A few years ago, for example, when I went to see the play my girlfriend had done stage crew for, and she asked what I thought of it. She wasn’t satisfied with my initial noncommittal answers, so she pressed for more. Not in a “trying to start a fight” way; I just wasn’t doing a good job of being evasive. I eventually gave in and explained why I thought the acting had sucked, which did not make her happy. I think incidents like that must have contributed to our breaking up shortly thereafter. The breakup was a good thing for other reasons, but I still regret not lying to her about what I thought of the play.
It could be that the wrong lesson is being learned here. If someone were to write a relationship debugging cheatsheet flowchart it would almost certainly start with “Was I being a pussy[1]?”. Weakness is the problem here, the honesty is secondary. The pattern described is:
Request for feedback.
Evasiveness.
More requests.
More evasive answers.
Push for clear communication.
Critical comment.
That is one of the worst reply strategies imaginable[2]. It signals fear, lack of confidence, untrustworthiness, incompetence at navigating the flow of conversation and submissiveness. The precise details of the final reply there are not important. The reluctant honesty presented effectively as a ‘confession’ doesn’t work well. Reluctantly getting badgered into lying to say what you think she wants you to hear isn’t exactly optimal either.
If you want to lie in response to a social-feedback review situation then just do it, straight off. If you don’t want to lie then an option is to honestly say that you enjoyed the play and particularly liked <one of the many things that didn’t suck> and have a clear boundary against being pressed. Evasiveness then compliance is just way off.
People uncomfortable with that term can either replace it with a preferred one or do a search for previous discussions here of the etymology.
There are exceptions including but not limited to “get naked and start beating her with a maggot infested Koala liver”.
It signals fear, lack of confidence, untrustworthiness, incompetence at navigating the flow of conversation and submissiveness.
I don’t know—depends on the context. Imagine a relationship that is strongly based on the Guess culture. The interpretation then would be quite different:
Request for feedback.
Evasiveness (this is a signal: I won’t comment positively, don’t ask)
More requests (either “I didn’t understand your signal” or “I really want your positive comments”)
More evasive answers (another signal: I REALLY won’t say positive things, back off, you’re setting yourself for a fall)
Push for clear communication (either “I’m clueless about your signals” or “I don’t fucking care”)
Critical comment (“Well, you forced the situation to this, if you really insist you can have it”)
Certainly not the best way a conversation can develop, but it’s mostly miscommunication, not lack of confidence or being not trustworthy.
I agree that the implications of a conversation can vary drastically based on the context. If we had a video of the conversation (even without the sound) we would have much more information about the social meaning than just seeing the words.
Certainly not the best way a conversation can develop, but it’s mostly miscommunication, not lack of confidence or being not trustworthy.
For whatever it is worth in my evaluation even in the ‘guess culture’ perspective would be that there is still some signal of both undesirable traits and likely of an underlying lack of respect when it comes to this kind of conversation. In not small part this is because guess culture initiates are supposed to get to the white lies sooner!
I can’t claim particular expertise at social dynamics—I’m just a curious observer who tries to comprehend what was once incomprehensible as best he can. As best as I can establish from what I do know that particular configuration of social persona—in the ‘normal’ guess culture—has some degree of social weakness of the kind that tends to result in bad outcomes for both parties. It is the kind of thing that reduces respect and happens to an instance where that instinctive reduction in respect happens to be practical and not just the human desire for association with the socially powerful.
People uncomfortable with that term can either replace it with a preferred one or do a search for previous discussions here of the etymology.
There are numerous ways you could have said the same thing (including the same connotations) without alienating parts of your audience. You clearly were aware you were going to alienate part of your audience, so why didn’t you use an alternate phrasing?
There are numerous ways you could have said the same thing (including the same connotations) without alienating parts of your audience. You clearly were aware you were going to alienate part of your audience, so why didn’t you use an alternate phrasing?
Because I don’t have have an alternative phrasing which does have the same meaning and connotations. The alternatives I did consider required a paragraph of explanation. (And, of course, my model of the people that have a problem with the phrasing expects most of them to find the fundamental claim offensive too and so, quite frankly, are not valued highly as a target audience for that kind of conversation.)
What’s wrong with wimp? Wuss might work too if the etymology is obscure enough to people.
SaidA’s answer is likely better than the explanation I could come up with. Those words cannot stand alone to convey the same meaning. (Tangentally, they are also frankly much more sexist and presumptively gender normative in practical usage than the term I used.)
There is also the critical desiratum that this kind of heuristic needs to be simple. It can’t be obfuscated behind a sentence of political correctness if it is to be used as the first step in a diagnostic flowchart. There needs to be a single word that has precisely the connotations that ‘pussy’ has. If there was another word that meant the same thing then I would be eager to use it. However the kind of people most inclined to suppress that term tend to be the same kind of people who don’t want there to be a word for the concept at all because they find any bare bones and literal discussion of social reality to be uncouth.
This is the kind of situation where I would be (and in the past have been) reasonably content to submit to the will of the participants ‘write off’ lesswrong as a place where useful conversation cannot occur but not willing to distort the discussion to appease social politics. I happen to think it’s an error to learn “My problem is that I don’t lie enough” when the explanation “I was being a pussy” fits perfectly but it isn’t a battle I am willing to spend social capital to fight.
“Wimp” and “wuss” have the connotations of weakness in conflict with other men, in personal, or at best, professional, circumstances. “Pussy” has the connotation (among others) of weakness in relationship power dynamics, which your suggestions do not.
If these indeed are the usual distinctions in connotation, thanks for the clarification. Some kind of a connotational dictionary would be nice, but I suppose the contents might change quite rapidly.
I use it quite often and would recommend it to others, but don’t have the impression that it’s accurate considering how illiterate and random many of the authors seem to be.
Connotation is tricky enough that it’s dangerous to presume any single source is accurate. Submitted definitions of poor average quality aren’t a fatal problem, so long as the people who vote, in aggregate, can distinguish useful information from garbage.
FWIW, I disagree with this. In my experience, they are synonyms, or the offensive one is a more intense verison of the other two. But I don’t see them as applying to different contexts.
It could be that the wrong lesson is being learned here. If someone were to write a relationship debugging cheatsheet flowchart it would almost certainly start with “Was I being a pussy[1]?”. Weakness is the problem here, the honesty is secondary. The pattern described is:
Request for feedback.
Evasiveness.
More requests.
More evasive answers.
Push for clear communication.
Critical comment.
That is one of the worst reply strategies imaginable[2]. It signals fear, lack of confidence, untrustworthiness, incompetence at navigating the flow of conversation and submissiveness. The precise details of the final reply there are not important. The reluctant honesty presented effectively as a ‘confession’ doesn’t work well. Reluctantly getting badgered into lying to say what you think she wants you to hear isn’t exactly optimal either.
If you want to lie in response to a social-feedback review situation then just do it, straight off. If you don’t want to lie then an option is to honestly say that you enjoyed the play and particularly liked <one of the many things that didn’t suck> and have a clear boundary against being pressed. Evasiveness then compliance is just way off.
People uncomfortable with that term can either replace it with a preferred one or do a search for previous discussions here of the etymology.
There are exceptions including but not limited to “get naked and start beating her with a maggot infested Koala liver”.
I don’t know—depends on the context. Imagine a relationship that is strongly based on the Guess culture. The interpretation then would be quite different:
Request for feedback.
Evasiveness (this is a signal: I won’t comment positively, don’t ask)
More requests (either “I didn’t understand your signal” or “I really want your positive comments”)
More evasive answers (another signal: I REALLY won’t say positive things, back off, you’re setting yourself for a fall)
Push for clear communication (either “I’m clueless about your signals” or “I don’t fucking care”)
Critical comment (“Well, you forced the situation to this, if you really insist you can have it”)
Certainly not the best way a conversation can develop, but it’s mostly miscommunication, not lack of confidence or being not trustworthy.
I agree that the implications of a conversation can vary drastically based on the context. If we had a video of the conversation (even without the sound) we would have much more information about the social meaning than just seeing the words.
For whatever it is worth in my evaluation even in the ‘guess culture’ perspective would be that there is still some signal of both undesirable traits and likely of an underlying lack of respect when it comes to this kind of conversation. In not small part this is because guess culture initiates are supposed to get to the white lies sooner!
I can’t claim particular expertise at social dynamics—I’m just a curious observer who tries to comprehend what was once incomprehensible as best he can. As best as I can establish from what I do know that particular configuration of social persona—in the ‘normal’ guess culture—has some degree of social weakness of the kind that tends to result in bad outcomes for both parties. It is the kind of thing that reduces respect and happens to an instance where that instinctive reduction in respect happens to be practical and not just the human desire for association with the socially powerful.
That’s the way I read it, BTW.
There are numerous ways you could have said the same thing (including the same connotations) without alienating parts of your audience. You clearly were aware you were going to alienate part of your audience, so why didn’t you use an alternate phrasing?
Because I don’t have have an alternative phrasing which does have the same meaning and connotations. The alternatives I did consider required a paragraph of explanation. (And, of course, my model of the people that have a problem with the phrasing expects most of them to find the fundamental claim offensive too and so, quite frankly, are not valued highly as a target audience for that kind of conversation.)
What’s wrong with wimp? Wuss might work too if the etymology is obscure enough to people.
I didn’t find your comment offensive and pretty much agreed with it, but might care if other people did.
SaidA’s answer is likely better than the explanation I could come up with. Those words cannot stand alone to convey the same meaning. (Tangentally, they are also frankly much more sexist and presumptively gender normative in practical usage than the term I used.)
There is also the critical desiratum that this kind of heuristic needs to be simple. It can’t be obfuscated behind a sentence of political correctness if it is to be used as the first step in a diagnostic flowchart. There needs to be a single word that has precisely the connotations that ‘pussy’ has. If there was another word that meant the same thing then I would be eager to use it. However the kind of people most inclined to suppress that term tend to be the same kind of people who don’t want there to be a word for the concept at all because they find any bare bones and literal discussion of social reality to be uncouth.
This is the kind of situation where I would be (and in the past have been) reasonably content to submit to the will of the participants ‘write off’ lesswrong as a place where useful conversation cannot occur but not willing to distort the discussion to appease social politics. I happen to think it’s an error to learn “My problem is that I don’t lie enough” when the explanation “I was being a pussy” fits perfectly but it isn’t a battle I am willing to spend social capital to fight.
“Wimp” and “wuss” have the connotations of weakness in conflict with other men, in personal, or at best, professional, circumstances. “Pussy” has the connotation (among others) of weakness in relationship power dynamics, which your suggestions do not.
If these indeed are the usual distinctions in connotation, thanks for the clarification. Some kind of a connotational dictionary would be nice, but I suppose the contents might change quite rapidly.
A strange idea, but not necessarily a bad one. I am intrigued.
How well does http://www.urbandictionary.com/ fit?
I use it quite often and would recommend it to others, but don’t have the impression that it’s accurate considering how illiterate and random many of the authors seem to be.
Connotation is tricky enough that it’s dangerous to presume any single source is accurate. Submitted definitions of poor average quality aren’t a fatal problem, so long as the people who vote, in aggregate, can distinguish useful information from garbage.
Moreover, connotations often depend on specific subcultures. In some connotations get inverted (e.g. “punk”).
FWIW, I disagree with this. In my experience, they are synonyms, or the offensive one is a more intense verison of the other two. But I don’t see them as applying to different contexts.
This seems broadly correct, but could you say more about
What does that look like? (A bit of sample dialog or somesuch would be particularly appreciated.)
Downvoted for the use of a gendered insult.