Part of a series of replies by @tchtchtchtchtch on my post giving details on a recent Facebook argument (this is the main part I want to address):
It’s entirely your prerogative if you don’t want to have discussions like this in the future, but honestly this doesn’t seem too bad to me? I think you are trying to optimize for nobody ever criticizing you, in which case by all means don’t post political articles that people might disagree with, but I don’t think that’s really a good goal
I think you are doing too much work to be *extremely conscientious* about what other people think, both in your Tumblr commentary here and in your original comments. I think spending so many words on acknowledging their points - I want to say “being verbally submissive”? - actually sort of makes it harder to connect with what you’re saying, possibly through the same dynamic somebody pointed out where trying to be really nice can make you sound condescending
First of all, you’re probably right that it wasn’t all that bad in the grand scheme of things. And within a couple of days of posting here about it, I had (predictably) calmed down and felt I overreacted and maybe overstated some things. Things got testy but stayed fundamentally civil; it was only from a small handful of people; and I don’t think I did any real damage on a personal level with anyone whose relationship I care about (although I kind of wish I had thought to prevent access to those I know from a professional context).
But, at the risk of sounding like I’m once again acknowledging something but then being defensive about it, I want to clarify exactly what it is about interactions like that which gets me rather upset and frustrated in the moment*, because I don’t think it’s quite a matter of not wanting anyone ever criticizing me as you suggest (although a lot depends on what you mean by “criticizing”).
If “criticizing me” means saying I’m wrong, well, people disagree with me all the time on Facebook, here, and IRL, and that is certainly not something that typically stresses me out. If “criticizing me” means saying my attitude or underlying values are wrong, then usually that doesn’t faze me much either. There have been occasional other times on Facebook, for instance, when I posted something I suspected would be controversial and indeed got pushback which included insinuations of holding unsavory beliefs, and you [general audience “you”] haven’t heard about them, because I didn’t feel any need to vent here or ask anyone’s feedback on why it went wrong. Maybe those times I got a little irritated that others equated points I made with beliefs I vehemently don’t hold, but at least those others acknowledged where I seemed to be coming from and explained why they saw things differently without suggesting that our differences come from them just knowing more than me or having a more open mind than I do. I came away from those interactions feeling like we all got a bit more perspective even though we didn’t reach agreement.
This situation was different. Those arguing with me refused to acknowledge any validity at all in anything I or the article said but instead scathingly attempted to demolish it as well as the entire opinion section that ran it. They generally didn’t show the slightest inclination to meet me halfway, instead chalking up my opinions to ignorance. The whole thing felt net unproductive and unpleasant. That was one uniquely frustrating aspect; another was that eventually I was accused of arguing in bad faith, insincerely and obnoxiously “tone-policing” and “concern-trolling”, and essentially not approaching the topic with any attempt to compassionately understand other people’s points of view. This is criticism of attitudes on what we might call a “higher meta level” and feels closer to criticism of my fundamental character and does actually hurt in the moment, plus the fact that I’m very unused to that particular criticism made it hit more sharply (this is slightly in tension with what I wrote here but, well, humans are complicated). Those are the aspects that make it unprecedented in all my years on social media, not someone disagreeing with me or criticizing my ideas or even the attitudes behind them. And I’d rather those things never happen again.
There was also the frustration coming from the fact that so much of the sociopolitical rhetoric I’ve been surrounded by for years, while often originating from righteous intentions, seems way too tribalistic and dogmatically stubborn, and I almost always keep quiet about it. Yet, even though during this time I feel like I’ve gained a lot more prowess at talking about these things incisively but also sensitively and diplomatically, when I try to apply those skills in one particular instance, not only am I met with a completely unyielding brick wall of resistance, but ultimately I’m accused of not arguing honestly, in good faith, or from a position of trying to understand other points of view. And yeah, there’s also a faint twinge of that (largely irrational) paranoia that Scott Alexander sometimes writes about where I fear that if I’m not careful, I could wind up getting kicked out of the Club of Morally Trustworthy People which I’m pretty sure will be the dominant club in my future social and professional environments.
I really like your phrase “verbally submissive” and think it describes my style in a wider variety of contexts than that particular one. I believe it’s a personal issue I need to address, as it has arguably played (minor but significant) roles in some close personal conflicts including with regard to toxic roommate relationships and perhaps even the demise of my romantic relationship. For some reason, it’s kind of one part of the way I learned to do personal interactions by the time I reached adulthood in earnest, and it has its advantages but also definitely makes some things worse. But unfortunately, it’s one of those faults which much easier to see “globally” than it is to correct “locally” (yes, the other day I was vagueposting about this although that post had been coming on for a while; I have other issues that fit that description much more strongly).
(Interestingly, part of what I’m complaining about a few paragraphs above is other people not demonstrating enough “verbal submissiveness”; I guess deep down some part of me wants this to be a general social norm?)
You replied with some other points/ideas but I pretty much agree with them, and elaborating further might be more of that “spending too many words acknowledging everything other people say” tendency again, so I’ll leave it at that. Except of course to say, thank you for taking the time to read my venting in the first place and coming up with such honestly considered feedback.
*The post in question has been deleted as I said I would do (well, actually I made it private), and it’s a done issue as far as I’m concerned. But I’m writing this anyway because this blog is partly for the purpose of me recording how I generally feel about and react to certain things, and this issue may apply to more situations than that particular one.
