People tell themselves, Don’t sweat the small stuff. If someone does something really bad, someone will call them out.
Except it doesn’t work that way. Take it from me: kids are raped, wives are beaten, sons are disowned, money is drunk from a screw-top bottle and nobody says a fucking thing. We are rendered mute and cowardly by the need for tribe.
So when I see a group of people getting along and setting aside differences, I feel seething resentful anger, because I know: people will pay any price for harmony. They will sacrifice anything. Anyone. I am repelled, in no small part because I feel the same seductive pull toward making nice.
Silence is not good will. Someday you will be wronged, and your legacy of silence will stand behind the one who wronged you like an ally, and there will be no one to speak for you, not even yourself. – John Kusch
I find this so fascinating. I’ve met many people who have such an intense need not to rock the boat of relationships (close or distant) that they will not address problems with a retail bill, speak up about abuse, or defend those they know deserve defending (I’m not implying myself there).
On the other hand, I have also known many people who are so outraged at the daily slights and arrogances of others that even being friends with them is a sort of trial. (Aside: I was telling KT why I’d rather shower in public than in a friend’s home – I have become a little paranoid about using other people’s shampoo, about leaving any stray hair in the tub, about using the wrong towel.) The very definition of “High Maintenance Friendship”, to me, is one where you have to be constantly vigilant because one false move and you’ve put that friendship in jeopardy.
It seems to me that, in the sort of complex relationships that happen in the real world, we must know when to put aside minor irritations (for our own sake as well as others) AND when to stand up and calmly (or not calmly) say “that is not acceptable.”
I really remember those people who can walk that line, because they seem to be so rare, but honestly, I am more relaxed around them than anyone else, even those who would forgive anything in order to maintain a relationship. As Matt’s blog title says, criticism is the only known antidote to error, and I like to spend my time with people who have rational but solid expectations.
(Aside 2: I anticipate at least two people asking me what spurred this post into being. I like to think and I like to talk, that is the answer.)
In a typical week, the topic of this blog post is rarely far from my thoughts. I categorize everyone in my life into three categories.
There are those who “are rendered mute and cowardly for want of a tribe”. A certain brand of fluffy new-ager is so conflict-averse, that they oppose persuasion in general on principle. They regard attempts to judge between right and wrong, or true and false as arrogance rather than assistance.
Oh, don’t get me wrong! They will offer their own criticisms. Particularly– and most ironically– of the arrogance of criticisms. However, their criticisms of this or that are more based on loyalty than reality. The ecumenical spirit of peace, hovering above the fray of argument, disdainful of “emotional and verbal abuse”, is useful when convenient to them, and suddenly dropped when the shoe is on the other foot. I hear some of them describe themselves as Mama Bears. They are proud to be on the wrong side of a dispute if it is for the sake of relationship health. It is their badge of honor to stand by someone, right or wrong. Loyalty comes before good choices, fairness, or the avoidance of harm.
Secondly, I note who in my surroundings tend to occupy extremes: first, clamming up and not telling you their dis-satisfactions, and last, venting their pent-up dis-satisfaction into an unhelpful, uninformative, unspecific explosion. These twin strategies leave you ignorant of your offense, and without any path to atone. Their hostility is permanently unrepairable. This is to be expected from strangers who have nothing to gain or lose by attempting to set you straight, but is an unfortunate strategy for those close to each other.
Thirdly, occasionally I witness someone render constructive criticism. They cite a goal shared by both criticizer and criticizee. They point to specific words and actions of the criticizee that impair that goal. They show how those words and actions impair that goal. Perhaps they even suggest different words or actions that would set the matter right. This demonstrates that they actually I put that person in yet a third category. The consciousness-raiser.
At the end, I was going to say “This demonstrates that they actually value you enough to want to repair the relationship.”
There is a lot in your comment that I can’t agree with, over an above the “There are three kinds of people…” generalization fallacy.
As a person that makes an attempt on being non-judgmental, I take offense to the idea that my non-judgmentalism is due to weakness of purpose or being a fluffy-newager type.
Flip that on its head and I see being judging as a sort of personal relationship shorthand; labeling people is the same as dismissing their humanity, and states rather loudly, I don’t like you because you’re not like me.
I also don’t see much of a point in arguing with people. I’ve never seen anyone change their mind mid-argument. Most arguments I’ve seen or even been sucked into turn inevitably into a swinging dick competition where being vindicated socially means more than the ideas being batted about. It’s why mailing list flames burn on, but once taken off list fizzle. The combatants have no skin in the game. We are, after all, not much more than social apes and the battle for societal status is often both public and bloody. These type of conversations also belie the whole point in the first place, because they tend to polarize and entrench the views being batted around.
If a person wants to talk differences of opinion without the need to win an argument, or a simple exchange of ideas; I’m open to listen and chew on the idea. I pick up new and better ideas everywhere, and all I have to do is listen.
If all the above makes me a wishy-washy hippy, then maybe your problem isn’t caused by people like me.
You are right in a great many important respects, particularly your second-to-last paragraph, which I agree with wholeheartedly. Often, what seems to be a disagreement is just a misinterpretation of each other’s positions, as you have misinterpreted mine.
When the goal is trying to win, to get others to admit one is right, then the goal is no longer to be right one’s self. It just becomes a fight,. Occasionally there is enough at stake, of significant importance, that you have to insist on a point, but trying to get someone else to admit that you dominate them is counterproductive and not worth the cost. Wanting to win is a serious character flaw, and poisons everything.
That is not the only form that persuasion can or should take, which is why you’re saying right now what you are saying. You aren’t a hypocrite trying to win, are you? I know as well as you do that you’re not. You have a dissatisfaction and are using the #3 approach I described. You neither clammed up and silently decided never to talk to me again, nor do you take the anti-persuasion stance of a wishy-washy hippy, because you are using persuasion right now.
I am talking about the willingness to reveal one’s controversial position in the first place, and to allow someone else to do so. Not necessarily to push through to the bitter end.
(By the way, I cannot describe all the fine grains of human interaction in one blog comment, so I simplify to three. As we say in the Lojban community, infinite precision would come at the cost of infinite verbosity. The question is whether a simplification is precise enough to be useful, and in this case I find it useful.)