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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 7978494" data-attributes="member: 177">Sure.&nbsp; But there is a world of difference between admitting the difference between, &quot;in my experience X,&quot; and, &quot;X is true&quot;.&nbsp; The rhetorical positioning is different.&nbsp; The thought process is different - if you explicitly admit that a thing is your impression, you implicitly admit that it may not be representative, and have to allow for your impression not holding globally, that the experience of others could legitimately be much different.Human discourse has a &quot;stake in the ground&quot; component - if a person asserts a thing as true, that person feels a certain emotional commitment to defending it.&nbsp; If you don't defend it, you may be publicly seen as wrong, and that's not great.&nbsp; Meanwhile, if we put that stake in the ground and successfully defend it, we are publicly seen as correct, and that's good!&nbsp; This leads us to argument far beyond the limits of our actual knowledge, to avoid publicly being seen as wrong.But, if you don't firmly put your stake in the ground, you avoid most of that.&nbsp; If you leave yourself and others some wiggle room, you don't risk the emotional trap nearly as much.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 7978494, member: 177"] Sure. But there is a world of difference between [I]admitting[/I] the difference between, "in my experience X," and, "X is true". The rhetorical positioning is different. The [I]thought process[/I] is different - if you explicitly admit that a thing is your impression, you implicitly admit that it may not be representative, and have to allow for your impression not holding globally, that the experience of others could legitimately be much different. Human discourse has a "stake in the ground" component - if a person asserts a thing as true, that person feels a certain emotional commitment to defending it. If you don't defend it, you may be publicly seen as [I]wrong[/I], and that's not great. Meanwhile, if we put that stake in the ground and successfully defend it, we are publicly seen as [I]correct[/I], and that's good! This leads us to argument far beyond the limits of our actual knowledge, to avoid publicly being seen as [I]wrong[/I]. But, if you don't firmly put your stake in the ground, you avoid most of that. If you leave yourself and others some wiggle room, you don't risk the emotional trap nearly as much. [/QUOTE]

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