cranberry sauce!
Active listening is only useful if both parties are interested in finding resolution at the time of the conversation, i think.
If ego or fear is puffed up in either party, well you canāt actively listen to a moving target. And using those techniques with sociopaths and narccisists (or even those regressing due to trauma) will only bring you more hassle and pain. You can not find a win-win with people who only win when you lose. (not saying a thing about your spouse, rather an ex- of my own).
With a spouse (or family member) the stakes are higher. There is fear involved. Fear of loss. Fear of missing out. Fear of disrespect. Its ever so much more complicated. When it is someone we have given power in our life, its difficult to not feel like itās being used against us at times, and harder still to admit when it IS being used against us. I try not to talk or listen unless and until both people are calm and centered.
Oh, but thatās in person. Online? heck, all bets are off.
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Yes, Iāve learned that at certain times my husband is looking to let off steam, not seeking resolution. I just bow out of conversation then but that frustrates him as he insists he is actually seeking to have a real talk. But actually he is capable of genuinely apologizing and saying, āIām sorryā or addressing my real concern in a thoughtful and loving way - which is so refreshing. Itās just that as time goes on we learn each otherās moods and habits and when we avoid each other then, we feel shut out -but thereās no winning sometimes (Iām guilty too of this) and so what is the point of engaging when you know you only serve as a whipping boy?
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I figure so long as you put off resolution until both parties are calm, and then actually follow up when youāve sought a break, what could be better?
re:āwhipping boyā - exactly! Iām totally willing to engage with someone who seems unreasonable to try to bring them around to a calm centered mindset where theyāre not so reactive, and then listen. But if someone is just being abusive, or following me from room to room (or thread to thread on a message board) then theyāre clearly just trying to bully. The other side of that, of course, is bullying someone by refusing to engage, or to follow up later.
People are hard to communicate with. All we can do is work on our own habits, I figure, and keep the company of others on the same path.
I have a simple rule for people. Six simple phrases they need to have working use of:
yes
no
please
sorry
thank you
youāre welcome.
Anyone who cannot use all six is going to be painful. Sounds like your husband is a decent guy, at least.
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OK, please donāt click the banny-button in anger; at least give me a chance to rebut if anyone takes this the wrong way.
Yeah, I donāt get where we are as a society right now. Everyone has to have a label for everyone else. I think of the time a while back when some conservative labeled Kate Mulgrew a conservative because sheās pro-life. Andā¦wellā¦other than being pro-life, sheās pretty liberal.
Since I live about 100 miles from St. Louis, I canāt help but think about Ferguson and the local reaction, post-riots.
Thereās next to no sympathy.
Even people like my dad, who is very outspoken about the police being armed like theyāre military, and has ranted about police brutality, has lost sympathy.
I struggle to understand. But thereās this narrative now, that itās not about justice, and that it might even be fueled by racism, but against other races. And once the autopsy made it look like the cop shot in self defense, and that he had stolen from a convenience store a few minutes before, that was it for everyone.
Lost on everyone was that Brown was shot before the cops
And itās totally either/or. Either itās a story about an out-of-control cop gunning down an innocent, unarmed kid, or itās a brave cop taking down an out-of-control thug. Thereās no in-between. It canāt be that, yeah, Brown wasnāt the best kid on the face of the earth, but that Wilson was way out of line. And if Brown stole and/or reached for Wilsonās gun, we canāt have a conversation about the out-of-control police state. Nope. We canāt have both.
It makes me despair for the future.
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That is the subject of āMrs. Parkinsonās Lawā - a book that unfortunately assigns 1930s gender roles in ways that are unpalatable today, so itās not very popular. In the book, men are engineers and businessmen who are always looking for solutions, which makes them extremely aggravating conversationalists when their wives just need to vent and are not looking for someone else to give them a solution. The problems of pre-WW2 British housewives were typically either unsolvable (the milk man ran his float into a wall this morning, the milk was late in delivery, and there was no cream for the tea when the Vicar came to call) or have already been solved (I had to have the gardener thrash the stable-boy, he was nipping at your whiskey again). But sometimes a sympathetic ear is needed when one has had no opportunity to vent for a long time despite a sea of troublesā¦
Anyway, I am happy to see an example where the gender roles are reversed, because Iāve always thought that Parkinson was wrong to believe this was sexually determinedā¦
This I get.
I wonder though. Is it because no sympathy is deserved? Or because there just isnāt any in the populace? People cannot give a fuck that they simply do not have. Hard to blame them.
yeah, man. Fear. Fear is the mind killer.
I have no idea where to get some fucks to give, or some for the general populace either, but people are afraid - and fearful people rush to judgement. Fearful people tend to engage in (literal) black and white thinking. When you get black and white about something as skin-deep as skin color, wellā¦ itās hard to explain to people that theyāre dooming themselves.
This is why i will not watch a news show with flashing red lights, hosts who yell, or mere token opposition debaters (e.g. Colmes). Anyone who is rushing you to pass judgement is probably conning you on some level and ultimatley just stealing all the fucks, which you need, because you simply have to give them to enjoy this planet.
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Iāve been thinking a lot as a result of some conversations on this board about gender and emotions that the narrative that men are emotionally even and women have these mood swings due to hormones is a problem.
My husband has lots of times when his emotional balance is out of whack. If he doesnāt eat, is on a diet, wakes up early - all put him in a bad mood.
But he doesnāt have much awareness of these issues the way I, as a woman, do because Iāve been told there are times my moods are off. Sometimes heās good about acknowledging heās tired and itās not a good time to push him, but sometimes he just doesnāt seem to realize that he is seeing everything through a negative lens that day because heās hungry or got up super early - it makes it really hard on me to get blamed for not being understanding when I can see that itās not possible for me to say anything right.
and then I donāt know when a good time is sometimesā¦seems I am always looking for that magic moment when he is emotionally stable.
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We all forget that we view the world through a lens.
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Yes, we all do, but itās really helpful to at least some times acknowledge, āhey, lens seems a little messed up right now,ā to take the edge off. Maybe itās just that as a mom Iāve gotten used to monitoring those basics of Hungry? Tired? nonstop for another being for years on end at the start of my kidās life that itās ingrained in me that these things affect the lens sooo much.
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Well, the mods here are currently allowing screeching, ad hominem attacks if the person ranting and raving is a self-appointed guardian of racialist political correctness, so you certainly canāt have that conversation hereā¦ unless you are willing to ignore more than a few voices.
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Another reason we talk past one another. Hyperbole without humility.
I am always ready to believe that the fault in a breakdown of communication is mine, in fact I just got criticized for that stance during the most recent medievalist-flaming episode. How much more should I humble myself to you? What else can I do to demonstrate my humility? Is groveling appropriate? Is groveling necessary for certain types of people, and pride forbidden?
Furthermore, I donāt think that my previous post was at all hyperbolic. Is it necessary that I post examples, when youāve been part of several such conversations yourself? Do you really not see this happening?
Itās no limbo. Itās just that when you point out a behavior (screeching, ad hominem attacks) in a person. well, thatās fair enough. Some people screech. We can work together to make it all more harmonious, and identify behavior that isnāt okay and act to change it. Yeah, we can do that.
But, when you point out in the same sentence that the behavior is coming from a (self-appointed guardian of racialist political correctness), well thatās not an actual person is it? Thatās a caricature and a character assasination.
You canāt really insult someones character while trying to draw their attention to their behavior, because youāre asking them to pay attention to two things at once. Itās really like derailing your own complaint, and it always escalates conflict. Always.
So, to clarify my sentiment, Hyperbole (the character assasination, black and white thinking, four letter words) without humility (admitting often I screw it up too, hereās a second chance, friend!) is another reason we talk past other.
I hope answered you, I appreciate you asking my opinion.
It is necessary for you to admit maybe Iām ahead of you and also there is a mirror on the wall.
Othertimes itās the other way round?
You want to be right and someone else wrong? Then thatās a competition, not a conversation. Sometimes itās you. Sometimes me.
I tend not to namecall or assign value to the character of people I know only through text messages and message boards. I donāt know these people, how can I speak to their character?
If I say someone is driving trollies, i am describng behavior only. Not their soul. If someone -is- driving trollies they will take it as a comment directed at their person. After a pattern is established I may go so far as to say someone -is- disruptive, or -is- harrassing someone else.
if itās never you, or in a black and white sense not you -now- then weāre still talking past one another. See why I think that is so? Thatās the topic, rigght?
I think we all screw up all the time, and we should be careful about what rules we hold others to.
But really, do go looking for some examples of me character assassinating (rather than describing behavior). Itās not my thing. Iām open to such a review, absolutely. I do it regularly myself, by all means help.
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I think you frame these things in very absolutist terms.
We arenāt a society. We are many societies. I think itās not so tricky to understand, but many canāt or wonāt accept it.
Do they? Many people tend to generalize. You are doing the same thing here yourself. The very idea of āeverybodyā is a tyrannical, absolute thing. How could anybody know how āeverybodyā is? Yet, so many seem to feel as though they do, or that they should. I think itās a semantic trap where itās much easier to use all-or-nothing terms, but then people get confused when reality doesnāt fit these apparently common-sense expectations. Itās just lazy thinking and speech to not accept that some people are a certain way, or many people. Some might dismiss this as nitpicking, but I think the difference in conceptual framing is quite significant to how people represent and solve problems.
[quote=āShane_Simmons, post:65, topic:44368ā]
But thereās this narrative now, that itās not about justice[/quote]
Which is only one possible narrative.
Why do you assume that itās so polar? Not only are there in-betweens about everything, these in-betweens tend to be more numerous and more accurate than the lazy attempts to frame them in absolute terms. My guess is that most people are conditioned to āsolveā social problems by having emotional outbursts. Since most people feel so strongly, it tends to be difficult for them to think clearly and make decisions. So people complain about the same problems recurring throughout time.
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Edit: Replying to @AcerPlatanoides, post 74, but somehow the reply tag got eaten. Oh, itās back!
Having just read a few pages of your comment history, Iām happy to acknowledge that you personally do not engage in direct character assassination, and only very rarely do you indulge in ad hominem argument (such as the āturd in the punchbowlā line you directed at me, when I did not throw such an item myself but rather objected to the dismissal of the earlier posterās point due to said fecal matter).
I hope that my own comment history can withstand such scrutiny, and I admire your restraint.
Also, I apologize for misremembering who used the genetic fallacy to deride stoicism during the same pile-on - it was not you, and your comment was far more reasonable. I wish Iād responded to that, it would have bearing now. I got trolled hard in there, and I suppose I have only myself to blame.
But I disagree that āself-appointed guardian of racialist political correctnessā is a caricature. I really meant that as an thoroughly objective evaluation of displayed behavior by several people. Can you explain why it is incorrect in context? What am I missing?
I was talking about situations likeā¦ umā¦ how about this one? This isnāt racialist, itās gendered, but nonetheless this kind of target-seeking is a standard behavior here now. And in fact this person is actually one of the more reasonable ones, I could placate her fairly easily by explaining that I only meant precisely what I actually said. Which is a strange thing, isnāt it? That I have to tell people my quotes are actually quotes, and not special purpose āscare quotesā, and that we have to include disclaimers if we use words that have more than one possible interpretation, making sure that we leave no surface area available for attack, and that people have to say, āno, I didnāt mean what youād really like me to mean, I actually meant what I actually saidā if they donāt want to end up as conversational piƱatas.
Sure, no problem. You are often more informed and frequently better spoken than I am. And Iād be lying if I said Iāve never been publicly wrong. I respect people who show me that I have a wrong idea, because then I can fix it. They did me a huge favor!
I hate that kind of conversation. I would prefer to be illuminated, enlightened - not chastised, held up as an object of scorn, purposely denigrated - if I have a choice. I like to learn new things, which is why I should probably stop reading everything but Markās āmaker*ā posts and Xeniās space posts, I guess.
*not scare quotes. Mark uses that word, I do not, I am quoting him, thus quotes.
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and be accused of tone policingā¦
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Can we get rid of the snark, please?
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Dude, I like your style. Flat out. No worries.
Just that addressing someones character is an insult. And the response you get will always be to the insult, and not about the behavior.
Since you (I assume, as I do) only think such things because of their behavior, perhaps if they modify their behavior - my own opinion of them might change. Which, to them should be a non-event. I certainly donāt change my behavior because someone insults me.
However, if someone says hey, āthis thing you said thereā¦ it was rude and here is why I think soā I am a lot more likely to listen than if they append āyou assholeā to the end of the same sentence.
So, āself appointedā¦correctnessā = asshole in this context. Again, totally in my opinion.
Yeah, that is rough. That said, it is a question. I say ignore it or just name the behavior. In that case, cherrypicking. āI think that question takes one sentence of my response, which was really focused on XX, out of context, could you expand on your critique of my overall point, or accept that youāve misunderstood me?ā or something like that.
Being wrong is my favorite thing. Itās the only time I learn, and I like learning. Thanks again for the thoughtful response.
Well thanks. Youāre frequently more grounded than I am. It all works out.
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I wonder what would happen if I just started flagging those to the mods and putting ātarget seekingā in the reason for flaggingā¦
Thanks for your considered response. My current strategy is to completely avoid the discussion links for certain topics!
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