You are doing exactly the thing pg talks about in this essay -- making up a fictional version of what the other person said so that you can argue with it.
Am I really going wrong in interpreting this text as saying "it's wrong to criticize impoliteness if the author happens to be right"?
>Someone was telling the author that he would achieve more if he phrased his point in a more "polite" way, just because the certainty of the writing made the critic mad. Thankfully, the author was here in the comments responding, and he didn't budge.
>That interaction was very refreshing for that very reason: The author was right, knew he was right, someone didn't like that the author knew he was right, but the author remained steadfast.
I interpret that quote differently. To me, it says, “some people mistake being right for being impolite; don’t listen to those people.” I can imagine that someone could confuse being right for impoliteness would happen if the other person were right about an inconvenient truth.
I don’t think the quote says anything about ways of being impolite that don’t consist solely of being right, such as being impolite by swearing at someone.
I read it all again with your interpretation in mind and it looks like that one was intended.
I think I missed or skipped past that interpretation to another because I think luord's original framing was a very misleading/unuseful way of looking at a situation. The post he linked to (elsewhere in the thread, that prompted his original post) wasn't complaining just about someone's certainty, but their impoliteness while being so certain. It seems very misleading to reduce this down to being a complaint about being "too certain", rather than being about tone/politeness:
>Y'know, you can have all the valid points in the world and still come on a _bit_ too strong.
>I get the point the author is making re: LARPing, but this kind of attitude and tone is bordering (or, bluntly: is) condescending to anyone who doesn't know as much as you.
Sure, they phrase it as "coming on too strong" at first, but then they get specific and talk about the tone/attitude problems. They suggest things that could be changed other than the certainty level.
>Someone was telling the author that he would achieve more if he phrased his point in a more "polite" way, just because the certainty of the writing made the critic mad. Thankfully, the author was here in the comments responding, and he didn't budge.
>That interaction was very refreshing for that very reason: The author was right, knew he was right, someone didn't like that the author knew he was right, but the author remained steadfast.