But I can see a way in which being wrong/making mistakes (and being called out for this) is upsetting even if you personally aren’t making a bucket error. The issue is that you might fear that other people have the two variables collapsed into one. Even if you might realize that making a mistake doesn’t inherently make you a bad person, you’re afraid that other people are now going to think you are a bad person because they are making that bucket error.
The issue isn’t your own buckets, it’s that you have a model of the shared “communal buckets” and how other people are going to interpret whatever just occured. What if the community/social reality only has a single bucket here?
Even if you have no intention to attack someone, have complete respect for them, just want to share what you think is true, etc., your public criticism could be correctly perceived as damaging to them. For reasons like that, I think it’s well worth it to expend a little effort dispelling the likely incorrect* interpretation of the significance of your speech acts.
*Something I haven’t touched on is self-deception/motivated cognition behind speech acts, where criticisms are actually tinged with political motives even if the speaker doesn’t recognize them. Putting in effort to ensure you’re not sending any such signals (“intentionally” or accidentally) is something of a guard against your subconscious, elephant-in-brain motives to criticize-as-attack under the guise of criticize-as-helpful.
More succinctly. You might actually be in Version 2 (actually “intentionally” sending hostile signals) even when you believe you aren’t, and putting in some effort to be nice/considerate/reconciliatory is a way to protect against that.
Also relevant here (especially to Version 3) is my shortform post on Communal Buckets.
Even if you have no intention to attack someone, have complete respect for them, just want to share what you think is true, etc., your public criticism could be correctly perceived as damaging to them. For reasons like that, I think it’s well worth it to expend a little effort dispelling the likely incorrect* interpretation of the significance of your speech acts.
*Something I haven’t touched on is self-deception/motivated cognition behind speech acts, where criticisms are actually tinged with political motives even if the speaker doesn’t recognize them. Putting in effort to ensure you’re not sending any such signals (“intentionally” or accidentally) is something of a guard against your subconscious, elephant-in-brain motives to criticize-as-attack under the guise of criticize-as-helpful.
More succinctly. You might actually be in Version 2 (actually “intentionally” sending hostile signals) even when you believe you aren’t, and putting in some effort to be nice/considerate/reconciliatory is a way to protect against that.