kayre and smart_ted. Including a new one from kayre, who suggests that I clarify that I'm working as an anthropologist, not as a crafter of desirable rules. I don't reckon on these at all."Professional class" means people who think of themselves as professional-class.
1. The ideal conversation consists of the parties agreeing with each other.
2. The next best form of conversation consists of people reciting quotations, aphorisms, or jokes in each other's presence.
3. When one party expresses a difference of opinion with another (or refers to factual material contradicting assertions by another) this is a correction.
4. Higher status people rightfully correct lower status people. Changing context and playing field and groundrules are fine.
5. Corrected lower status people should agree with the higher status person, or at least subside into silence.
6. When a lower status person corrects a higher status person, this is a form of illegitimate aggression.
7. A corrected higher status person is free to attempt to shame or condescend or dismiss the lower status person into acquiescence or silence. Changing context and playing field and groundrules are fine.
8. A lower status person who has corrected a higher status person and does not acquiesce or subside into silence when signaled by the higher status person is willfully violent and hors de la loi.
Those rules can, but don't always, hold for other groups of USians.