From: zeborah@gmail.com
Brian M. Scott wrote:
> Of course I'm aware of that. [1, 2] What's more, I think
> that by now you ought to be pretty sure that I'm aware of
> it. But I also think that you ought to be aware that in all
> likelihood I was giving you an honest opinion (as indeed I
> was) and not playing rhetorical or psychological games.
I really had expected you to be aware of it, and really had not expected
you to be playing rhetorical games. I'm thus feeling confused and
dismayed that you're saying so many things normally said by people who
aren't aware of it, and/or who are playing rhetorical games.
(Most of these things I haven't pointed out -- though I will if you're
curious -- because I do assume that you mean them all innocently; but,
by goodness, it's _hard work_ keeping that assumption in my head. I do
not believe I overreacted in my original post, but I do feel in danger
of overreacting to your posts -- because I can't understand why you're
reacting to mine as strongly as you seem to be -- so I'm making an
effort to delay and rethink and delay and calm every one of my
responses; and so it's additionally hurtful to be told that I'm
"overreacting". ...This parenthetical has strayed from where I meant to
take it but hopefully it's all useful information; in any case it was
useful to me to figure out that last clause even as I was typing it.)
>You
> are free to decide that the opinion is the result of some
> blind spot in my sensitivity; I can't stop you, and I'm by
> no means 100% sure that you'd be wrong. But the fact is
> that I do think that you were overreacting, I do think that
> saying so was an appropriate response at that point, and it
> didn't occur to me that someone whom I consider generally
> very reasonable would see it as anything but a simple
> statement of opinion -- unwelcome opinion, no doubt, but
> just honest opinion -- especially when it merely said in so
> many words what presumably was already pretty clear by
> inference anyway.
It was rather clear, yes; I was trying to ignore the undertone in order
to respond reasonably because, honestly, how else can one respond to
such an undertone or such a statement?
>And just off the top of my head I don't
> see any other way to say it that doesn't in retrospect seem
> likely to have produced much the same reaction.
There probably isn't one. But what is the use of saying it? If it's
false, all I can say is "No, I'm not," and if it's true then I'm
unlikely to listen. Either way, it's bound to increase my irritation to
the expense of talking about things rationally. So what does saying it
achieve?
> [1] I do not, however, put 'hysteria' in the same category
> as 'oversensitivity' and 'overreaction': it's considerably
> more offensive, as far as I'm concerned, probably not usable
> at all in this kind of discussion unless offense is
> intended.
The other words are less overtly offensive, I think, because we've moved
on from the time when "hysteria" was taken seriously. But I do think
they are (in the context I generally see them used) just subtler ways of
doing the same thing: implying that the speaker is calm, therefore
rational, therefore correct, while the person they're talking to is
emotional, therefore irrational, therefore incorrect.
> [2] I'm even aware that what I've written in this post can
> be seen as a subtler version of the same tactic, and that my
> backbrain is clever enough that I can't rule out the
> possibility.
I figure that my own "I could say '[bleep] you' but I won't" is a
sufficiently blatant rhetorical tactic in itself as to be fair game for
most any response anyway; however I didn't really get such a feeling
from this-your post.
Zeborah
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* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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