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“And that brings us straight back to the entire point of my post: how easily a disagreement about ideas becomes a judgment about the person expressing them.”
But as I’ve pointed out – if you hide all your ideas away out of a fear of having them challenged there patently can be no disagreement about them. My ‘judgement’ (which is actually an ‘observation’) is about the person who is *not* expressing them. Instead, she’s trying to dump reams of dull and repetitive cod-philosphising and impersonal nosisms where her ideas should be and hopes no one notices the difference.
As having one’s ideas challenged helps a person to grow, this game hide and seek you play with your own can only be self defeating… which is all really rather sad.
@barnie there’s something almost magnificent about spending this much time responding to someone’s ideas while insisting she hasn’t expressed any. 😂 Apparently, my arguments exist when you need something to dispute, but conveniently disappear when you need an excuse to dismiss me.
And let’s dispense with the distinction between your “judgments” and “observations.” Calling someone confused, evasive, psychologically defensive, sulking, dull, and sad doesn’t become intellectual analysis simply because you give it a more respectable label. Those are insults, not counterarguments.
You’ve spent this entire exchange explaining what’s supposedly wrong with the person challenging you rather than seriously examining the challenge itself. Being condescending isn’t evidence of being correct, Peter.
But here’s what truly fascinates me. If my contributions are so dull, repetitive, and beneath your intellectual standards, why do you remain so devoted to responding to every single one?
For someone who claims there’s nothing worth engaging with, you certainly seem to have a difficult time tearing yourself away.
Please, don’t let me keep you. I’m sure there are far more stimulating conversations awaiting your considerable talents elsewhere. 🙄
@sirise92 changing debate sides. Cool! I’d hate doing it.😜
It did jog my braincell. Back when I was in uncle Sam’s canoe club we interacted with the Israelis once or twice. They had this process where whatever was being decided, one person of the decision making team had to make the opposing argument. It was to give a different point of view no matter the subject. It has worked in the past to prevent stupid stuff from happening. Not so much in recent history. 😢
Your debate side swapping story reminded me of other valid techniques. Off my soapbox now. 😋“there’s something almost magnificent about spending this much time responding to someone’s ideas while insisting she hasn’t expressed any”
Well I’ve been here all day very patiently waiting for you to put at least one of your ideas here, so we can move forward, and you haven’t. Instead you spray your replies with a scattergun of wild, disjointed and mostly inaccurate assertions about me as a sort of manic defence against any trace of the vulnerability that having and expressing an actual idea would confront you with. And there’s the crux I think.
You’re not really attacking me at all (for attacks are what they are) your attacking that curious, receptive and vulnerable part of yourself that I keep appealing to and inviting to step forward into the light to engage. The part where ideas come from along with the tentative unknowing required for ideas to arise.
Why you believe you can’t possibly allow yourself this vulnerability and invest enormous amounts of your energy into keeping it out of view is anyone’s guess. I’d ask if you have any ideas as to why that might be, but then… I wouldn’t expect a usable reply.
@barnie you’ve spent an entire day arguing with me across two forum threads, quoting my ideas, disputing my conclusions, and writing increasingly elaborate assessments of my psychological makeup. And now you insist I haven’t expressed a single idea?
That’s quite a remarkable confession about your reading comprehension, though perhaps not the one you intended to make.
And this little fantasy in which you’re the enlightened intellectual patiently coaxing a frightened woman into the light? Good Lord. The self-importance is staggering.
Since we’re playing amateur psychologist, I could speculate that your relentless need to establish intellectual superiority is compensating for an uncomfortable inability to tolerate being challenged. But unlike you, I understand the difference between an interesting hypothesis and something I can actually substantiate.
Here’s what I can substantiate: you’ve repeatedly substituted personal insults for counterarguments, confused your own certainty with evidence, and treated my refusal to agree with you as proof of some psychological deficiency.
Your inability to persuade me is not evidence of my inability to understand you.
And if fifteen exchanges, two forum threads, and an entire website full of my writing haven’t provided you with a single idea worth considering, perhaps the intellectual obstacle isn’t sitting on my side of this conversation.
Now, Peter, if my contributions are truly as dull and worthless as you claim, do explain why you’ve devoted quite so much of your day to them.
Or better yet, don’t. I think you’ve embarrassed yourself quite enough for one afternoon.
And Peter, do keep up the good work, darling. I couldn’t ask for a more dedicated publicity department. 😉
@anroc 😘
Well, Doctor, tell us how you REALLY feel! 😂❤️ I appreciate you speaking up. I think what’s been most frustrating is watching a conversation about ideas turn into repeated personal judgments. And the irony of that happening on a post about exactly this subject has certainly not been lost on me!
@lolamayi12345 You should be applying for a Nobel prize! Apparently you have achieved the rare feat of having arguments that are in a state of quantum superposition! – i.e. where they seemingly appear and disappear depending on the person observing them!! Bravo! 👏👏😆😆
Seriously though, here’s the simple truth to this whole thing – wanting to be correct about everything is narcissistic, moronic, and deeply insecure behaviour.
Newsflash: there is no infallible human being alive and there never will be.
Open up your mind. Accept that you can, will be, and indeed ARE mistaken or ignorant somewhere about some subject.
And listen – actually LISTEN – to arguments. That is how learning is done.
Oh, and if you’re still convinced you’re correct (perhaps you are!), then have some grace and civility about it. Don’t be condescending, or smug, or self-satisfied.
I applaud your patience, Lola x ❤️
Hanlon’s razor… don’t ascribe ill intent to that which can be explained by ignorance. We are all learning
Hanlon’s razor… don’t ascribe ill intent to that which can be explained by ignorance. We are all learning. It helps me to remember that.
Brad, quantum superposition?! 😂😂 Apparently I’ve invented Schrödinger’s argument. It simultaneously exists and doesn’t exist, depending on whether a certain someone 🙄 needs to dispute it or deny it!
And YES to intellectual humility! I genuinely enjoy having my thinking challenged. What I don’t particularly enjoy is having my entire psychological makeup analyzed because I disagree with someone. Quite the distinction!
And thank you, sweetheart. I think my patience deserves a Nobel of its own at this point! 😘
Holden, I appreciate Hanlon’s razor! And I think there’s a lot of wisdom in giving people the benefit of the doubt. Although I’d add that being willing to learn is just as important as not knowing something in the first place. Ignorance is forgivable. Refusing to consider that we might be mistaken is where things get tricky. 😉
Lola,
I was nodding along right up until you suggested people could disagree and still remain friends. Honestly, that sounds suspiciously like witchcraft. 😉I think you’ve hit on something important where somewhere along the way, a lot of people stopped treating opinions like hats you can take off to examine and started treating them like vital organs. The moment someone says “Have you considered another perspective?” alarms start ringing, battle stations are manned and suddenly poor Uncle Bob’s honour is somehow involved.
Personally, I love having my thinking challenged and not because I’m open-minded or enlightened but because there’s always the faint possibility I’ve been spectacularly wrong about something for years. It happens more often than I’d like to admit.
That said, the person doing the challenging matters too. Curiosity is attractive. Intelligence is attractive. A sense of humour is attractive. Someone who can say “I disagree with you completely” while smiling warmly and reaching for another slice of cake? Extremely attractive.
The trouble is that too many people enter conversations with a sword when a comfortable chair would do.
I completely agree with your point about this community. It’s far more interesting when people feel safe enough to be themselves with different opinions, different experiences and different backgrounds. Otherwise we’d all just sit around agreeing with each other. Which sounds pleasant for about five minutes before the conversation becomes remarkably predictable.
So yes, challenge my thinking but just be warned, if you’re clever, witty and make me laugh while doing it then I may become distractingly agreeable.
“Here’s what I can substantiate: you’ve repeatedly substituted personal insults for counterarguments, confused your own certainty with evidence, and treated my refusal to agree with you as proof of some psychological deficiency.”
Just because you claim my observations to be ‘insulting’ doesn’t mean they are insults. Or that they’re anything other than observations of what’s missing. Perhaps you’re insulted that I ask for what’s missing to be made present – to be brought out of hiding – so an actual exchange might begin? And nourishing exchanges, of course, require our vulnerabilities to be in play. No one likes being told what they’re currently offering isn’t good enough.
In all your replies you’ve drawn attention to your refusal to agree with me. And yet nowhere do you say what it is exactly you’re refusing to agree with (something else being kept well hidden). I must assume therefore that your use of ‘to agree with’ is not the everyday one and instead you mean ‘to be healthy or appropriate for (someone)’. As in, “my refusal to be healthy or appropriate for you so that we can enter into an exchange rather than my sabotaging it”. Is that a psychological deficiency?.. you tell me.
Triton, I’m still laughing at opinions becoming vital organs. That might be the best description of modern disagreement I’ve heard in ages!😎
And I think you’ve hit on something. I don’t need someone to agree with me. I want someone who makes me reconsider something I was absolutely certain about five minutes ago. Bonus points if he can make me laugh while doing it.
Now, about this tendency of yours to become distractingly agreeable in the presence of clever, witty women… I feel like that deserves further investigation. 😉😘
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