The linked post had quite a lot of discussion of this sort of thing in the comments, and I hesitate to recapitulate it all, so please forgive the incompleteness of this reply… that said:
From the second comment / your quoted dialogue: I think that that kind of an attempt at clarifying the other person’s intent would also fall under the kinds of behaviors Rob endorses? He can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it’s not the kind of distortion he’s concerned about.
Perhaps, but if so, then my reply would be that Rob’s view does not go far enough!
Even if it wasn’t, I’m not sure that “trying to be charitable” is the problem there; rather it’s that Bob literally doesn’t understand what Alice is trying to say.
Yes, indeed he does not, but the point I was trying to make there is that Bob’s attempts to “charitably understand” Alice’s words get him further from understanding, instead of closer to it.
I mean, how plausible is it, really, that Alice says “it’s raining outside” and Bob just doesn’t get what the heck Alice is talking about? No doubt the natural way to read this fictional dialogue is to see the depicted subject matter as metaphorical, but just try reading it literally—it’s ridiculous, right? Alice is saying something perfectly ordinary and straightforward. How can Bob not get it? Is he crazy or stupid or what?
What I’m trying to convey is that being on the receiving end of this sort of “charitableness” often feels like being Alice in the dialogue. You just want to yell “No! Stop it! Stop trying to interpret my words ‘charitably’! Just read what I’m actually saying! This isn’t complicated!”
Anyway, we’re definitely in “recapitulating old discussion” territory now, so I’ll leave it at that… most of what I could say on the matter, I already said, so by all means check out my many other comments on that post.
(And it seems better to at least make that obvious and have the conversation stall there, than to miss that fact and continue the discussion in such a way that both parties are thinking they understand the other when they actually don’t.)
The problem, really, is—what? Not misunderstanding per se; that is solvable. The problem is the double illusion of transparency; when I think I’ve understood you (that is, I think that my interpretation of your words, call it X, matches your intent, which I assume is also X), and you think I’ve understood you (that is, you think that my interpretation of your words is Y, which matches what you know to be your intent, i.e. also Y); but actually your intent was Y and my interpretation is X, and neither of us is aware of this composite fact.
As I say in the comment, however, I think that attempts at “charity” are actually the opposite of a good solution to this!
How can Bob not get it? Is he crazy or stupid or what?
It looks to me like Bob doesn’t respect Alice enough to fully listen to her, and much prefers the sound of his own voice. As a consequence, he truly doesn’t understand her. A combination of status dynamics and not-concentrating humans not being general intelligences.
The linked post had quite a lot of discussion of this sort of thing in the comments, and I hesitate to recapitulate it all, so please forgive the incompleteness of this reply… that said:
Perhaps, but if so, then my reply would be that Rob’s view does not go far enough!
Yes, indeed he does not, but the point I was trying to make there is that Bob’s attempts to “charitably understand” Alice’s words get him further from understanding, instead of closer to it.
I mean, how plausible is it, really, that Alice says “it’s raining outside” and Bob just doesn’t get what the heck Alice is talking about? No doubt the natural way to read this fictional dialogue is to see the depicted subject matter as metaphorical, but just try reading it literally—it’s ridiculous, right? Alice is saying something perfectly ordinary and straightforward. How can Bob not get it? Is he crazy or stupid or what?
What I’m trying to convey is that being on the receiving end of this sort of “charitableness” often feels like being Alice in the dialogue. You just want to yell “No! Stop it! Stop trying to interpret my words ‘charitably’! Just read what I’m actually saying! This isn’t complicated!”
Anyway, we’re definitely in “recapitulating old discussion” territory now, so I’ll leave it at that… most of what I could say on the matter, I already said, so by all means check out my many other comments on that post.
Indeed. To quote yet another of my comments on that same post:
As I say in the comment, however, I think that attempts at “charity” are actually the opposite of a good solution to this!
It looks to me like Bob doesn’t respect Alice enough to fully listen to her, and much prefers the sound of his own voice. As a consequence, he truly doesn’t understand her. A combination of status dynamics and not-concentrating humans not being general intelligences.