ccs
41st lv DM
As opposed to truely holding some of opinions, stances & practices you read of in threads?
“You do realize”
As opposed to truely holding some of opinions, stances & practices you read of in threads?
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
Could be.
But I also think sealion has become a pet term around here lately which is overused and being applied to some genuine devil's advocacy or just plain real dissent because it's easier than addressing the dissent. If you assume your dissenter is acting in bad faith (without exploring to find out if that is the case) you don't need to question your own position. And the more you dismiss dissent, the easier it becomes to dismiss even more dissent in the future, until you just assume most dissent is bad faith and stop looking to any external reason to question your position.
In addition, sometimes it doesn't matter if the dissent is bad faith, provided the arguments get you to question your own position in meaningful ways. If someone gets you to improve your viewpoint and means of communicating it, that's a good thing even if their intent wasn't good.
I find it much wiser to assume dissenters are genuine, and only dismiss them after proven otherwise and found to be not helpful to you.
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
I am also a midwesterner (transplanted to the Pacific Northwest about 15 years ago), and it's probably a cultural thing like you suggest. But the more I think about it, the more I think my personal problems with these phrases lie with how I parse them. I'm not neurotypical, you see, and my brain works in a very literal and analytical fashion. It's why I'm an engineer and scientist, and not a public speaker. I'm very much a "words have meanings" type of person.
So when someone starts a sentence with "I'm sorry" I try to read that as an apology, and if they follow it with the word "but" it switches to an exception. The phrase "I'm sorry but" then reads as a deception or misdirection. "I realize what I did was wrong, but I'm not going to apologize for it." It would be less condescending to just say "Don't take this the wrong way..."
The word "but" trips me up a lot in conversation, now that I think about it. Some people sprinkle their sentences and phrases with that word a lot, but my brain reads language like a math equation or computer code and every time it hits that "but" it reverses polarity. Like someone sprinkling negative integers into a math equation. "I'm sorry but" = I'm not sorry. "I don't want to sound __ but" = I want to sound that way. "I agree but" = I don't really agree. "I love hamburgers but" = I don't like hamburgers at all. It's very confusing to follow sometimes.
And likewise, when someone says "to be honest," my brain immediately wants to know why the speaker felt the need to clarify that this particular statement as honest, and I begin to wonder about the honesty of everything else that was stated up to that point. It flags the speaker as untrustworthy. "Oh now he's being honest? Why did he start now?" It doesn't help that this statement is also only ever used for opinions, not facts. "I know this is just my opinion, but it's very important for my argument that you agree, so I'm going to flag it as honest and see if it slides past." In both cases, it would just be better to say "In my opinion..."
These are just little linguistic tics that my brain has. I've learned to deal with them, but they still make my eye twitch from time to time and make it harder for me to understand stuff sometimes.
But it's not entirely my brain's fault. The "devil's advocate" statement will always and forever read as "I am a jerk who always wants to argue." Maybe that wasn't always the case, but it certainly is now in the Age of the Internet. Folks who declare themselves the devil's advocate in a discussion aren't trying to engage in meaningful discourse, they are only trying to express a caustic point of view while insulating themselves from negative criticism or backlash. "Hey, don't be mad at me, I'm just playing the devil's advocate here..." Ugh, nobody needs that. It would be better to just spit it out and let the chips fall where they may. "Have you considered..."
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The Devil’s Sealion it is, then!
I am sure it is mis-attributed from time to time, but really, not all that much, at least not here.
Sealioning is a form of harassment. It is using a veneer of civility to claim a right to continue to get engagement from the target*. An honest dissenter or honest Devil's Advocate, when told to stop... will stop. Rare indeed is there a person here who will disengage when asked to before Red Text comes out.
Dissension does not entitle you (generic you, not Mistwell in particular) to engagement with any particular person or discussion. If you badger, insist that it is "just an honest question" or that you are "just playing Devil's Advocate" as a way to justify your unwanted presence in a conversation, the situation is not honest. Your disagreement may be genuine, but your mode of engagement is not.
A truly honest Devil's Advocate will ask, "May I play Devil's advocate here," and wait for consent before continuing. It should be set up before engaging, not as an excuse afterwards, and is entirely unnecessary in a space that already has several dissenters.
*"It is just an honest question! Why won't you answer it?"
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Lanefan
Victoria Rules
To speak bluntly for a moment: if dissension - in its many forms - isn't wanted in a discussion then it's no longer a discussion. It's an echo chamber.
Echo chambers are bad things.
And if the consent doesn't come, then what? All you're left with is another denial of dissension, even if in the case of the DA that dissension is purely theoretical.
It is - or should be, anyway - perfectly acceptable to speak* from a stance which you do not actually hold, in furtherance of discussion.
* - provided such speech is not hateful etc.
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
Then the discussion doesn't happen. Or rather, it can't happen, because discussion requires mutual participation. One must be willing to speak, and another must be willing to listen. If all I have is a speaker with no willing listeners, I have noise. If all I have are listeners and no willing speakers, I have silence. A dialogue must be built, and building something takes cooperation.
It took me (an embarrassing number of) years to understand that nobody owes me their attention, and some people will never, ever listen to what I have to say. I have to be okay with that. Maybe someone else will be able to get my message to them, or maybe they will grow to be more receptive over time, but that's on them. Past a certain point, all I can do is drop it.
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Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Many very serious problems both present-day and historic are rooted in people being unwilling to listen and-or simply refusing to hear or acknowledge opinions (or facts!) with which they disagree.
Which is fine, though it shouldn't stop you from saying what you're going to say and thus giving them the opportunity to not listen.
If you say it, the chance of your words being heard is greater than zero.
If you don't say it, the chance of your words being heard is exactly zero.
Agreed. My point is that "a certain point" should never come before trying at all.
Bagpuss
Legend
No offence, but you do realize, that I actually want to sound like and a-hole on this occasions just to make it aboslutely clear that I'm having to explain to you something everyone knows.
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