Hi Dave,
DMB said:
As you put it, "if one has already decided that it is appropriate, the
evasive, weasel-wordy behavior has already destroyed the trust
between you and your main interlocutor, and [by complaining] you
are trying to register to your audience ("for the record," as it were)
why the discussion has ceased, from your point of view, to be
honest and worthy of your attention". Maybe I'm expecting too much
but I do not complain to announce the end of the discussion but as
an effort to get it back on track. It's like a salvage operation. While
it's certainly true that "people don't like being accused of dishonesty",
that truth is a function of the fact that people don't like dishonesty
first. If I lie to you and you accuse me of dishonesty, does it really
matter that I don't like the accusation? Aren't you the offended
party?
Matt:
I'm genuinely conflicted on this point, about what is the best
conversation-inducing strategy to express the fact that one thinks the
other person has stepped over a line (become/-ing dishonest, etc.).
When I imagine an actual social situation expressed by "maybe I'm
expecting too much," a social situation in which people behave the
way you're envisioning, the only way that makes sense is a lot of
blood-boiling. And this, I think, because my "maybe I'm expecting
too much" assumption is that people are _rarely_ intentionally being
dishonest. If we start there, and then get dishonest-seeming
behavior, why do we call them out on dishonesty if they didn't know
they were being so? If people did behave as you envision, and I'm
right about the first assumption to make, then we'd have a lot of
people being called dishonest for mistakes, there be some
elaboration of the evidence for what turns out to be a mistake, and
then there'd be a renewed conversation after the correction of the
mistake, but all of it through an emotional head-ringer. Why'd the
correction have to take the form of dishonesty-assertion?
On the other hand, my underlying assumption behind "why the
discussion has ceased" is that if you were _actually_ confronting a
person who _is_ dishonest (rather than making mistakes and merely
dishonest-seeming), _why_ would you even want to continue a
conversation with this person? If they've already self-consciously
and intentionally chosen to be dishonest, to "lie to you" as you put it,
why would they correct their behavior upon having it pointed out?
They've already chosen the risk of being caught out. And why
would they do that unless they didn't care? (Part of this inference is
predicated on the greater complexity of "intellectual dishonesty."
The analogy with lying simplifies it to one form, whereas intellectual
dishonesty--as you're well aware--takes on many subtler variations,
and because of this, I think, it produces a greater ease to
_not care_ about being called out. Think of Fox News as the
analogy, I think that might make greater sense.)
Perhaps we have differing underlying views of social psychology and
strategy (which is something I think we've known about each other
for a while). And maybe you were implicitly perceiving the discussion
being put back on track as not the one-on-one scenario my
discussion has been predicated on, but the wider idea of "the
discussion," like everyone participating in the thread, or the MD in
general, etc. This would impact strategy-choice. But in this case, as
an outgrowth of the above thinking, wouldn't calling someone out on
dishonesty _not_ be about them, but about on everyone else, making
it plan to the others that, if they haven't noticed yet, they shouldn't
take this dishonest person seriously? (The Arlo-function, if you will.)
A dishonesty-assertion would be the opening of a rejection ceremony,
kicking the person out of the conversation (metaphorically, of course:
the difference between our management of ourselves and Horse's
management of us is that people _can_ always change, and Horse
allows a long leash for that, though our social-leashes, trust and
what Pirsig called gumption, is a renewable resource that can be
exhausted if one's not careful).
I don't know. Like I said, perhaps we have two different views about
social psychology and the maintenance of an ethical social sphere. I
think we largely agree on what the virtues look like, just perhaps not
on the best way to get them from others.
Matt
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