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Apr. 6th, 2006 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaAnother day, another semi-wank in the HP fandom, and-- thinking about what bothers me in the type of discourse here (well, not just fandom, it's really predominant in public discourse), I finally come to some sort of empathy & understanding of the Cult of Nice. Except... what I want isn't niceness-- that's a misnomer & wouldn't be helpful in the long run; what I'd want is to have a Cult of Understanding ('empathy' just sounds silly).
See, people are almost never 'too mean' or too blunt or too harsh for me; what they are, I'd realized, is too aggressive. Instead of stating things softly, like between friends discussing issues and having a two-way conversation, many people claim things, disclaim things, make spurious exaggerations and mocking arguments and generally act like this is All So Important Omg (or alternatively, so unimportant as to be laughable). I mean, who wants to be told to go to hell, but politely (in theory)? What I'd like is some attempt to understand without laying blame and picking sides: that's the truly civilized thing to be doing, isn't it?
The idea is obviously hopeless; you're never going to get people (esp. strangers) to 'just talk' in a heated discussion anymore than you're going to teach pigs to tap-dance; all I've realized is that 'niceness' is a veil for people needing something deeper and harder to fake with an act. You can't fake understanding, patience and subtlety the way you can 'act' nice, so of course most people don't demand it. Of course, my problem is that once I understand, I accept unless I think the person's saying something truly heinous and wrong instead of just... not right enough or deluded, and then people accuse me of siding with the person I accept. *sigh*
To come back to the idea of 'too aggressive': I think it's just that people tend to put things too firmly for my liking, whether they're polite or not, and -that's- what annoys me. It's like, they don't tend to question themselves, and if they do, they question themselves so much they can't tell their front from their back. It's the difference between wondering (open-ended) and claiming (definitive). When people 'wonder' in practice, generally, that means they just ask questions and -other- people get to be definitive, but that's not what I mean at all; I mean for people to question the presumptions that lead them to question-- and to think for themselves as far as possible solutions go, so that the ensuing conversation has some natural balance to it.
I was also thinking that I'm often accused of being 'too certain' and of saying 'this is just how the world is', and in a way I'm saying that right now. I think it's more like I'm always confused & unresolved, but keep myself trapped by constantly seeing other possibilities. Is there such a thing as seeing too much context??
See, people are almost never 'too mean' or too blunt or too harsh for me; what they are, I'd realized, is too aggressive. Instead of stating things softly, like between friends discussing issues and having a two-way conversation, many people claim things, disclaim things, make spurious exaggerations and mocking arguments and generally act like this is All So Important Omg (or alternatively, so unimportant as to be laughable). I mean, who wants to be told to go to hell, but politely (in theory)? What I'd like is some attempt to understand without laying blame and picking sides: that's the truly civilized thing to be doing, isn't it?
The idea is obviously hopeless; you're never going to get people (esp. strangers) to 'just talk' in a heated discussion anymore than you're going to teach pigs to tap-dance; all I've realized is that 'niceness' is a veil for people needing something deeper and harder to fake with an act. You can't fake understanding, patience and subtlety the way you can 'act' nice, so of course most people don't demand it. Of course, my problem is that once I understand, I accept unless I think the person's saying something truly heinous and wrong instead of just... not right enough or deluded, and then people accuse me of siding with the person I accept. *sigh*
To come back to the idea of 'too aggressive': I think it's just that people tend to put things too firmly for my liking, whether they're polite or not, and -that's- what annoys me. It's like, they don't tend to question themselves, and if they do, they question themselves so much they can't tell their front from their back. It's the difference between wondering (open-ended) and claiming (definitive). When people 'wonder' in practice, generally, that means they just ask questions and -other- people get to be definitive, but that's not what I mean at all; I mean for people to question the presumptions that lead them to question-- and to think for themselves as far as possible solutions go, so that the ensuing conversation has some natural balance to it.
I was also thinking that I'm often accused of being 'too certain' and of saying 'this is just how the world is', and in a way I'm saying that right now. I think it's more like I'm always confused & unresolved, but keep myself trapped by constantly seeing other possibilities. Is there such a thing as seeing too much context??
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-07 08:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-07 08:46 am (UTC)...I actually like a lot of 'sharp tongued serpents', but only when they're my friends & therefore 'get' me and know not to push me too far :> :> :>