[meta third-removed]
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??
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-04-08 12:57 am (UTC)I think either people 'get it' or don't, at least with me... and when there's a misunderstanding I usually blame myself, but... with some people it literally takes years to get 'on the level'. I can only imagine how long it'd take with someone who wasn't trying very hard ^^; It's just-- many people are nice, y'know, many more than are mean, but so few actively try to engage people on the subjects that either fluster or confuse or bother them. Which makes sense, but it's a source of many problems, it seems like.
Haha, I think a lot of 'beta wolves' are also aggressive, in a cornered-starving-wolf way, and a lot of aggressiveness in general is really defensiveness, because a -real- natural-born leader would know how to charm and mess with people more subtly, right? Or else they're really pretending to be a leader. However, the 'better' BNF/leader-types I've known are loving and inclusive until you cross some big issue of theirs, and then it's dominance all the way (meaning, they just start telling you what to do). I just think it doesn't work both ways-- nicer doesn't mean more understanding, even if understanding is nicer :>
no subject
Date: 2006-04-08 02:03 am (UTC)True. Some people are aggressive not to be leaders, but to never be wrong. *hopes that makes grammatical sense* Though in my experience, the so-called beta wolves tend to be more passive-aggressive. I wonder though, name aside, is that even a legit kind of aggression? :-?
It's just funny how some people cannot BEAR to be wrong. Which is ironic because they channel all that energy into aggression, obstinancy and denial to protect themselves from humiliation, when in fact it's those very things that strip them of their dignity...
no subject
Date: 2006-04-08 03:13 am (UTC)Of course, it's only in the psychotic extreme that this is Really Bad, but so many people are happily delusional, especially if their delusions or beliefs are based on some Authority they place some trust in (or alternatively, they live to thwart... sort of like a daddy complex). Meaning, it's not that they can't bear to be wrong so much as they can't bear to lose their 'Authority', even if it's not actually -theirs- but that of some other person (...or idea... or god... etc). Ahhh, people = messed up ><;;; *is vaguely distressed*