“Sorry if it offends you, I just don’t think in general that you should apply this stuff to society. Like… no.”
Let me translate: “You should do what I say because I said so.” This is an attempt to overpower you and is quite common. Anyone who insists that you accept their belief without logical justification is simply demanding that you do what they say because they say so. My response, to people who can be reasoned with, is often just to point this out and point out that it is extremely offensive. If they cannot be reasoned with then you just have to play the political game humans have been playing for ages.
A more charitable translation would be “I strongly disagree with you and have not yet been able to formulate a coherent explanation for my objection, so I’ll start off simply stating my disagreement.” Helping them state their argument would be a much more constructive response than confronting them for not giving an argument initially.
It is not as much that they haven’t given an argument or stated their position. It is that they are telling you (forcefully) WHAT to do without any justification. From what I can tell of the OP’s conversation this person has decided to stop discussing the matter and gone straight to telling the OP what to do. In my experience, when a conversation reaches that point, the other person needs to be made aware of what they are doing (politely if possible—assuming the discussion hasn’t reached a dead end, which is often the case). It is very human and tempting to rush to the ‘Are you crazy?!! You should __.’ and skip all the hard thinking.
It sounds like the generic “you” to me. So “you shouldn’t apply this stuff to society” means “people shouldn’t apply this stuff to society.” I don’t see anything objectionable about statements like that.
Given the ‘Sorry if it offends you’ and the ‘Like… no’ I think your translation is in error. When a person says either of those things they are A. saying I no longer care about keeping this discussion civil/cordial and B. I am firmly behind (insert their position here). What you have written is much more civil and makes no demands on the other party as opposed to what they said ”… you should ….”
That being said, it is often better to be more diplomatic. However, letting someone walk all over you isn’t good either.
“Like...” = “I’m about to explain myself, but need a filler word to give myself more time to formulate the sentence.” “no” = “whoops, couldn’t think of what to say quick enough to avoid an awkwardly long pause; I’d better tie off that sentence I just suggested I was about to start.” I’m not quite sure what to make of “Sorry if it offends you”, but I don’t see how you can get from there to “I’m not even trying to be polite.”
Their conversation was longer than one sentence. If his discussion partner wouldn’t have backed up his point in any way, I doubt mszegedy would have felt enough cognitive dissonance to contemplated suicide.
“You should do what I say because I said so.”, generally doesn’t make people feel cognitive dissonance that’s that strong.
“Sorry if it offends you, I just don’t think in general that you should apply this stuff to society. Like… no.”
Let me translate: “You should do what I say because I said so.” This is an attempt to overpower you and is quite common. Anyone who insists that you accept their belief without logical justification is simply demanding that you do what they say because they say so. My response, to people who can be reasoned with, is often just to point this out and point out that it is extremely offensive. If they cannot be reasoned with then you just have to play the political game humans have been playing for ages.
A more charitable translation would be “I strongly disagree with you and have not yet been able to formulate a coherent explanation for my objection, so I’ll start off simply stating my disagreement.” Helping them state their argument would be a much more constructive response than confronting them for not giving an argument initially.
It is not as much that they haven’t given an argument or stated their position. It is that they are telling you (forcefully) WHAT to do without any justification. From what I can tell of the OP’s conversation this person has decided to stop discussing the matter and gone straight to telling the OP what to do. In my experience, when a conversation reaches that point, the other person needs to be made aware of what they are doing (politely if possible—assuming the discussion hasn’t reached a dead end, which is often the case). It is very human and tempting to rush to the ‘Are you crazy?!! You should __.’ and skip all the hard thinking.
It sounds like the generic “you” to me. So “you shouldn’t apply this stuff to society” means “people shouldn’t apply this stuff to society.” I don’t see anything objectionable about statements like that.
Let me offer a different translation: “You are proposing something that is profoundly inhuman to my sensibilities and is likely to have bad outcomes.”
Rukifellth below has, I think, a much more likely reason for the reaction presented.
Given the ‘Sorry if it offends you’ and the ‘Like… no’ I think your translation is in error. When a person says either of those things they are A. saying I no longer care about keeping this discussion civil/cordial and B. I am firmly behind (insert their position here). What you have written is much more civil and makes no demands on the other party as opposed to what they said ”… you should ….”
That being said, it is often better to be more diplomatic. However, letting someone walk all over you isn’t good either.
“Like...” = “I’m about to explain myself, but need a filler word to give myself more time to formulate the sentence.” “no” = “whoops, couldn’t think of what to say quick enough to avoid an awkwardly long pause; I’d better tie off that sentence I just suggested I was about to start.” I’m not quite sure what to make of “Sorry if it offends you”, but I don’t see how you can get from there to “I’m not even trying to be polite.”
Their conversation was longer than one sentence. If his discussion partner wouldn’t have backed up his point in any way, I doubt mszegedy would have felt enough cognitive dissonance to contemplated suicide.
“You should do what I say because I said so.”, generally doesn’t make people feel cognitive dissonance that’s that strong.