others. And in certain situations, both parties can feel powerless, as Julian Lander pointed out:

But I also want to respond to Clare’s comment about entitlement and condescension encountered by a clerk. In that situation, such as in a store, I think that the clerk is the powerful one: it the clerk who makes it possible or impossible for the customer to complete the transaction, purchase the desired item, and leave with it. For someone who is used to being able to do things like that him- or herself, that can be enormously frustrating, particularly because the customer may perceive him- or herself as being able to complete the transaction just as well as the clerk.

I see this a lot at the drugstore pharmacy. Almost every time I go to get a scrip filled, there is someone arguing with a pharmacist/clerk about whether or not a scrip was called in, how much they have to pay, and so on. Clearly the customer feels powerless and frustrated: you are withholding my medicine! But so does the pharmacist, who is trapped by insurance regulations and dependent on information from doctors.

geekgirl99 made point that I liked:

I think this is a really interesting post. I don’t think this is all there is to it, though. I do think that those who aren’t given enough space start to push back. But at the same time, I think that demanding what you deserve has to be taught, and it is more likely to be taught to the rich than to the poor. I think, for example, that a rich person is more likely to grill a doctor about a diagnosis and be really pushy about it than a poor person.

Yes. People who are socialized to be invisible do, on many occasions, obey that socialization. This is why I can’t think of “entitled” as necessarily being a bad word. You should feel entitled to ask your doctor all the questions you have. You should feel entitled to your bodily privacy and autonomy. You should feel entitled to being treated with dignity. The history of social movements is, in essence, people saying, “We are entitled.” Entitled to an eight-hour workday, to the vote, to sit at a lunch counter, to get married to the person they love. Which is probably why so many social-justice movements wind up being led by the middle class.

Finally, I wanted to address Rubiatonta‘s comment:

Here’s a challenge (and believe me, I know I’m asking a lot here) for all of us to whom civility matters. When someone is being rude, envision them surrounded by love — your love. Don’t glare, or mutter, or react in any way. They’ll notice that they’re not getting the reaction they expected. It will make them stop and wonder. And if enough of us could do this, it would make a real difference.

That’s the compassion meditation, isn’t it, Rubiatonta? The language doesn’t resonate with me, but the general concept does. When people are rude to us, we feel stripped of our power. And our first instinct might be to grab that power back by being rude in return. But of course, the truly powerful move is to not react — or to react with compassion, humor, or a common-sense solution. Good manners does not mean being a doormat. It does mean being grounded enough that you can choose to act, rather than react. It means, to me — feeling powerful.

My column about crying toddlers in restaurants, and polyamory, got virtually no angry response. No defensive or entitled parents, no militantly childfree gourmands, no traditionalists convinced I am trying to destroy family values by suggesting a father learn to accept his daughter, no humorless polyamorists upset that I suggested they are all open-source geeks.

I am, however, still getting angry letters from people who insist that their dogs do too understand English. And who, in most cases, write with a lack of facility that suggests they believe their own deficiencies with the language must be proof of their pets’ compensatory abilities.

I will never understand people.

So, speaking of toddlers in restaurants (I haven’t felt brave enough to check my Miss Conduct e-mail account yet and see what, if any, fallout there is from yesterday’s column), there was a dustup about kids-in-public on some feminist/women’s blogs a few weeks ago. I’m not going to bother describing the argument because it went right down all the predictable grooves. One of those grooves, though, hit me in a new way: the question “My kids are the most important thing in my life, so if you don’t want to spend time with them, are you even really my friend?”

How do you feel about that? Do you have a “Love me, love my X (kids, spouse, religion, dog, art, profession, family of origin, politics, cooking)” in your life?

I don’t think I do. One “X” is pretty well my limit — if, for example, you actively hate dogs and you’re convinced that the social sciences are, without exception, pure hokum, chances are we’re not going become BFFs. And I can’t imagine being friends at all with someone who actively disliked my husband, in the sense of finding him an unpleasant or morally objectionable person. But if it’s more a situation of, “Hey, Mr. Improbable is a great guy, but I sort of don’t get his sense of humor and I’m prefer you and I mostly hang out on our own” — well, that seems kosher to me, and it would to him, too. I’m sure he has friends who feel I come on a little strong. (No, really.)

But I’m friends with people who dislike dogs, or oppose organized religion, or who have no interest in my psychological research, or don’t read my column/blogs/book, or in various other ways don’t support or show interest in a particular and important part of my identity.

Are kids a wholly different kind of X? I’m guessing not, based on the parents that I’m friends with. With few exceptions, I’m very awkward with children. I’m that friend my mommy friends get together with for grownup time. And that seems to work just fine, because they need those friends, too. And of course, I’m nice to their kids when I see them and I always enjoy hearing stories about them. But I’m not Auntie Robin, and my friends seem okay with that.

What’s your X? Have you ever lost a friend over an X? Are certain X’s qualitatively different from others?

I’ve thought that for a while now. Rudeness doesn’t come from a place of strength. A person who feels empowered to affect their environment doesn’t need to be rude. Maybe they still will be, but the rudeness of the powerful is more likely to be thoughtlessness; they are too oriented to their own goals to pay enough attention to others.

Active rudeness, though, comes from the powerless. It’s their way of shoving back against a world that shoves them around every day. It’s why the voices of the poor are louder than the voices of the rich. It’s why the wealthy go to symphony and the poor blast Eminem. FUCK YOU. I AM HERE AND YOU WILL NOT IGNORE ME. Those who feel powerful don’t need to make that assertion. Of course they won’t be ignored. Their hourly rates or their books or the message that their groomed and well-clad bodies send ensure that.

To be courteous you have to feel strong. You have to believe that your words and actions affect others. (Remember the brilliant “30 Rock” when Liz goes to her high-school reunion, only to discover that the popular girls had actually been terrified of her and her sharp tongue? She’d assumed nothing her dorky self would say could have ever hurt them.) You have to believe that you have agency, that you can act, not merely react to circumstances. You have to believe that you have other ways of getting status and attention — which we all need — besides impinging on the physical or psychological space of others.

I’ve been thinking about that for a long time, and this article on Salon, about an unemployed man’s little compensatory ritual of rudeness, spurred me to put it into words.

A Facebook friend of mine recently posted the following quote by Anna Deavere Smith: “Grace is in how we treat each other when we could choose to exert power and we find another way.” I don’t know the context, so I don’t know if I agree with the statement or not, but I think it’s a lot easier to be graceful when you have access to legitimate avenues of power.

People who don’t get listened to start to scream.

People who aren’t given enough space start to push.

People who get cut out of the main action will start their own. And you may not like it.

What are your thoughts?

I remain impressed by the quality of the quotations on Good Earth herbal teabags. (As well as its sweet and spicy flavor.) Today’s was “Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely,” by Auguste Rodin.

I like that rather a lot. I spent a summer working as a housecleaner one year in college, which might not seemed to have had much to do with my main interests — theater and sociology — at all. But you can tell a lot about people by the inside of their houses. I decided to look on that summer as an experiential tutorial in set design and the sociology of class and taste, and I think I learned rather a lot.

As I noted, I didn’t much agree with the criticism of my May 2nd column. I did get a letter about my May 16th column that brought me up short. In that one, a person had written in to ask if it would be possible to back out of plans that had been agreed to far in advance: “Between now and midsummer, there is exactly one weekend when my spouse and I don’t have child-tending, a crush of work, visitors, etc.,” she wrote. I As part of my reply, I said, “We all have such complicated and demanding lives nowadays, who could fail to understand your dilemma?”

I received an e-mail titled “busy, complicated lives,” that read:

No, some people do not. Some people are lonely & have time on their hands despite their best efforts to make friends, to engage in volunteer activities, etc. Please be aware of that & don’t make them all feel worse by writing as if everyone (or maybe just everyone who “matters”?) led busy fulfilled lives.

Wow. That stopped me dead in my tracks. It’s a challenge, as an advice columnist, to not make assumptions about the situation beyond the information given (e.g., not to assume that someone who writes “my husband” must be a woman). And it’s a challenge to remember that people have very different resources when it comes to money, education, time, health, a social network, and so on. I’m neither complaining nor patting myself on the back by saying this: it’s just the way it is, and I’m immensely lucky to have a job where I get to reflect on my own privileges and hone my awareness of the situations of others.

But this one — no. I’ve been working for five years now on the notion that, male or female, rich or poor, child-free or child-enhanced, educated or not, healthy or ill, everyone is “busy.” Maybe the busy-ness is wonderful and enriching: too many good friends to see, too many community activities, too many exciting work projects. Maybe it’s not: too many doctors’ appointments, too much overtime to make rent, too long a commute because you can’t afford to live where you work.

I have some thinking to do.

In the meantime, readers and friends, has my “oh we’re all so busy busy busy” rhetoric ever made you feel marginalized? What are your thoughts on this?

And my deepest thanks to the person who called me out.

Here’s a more serious Passover question for you. Passover celebrates the journey from slavery to freedom, and marks the cost of that journey, as well. (This is why we deny ourselves certain foods during the holiday, and eat matzoh — “the bread of affliction” — instead.)

I posted this on Facebook a day or two ago, and liked the responses I got, so I thought I’d take it public: What have you been freed from in this past year, and what has the price of that freedom been?

I have been freed from my self-imposed pressure to become rich and famous. That joke I used to make about “All I want is my own talk show and my face on a bus”? It wasn’t a joke. I’d still be happy to have those things, but I’ve come to realize that what is valuable about the work I do — doesn’t necessarily depend on how many people I can reach, or on the way American society keeps track of success. I write things I’m proud of, I start conversations that I think help people learn from each other, I get and give some good laughs. That really is enough. The price of that freedom was a little bit of post-publication madness, and giving up certain illusions about myself.

I have been freed from a friendship that had gone very sour, and that was leading me to censor myself in both my private and public life. The price of that freedom has been realizing that not everyone is going to think I’m one of the Good Guys. For some folks, I’m part of the problem, not part of the solution.

What about you? What have you been freed from, and what price have you paid?

Now that we’re halfway into the month, let’s talk New Year’s resolutions! I asked you all about yours a while back, and never really followed up on that.

I’ve always found the NYE resolution to be an interesting beast. On the one hand, there is something that seems very natural about a season of excess followed by a period of restraint and sacrifice: it’s a pattern you see in too many cultures and religions to ignore. On the other hand, the way so many people do NYE resolutions seems set up to guarantee failure: black-and-white absolutes, with no room for the inevitable backsliding. By the second week in February, you’ve already missed your goal of getting to the gym four times a week, so you just quit entirely.

I was pondering what my own 2010 resolutions and goals should be, and then more or less got handed a new set by my doctors: quit drinking, and change my entire eating pattern. Which was a little more ambitious than anything I was planning to carve out for myself, I tell you what. Here’s what’s helped:

1. Not having a choice. I’ve never been a fan of the classic AA notion that one must “hit bottom” (is that still a going concern in AA, or have they more or less dropped that idea?) before making a change. Still, there’s something to be said for having one’s doctor say “Yes, there is a real problem, and you can and must stop this problem now.” (Funny, on the other blog we are discussing why people write in to advice columns, and one thing that a number of folks mentioned, that hadn’t really occurred to me, was that the columnist not only provides a reality check, but also a sort of kick in the butt, just as my doctor did for me. Having someone say not only, “Yes, you’re right, there is a problem,” but say “And you need to do something about it now.”)

2. Quick feedback. I think this is something that scuttles a lot of NYE resolutions — people simply don’t see results fast enough, so they get discouraged and quit. I was lucky, because I felt markedly better after only a few days of getting on the right meds and knocking off the booze and spice. But let’s face it, a lot of good habits actually make you feel worse when you start. Sure, going to the gym will give you more energy and a better mood … after a few weeks. Before that, it will make you tired and cranky. So if the behavioral change itself won’t give you immediate, positive feedback, figure out a way to implement some little reward system, so you’ll know you’re getting somewhere.

3. Taking positive action. It’s always easier to do something than to not do something. (As you read the rest of this post, do not think of a white bear. See?) I’ve decided to look at my new diet as a chance to explore new cooking techniques and ingredients, rather than as simply giving up X, Y, and Z. WES alluded to a similar idea:

I think I have stumbled on an epiphany for my new year’s resolutions. In the past those pesky resolutions were things I knew I **should** do even if I didn’t want to do them. However this year I am making my goals shorter and more in tune with what I want to do. And if I finish them before the year is up great, I might do new ones in July!

So rather than my resolution to go on a diet my resolution is to crochet more and learn a new technique. It is a calming activity, allows me to be creative, and while still a sedentary activity it has the added bonus of you really cannot eat/munch while crocheting. And snacking is a big weakness of mine so really it should be a win win.

4. Communication and support. The research on the extent to which social networks affect behavior is impressive and grows more every day. We need our friends to support the kinds of things we do, the kind of person we want to be. It’s been immensely good for me to be able to write about my health issues here, and feel that by doing so, I’ve opened up a forum for other people to share their own experiences. It’s also been good to have a couple of weeks of minimal socializing, so I can get my new habits well under control before having to attend a cocktail party. And Mr. Improbable and I have had a number of conversations about how his life (since I do the cooking) will and won’t change.

Some further thoughts on your comments …

TJ wrote, “I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions (those always seem a little overwhelming), but I (along with my family) make resolutions with a more limited time frame.” I like that; I like that a lot. Make goals for a month or so, not for the entire year. I wonder if that isn’t what people do anyway, really … there’s the New Year’s Eve goals, and then spring cleaning and getting in shape for summer, and then back-to-school season.

Anne with an E wrote, “I resolve to stop waiting until the time is right/we have the dough to throw a huge shindig before inviting people over. Pizza and game night for six is just as fun as a BBQ for thirty (with a lot less cleanup.)” YES! I figured this out about four or five years ago and it was quite a revelation. And with six or eight people, everyone can really get to know each other. (Note for Bostonians — Redbones BBQ delivers, and they are very good. They also have enough good sides that any vegetarians will be taken care of. Highly recommended for informal parties.)

Military Mom wrote:

My first resolution is to stop agreeing to do or help with activities without REALLY stopping to assess if I have time or want to do it. Up until now I’ve volunteered when other people need help and have almost always regretted it afterwards. My second is to try to lower my stress level. This will require the rest of my family to step up and help, but I think they are recognizing my stress is affecting my health…and therefore their lives too…

Good luck with those two, obviously related, resolutions. I’m sure it’s something many, many of us can relate to.

How about the rest of you? How are your resolutions working out?

This will be a quickie, followed perhaps by a long leisurely, after I’ve heard some of your thoughts. Ellen Goodman, who will be retiring from the Globe shortly, wrote a recent op-ed about shame:

If, as anthropologists say, shame comes from a violation of cultural norms, it seems to have found its match in a newer cultural norm: fame. Notoriety isn’t so notorious anymore. If Hester Prynne were around, she wouldn’t be the subject of a novel, she’d be the author of a tell-all memoir with cellphone pictures of a buff Arthur Dimmesdale.

But enough about sex and shameless. How about money? While Dupre was making her debut, eyes were turned on Wall Street bankers. As President Obama said on “60 Minutes,’’ “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers.’’ The bankers who were too big to fail took the TARP money, ran, then paid much of it back so they could return to their boffo bonus ways. They are the latest incarnation of CEOs who get paid for nonperformance and masters of the universe convinced they deserve to be on the right side of the escalating pay gap.

When 12 bankers were invited to the White House woodshed Monday, three didn’t make it. Bad weather delayed their flights. Well, I have one word for those bankers: Amtrak.

The impetus for this article was that Ashley Dupre, the sex worker in the Eliot Spitzer scandal, has been given an advice column in the New York Post. To be honest, I have no problem with that. There are no professional certifications to be an advice columnist, and on her first couple of outings, Ms. Dupre doesn’t seem to be doing a half-bad job. I can’t imagine, aside from base prejudice, why anyone who gave it more than a moment’s thought would think a sex worker wouldn’t make a potentially excellent advice columnist.

But although I disagree with Ms. Goodman’s assertion that Ms. Dupre ought to be shamed (presumably by consigning her forever to the profession that she ought to be ashamed of belonging to in the first place?), I do think she’s on to something about those bankers.

But I think she only got half of it right. While bankers, fame pursuers of the likes of the balloon boys’ family and the White House gatecrashers, and Boston drivers, bikers, and pedestrians all seem remarkably immune to shame, contemporary culture does shame many of us.

How many of you feel ashamed because of your weight?
How many of you feel ashamed because you aren’t model-beautiful?
How many of you feel ashamed because you have lost a job?
How many of you feel ashamed because you are not rich?
How many of you feel ashamed because you haz a sick?
How many of you feel ashamed because you “aren’t doing anything” with your degree?
How many of you feel ashamed because you don’t have a degree, or don’t have one from the “right” school?

I’ve finally identified the emotion I feel when people ask me if I’m going to go on “Oprah.” It’s not disappointment. It’s shame. I didn’t make it. I wasn’t successful enough. I’m not Elizabeth Gilbert. How pathetic that I’ve even tried.

I think we do shame people in this culture — or at least, persistent advertising-driven media messages do. We don’t shame them about their morality or effort, but about their bodies, their money, their prestige or lack thereof. And when people actually try to improve their life through real effort as opposed to a gimmick, we tend to shame that, too. Ask a fat person sometime what kind of comments they get when they exercise. (No, exercise won’t necessarily make you thin, but it will improve your life and health.) Ask someone how they feel when they have to say no to TGIF drinks, or stick to water, because they are saving for a house.

It’s not only that we honor the unworthy. We actually shame those who try to better themselves.

Okay, that was a little longer than I thought. But the idea was STILL to hear your thoughts on the topic, not mine! So make with some insights, already, mmkay?

Blogger Sassy Curmudgeon has a nifty chronological advantage for a writer — born in a year ending in “0,” she can write a decade-in-review piece that is also a review of her own life. She’s done so, rather hilariously, in “Ten Years of Twenties,” which everyone who is or has been in their twenties should read:

Unless you have a particularly rough childhood, your twenties are your birth into the real world, by which I mean a world that doesn’t involve trading “points” for meals or having a third party pay for your cell phone. They are painful and joyful, exciting and despondent, infantile and terribly grown up-seeming, drunken and sobering.