They are not taboo. They are hierarchy-restricted and for good reason. Turning the lens inward can only be done from a position of trust and accountability. Which is why all your examples fit a “mentorship/leadership role” frame.
Democratising the right to meta-conversation could be considered taboo, but again for good reason. It empowers unknown quantities, while also diffusing responsibility. Anything said cannot be unsaid, even if no decision is made. And a bad takes made on an individual level can be distanced by removing the leadership role, while collectively made bad takes will remain in the air in perpetuity.
So, while you might want to say all those things, the fact the feedback is people being offended, uncomfortable, embarrassed, and angry at your attempts is simply because you individually have not earned the right, and very likely by opening up the conversation to the room have extended a poisoned-invitation to those that know better than to claim it.
And arguably, the awkwardness itself is an inherent and much-needed barrier-of-entry to meta-conversations, exactly to illicit trepidation and cost-benefit analysis, preventing noise or bad-faith. As in any meta-conversation worth having, should be initiated at a cost.
While it might be restricted based on relationship state between people, I can’t agree that that makes it restricted to some sort of authority hierarchy. Accepting that such interactions imply an authority hierarchy is toxic and unhelpful.
If people find an interaction awkward, then they can bring that up. But it doesn’t warrant giving up your right to not bow to others as authorities in everyday conversation.
I like the descriptive point about it being hierarchy-restricted. That sounds at least partially correct. I can think of situations where such meta-conversation wouldn’t be taboo for someone who is high status, such as the CTO in example 1.
However, I can also think of situations where there just isn’t really (enough of) a status hierarchy. As for prescriptive claim that it should be hierarchy-restricted, I’m not sure. I could see things getting out of hand if everyone is allowed to initiate meta-conversation, but that also feels like a solvable problem. You need to establish some sort of norm about how to balance meta-conversation with object-level conversation. I also think that there needs to be a solution for situations without clear status hierarchies.
Accepting that “high status” is what authorizes it might be part of the issue in the first place here. Perhaps that’s what you need to get rid of? “status” is a pattern of authority-deference in a network structure that is weighted with significant balance in one direction. In general, such imbalances are unhealthy and show a bug in the social graph. Strong downvote for accepting hierarchy as normal. Find a way to plan how to make it go away from reality instead, perhaps? Focus on relationship state rather than single-variable “status”, for example.
It’s not so much that I’m endorsing the status hierarchy stuff. It’s more that I’m trying to take the action that has the best consequences. Perhaps your position is that 1) status hierarchy shouldn’t gatekeep meta-conversation, 2) my acting as if it does makes the norm stronger, which is a bad consequence, and therefore 3) I shouldn’t act as if it does. My objection is that (2) is extremely weak given that my action is just an extremely small drop in the bucket. I think it rounds to zero and that the discomfort I’d cause others and myself outweighs it.
Latching on to the “hierarchy” keyword as an object of ire, and completely disregarding “position of trust and accountability”, does a massive disservice to the thrust of the argument.
You can easily repackage the concept as “role-based”, with someone taking the position of mediator or chairperson by collective agreement. The point is that the person is made aware of their responsibilities to promote a better conversation and is expected to be more sensitive to the peculiarities of their role, including accepting in their turn the potential for feedback or meta-meta-conversations.
Specialisation, separation of concerns, and checks-and-balances are neither unhealthy nor show a bug in the social graph. Neither does deferring decision making to a delegated individual. Good networks don’t need to be homogenous.
I am consistently able to pull off being that role for the first time by simply doing this. Not the way I interact here on lesswrong, of course, that would never work, I’m too spicy here. But I gave an example in another thread.
They are not taboo. They are hierarchy-restricted and for good reason. Turning the lens inward can only be done from a position of trust and accountability. Which is why all your examples fit a “mentorship/leadership role” frame.
Democratising the right to meta-conversation could be considered taboo, but again for good reason. It empowers unknown quantities, while also diffusing responsibility. Anything said cannot be unsaid, even if no decision is made. And a bad takes made on an individual level can be distanced by removing the leadership role, while collectively made bad takes will remain in the air in perpetuity.
So, while you might want to say all those things, the fact the feedback is people being offended, uncomfortable, embarrassed, and angry at your attempts is simply because you individually have not earned the right, and very likely by opening up the conversation to the room have extended a poisoned-invitation to those that know better than to claim it.
And arguably, the awkwardness itself is an inherent and much-needed barrier-of-entry to meta-conversations, exactly to illicit trepidation and cost-benefit analysis, preventing noise or bad-faith. As in any meta-conversation worth having, should be initiated at a cost.
While it might be restricted based on relationship state between people, I can’t agree that that makes it restricted to some sort of authority hierarchy. Accepting that such interactions imply an authority hierarchy is toxic and unhelpful.
If people find an interaction awkward, then they can bring that up. But it doesn’t warrant giving up your right to not bow to others as authorities in everyday conversation.
I like the descriptive point about it being hierarchy-restricted. That sounds at least partially correct. I can think of situations where such meta-conversation wouldn’t be taboo for someone who is high status, such as the CTO in example 1.
However, I can also think of situations where there just isn’t really (enough of) a status hierarchy. As for prescriptive claim that it should be hierarchy-restricted, I’m not sure. I could see things getting out of hand if everyone is allowed to initiate meta-conversation, but that also feels like a solvable problem. You need to establish some sort of norm about how to balance meta-conversation with object-level conversation. I also think that there needs to be a solution for situations without clear status hierarchies.
Accepting that “high status” is what authorizes it might be part of the issue in the first place here. Perhaps that’s what you need to get rid of? “status” is a pattern of authority-deference in a network structure that is weighted with significant balance in one direction. In general, such imbalances are unhealthy and show a bug in the social graph. Strong downvote for accepting hierarchy as normal. Find a way to plan how to make it go away from reality instead, perhaps? Focus on relationship state rather than single-variable “status”, for example.
It’s not so much that I’m endorsing the status hierarchy stuff. It’s more that I’m trying to take the action that has the best consequences. Perhaps your position is that 1) status hierarchy shouldn’t gatekeep meta-conversation, 2) my acting as if it does makes the norm stronger, which is a bad consequence, and therefore 3) I shouldn’t act as if it does. My objection is that (2) is extremely weak given that my action is just an extremely small drop in the bucket. I think it rounds to zero and that the discomfort I’d cause others and myself outweighs it.
Latching on to the “hierarchy” keyword as an object of ire, and completely disregarding “position of trust and accountability”, does a massive disservice to the thrust of the argument.
You can easily repackage the concept as “role-based”, with someone taking the position of mediator or chairperson by collective agreement. The point is that the person is made aware of their responsibilities to promote a better conversation and is expected to be more sensitive to the peculiarities of their role, including accepting in their turn the potential for feedback or meta-meta-conversations.
Specialisation, separation of concerns, and checks-and-balances are neither unhealthy nor show a bug in the social graph. Neither does deferring decision making to a delegated individual. Good networks don’t need to be homogenous.
I am consistently able to pull off being that role for the first time by simply doing this. Not the way I interact here on lesswrong, of course, that would never work, I’m too spicy here. But I gave an example in another thread.