Climbing trees in search of fish

These details not only matter, they matter too much to permit any generalized, abstract answer to do the trick and resolve, ahead of time, when rudeness will be judicious and righteous. The general, abstract question has no satisfying answer because the sorts of experiences that would give rise to it — where the question is not theoretical, but immediate and pressing — are simply too complex and too nested in highly particular contexts to allow a formulaic answer or set of principles by which we could make good decisions. Thus, if I am motivated to ask when I may be rude because I expect a tidy formula, I will be, to borrow a lovely Confucian idiom, climbing trees in search of fish.

— The Wrong of Rudeness: Learning Modern Civility from Ancient Chinese Philosophy, Amy Olderding (p. 135)