Bruno

Discussion (5) ¬

1. 
   Pete Rogan

   August 6, 2016 at 5:59 pm | #

   Some people just have your half of the conversation already done, you know? And they resent you going off-script and they want you to shut up and realize how degenerate you are and how shocked they are to find that out. Such people I joyfully savage in public for their hermetically sealed existence and demonstrated lack of both intelligence and humanity. I’m not a nice guy.
2. 
   ronald

   August 6, 2016 at 8:18 pm | #

   Proving yet again that human interaction is highly overrated…
3. 
   Edward Welbourne

   August 7, 2016 at 8:19 pm | #

   Rogan: “Some people just have your half of the conversation already done, you know?” – well, some people decide early in a conversation what you’re saying and hear that, regardless of what you actually do say. Which, I suspect, is just me saying – in my way – what you said (in yours).

   “I didn’t know arguing for *your” self-worth was judging” is epic – each one of us is the sole and sovereign arbiter of each’s own choices about what’s best for self – self-worth, happiness, whatever. Those around that self can offer advice, commentary and opinions (yes, including judgement – just be honest that that’s what it is); but we have a duty – to anyone we respect – to honour their sovereignty over those decisions, including their authority to ignore our advice and spurn our opinions. If you own your decision, my duty is to honour that choice. (If I honestly believe it’s a bad choice, I’ll try to keep a safety-net open, as far as doing so doesn’t compromise your ability to go where you chose, and be ready to help you recover if my interpretation proves right; but I’ll still keep hoping (for your sake) that you prove me wrong. Either way, anyone – who doesn’t respect your right to make the choice you made – doesn’t respect you.)

   (… and (for @ronald’s benefit) yet – as this is (indirect) human interaction in which I chose to participate, despite everything – I must contend that human interaction is not worthless. The vacuous forms of it (that dominate most cultures) seem more important to others than they are to me; but there are other forms of it that are more modestly rated; and that I do not consider over-rated; for example, this one.)
4. 
   Edward Welbourne

   August 7, 2016 at 8:39 pm | #

   @Christopher: I want to challenge your use of passive voice in “the topic you’re going to mention casually is actually really REALLY negatively judged by the person you’re talking with.”
   Let me rephrase that as “the person you’re talking with judges REALLY negatively a topic you chose to mention casually.”
   There are surely better ways to phrase it – but my point is that the passive phrasing “puts the blame” on the one who chose to mention the topic, or the way they chose to do so, where the one dumping a hugely negative judgement on the topic has “more agency” in the conversation going south.
   She floated a boat gently; he chose to take it somewhere it didn’t need to go (roughly Davy Jones’s locker).

   Wikipedia has Good Cause for its preference for the active voice. It is usually more honest.
5. 
   Christopher

   August 7, 2016 at 9:02 pm | #

   @Edward, well, I see your point. And it’s true that I find overt negative judgement of things I say to be unpleasant, but in this case i wasn’t talking just about the judgement. It’s about being in a situation where you don’t EXPECT it. You talk in what you view as a forum of safety. usually with someone you like, or else you wouldn’t feel safe around them.

   I think how I wrote it better reflects this concept.

   I, perhaps too often, write in the passive voice, almost in legal speak. Not to obscure, but for accuracy, or better accuracy of implication. :)