It's very interesting how throughout the discussion the opposite behavior (smiling as neutral line) is becoming localized to US/UK. Plus, Dale Carnegie seems to have left a cultural mark on Americans comparable to that Confucius left on Chinese ))
The funny thing - it's in the same way English (and by extension American) people got rid of 2nd person singular pronoun ("thou"), and I find some of underlying debate pretty much the same. "It's more convenient and you run no risk of alienating someone with only the polite form left" on one side and "yes, but with potentially impolite form gone you have no means to actually express politeness" on the other.
The question is - does universality of polite behavior (smiling, using plural) actually devalue it over time?
The answer, at least for me, is something similar to dieting + cheat day dynamic - feel free to form a habit out of the healthier thing (method act yourself by smiling) but maintain your baseline by exploring the opposite (admit you're feeling bad today, look miserable when you feel miserable), if it's around 10-to-1 healthy-to-opposite ratio.
American way gets the first part down, and directionally I think we Russians should learn from that (in other words, we sure should smile for no reason MORE), but the other extreme has its dangers as well.
Stoic philosophy of life, anyone?
The funny thing - it's in the same way English (and by extension American) people got rid of 2nd person singular pronoun ("thou"), and I find some of underlying debate pretty much the same. "It's more convenient and you run no risk of alienating someone with only the polite form left" on one side and "yes, but with potentially impolite form gone you have no means to actually express politeness" on the other.
The question is - does universality of polite behavior (smiling, using plural) actually devalue it over time?
The answer, at least for me, is something similar to dieting + cheat day dynamic - feel free to form a habit out of the healthier thing (method act yourself by smiling) but maintain your baseline by exploring the opposite (admit you're feeling bad today, look miserable when you feel miserable), if it's around 10-to-1 healthy-to-opposite ratio.
American way gets the first part down, and directionally I think we Russians should learn from that (in other words, we sure should smile for no reason MORE), but the other extreme has its dangers as well. Stoic philosophy of life, anyone?