Response to another good comment from Ram
Ram – Yes, there are crusade and controversy opportunities all around us. I have a good strategy for dealing with some of those situations – ask questions, ask more questions, then summarize – “So if I understand, you’re telling me that the world is totally controlled, including all the governments and all the big companies, by six men in Switzerland, and you know this because you read it on a blog, but you don’t know who wrote the blog. Is that correct?”
Sometimes the more questions you ask them, the more your adversary unravels.
There are many ways to end this – “So, what do you plan to do tomorrow?” Or “Well, how has the skiing been this year?” Etc. Or you can say “Really???” Or “Well, I don’t agree.” But those keep the conversation open, which you don’t want. Unfortunately, I don’t remember to use this good strategy very often.
But the one I sometimes remember to use is a better strategy, “Goodbye.”
If you’re dealing with a conspiracy nut, they’ve done research, using confirmatory bias, and will present “facts” to prove their case. And they’re totally wedded to it, because being one of the few elite privileged to this secret knowledge makes them important. You’re not equipped with facts, because you haven’t spent time on the subject, and your opinion is based on commonsense, common knowledge, and your own confirmatory bias. Thus, you are at a disadvantage in an argument, which would be totally pointless and a waste of time anyway.
“You can’t win, you can’t break even, and you can’t get out of the game.”
But in fact, you can get out of the game.
Doug
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Another way to deal with arrogant ignorance?
Someone I know, faced with to-frequent unsolicited advice from her mother-in-law, finally hit on an effective strategy for not getting into a conversation or conflict about things she’d already thought through. When the advice began, she’d cock her head just a little as if she were considering, and when her mother-in-law was done, she’d say, “Hm. Well, that’s something to think about.” And then change the subject.
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betsy – you nailed it. i find unrequested advice is rarely appreciated, either when i give it or when i receive it. of course, if some one comments here, i always appreciate it and do claim the privilege of sometimes assuming they were requesting advice
and as always, thank you for commentin
doug
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I only now read these comments, somehow (this wordpress page doesn’t agree with any of my browsers and sometimes I miss a lot) and I’d like to add something to unrequested advice: sometimes we really do feel we could help the other person, but they just needed to vent or they don’t want to feel like they’re being patronized. I find that a trick that really helps when you want to give unrequested advice is to put it in form of a question “Oh, why can’t you do it like….”. This question shows that you assume the listener has thought of the obvious, but you have an interest in knowing why the obvious doesn’t work. Either the listener will then have the advice because he/she hadn’t thought of it, or you’ve just helped to move the conversation forward – sometimes people really thought of the obvious, but there’s a reason why it won’t work and they didn’t bother mention it.
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ram – you are getting very good at identifying and using strategies. as always, thanks for commenting
doug
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Lisa – it works pretty well, nothing is 100%
thank you for commenting
doug
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The advice is spot on, Doug, but the dancing squirrel made me laugh out loud.
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oren- great! a picture is worth —, but a laff is worth even more.
thank you for commenting
doug
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“ask questions, ask more questions, then summarize” I love this!! I will use this for sure.
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