You are claiming very confidently, as if it’s a matter of common knowledge
As a decoupled aside, something not being a matter of common knowledge is not grounds for making claims of it less confidently, it’s only grounds for a tiny bit of acknowledgment of this not being common knowledge, or of the claim not being expected to be persuasive in isolation.
I agree. If you are very certain of X but X isn’t common knowledge (actually, “common knowledge” in the technical sense isn’t needed, it’s something like “agreed on by basically everyone around you”) then it’s fine to say e.g. “I am very certain of X, from which I infer Y”, but I think there is something rude about simply saying “X, therefore Y” without any acknowledgement that some of your audience may disagree with X. (It feels as if the subtext is “if you don’t agree with X then you’re too ignorant/stupid/crazy for me to care at all what you think”.)
In practice, it’s rather common to do the thing I’m claiming is rude. I expect I do it myself from time to time. But I think it would be better if we didn’t.
My point is that this concern is adequately summarized by something like “claiming without acknowledgment/disclaimers”, but not “claiming confidently” (which would change credence in the name of something that’s not correctness).
I disagree that this is a problem in most cases (acknowledgment is a cost, and usually not informative), but acknowledge that this is debatable. Similarly to the forms of politeness the require more words, as opposed to forms of politeness that, all else equal, leave the message length unchanged. Acknowledgment is useful where it’s actually in doubt.
In this case, Said is both (1) claiming the thing very confidently, when it seems pretty clear to me that that confidence is not warranted, and (2) claiming it as if it’s common knowledge, when it seems pretty clear to me that it’s far from being common knowledge.
As a decoupled aside, something not being a matter of common knowledge is not grounds for making claims of it less confidently, it’s only grounds for a tiny bit of acknowledgment of this not being common knowledge, or of the claim not being expected to be persuasive in isolation.
I agree. If you are very certain of X but X isn’t common knowledge (actually, “common knowledge” in the technical sense isn’t needed, it’s something like “agreed on by basically everyone around you”) then it’s fine to say e.g. “I am very certain of X, from which I infer Y”, but I think there is something rude about simply saying “X, therefore Y” without any acknowledgement that some of your audience may disagree with X. (It feels as if the subtext is “if you don’t agree with X then you’re too ignorant/stupid/crazy for me to care at all what you think”.)
In practice, it’s rather common to do the thing I’m claiming is rude. I expect I do it myself from time to time. But I think it would be better if we didn’t.
My point is that this concern is adequately summarized by something like “claiming without acknowledgment/disclaimers”, but not “claiming confidently” (which would change credence in the name of something that’s not correctness).
I disagree that this is a problem in most cases (acknowledgment is a cost, and usually not informative), but acknowledge that this is debatable. Similarly to the forms of politeness the require more words, as opposed to forms of politeness that, all else equal, leave the message length unchanged. Acknowledgment is useful where it’s actually in doubt.
In this case, Said is both (1) claiming the thing very confidently, when it seems pretty clear to me that that confidence is not warranted, and (2) claiming it as if it’s common knowledge, when it seems pretty clear to me that it’s far from being common knowledge.