Awkwardness: A Theory

while we typically aren’t aware of “choosing” a script to apply to a situation—part of what makes scripts so useful is the effortlessness with which they’re typically activated—we sometimes have options about how to classify actors and events.

The question then becomes, when we have to do things awkwardly—when awkwardness is inevitable—who bears the cost?

This points to a potential epistemic benefit of awkwardness: by keeping us from expressing judgment or acting in morally awkward problems, it may prevent us from prematurely reaching a moral consensus on these issues.

Consciously following a script may, in these cases, seem to make things more awkward, because we’ve internalized certain existing scripts so well. But this is a consequence of the fact that our extant scripts didn’t serve everyone, and that sometimes awkwardness is an inevitable stage in transitioning to more inclusive or fairer scripts.

Online communities can be helpful here. By extending access to conversations, support, and conceptual resources, they provide space for having difficult conversations, and allow us to hone our interactions in ways that might come in handy in future face-to-face spaces.

Awkwardness thus indicates uncertainty about the existence or status of a norm.

Thus, awkwardness is an epistemic double blow: by stopping us from discussing topics, it stops us from gathering the information about others’ expectations needed to determine which norms govern the issue.

in these contexts, discomfort is framed as a “meaningful” consequence of resisting oppression, which changes the significance of our feelings: they’re a shared part of the work involved in changing social norms, not an alienating sign of social misattunement or a warning of impending ostracism.

As issues are moralized, the scripts governing how we negotiate them likewise shift, and we can be caught off-guard, or uncertain about the norms that apply, during the transition. There’s room here for both genuine ambiguity, issues that are not determinately moral or personal, or that occupy both spheres, and epistemic uncertainty, where there ma