If it turns out he was thinking of you, him saying this in writing doesn’t make things any worse. Damage, such as it is, is already done.
This seems to imply that if person A thinks bad things of person B and says this out loud, then the only effect is that person B becomes aware of person A thinking bad things of them. But that only works if it’s a private conversation: person C finding out about this may make them also like B less, or make them like A less, or any number of other consequences.
My presumption was that person A thinks bad things about class of people D, which B may or may not belong to and is worried that B belongs to, but when others think of D they don’t think of B, so C’s opinion of B seems unlikely to change. If people assume B is in D, then that would be different (although likely still far less bad than it would feel like it was).
There seems to be a common thing where statements about a class of people D, will associate person B with class D by re-centering the category of D towards including B, even if it’s obvious that the original statement doesn’t refer to B. This seems like the kind of a case where that effect could plausibly apply (here, in case it’s not clear, B is a reasonable critic and D is the class of unreasonable critics).
This seems to imply that if person A thinks bad things of person B and says this out loud, then the only effect is that person B becomes aware of person A thinking bad things of them. But that only works if it’s a private conversation: person C finding out about this may make them also like B less, or make them like A less, or any number of other consequences.
Yep, the chilling effect comes from the public ridicule, not Duncan’s individual judgement.
My presumption was that person A thinks bad things about class of people D, which B may or may not belong to and is worried that B belongs to, but when others think of D they don’t think of B, so C’s opinion of B seems unlikely to change. If people assume B is in D, then that would be different (although likely still far less bad than it would feel like it was).
There seems to be a common thing where statements about a class of people D, will associate person B with class D by re-centering the category of D towards including B, even if it’s obvious that the original statement doesn’t refer to B. This seems like the kind of a case where that effect could plausibly apply (here, in case it’s not clear, B is a reasonable critic and D is the class of unreasonable critics).