Implicit contracts and a long-due apology

The social norm establishes, within the scope of each individual society, a set of actions that are expected or forbidden in certain settings and, in some cases, even the adequate response to certain actions or omissions. However, it is essential to point out that most of these social norms are purely conventional and the result of an implicit contract that binds all the members of a society but not necessarily those from a different one. A very salient example is the expectation in several Middle-East countries, that the most important guest at a table would burp loudly to show their satisfaction and praise the cook. Failing to do so will automatically elicit glares from the other guests, who do not wan to insult the host by denying the appreciation. However, in Western societies burping is not expected at all and, whenever it happens as an occasional accident of our corporeal nature, the subject is expected to do it as discretely as possible and, eventually, murmur an apology.

When the several interactions are expected to follow an established order, we apply the term "protocol", which is most commonly used in the realm of diplomacy but extends well beyond international relations into other areas of life such as religion (where it is usually linked to the concept of "rite") or even computer science (where the ability of computers to communicate with one another intrinsically necessitates the establishment of a protocol, defining who is arbitrating the communication, how long each participant may speak and other elements).

Photo: The Advocacy Project

In human communication there are also protocols, such as greeting an acquaintance that you cross on the street (and subsequently greeting back), raising you hand to speak in class, replying to a question when interrogated and even waiting for an answer after you have posed a question. There are, however, a couple of principles that rule any successful communication. On the one hand, it has to be clear if the speaker expects an answer from the listener or not; otherwise they might wait forever (or at list an uncomfortable amount of time) or step on the response. It also has to be well established over which channel (or channels) the communication is going to take place; if you send an invitation via email, and unless stated otherwise, most guest will understand that a response is expected via email too. In fact, even if we decide to call the organizer on the phone to clarify the details, the most likely is that they will ask us to provide the final response via email so that they do not have to check a number of different channels. A third general principle is a certain uniformity of timing; when we send a message via WhatsApp, we do so aware of the fact that the recipient might not be available at the moment, so we would not expect an immediate response. However, once they respond and it has been established their availability for exchange one should not leave the conversation unfinished unless they provide an apology; just not responding is sometimes unavoidable, but it certainly is a break in protocol.

This kind of implicit timing expectation is not limited to person-to-person communication. Organizations are expect to comply with the same implicit or explicit contracts: yearly reports shall, in fact, come yearly, and if the usual practice has been to issue them in February, the expectation is that it will be so next time and, if case that is not possible, at least a clarification would be expected that the report will not be released on time. Back in the days of broadcast TV, the program grid was the same kind of implicit contract: the viewers expected the stations to provide the announced program unless there are extenuating circumstances, and in that case an explanation for the change of plans should be provided to avoid confusion among the viewers. Although this kind of practices have almost become obsolete with the introduction of streaming services, some providers still choose to release the episodes of their series one by one instead of one season at a time, effectively establishing a similar timing contract: the next episode of your favorite show will be released next week at the same time.

Even writers are also somewhat bound by this kind of contract, in particular those devoted to writing long epics in the guise of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord or The Rings" or George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire". Once the narrative is announced to be split amongst several volumes, the public will be expecting to see them published on a regular basis and even make pressure on the author and the publisher to ensure that it happens. But custom can also become the source for an implicit contract: a columnist that has published an article  every Saturday for a few months in a row will soon have the readership (at least a portion of it, otherwise they would have been removed from the newspaper) looking forward for their contribution next Saturday.

In that same spirit, it is now my turn to apologize to you all. I am fully aware that you are not very numerous (not numerous at all, in fact) but I should have explained myself much earlier. The fact is that both my personal and professional circumstances changed shortly before the turn of the year, so that it has become almost impossible to keep the pace of publishing an article every weekday. And it is not strictly linked to the amount of time necessary to write the words, but with the fill state of my mind I just do not have enough mental resources free to incubate the article over the day before I pour it out in the evening. I will continue to write as my workload permits, but I would not make an active effort to produce five entries per week as I have been doing for so many weeks. I apologize for not letting you know earlier and perhaps having you wonder why I am not publishing as often as I used to. Now you know and I hope you will still be able to enjoy the fewer posts, so please use the comments section below, if you feel so inclined, to let me know what you like or dislike, to ask questions or reply on my arguments. Have a nice evening.