In some cases, people think it’s rude to suggest to someone that they’re wrong.
Suggesting that someone is wrong is a status move—the person correcting is expressing that they have higher status than the person being corrected. At least this is how neurotypical people would evaluate the interaction. Their model of Harry tells them that Harry believes to have higher status than everyone else, which means that he should be punished to learn his proper place in the tribe.
While directly highlighting a deficiency and offering replacement is a straightforward way there are ways of addressing them. They often require more work but can have such benefits as not triggering adverse social mechanisms. One such route is to get really enthusiastic on the wrong idea and carry it on to it’s more extreme side where it can be apparent how absurd the idea was in the first place. The original proposer gets to do the error correction and withdrawal. Thus one can be an active force for truth without being brutal about it.
If am a doctor and complain that my patients don’t allow themselfs to be injected with a needle it would be pretty premature to call them “anti-medicine” if they take pills without objections. True you can’t give pills to an unconcious person and some substanes don’t really survive the stomach, so you can’t replace needles with pills fully. However as a doctor I am to heal things and it would run counter to my objectives to insist to use only needles (especially if there are people that would not get any treatment). Even if I thought that needles are on average better and that conditions should be improved so that needle use is enabled.
Similarly with sanity insisting on methods can make you tackle a narrower problem than the one you are facing.
Suggesting that someone is wrong is a status move—the person correcting is expressing that they have higher status than the person being corrected. At least this is how neurotypical people would evaluate the interaction. Their model of Harry tells them that Harry believes to have higher status than everyone else, which means that he should be punished to learn his proper place in the tribe.
Well said.
While directly highlighting a deficiency and offering replacement is a straightforward way there are ways of addressing them. They often require more work but can have such benefits as not triggering adverse social mechanisms. One such route is to get really enthusiastic on the wrong idea and carry it on to it’s more extreme side where it can be apparent how absurd the idea was in the first place. The original proposer gets to do the error correction and withdrawal. Thus one can be an active force for truth without being brutal about it.
Pretending to e enthusiastic about an idea in which one doesn’t believe for tactical reasons can come off as condescending. It not always a safe move.
If am a doctor and complain that my patients don’t allow themselfs to be injected with a needle it would be pretty premature to call them “anti-medicine” if they take pills without objections. True you can’t give pills to an unconcious person and some substanes don’t really survive the stomach, so you can’t replace needles with pills fully. However as a doctor I am to heal things and it would run counter to my objectives to insist to use only needles (especially if there are people that would not get any treatment). Even if I thought that needles are on average better and that conditions should be improved so that needle use is enabled.
Similarly with sanity insisting on methods can make you tackle a narrower problem than the one you are facing.