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minutes at mercury.com. The

1:08

episode you're about to hear was recorded a

1:10

couple of weeks ago. We

1:13

obviously knew the election was around the

1:15

corner. And the idea at the time

1:17

was that we'd all be drowning in

1:20

politics and we wanted to do a

1:22

show that felt like a break from

1:24

all of that. So

1:27

we had a conversation with a

1:29

philosopher about the philosophy of

1:31

awkwardness and awkward situations. And

1:34

that's the episode you're about to hear today.

1:38

Because in the days after the election,

1:40

one of the things that's really come

1:43

through is that things are going

1:45

to get awkward. Half

1:47

of this country voted for a totally different vision

1:49

of the world than the other half. But

1:52

100 percent of the

1:54

country feels very certain that the vision

1:56

they have is the right one. Living

2:00

in a situation that nobody really

2:02

knows how to navigate and

2:04

the rules for how to be in this world are

2:07

pretty unclear. And that

2:09

is an awkward situation. And

2:11

as we settle into this world, as

2:14

we go to Thanksgiving and into the

2:16

year holidays and New Year's parties with

2:18

people we love who live in a

2:20

different world from us, it's

2:23

going to feel even more awkward. We're

2:25

going to mess up. I'm

2:28

Sean Elling and this is The Grey Area. Today's

2:47

guest is Alexandra Plakias. She's a

2:49

philosopher at Hamilton College and

2:52

the author of the book Awkwardness of

2:54

Theory. I've

2:56

always loved it when philosophers

2:58

tackle practical, everyday problems.

3:01

Usually the sort of problems we

3:03

might assume are unworthy of serious

3:06

philosophical inquiry. This

3:08

book by Plakias is a great

3:10

example of this. She

3:13

takes something we all think we

3:15

understand, awkwardness, and

3:17

redefines it in a way that changes

3:19

how you think about it, or at least

3:21

it changed how I think about it. For

3:25

Plakias, there are no awkward

3:27

people because awkwardness isn't a

3:30

personality trait. Instead,

3:32

it's a kind of social property.

3:34

It's what happens when the unofficial

3:37

scripts governing our social life collapse,

3:40

which is why she argues

3:42

that only situations, not people, can

3:45

be awkward. Alexandra

3:53

Plakias, welcome to the show. Thanks

3:56

so much for having me. You

3:59

have an interesting philosophical background, I

4:01

mean, you study moral

4:03

psychology and the cultural foundations

4:06

of values and that sort

4:08

of thing. How

4:10

did you end up writing a book

4:12

about awkwardness? So

4:15

I think first as a philosopher, anytime you

4:18

come across a topic that it seems not

4:20

that many people have written about, there's always

4:22

a little bit of a thrill there. But

4:25

really, I think I was interested

4:27

in awkwardness because as

4:29

a moral philosopher, I'm often spending

4:33

my time talking to students about life or

4:35

death dilemmas, whether to pull the switch on

4:37

the trolley so it hits one person instead

4:39

of five. But hopefully,

4:42

most of my students will never actually be

4:44

in that situation. On the other

4:47

hand, there are all of these daily moments

4:49

of like discomfort and awkwardness and things like

4:51

that that philosophers don't often talk that much

4:54

about. And there's almost a sense that we

4:57

shouldn't really care too much about that. We should

4:59

be above that. We should be living the life

5:01

of the mind. But we live in a social

5:04

world and those social issues matter to us. So

5:06

I think I was attracted to the idea of

5:08

digging a little deeper into the kinds of everyday

5:10

interactions that we will encounter in our lives and

5:12

how we navigate them and why they matter. And

5:16

yet there is a good

5:18

bit of serious

5:20

philosophical work on topics like

5:23

anxiety, depression,

5:26

loneliness, those sorts of things, but very

5:29

little as far as I can tell on

5:31

awkwardness. Do you have any theories on why

5:33

that is? I think

5:36

the main reason is that awkwardness

5:38

has typically been assimilated to discussions

5:40

of embarrassment and shame to the

5:43

extent that it's really discussed at all.

5:45

Even there, it gets surprisingly little attention.

5:48

So the scholar William Miller has a

5:50

book on humiliation. And if you look at

5:52

his index, he's got more entries for ax

5:55

murder than he does for awkwardness. So

5:57

awkwardness, yeah, you're right. It gets

5:59

surprisingly little attention. attention even as

6:02

philosophers have turned their attention to

6:04

particular emotions and particular negative emotions.

6:07

Well, let's get into it. Awkwardness

6:09

is normally

6:12

defined as a personal

6:15

problem or a personality

6:18

trait or sometimes as you just

6:20

said, it's basically a

6:22

synonym for embarrassment. And

6:24

these are all understandings that you challenge. So tell

6:26

me how you define

6:29

awkwardness and maybe just as importantly, tell

6:31

me what you think it isn't.

6:35

Right. So starting with what it isn't, I

6:37

don't think awkwardness is a personal problem. I

6:39

don't think awkwardness is a personal trait. One

6:42

of the things I was surprised by in

6:44

writing this book is how quickly people were

6:48

willing to tell me, I'm really awkward or oh,

6:50

I'm so excited to read your book as a

6:52

very awkward person. It's something that a lot of

6:54

people are willing and even eager

6:56

to self identify with, but I actually think

6:58

that's a mistake. I don't think people are

7:01

awkward. I think situations are awkward. On

7:03

my view, awkwardness is something that happens

7:05

in a situation when we lack the

7:07

social resources we need to guide us

7:10

through it. And so interactions become awkward

7:12

when we're uncertain what kind of interaction

7:14

we're in, what our role in that

7:17

interaction is, what the other person's role

7:19

is, when we're unable to coordinate on

7:21

a social script to get us through

7:23

it. So in that sense, awkwardness

7:25

is not a personal problem. It's an

7:27

us problem. But surely

7:30

some people are more or less

7:32

awkward than others, right? Even if

7:34

it's generally true that there

7:37

are no awkward people, only awkward situations.

7:41

So I think there's an interesting ambiguity when we

7:43

describe people as awkward between meaning

7:46

that person feels awkward or

7:48

they make me feel awkward. So if I

7:50

say like, Sean is awkward at parties, I

7:52

might mean Sean makes me feel awkward when

7:54

he's at parties or I might mean Sean

7:57

feels awkward at parties. I do think that

7:59

you're right. Some people read social cues

8:01

differently and some people might have a

8:03

difficult time triangulating on the kind of

8:05

social cues that most of us rely

8:07

on every day. Some people

8:09

also just give social cues differently, right?

8:11

So some people might be less inclined

8:13

to make eye contact. Or if you've

8:15

ever tried to have a conversation with

8:17

someone whose conversational timing is just a

8:20

little off and you're not sure when

8:22

you're supposed to break in, right? Is

8:24

that a pause that's an invitation? Is

8:26

it a pause that's a hesitation? That

8:28

can feel really awkward, right? But

8:31

that feeling of awkwardness doesn't necessarily

8:34

tell us something about that person's character. It

8:36

might just mean that we need to adjust

8:38

our own social cues. Or

8:40

it might mean that we're in a kind

8:42

of situation for which we really haven't figured

8:45

out the social norms yet. Even

8:47

if it's true that maybe

8:50

some people have more difficulties navigating

8:53

social interactions than others,

8:56

you still think it's the case, right,

8:58

that labeling them awkward obscures

9:01

more than it reveals.

9:04

That's right. I think labeling people

9:06

as awkward is unhelpful both in terms

9:09

of the reason I just mentioned that

9:11

there's that ambiguity there about where

9:14

the awkwardness is. I think also it

9:16

obscures what's interesting about awkwardness, which is

9:18

the way it can highlight gaps in

9:20

our social scripts, in our social norms,

9:22

in our social resources. So if I

9:25

just blame you for the awkwardness that

9:27

arises at the party, I might be

9:29

missing an opportunity to reflect on my

9:31

own behavior or on the norms governing

9:34

our social interaction. One

9:36

of the things I talk about

9:38

in the book is the way

9:40

that labeling someone awkward can also

9:42

intersect with our social scripts around

9:44

gender and power and privilege in

9:46

such a way that when an

9:48

interaction becomes uncomfortable, labeling one person

9:50

as awkward is often a way

9:52

to offload responsibility for that discomfort.

9:55

When I think of awkwardness, or at least when I

9:57

thought of it before reading your book,

9:59

I and your book basically

10:03

did persuade me to think of it

10:05

differently. When I thought of awkwardness,

10:07

I would think immediately of fear, fear

10:10

of interacting

10:12

with other people. But that implies

10:14

a kind of misanthropy, right? So

10:16

like, if you're awkward, that

10:18

means you must just not like people

10:21

and get weirdly uncomfortable

10:23

around them. But you

10:26

really think that's not only not true, but it is actually

10:29

harmful, right? I

10:32

hadn't really thought about the intersection between

10:34

awkwardness and fear per se. I do

10:36

think there's an intersection between awkwardness and

10:38

anxiety and social anxiety in particular. And

10:40

I think one reason people sometimes label

10:42

themselves as awkward, there's

10:45

some research suggesting that this is a

10:47

strategy to manage social anxiety, almost a

10:49

way of saying, don't expect too much

10:51

from me in the social domain. I'm

10:53

a very awkward person. But I think

10:56

what's interesting is that in other cases,

10:58

people who we would tend to perceive

11:00

as awkward may not experience their own

11:02

behavior in kind of a negative way or

11:05

may not experience these social interactions in a

11:07

negative way, right? It may be that the

11:09

social cues they're giving off make us feel

11:11

awkward, but they're not having any kind of

11:13

negative experience. I do think we fear awkwardness

11:15

a lot. I think that we are surprisingly

11:17

afraid of awkwardness. And another reason I was

11:20

interested in studying it was because

11:22

I was interested in the ways

11:24

that awkwardness or the fear of

11:26

awkwardness inhibits us from engaging in

11:28

certain kinds of conversations and criticism

11:31

of others and examinations of our

11:33

own behavior. And I think there are a lot

11:35

of cases where we should act,

11:38

we know we should act, and we don't

11:40

because we're afraid of making things awkward. After

11:42

the Me Too movement, there

11:45

was an interview with men about

11:47

sexual harassment in the workplace. You

11:49

would find men saying things like,

11:51

well, I knew my co-worker's behavior

11:53

wasn't okay, and I knew I

11:55

should say something, but I was afraid of making

11:57

things awkward if I spoke up. And

11:59

on the one hand, That's really puzzling. Like this

12:01

is, your coworkers are engaging in sexual

12:03

harassment. That's not okay. You know that.

12:06

That's a moral obligation to speak up

12:08

and do something. Why

12:10

would you let something as seemingly

12:13

minor as

12:16

some social discomfort inhibit you from speaking

12:18

up? But I think awkwardness exerts a

12:20

really powerful force on us. Yeah,

12:24

I'll bracket the question of when

12:26

you're in situations where there's an obvious

12:29

power imbalance, but just in general, the

12:31

fear part. I mean, for me,

12:34

awkwardness, at least a lot of it is

12:36

about this experience of uncertainty,

12:39

which is a panic inducing

12:41

thing for a lot of people. And I'll

12:43

count myself among them. I mean, maybe panic is

12:46

a strong word, but I've

12:48

never been super comfortable with uncertainty.

12:51

And to the extent I've

12:53

never really presented as awkward in

12:55

social settings, I think it's mostly

12:57

because I'm pretty good at performing

12:59

in that way, but that discomfort

13:02

is there all the time, right underneath the

13:05

mask. What is it about

13:07

uncertainty in social settings that's so

13:10

unnerving, even when the stakes are low? Like

13:12

what the hell are we afraid of really?

13:15

That's such a great point. And I think

13:17

that one of the things awkwardness can highlight

13:19

for us is first, how reliant we are

13:22

on everyday social cues to get through things.

13:24

I think that we often don't

13:26

notice the kind of social scaffolding that

13:28

goes into our interactions, because it's just

13:30

mostly there, right? But

13:32

when it's absent, all of a sudden, it is

13:34

like the floor is pulled out from under us.

13:37

And we have that, almost that moment where you

13:39

go off a cliff and your legs are circling

13:41

in the air, and it is this feeling of

13:43

panic. And I think part of that is, we

13:46

seem to have an expectation that

13:48

socializing should be effortless, that

13:50

the ability to move through the world and

13:52

social interactions and present yourself in public is

13:55

something everyone just kind of knows how to

13:57

do without instruction and that your ability to

13:59

do it.