[ZenoArrow]

> "I had always trained myself to judge the producer of input by the intent of the producer, rather than by how it affected me"

Then I applaud you, as that is a vital skill, rarely understood. So much miscommunication happens because content is easier to follow than intent, yet understanding intent is what really lets you get to know someone.

[JohnBooty]

Judging somebody's intent is great - but consider how much better it works on some scales than others.

Suppose you and I are close friends. We've known each other for years. We understand each others' intents pretty well. Last year I totally forgot your birthday - and you didn't get mad, because you know I was busy with a family emergency and my intent wasn't to make you feel like crap. Similarly, sometimes you make extremely tasteless jokes: jokes about murder or maybe even racial issues. I laugh at them because I have a similar sense of humor and I understand your intent very well: I know you're a caring human being and they're just jokes, for crying out loud.

And that's how friendships are supposed to work. We understand each other and don't get bothered over the small stuff.

But how well does that work with people that don't know each other well? A heck of a lot less well. You can't possibly know everybody's intents. The guy on the bus? The guy handing out leaflets? The loudmouth in your university lecture hall?

I used to joke about a lot of things that I don't joke about any more, at least in public. In my mind when I made those jokes, I was actually parodying the kinds of people who earnestly believed really shitty things. But to people that didn't know me well, I was at times indistinguishable from the actual bad guys. I felt I had a choice: be more selective with my humor, or hide behind the old "but my intentions were good!!!!!" excuse.

[ZenoArrow]

Sadly I know the judgement side of the equation too, and it's natural to tone down your behaviour in some situations, but aside from that you can't stop people misunderstanding you, but you can try to understand them.

Learning to gauge intent is easy enough to summarise... 1. Listen to the words, then take your time to consider why they were said. 2. Give people the benefit of the doubt to start. It's not always accurate, but it'll lead you the right intention most of the time.

One further point, when people misjudge you, it can be easy to adjust your behaviour so you validate their opinion, don't do that. It's easy to say, but I promise you'll be better off if you're comfortable with your own intentions, regardless of how they've been interpreted. A little extra patience can sometimes let people catch on, but otherwise no need to dwell on it.

[blumkvist]

Great comments, yours and the "parent's". Very eloquently put. I have had problems with people thinking I'm arguing or attacking their ideas, when I am only looking for a debate and a more thorough view of their ideas and line of thinking.

This forced me to rethink my communication skills and try to change my approach of conversing. I've found that people who understand those concepts can use them to their advantage and benefit immensely in all sorts of settings.

[JohnBooty]

   > I have had problems with people thinking I'm arguing or
   > attacking their ideas, when I am only looking for a 
   > debate and a more thorough view of their ideas and 
   > line of thinking.

Noble intent, poor execution.

Consider that people in oppressed groups (women, victims of sexual assault, ethnic minorities) have had their legitimacy questioned and denied throughout most if not all of history.

And then along comes you, the noble truth-seeker. Probing and questioning their views. Looking for logical holes. What wonderful subjects these people make for your rhetorical sparring!

The reality is that your intentions are good but from their perspective, chances are that you sound pretty much the same as the last few millenia of people that have shouted them down and questioned their legitimacy. Give them room to express their views, even if you think they're wrong, because this is something they are often denied the right to do.

The solution is simple but not easy. Make sure you're listening and reading a hell of a lot more than you're speaking and writing.

I 100% believe your intentions are good, by the way. Just understand that intent is not magic.

[Thriptic]

> Give them room to express their views, even if you think they're wrong, because this is something they are often denied the right to do.

Everyone should have a platform to safely express their opinions, but if their opinions are incorrect then they should be challenged and debated. Statements shouldn't be protected from scrutiny just because they are being uttered by a woman or a minority.

[tunesmith]

So, a couple of things - I enjoy thinking about this subject so I've made some distinctions for myself on this in the past.

First, I like the distinction between dialectic and debate. It's possible to learn more about someone's point of view through asking interested questions and (together) exploring where their beliefs lead, without necessarily challenging them in a debate sense. Debate often means scoring points using non-logical rhetoric. Dialectic is more the spirit of being on the same team, exploring a point together, and I don't see it as less efficient in any sense.

Second, normative conclusions (as most opinions are) are a combination of moral axioms and a bunch of logical syllogisms. I think an opinion can be judged "incorrect" in two ways. First, they are reasoning badly from their premises (valid but unsound). That can be fun to explore in a dialectic sense to see if the logical framework can be tightened up or if the conclusion can be modified. But the other common way an opinion can be "incorrect" is if it soundly, logically flows from moral axioms (values) that you simply disagree with. And those sorts of axioms aren't correct or incorrect by definition. This is usually the appropriate time to agree to disagree, or respect where the other person is coming from.

But either way, this all requires having a certain level of empathy or respect for your counterpart's point of view and intent.

[ticviking]

> Everyone should have a platform to safely express their opinions, but if their opinions are incorrect then they should be challenged and debated. Statements shouldn't be protected from scrutiny just because they are being uttered by a woman or a minority.

Precisely this. Granting special exemption from the normal process of discourse and debate is infantilizing. Treating someone as your equal and expecting that they are capable of defending their ideas is not wrong, particularly when they share their ideas in the public sphere.

[JohnBooty]

   > if their opinions are incorrect

Yes, for things with objective answers. If somebody is, you know, claiming that Mac OS9 was better than Windows 95 because OS9 had preemptive multitasking and Win95 didn't - then sure, correct them.

When we're in the realm of issues like racial inequality, gender relations, etc - I'd be really cautious about deeming anybody "incorrect."

These are issues that have challenged humankind as long as we've been on this Earth, and we haven't exactly worked out any ironclad solutions yet.

[Gifford]

But computer programmers are logical by training and profession, so we can trust that our own analyses are always correct.

[Gifford]

Try putting as much effort into correcting your own mistakes as you do into correcting others. Being correct but in a biased way is practically equivalent to being wrong.

[blumkvist]

Well, I'm making conscious effort to improve, but to be fair I never did quite go so far as to question obviously disturbed people. What I describe is more in line with a heated discussion of politics or history.

In any case, this lead to micro conflicts I wasn't aware of and so poor relationships.

Your solution is spot-on. I had such difficulty following through, that I literary tied up a piece of red string on my left wrist to remind me of conflicts and my unmindfulness. Nowadays the Internet is my battleground for heated debate :)

[JohnBooty]

I'm with you in a lot of ways. Debate/dialectic/etc is how I generally would like to come to an understanding of things. And that's not wrong. It's just... a lot of people don't work that way, and frankly we're being jerks if we try to force it on others.

[jnbiche]

I agree that the GP and GGP both are great points, and I aspire to that state of mind myself (not always reaching it, but trying to).

That said, it definitely bugs me when someone comes to be "looking for a debate", so that may be why people have reacted negatively. I can generally tell when someone's genuinely concerned with an issue, and when someone wants to provoke me into a debate. I prefer not to spend much time with people who do the latter.

However, I recognize that we may be understanding the term "debate" differently here. To me, the emphasis in a debate is on the debating prowess of the participants. Whereas in a discussion, the emphasis is on the issue to be solved. You may well be referring to what I think of as a discussion.

[dkersten]

To me, the difference between what I read blumkvist to mean by debate and what I read you to mean is that blumkvist's debate is more like your discussion - teasing out the details, attacking the issue from a different angle to find out what the limits are, finding not just the flaws and shortcoming, but also the benefits of whatever is being discussed.

Often this is done by playing devils advocate or by playing dumb and getting the other people to really explain their viewpoint. I do this too when I either don't properly understand what is being presented and I want to encourage others to flesh it out and explain it in a way that I get it, or if I see the ideas as being too vague or risky and I want to make sure all of the pros and cons have been properly considered. Often I will then concede, because the idea really was a good one, but sometimes I dig in if I feel like it isn't being resolved.

I'd say I go looking for a discussion in these cases, but its not up to me to judge - only other people can tell you if I do it tactfully or not. I'll make an effort not to be too confrontational.

[Gifford]

On some topics of debate, as it goes, they say, "the Devil has enough advocates already".