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but what you said is "you SHOULD feel this way" not "I have a vision of a better world were we all strive for greater equality". your word choices matter. also

but what you said is "you SHOULD feel this way" not "I have a vision of a better world were we all strive for greater equality". your word choices matter. also, while we're on the subject of communication, I would like to point out that there has been enormous and widespread political backlash that is due in no small part to the poor communication strategy by many leftist movements. many (most?) people absolutely do agree with the proposition "women are humans just the same as men and deserve to be treated as such." a lot of those people, however, really do care about how they are spoken to. tone and language choice matters. it is not effective communication or politics to be constantly making accusatory remarks. people really do respond based on their emotions and will oppose those who have been "mean" to them recently, just because of that mood affiliation.

burkaman 10y ago
I mean we're all human, we all have biases, and we're all affected by interactions, so I get what you're saying. I care about how I'm spoken to as well, I don't mean to act like some superior being unaffected by human emotions. To use your phrasing, I would like to live in a world where equal rights is such a fundamental moral truth that the communication style of its supporters doesn't really matter. I too am frequently annoyed and angered by people marching under the flag of feminism, but I try my best to judge everyone's arguments on their merits rather than their fans. I think everyone would personally benefit from this, it makes life more pleasant, and that's what I wanted to say in my comment. I would also like to live in a world where people give each other the benefit of the doubt. When you read my initial comment, did it really seem more like that I was trying to police someone's thoughts, rather than just recommending a different way of thinking? Especially on a casual internet forum, I generally try to interpret a comment in the best way I can. If someone is really intending to be an asshole then it'll become clear soon enough.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  I approach stuff like this from a position of cognitive liberty. People are free and will think and feel whatever it is that they think and feel. Those thoughts and feelings inform their decisions and thus their behavior, and the behavior is what we ought to care about. Speech is a type of behavior and we ought to care about it because it influences culture and politics and everything else that arises from acts of communication. I make one assumption, which I think is well founded (based on utility), which is that it is impossible to persuade people through direct confrontation. Effective persuasion is based on presentation of facts and ideas to those who are receptive to them, but nobody ever became receptive by being confronted directly, and that can be counter-productive. It can make a potentially receptive person become closed to persuasion. They will, in essence, deny facts (even to the point of rejecting empirical proof) and go entirely with mood affiliation and tribal loyalty. When trying to do political communication of any kind the decision becomes a decision between trying to persuade someone or trying to "other" them and therefore signal to your in-group that they are an enemy. American political communication has really stopped trying to persuade anyone of anything and is now focused entirely on "othering". When I read your initial comment it came across as "othering". You spent a lot of words telling someone that their interpretations were wrong, that they should think and feel differently than they expressed thinking and feeling, and that their disagreement with your position was fundamentally unreasonable. The premise of cognitive liberty is an assertion that our own thoughts and feelings are just that: our own. They may or not be rational or reasonable or even useful. They might indeed be bad ideas, that do more harm than good. Still, we are free creatures, and we are free to have those thoughts and being criticized on the grounds of what you think is an untenable argument to make because it denies that fundamental freedom. All of this is just a long-winded way of trying to motivate my next sentences. Disagreement is natural and unavoidable and I believe it is beneficial to tolerate it in most circumstances. Othering and/or thought-policing those who disagree with us is actively harmful, and we've seen the consequences (his name is Donald). The tacit assumption that "my worldview is the best one and my morals are unassailable and those who disagree with me are irrational and/or immoral" is a serious problem. I've seen worse examples of it than your post, but your post was an example of it.
  - burkaman 10y ago
    I understand what you're saying, I guess I just disagree on the significance. For me there is very little meaningful difference between "I think murder is wrong because x" and "you should think murder is wrong because x". I don't see "you should" as trying to force a thought because that would be ridiculous, it's obviously impossible to forcibly change someone's thoughts. What I think is a much bigger problem is "you are a bad person because you don't believe x", which is quite common American politics and is very counterproductive. There's a big difference between "I hate your beliefs" and "I hate you because of your beliefs". Basically, I agree that confrontation is not useful, I just find it hard to believe that "you should" is enough to make reasonable people close off. At least in my experience, if you're having a polite conversation with an average person, these minor phrasing choices are not very important. Finally, as a genuine question, are "who appointed you the gatekeeper" and "maybe you should interpret this as a call to introspect" not just as if not more confrontational than whatever was in my comment? I'm not making an accusation, I had no problem with your phrasing, I just want to understand exactly what you're talking about so I can communicate better.
    - metaphorm 10y ago
      I was being confrontational and not trying to be persuasive. My point wasn't to change your mind but to signal to other people reading the thread that your post had some issues. I could have been more delicate about it. I'm sometimes a bit of a hypocrite. C'est la vie.

burkaman 10y ago

I mean we're all human, we all have biases, and we're all affected by interactions, so I get what you're saying. I care about how I'm spoken to as well, I don't mean to act like some superior being unaffected by human emotions. To use your phrasing, I would like to live in a world where equal rights is such a fundamental moral truth that the communication style of its supporters doesn't really matter. I too am frequently annoyed and angered by people marching under the flag of feminism, but I try my best to judge everyone's arguments on their merits rather than their fans. I think everyone would personally benefit from this, it makes life more pleasant, and that's what I wanted to say in my comment. I would also like to live in a world where people give each other the benefit of the doubt. When you read my initial comment, did it really seem more like that I was trying to police someone's thoughts, rather than just recommending a different way of thinking? Especially on a casual internet forum, I generally try to interpret a comment in the best way I can. If someone is really intending to be an asshole then it'll become clear soon enough.

metaphorm 10y ago
I approach stuff like this from a position of cognitive liberty. People are free and will think and feel whatever it is that they think and feel. Those thoughts and feelings inform their decisions and thus their behavior, and the behavior is what we ought to care about. Speech is a type of behavior and we ought to care about it because it influences culture and politics and everything else that arises from acts of communication. I make one assumption, which I think is well founded (based on utility), which is that it is impossible to persuade people through direct confrontation. Effective persuasion is based on presentation of facts and ideas to those who are receptive to them, but nobody ever became receptive by being confronted directly, and that can be counter-productive. It can make a potentially receptive person become closed to persuasion. They will, in essence, deny facts (even to the point of rejecting empirical proof) and go entirely with mood affiliation and tribal loyalty. When trying to do political communication of any kind the decision becomes a decision between trying to persuade someone or trying to "other" them and therefore signal to your in-group that they are an enemy. American political communication has really stopped trying to persuade anyone of anything and is now focused entirely on "othering". When I read your initial comment it came across as "othering". You spent a lot of words telling someone that their interpretations were wrong, that they should think and feel differently than they expressed thinking and feeling, and that their disagreement with your position was fundamentally unreasonable. The premise of cognitive liberty is an assertion that our own thoughts and feelings are just that: our own. They may or not be rational or reasonable or even useful. They might indeed be bad ideas, that do more harm than good. Still, we are free creatures, and we are free to have those thoughts and being criticized on the grounds of what you think is an untenable argument to make because it denies that fundamental freedom. All of this is just a long-winded way of trying to motivate my next sentences. Disagreement is natural and unavoidable and I believe it is beneficial to tolerate it in most circumstances. Othering and/or thought-policing those who disagree with us is actively harmful, and we've seen the consequences (his name is Donald). The tacit assumption that "my worldview is the best one and my morals are unassailable and those who disagree with me are irrational and/or immoral" is a serious problem. I've seen worse examples of it than your post, but your post was an example of it.
- burkaman 10y ago
  I understand what you're saying, I guess I just disagree on the significance. For me there is very little meaningful difference between "I think murder is wrong because x" and "you should think murder is wrong because x". I don't see "you should" as trying to force a thought because that would be ridiculous, it's obviously impossible to forcibly change someone's thoughts. What I think is a much bigger problem is "you are a bad person because you don't believe x", which is quite common American politics and is very counterproductive. There's a big difference between "I hate your beliefs" and "I hate you because of your beliefs". Basically, I agree that confrontation is not useful, I just find it hard to believe that "you should" is enough to make reasonable people close off. At least in my experience, if you're having a polite conversation with an average person, these minor phrasing choices are not very important. Finally, as a genuine question, are "who appointed you the gatekeeper" and "maybe you should interpret this as a call to introspect" not just as if not more confrontational than whatever was in my comment? I'm not making an accusation, I had no problem with your phrasing, I just want to understand exactly what you're talking about so I can communicate better.
  - metaphorm 10y ago
    I was being confrontational and not trying to be persuasive. My point wasn't to change your mind but to signal to other people reading the thread that your post had some issues. I could have been more delicate about it. I'm sometimes a bit of a hypocrite. C'est la vie.