Usually, men in this situation repeatedly ask Alice what they did wrong, and Alice will adamantly refuse to say. Whatever they’re doing wrong, it’s not failing to take time and effort. How many times do you see something like this:
“What, what’s wrong, Alice?”
Nothing.
“It … doesn’t sound like that. Really, what’s wrong.”
NOTHING. EVERYTHING’S FINE.
“Please, Alice. I want to know what I did. Just tell me.”
Given as everyone seems to want to pile unjustified extra assumptions onto the scenario, here are several actual scenarios that I know have occured that took this form:
Alice is angry/upset because of something Bob did. Bob is unaware of what he did, but has picked up on Alice’s anger and wants to help her. a. Alice is trying to convince herself that it doesn’t matter.
-----b. Alice thinks Bob knowing what caused her anger will cause further problems.
Alice wasn’t actually angry/upset at all. Bob believed she was, but was incorrect. His repeated questioning has resulted in her getting angry; making him more confident that there is a problem.
Alice is emotionally abusing Bob, manipulating him so that he will grovel for an explanation, such that when she tells him what she wants him to do, he’ll be forced to do it.
Alice is angry at Bob for something he did. Bob is aware what this is, but wants to pretend he isn’t in order to be able to make Alice feel as though she’s over-reacting
Alice is angry/upset for reasons that have nothing to do with Bob. Bob is concerned for Alice’s wellbeing, but Alice doesn’t want to share.
Alice is angry. Bob knows this, but Alice is actually, honestly, unaware of this fact.
You leave out the fact that there is a common belief in women that “I shouldn’t have to explain. You should just know.”—thereby rendering the need for explanation a further injury to the initial insult.
I usually find that this is what needs to be bypassed early on if any real communicating progress is to be achieved. Generally speaking I resolve this by making it perfectly clear that if the injured party is unwilling to communicate the injury, they are not “allowed” to require redress in any form. Including being angry—thereby making them the party that is acting in the wrong, and requiring them to make amends. (This usually makes me quite “unreasonable” and causes a bigger blow-up than was necessary, but it gives me a vehicle towards more successful resolution after that initial blow-up and furthermore prevents similar scenarios from arising again. Mainly because I will have firmly estabilshed that that belief is not valid with regards to me. Those whom are capable of learning instead of just adding to their cached beliefs will have better relations with me.)
As rare as it seems others find this to be true, I’ve found that being an ass on a routine basis is actually quite useful. Makes people tolerant of the dickish things you do and far more greatful for the helpful things you do. Of course, as with everything, there’s an art to pulling it off.
Upvoted. The general phenomenon is interesting, the gendered aspect could also be interesting, but is also potentially a big distraction. In my relationship, I am definitely often Alex. Although my girlfriend is better at being Bob than most men are, including me (in terms of resolving the issue in a way that we’re both happy with, not ‘winning the conversation’).
It seems to me that even a completely unprejudiced person in Bob’s shoes may very well rationally decide that it’s not worth the trouble to try to understand Alice’s problem. Indeed, I’ve yet to be convinced that empathy is worth the effort required to achieve it in more than a handful of cases.
When this sort of thing has happened to me, I’ve said more or less “I’ll be here if you decide you want my help with whatever it is,” and then turned my back. It seemed to me, then and now, that any other response would have been a complete waste of time and effort.
Alice is angry at Bob for something he did. Bob is not aware what this is. Alice thinks Bob is aware what this is, but wants to pretend he isn’t in order to be able to make Alice feel as though she’s over-reacting. Neither of them are capable of even imagining this might be the situation.
One possibility is that being understood intuitively feels so good that actually explaining what one wants feels like settling for something grossly inferior. There are cultural ideas about what true love is like that can be really destructive, and aren’t any living individual’s fault. It would, of course, be nice if people had better sense than to fall for such stuff, but this may be expecting clear communication from the universe, and I don’t think it’s reliable about that. Sometimes the universe won’t even show it’s angry until it drops an anvil on your head.
Another is that women are sometimes trained to not be clear about what they want—it isn’t nice. I can’t be sure how common this is, but I’ve got a streak of it myself, and I’ve heard other women complaining about it. Having the conditioning is extremely unpleasant (if you want to ask for something but have a high internal threshold to get past to try), and I think the conditioning can produce a background fund of anger which isn’t about the current situation.
I don’t know whether it was necessary to explain this in such detail, but sometimes I get the impression that a lot of the men here are aware of that sort of conditioning in themselves, but don’t realize women might have a variation of it.
Let me build on this hypothetical example to explain why she does that:
Bob has clearly done something wrong. Alice is currently in a highly emotional state and recognises that she is likely not able to talk reasonably about what has happened without either becoming very angry or extremely upset and crying.
Therefore she really doesn’t want to talk about it right now.
Bobs insistence on demanding all the answers right now is not helping her highly emotional state and is, in fact, just adding to her feelings of anger and panic… given that clearly he did something wrong, she believes he has no right to currently dominate the timing of when she discusses this highly sensitive issue (whatever it is).
But right now, she is too emotionally fraught even to be able to say that without shouting… so she just blocks.
The best thing for Bob to do is to courteously withdraw for a little while until Alice calms down… then to return at a later date when she’s clearly had some time to reflect… and ask then.
I’ve seen this scenario occur several times where Bob HASN’T done anything wrong. Alice is annoyed for some reason, and is passive aggressively taking it out on Bob, and Bob wants to solve the problem that’s causing them both to suffer.
The assumption that it’s Bobs fault is entirely unjustified from the scenario presented.
What makes you so sure anyone’s playing for power in my scenario?
Bob is attempting to solve a problem that’s causing both Alice and Bob suffering.
Alice may be playing for power, or she may not want to burden Bob with her personal problems, and may be honestly unaware that she’s causing Bob to suffer.
If Alice is being passive-aggressive (as you stated) then she is trying to be manipulative… in this case(as you stated) by causing Bob to suffer when he has (as you stated) done nothing wrong.
She is punishing him for having done nothing. This is a power play, pure and simple.
A non-power play solution to the problem would be for Alice to sit Bob down and explain why she’s so upset, or just to say that she doesn’t want to burden him with her personal problems and can he please stop bothering her about it? or similar…
Therefore she really doesn’t want to talk about it right now.
What if Alice does want to talk about it right now, and is using this to gauge the depth of Bob’s remorse? “Hm, he only asked three times then gave up. I guess he doesn’t really care.”
I never said my own hypothetical was the only way to read it… just offering an alternative viewpoint of what could be happening, to make sure we have more than one hypothesis here.
One should not assume that there is a power play involved… one should not assume that there is not a powerplay involved. One should not assume that Alice wants Bob to stop pestering her… one should not assume that Alice wants Bob to pester her...
One should consider all of these as possibilities… and then figure out which one is actually reality.
I was just offering a possible “inside view” to show that “power play” was not the only feasible option available.
Note: generalisations from personal experience and anecdote follow:
men in my experience, are generally not as sensitive to emotional nuance as women, and only tend to ask “what’s wrong” if the woman has made it very clear and obvious that the man has done something wrong through emotionally-laden body-language. From my experience, men don’t realise that women actually have to wildly accentuate their body-language before their men “get it”—thus, byt he time the man actually does “get” that they did something wrong—the woman has already worked herself up into a state of anger and may no longer wish to actually talk about whatever it is anymore.
By contrast, women will often pick up on when they’ve upset another woman much quicker (through subtler body-language cues) and women (being used to having that noticed) find men unusually insensitive… and thus get more upset with them because they seem to not notice when they’ve “done something wrong” without being explicitly told.
It’s part of “female culture” that you shouldn’t need to tell another person when you’re upset… the other person should “just know” by noticing these cues. Amongst women, that’s usually the case. However—men are generally not as well “trained” on female body-language cues as other women are… and therefore don’t pick them up, and therefore actually have to be told… in words.… that the woman was upset by some action.
For a woman this is very frustrating.
Note: that I am referring to a perceived “average” here—some men are very capable of noticing these cues and some women are not very capable...
Also note: I am not actually agreeing that any of this is a “good idea” to do… just explaining what actually generally goes on in the female mind when the given hypothetical example is actually happening.
I defy your claim that women “usually” say “nothing’s wrong”. Can you substantiate the implicit claim that this is what the majority of actual women do (apart from your own anecdotes)?
This is certainly something that actual women do often enough for it to be a noticed part of the general culture. (Google “women nothing’s wrong” and find hosts of examples.) Going from the majority of actual women to the usual woman whose man complains he can’t understand women is a difficult transition to make- obviously those groups should have some systematic differences.
Indeed, it appears a common explanation for this is that the woman is testing the man: does he care enough to draw out why she’s upset? If that’s the case, advice given elsewhere in this tree to back off and give her time would backfire. (If that’s the case with this particular scenario, though, then Alice would probably start talking about it during one of the questions. The sticky part is how far the man has to probe, and when the man should decide to leave it alone vs. be persistent.)
By comparison, I’ll use my own experience with men to counter your claim that men “usually ask what’s wrong”.
That experience seems in line with the scenario SilasBarta posits. For the woman, it’s frustrating that the man doesn’t understand the message she’s sending; for the man, it’s frustrating that he doesn’t understand the message she’s sending. The communication breakdown is that neither of them seems willing or able to use the language the other is using; the woman is unwilling to explicitly articulate the problem and the man is unable to implicitly understand the problem.
(Typically, I see unwilling as easier to fix than unable, and I suspect that’s true in this case. I’ll talk more about that later.)
So, is the man “lazy”? Well, he’s certainly putting in time and effort attempting to fix the problem- which to Silas is evidence that he’s not lazy. One solution method is for him to create an effective model of Alice, which requires getting training in female culture, which requires a lot more time and effort than just asking her what’s wrong now. But it seems to me that ‘laziness’ is not the reason why Bob doesn’t choose that method- he probably doesn’t know that’s something he can do. (It may even be the case that he can’t. Perhaps even after hundreds of hours of training Bob will be unable to correctly parse signals sent by Alice.)
Now, why is Alice unwilling to explicitly talk about why she’s upset? Perhaps Bob is quick to dismiss reasons Alice thinks are significant. Perhaps Bob has different standards of proof than she does. Consider: “I don’t think Carol likes me.” “Did she say she didn’t like you?” “No… but she crossed her arms at me.” “But that could mean anything!” Alice crosses her arms at Bob.
If that’s the case, then Bob might be able to make Alice more willing to talk by being more willing to listen, and slower to judge.
Alice’s reasons for being upset could be embarrassing for a variety of reasons. Maybe Alice is mad at Bob because she had a dream that Bob did something mean to her. (Yes, this actually happens.) She can’t just stop being mad at him, but she can’t explain why she’s mad because Bob will think it’s crazy. In cases like this, Bob can’t do as much.
This is certainly something that actual women do often enough for it to be a noticed part of the general culture.
Oh certainly—I never claimed that it was not present (or even common), I was reacting to Silas use of the word “usually” which implies that a majority of women do this, possibly a majority of the time.
I just find this attitude a little negative—as nasty as women suggesting that “all men are lazy”—which I do not agree with… though I have certainly seen many examples of it happening… and it’s another meme that I’m sure you can google for to find plenty of examples ;)
Actually, you might notice that I edited my original comment to remove the wording you’ve replied to, as on further thought I decided it was just a bit too reactionary. I changed what I was saying purely to the anecdotal discussions about how women often perceive men… based on their own maps of how people “should behave” or “should notice” them emotionally.
Again—not agreeing with that—I believe such views are laden with map-territory issues.
It took me personally a long time to realise that “he isn’t being insensitive… he just hasn’t learned the same cues I’m used to and he probably has lots of cues that I persistently fail to notice”
In cases like this, Bob can’t do as much.
Agreed—in some cases there’s a kind of emotional mexican stand-off—where both partners are unable or unwilling to take the steps necessary to solve the problem.
I also agree that in this case, Bob is not being lazy, though perhaps he’s not acting in an optimal fashion (or perhaps he is, but Alice is not). I offered my original “number 3” as just another possibility—not “what all men do”, after all :)
It’s not clear to me that prejudices are worthless evidence. It seems to me reasonable to take stereotypes as your prior and update on evidence rather than taking maxent as your prior.
If there’s evidence out there I should be updating on, I’d love to hear it.
The man in your hypothetical is not trying to understand Alice. He’s trying to dominate the conversation. He may not consciously understand what he’s doing, but that’s what’s happening.
Alice saying “Nothing” implicitly includes the message “I don’t want to talk about it right now.” Alice is engaging in a different relationship failure mode if (1) the issue is important to her, but (2) she never finds a time to discuss it. But that failure mode is independent and distinct from the failure mode of the man in the hypothetical.
EDIT: Ok, dominate has a lot of connotations that I didn’t intend. Let me restate: Bob is not trying to understand Alice. He’s trying to win the conversation. As others discuss both, the thesis that Alice was also trying to win the conversation is plausible. But I don’t rate it likely without more information about Alice.
You confidently characterize the man’s comments as an effort to dominate. Why are you not equally cynical about Alice’s motives? Why do you not conclude that her comments are part of a strategy to dominate in this domain of their relationship? Why not say “She may not consciously understand what she’s doing, but that’s what’s happening.”?
Personally, I am inclined to be less cynical about both their motivations.
Why are you not equally cynical about Alice’s motives?
That’s a good question. Here is my cynical analysis of Alice’s potential psychology. I think there is a lot of room to read a power-play on Alice’s part (though that says nothing about whether it is justified or not).
You confidently characterize the man’s comments as an effort to dominate. Why are you not equally cynical about Alice’s motives? Why do you not conclude that her comments are part of a strategy to dominate in this domain of their relationship? Why not say “She may not consciously understand what she’s doing, but that’s what’s happening.”?
That seems about right. But entirely within the realm of normal social behavior. Being able to understand such dynamics does not make them any more sinister. The point about “she may not consciously understand, but” is good. And if she does understand then I will not judge her for being obnoxious, just for being obnoxious but ineffective.
Personally, I am inclined to be less cynical about both their motivations.
And if she does understand then I will not judge her for being obnoxious, just for being obnoxious but ineffective.
Ah, but who says she is being ineffective? That depends on her goals (see my reply to the parent). If her goal is to piss off Bob, and/or make him feel guilty and/or make his start getting apologetic, then she is already doing well. She’s already got him to admit that he has done something wrong without making any explicit accusations (assuming he is being sincere, not sarcastic). Who says her goal is relationship harmony? Some people prefer drama.
Humans were selected for having reproductively successful relationships, but not all successful mating strategies involve harmony.
Me. You will notice (or, rather, I would usually expect HughRistik to notice) that the quote is explicitly conditional on the technique being a an overt self aware strategy. And I really do assert that if I was a self aware scheming manipulator that I could do better. Frankly it is an amateur move. A more talented or more experienced bitch (using the term in a technical sense to whatever extent that is possible) would sneer at the though of being so crude.
Humans were selected for having reproductively successful relationships, but not all successful mating strategies involve harmony.
I agree. War, rape, infanticide, murder and even being a pain in the ass are highly viable strategies. Learning how to be a pain in the ass productively is a highly recommended life skill.
The man in your hypothetical is not trying to understand Alice. He’s trying to dominate the conversation.
This set of sentences is strange to me. It’s almost as it’s implied that if a statement is an attempt to gain power or dominate a conversation, it’s impossible for it to also be an attempt to understand.
I partially agree with you in that I think the man’s move might be a power grab, but I think your characterization of power-grabs as attempts to “dominate” (have overwhelming power) is wrong.
I think that the woman’s response might also be a power-grab, Likewise the man’s response to that. Each of these is very, very weak evidence of an attempt to dominate.
At the level we’re talking about, making a power grab seems inconsistent with attempting to understand, at least from Alice’s point of view. Is she wrong?
That said, the possibility that Alice is intentionally aiming for the relationship failure mode I described above is very plausible.
Yes. She would be correct that finding a sufficient motivation for a speech act reduces the chance each other possible motivation is intended. But there is no reason a single act couldn’t have two sufficient reasons behind it.
Also, to speak of emotions being in conflict or contradicting is confusing. The actions each emotion impels might be in conflict or physically or logically impossible, but to have multiple emotions is not a mysterious paradoxical state to be in, regardless of the emotions.
The man in your hypothetical is not trying to understand Alice. He’s trying to dominate the conversation. He may not consciously understand what he’s doing, but that’s what’s happening.
Um, perhaps? It’s pretty clear that Alice is putting Bob in a no-win situation. If he gives her space, then he doesn’t care; if he tries to ask her what’s wrong, he’s clueless (or dominating the conversation).
Indeed, under your interpretation Alice saying “nothing is wrong” rather than “let’s not talk about it now” is an out-and-out lie. It’s not clear that Bob inferring that Alice is repeatedly lying would reflect better on Bob.
If Alice said “let’s talk about it later” and then Bob insisted that this get hashed out now, then you would have a point. But as is this example doesn’t reflect poorly on Bob.
Alice is not “lying”. You cannot reduce human communication in these circumstances to the explicit meaning of words. When someone says “nothing is wrong” when everyone involved realizes something is wrong then their intent is not to deceive.
Why doesn’t Alice just say “lets talk about it later”? There are plenty of plausible reasons—she may not know if she wants to talk about it later, she may not want to get into a fight about when they talk about it, she may want Bob to figure it out for himself, she may expect some kind of cost involved in her being the first to state the problem, she may not know what she wants and would prefer to have him just shut up so she can think for a moment. That her reasons for saying “Nothing” are potentially ambiguous to Bob might be unfair to him… but she is not “lying”.
If by this you mean “Alice would explode at being called a liar,” then I agree.
You cannot reduce human communication in these circumstances to the explicit meaning of words.
Communication is the transfer of information from speaker to listener: while I cannot reduce intent to the explicit meaning of words in this case I can reduce actual transfer to the explicit meaning of words (and a bit extra). The man in question is likely to be literal-minded, otherwise he would have picked up on the hint. (Men tend to be more literal than women.) Alice is the one who has an easier path to avoid communication breakdown.
she may not want to get into a fight about when they talk about it
They are in a fight about when they talk about it, and she is the one that elevated it from discussion to fight.
she may want Bob to figure it out for himself
This habit is not conducive to relationship success.
If by this you mean “Alice would explode at being called a liar,” then I agree.
No, I mean she is not saying “Nothing” with the intent to deceive Bob into thinking that, in fact, nothing is wrong.
Communication is the transfer of information from speaker to listener: while I cannot reduce intent to the explicit meaning of words in this case I can reduce actual transfer to the explicit meaning of words (and a bit extra).
No. You really, really can’t. You are ignoring the information Bob receives from her tone of voice and body language. Bob may be literal minded but he is obviously not so literal minded as to miss this information. If he were he would not have insisted on that Alice tell him what is wrong.
Bob: “What, what’s wrong, Alice?”
Alice has already communicated to Bob that something is wrong with her body language, facial expressions or tone of voice.
Alice: Nothing.
But from the context that follows we know that Alice’s body language and tone of voice did not express the same thing. And Bob realizes it when he says “It doesn’t sound like that.”
Bob: “It … doesn’t sound like that. Really, what’s wrong.”
From Alice’s perspective this is a bit smug. She is thinking “I fucking know it doesn’t sound like that”. It is debatable at this point what Bob should have said, sometimes asking again will get an answer. But he knows that something is wrong and that she is not saying what—it is reasonable to expect a socially competent person to by now understand that what she really means is something like “I don’t want to talk about it, at least not now.
Alice: “NOTHING. EVERYTHING’S FINE.”
Alice is clearly pissed. Apparently she is yelling. And Bob clearly knows it. And Alice knows that Bob knows it. So Bob has certainly concluded that Alice means something else than literally “Nothing is wrong”. And then...
Bob: “Please, Alice. I want to know what I did. Just tell me.”
Bob has clearly figured out Alice is saying something like “I don’t want to talk about it, at least not right now.” He is now assuming he did something wrong and begging to be told what it was. But why is he persisting? He should already know that she doesn’t want to talk about it at the object level and doesn’t want to talk about it at the meta level. Yet by trying to talk about it on the meta level he is going against her wishes and starting a fight.
Now what Bob should do is just let it alone for an hour and see if she want to talk about it then. He has the right to not put up with her attitude if she won’t tell him what he did. I wouldn’t want to hang out with Alice when she is in this mood and if she expects him to without her explaining herself then he can reasonably say “I’m not putting up with the silent treatment all afternoon. Either tell me whats up or I’m gonna go do something else.”
As for whether or not Alice ought to expect Bob to figure it out—it may or not be a good habit—but Alice wanting that and trying to communicate it is not lying.
And while communication is extremely important not everything needs to be turned into a huge, dramatic discussion or debate. Alice may know she’ll be over it in a little while but starting a fight would lead to week-long estrangement. I don’t know which of them is “right”—I’m not sure that makes to talk about since these aren’t real people and there is not actual problem. I am not in agreement with TimS that Bob is trying to dominate Alice… I just think he’s being stupid.
Unfortunately, Silas’ original example is under-specified, so there are many different situations that could lead to it, or potential power plays on both sides. I’m going to make a guess that the scenario (in Silas’ imagination) occurred because of something Bob did or didn’t do that Alice didn’t like.
Alice is fuming, and she very much wants Bob to know. She feels that Bob should know better. That’s why she won’t tell him what it is. She wants him to figure it out for himself, and apologize to her. If he asks what is wrong as if he doesn’t know, and she has to tell him, then she admits that there was ambiguity in the original situation, or lack of knowledge on his part, that completely or partially exculpates him.
Alternatively, she might agree that there are exculpatory factors, but she still want to see if he will now realize what he did wrong and apologize without her having to spell it out for him. This approach might be especially important if he forgot something (maybe their anniversary), and she wants to see how long it will take him to remember.
Another possibility might be that she doesn’t want to tell him what he did wrong because she doesn’t want to look accusatory or nagging. So instead she just blast accusatory nonverbal communication at him until he understands that he is supposed to start admitting guilt.
If Silas is imagining the same scenario that is evoked in my mind, Alice is not trying to disengage from communicating with Bob all; she is trying to show her displeasure with him, and get him to (a) admit that he is at fault, and possibly also (b) apologize to what he is at fault for without her having to explain it, proving that he has either “learned his lesson” or that he isn’t trying to “play innocent.”
This interpretation leads me to agree with you that Alice is not lying, and that she is using implicit communication, but I think she may be doing it even more than you realize. Note that I take no position about who is in the right or in the wrong.
From Alice’s perspective this is a bit smug. She is thinking “I fucking know it doesn’t sound like that”.
Yes.
But he knows that something is wrong and that she is not saying what—it is reasonable to expect a socially competent person to by now understand that what she really means is something like “I don’t want to talk about it, at least not now.
If Bob has good reasons to expect that she is unhappy with him, then it’s not clear at all that she really doesn’t want to talk about it.
Alice: “NOTHING. EVERYTHING’S FINE.”
Bob has clearly figured out Alice is saying something like “I don’t want to talk about it, at least not right now.” He is now assuming he did something wrong and begging to be told what it was. But why is he persisting?
Under the scenario I’m imagining, it’s obvious why he persists. He doesn’t believe that Alice is serious about not wanting to talk, based on the context, body language, and tone of voice. He interprets her communication to mean “I don’t want to talk about the thing you did wrong unless you stop playing innocent about it and start groveling.” That’s why he starts groveling by admitting that he did something wrong… That might satisfy Alice, or she might want him to guess or admit exactly what he did wrong without her having to explain it.
In heated arguments, people often say and do things that they don’t mean, or to test the reaction of the other partner. Alice could be sincere that she doesn’t want to talk, but she could also be testing to see if Bob cares enough to find out what she is unhappy about, or if he will admit full culpability and apologize.
And while communication is extremely important not everything needs to be turned into a huge, dramatic discussion or debate.
Some personality types feel differently.
Alice may know she’ll be over it in a little while but starting a fight would lead to week-long estrangement.
Wait, what makes you think that Alice isn’t trying to start a fight? She could be defending a Schelling Point.
Depending on the nonverbals, her behavior could be an excellent way to start a fight, while pretending that Bob is the one instigating it by pestering her. If she really didn’t want to start a fight, she could either hide her displeasure better, or making it sound absolutely cold and serious that she doesn’t want to talk. The fact that Bob is following up with questions suggests that he thinks she is trying to either start a fight, so he tries to roll over on his belly by asking what he did.
I am not in agreement with TimS that Bob is trying to dominate Alice… I just think he’s being stupid.
This only way Bob is being dominating is if he knowingly did something majorly fucked up or abusive, and is pestering Alice and playing innocent while trying to cope with it. Short of that, there actually may be good contextual reasons for Bob to believe that Alice wants to continue communicating with him, but just wants him to take an apologetic role, or (if they both know she is upset by something other than him) a supportive role. If Alice is using passive-aggressiveness to try to put him into an apologetic and groveling role, then she is the dominating one (of course, whether this is justified depends on context). Unless Bob is obviously in the wrong, then he is being stupid by letting her get away with this power play, which gives her an incentive to get upset in the future any time she wants concessions from him.
Of course, this is only one possible reading of the situation; I just suspect that it’s a bit closer to what Silas intended that most of the other readings.
And while communication is extremely important not everything needs to be turned into a huge, dramatic discussion or debate.
Some personality types feel differently.
Alice may know she’ll be over it in a little while but starting a fight would lead to week-long estrangement.
Wait, what makes you think that Alice isn’t trying to start a fight?
Incidentally, I offered these interpretations because they were the right answers in particular instances where a girlfriend said “nothing” when there obviously was something. At least these are plausible interpretations if I believe our later conversations about why she said “nothing”. For these explanations the line by line interpretation is a little different—she is upset enough that it is hard not to show it or perhaps she is torn about whether or not to show it. Perhaps she just wants Bob to feel a little bad about it. Perhaps Bob is more observing than we have so far given him credit for. When she yells at Bob in her last line she is yelling at him because she is annoyed by his instance on talking about it, not trying to be obvious about being hurt regarding the object-level matter.
Of course, this is only one possible reading of the situation; I just suspect that it’s a bit closer to what Silas intended that most of the other readings.
I suspect Silas may have posted the comment without knowing or having a specific intended reading. Or he might be speaking as someone who has been a Bob in the past and genuinely isn’t sure how to interpret Alice. I also think by rendering Alice’s motivations explicit where making her too calculating. I suspect “nothing” often comes out just because it seems like the easiest thing to say at the moment not because of any well thought out strategic considerations.
I’m coming to realize that dominate is too strong a word for what I’m trying to say. I think Jack made basically the entire point I’m trying to make here. My only criticism is that “stupid” is a very broad description of Bob’s failure. Is there a more precise way of stating Bob’s error?
This conversation is a lot like that moment in Top Gun.
“I object” “Overruled.” “I strenuously object!”
That’s not going to work. Why should Bob expect it to work?
No, I mean she is not saying “Nothing” with the intent to deceive Bob into thinking that, in fact, nothing is wrong.
Did I claim deceit? “Nothing” is inaccurate. (I understand that labeling an inaccuracy a ‘lie’ is a political statement.)
Notice that, by TimS’s interpretation, she actually is attempting to deceive him- she hopes that he believes the lie that nothing is wrong so that she won’t have to discuss the issue now. If you want to question whether or not deceit is involved, bring it up with TimS.
You are ignoring the information Bob receives from her tone of voice and body language.
Mmm, I think that’s in there (as signified by the “and change”). It also depends what level we’re looking at. If we assume that Bob gets message 1: “Alice is mad” from her body language, then he asks her what’s wrong, and he gets the message 2: “nothing is wrong,” then he could suspect it is a falsehood solely from its mismatch with message 1. (This is probably made easier by a “falsehood” tag hung on message 2, but it isn’t necessary.)
Yet by trying to talk about it on the meta level he is going against her wishes and starting a fight.
Notice that any judgment about when the fight started is a political statement. Could we not say that Alice started the fight when she went against Bob’s wishes and didn’t explain what was wrong?
it is reasonable to expect a socially competent person to by now understand that what she really means is something like “I don’t want to talk about it, at least not now.
Is it reasonable for Alice to assume that Bob is socially competent, particularly when it comes to this understanding?
Alice is clearly pissed.
About what?
Bob and Alice clearly both have deficient models of each other. I get that, and the things Alice could be pissed about. You don’t need to explain basic human interaction to me (though both Bob and Alice could use some help). The problem is that, in this example, Bob wants to fix his model and Alice doesn’t put any effort into fixing her model. (Remember, the original contention was over taryneast putting forward the suggestion that “Bob is too lazy to take the time and effort to understand Alice.” SilasBarta concocted this hypothetical to suggest that the laziness of understanding is the other way around for many couples. TimS argued that Bob’s lack of laziness was actually a vice.)
but Alice wanting that and trying to communicate it is not lying.
Alice wanting that and not being able to communicate it effectively is fixable, though. If your man is too literal to pick up on your hints, tell him directly!
Alice may know she’ll be over it in a little while but starting a fight would lead to week-long estrangement.
In which case try out “I’ll get over it, give me some time.” (If it’s true, start with “It’s not anything you did.”) If pressed, respond with “Talking about it will just make me madder, and I’d like to not be mad as soon as possible.”
Did I claim deceit? “Nothing” is inaccurate. (I understand that labeling an inaccuracy a ‘lie’ is a political statement.)
Yes. It is inaccurate. It is inaccurate in the same way sarcasm in inaccurate. Calling what Alice says a lie is about as inaccurate as calling sarcasm a lie. Maybe we should taboo “lie”. We agree it is literally false and agree that it was not deceit. That leaves me not seeing what it was Alice did wrong (beside being suboptimal in her communication skills). She hasn’t seemed to commit a transgression since literally false statements are routinely acceptable as long as they are not part of a deception.
Notice that, by TimS’s interpretation, she actually is attempting to deceive him- she hopes that he believes the lie that nothing is wrong so that she won’t have to discuss the issue now. If you want to question whether or not deceit is involved, bring it up with TimS.
I’m not really concerned with what TimS thinks—lots of people have that covered. I’m sorry if this feels like I’ve put you in a double bind—having to say she is lying to dispute TimS’s position but also having to dispute my position that she was not lying (wasn’t my intention).
Notice that any judgment about when the fight started is a political statement. Could we not say that Alice started the fight when she went against Bob’s wishes and didn’t explain what was wrong?
Conceivably. Personally, I think expecting people to be prepared to explain themselves immediately is unrealistic if not unfair. But note I also added that I don’t think Bob can be expected to put up with Alice’s attitude for an extended period of time if she is not prepared to talk about it.
Is it reasonable for Alice to assume that Bob is socially competent, particularly when it comes to this understanding?
Shrug. This is information that hasn’t been stipulated one way or the other. But obviously a plausible explanation for the whole scene is that Alice thinks Bob is socially competent on this matter when he in fact isn’t.
The problem is that, in this example, Bob wants to fix his model and Alice doesn’t put any effort into fixing her model. (Remember, the original contention was over taryneast putting forward the suggestion that “Bob is too lazy to take the time and effort to understand Alice.” SilasBarta concocted this hypothetical to suggest that the laziness of understanding is the other way around for many couples. TimS argued that Bob’s lack of laziness was actually a vice.)
It can be the case that Alice is to blame for Bob not understanding her. It can also be the case that he is to blame. I have no idea how to evaluate that. I agree that if Alice is getting upset a lot and never saying why—and if she is getting upset about is not something Bob ought infer with a bit of empathy—then she is to blame for Bob not understanding her. Again, I don’t agree with TimS.
People here are projecting their truth fetishes (which I share) onto the rest of the world. Not ever map correction needs to be made right away and often they disappear into irrelevance. Not everyone has the same high verbal intelligence as this crowd and it isn’t fair to expect them to be able to put into words exactly what someone did wrong.
Alice wanting that and not being able to communicate it effectively is fixable, though. If your man is too literal to pick up on your hints, tell him directly!
Reasonable. Or break up with him if you need someone who can pick up on the hints. Alternatively, if your girl wants you to pick up on hints learn to pick up on them or break up with her. Or the two of your could find some sort of compromise.
But obviously a plausible explanation for the whole scene is that Alice thinks Bob is socially competent on this matter when he in fact isn’t.
I suspect that the typical mind fallacy is the primary cause of men and women not understanding each other.
People here are projecting their truth fetishes (which I share) onto the rest of the world.
This strikes me as an overgeneralization. In this particular scenario, an agent is attempting an ineffective strategy, which could be fixed by being explicit (Bob’s strategy is also ineffective, but the path for Alice to improve is less ambiguous. As I pointed out in my first comment, since Alice determines the success or failure of Bob’s strategies, she can decide to turn any strategy he tries into a failure). There are comparable numbers of people defending Bob and defending Alice, which suggests the truth fetishists (of which I am not one) may not be sizeable enough to stand for all people here.
There are comparable numbers of people defending Bob and defending Alice, which suggests the truth fetishists (of which I am not one) may not be sizeable enough to stand for all people here.
I was paying attention to upvotes but those seem to have evened out since I wrote that.
As I pointed out in my first comment, since Alice determines the success or failure of Bob’s strategies, she can decide to turn any strategy he tries into a failure).
The part where Bob looks at fault is when he keeps repeating the strategy that has already failed.
It is generally understood that a false statement is only a lie if the intent or expectation is that it be understood as a true statement. We have other words for different kinds of false statements: “fiction,” “joke”… By saying “lie,” “deception” was understood.
It is generally understood that a false statement is only a lie if the intent or expectation is that it be understood as a true statement. We have other words for different kinds of false statements: “fiction,” “joke”… By saying “lie,” “deception” was understood.
This is, of course, a social convention, but the application of “generally” to the subject at hand is questionable. Notice also that I was responding to someone who interpreted Alice as attempting to deceive Bob, which is not necessarily the case.
If by this you mean “Alice would explode at being called a liar,” then I agree.
No, he means that Alice fails to satisfy the literal definition of lying, in that she is not intending to deceive. That is, she does not mean for the man to conclude that there is in fact nothing wrong.
No, he means that Alice fails to satisfy the literal definition of lying, in that she is not intending to deceive.
Emphasis mine. My dictionary contains four instances of “lie” as a noun; #3 applies, and #1 (the one you’re using) applies under the interpretation espoused by the person whose comment I was responding to (i.e. TimS suggested she wants him to conclude, for now at least, that nothing is wrong).
If you have read TimS correctly, then we agree that she was lying. But your reading of TimS doesn’t look very plausible to me. Alice’s not wanting to talk now doesn’t convey the message that nothing is wrong now.
I think what TimS probably meant was that she wants him to act, at least for now, as if nothing is wrong. But I probably shouldn’t have jumped on you for criticizing him (I was not focused enough on the context, ironically).
They are in a fight about when they talk about it, and she is the one that elevated it from discussion to fight.
This is true, but as it is different from other fights about when to talk about it, the point stands. She escalated to a particular form of fight at a particular time for reasons she partially understands and partially doesn’t understand.
Alice is engaging in a different relationship failure mode if (1) the issue is important to her, but (2) she never finds a time to discuss it. But that failure mode is independent and distinct from the failure mode of the man in the hypothetical.
Possibly this isn’t failure for both or either of them, though such things usually are. They do things, those actions have consequences, and we can judge those consequences against their stated preferences, idealized preferences, revealed preferences...whatever.
So for:
But as is this example doesn’t reflect poorly on Bob.
I think it reflects poorly on whoever is losing utility. I’m not too interested in apportioning blame among for example a mugger, his abusive parents, the guy who he mugged in the dark alley, the engineer who should have put a light there, etc.
ETA: I changed my mind to arrive at a similar position. It’s not that behavior reflects poorly on people dependent upon the loss of utility that the behavior causes. Behavior less than what an entity expects to cause them the most utility (however weighted and whatever it is, including the right to e.g. be scope insensitive) reflects poorly on their character, and expectations divergent from those a perfectly rational agent would have reflect poorly on their minds.
So someone is still nuts if he or she fervently believes that if he or she enters a car that has a vowel on its license plate, the car will spontaneously explode even if this belief saves his or her life; and if one day a meteoroid unexpectedly drops out of the sky and kills you, giving you huge negative utility, that doesn’t make you somehow dumber than the people outside around you.
This is true, but as it is different from other fights about when to talk about it, the point stands.
Which point? As I understand it, Jack gave a large number of plausible reasons why she might respond the way she did. I selected the two most self-destructive and criticized them. It’s still true that they’re plausible reasons, and so in that sense “the point stands,” but they aren’t reasons that should be cultivated.
I’m not too interested in apportioning blame
Then it’s not clear to me why you’re posting in this tree? If you go up to the root, taryneast posted blaming the man for being lazy; then Silas posted about blaming the woman for being uncommunicative; then TimS posted about blaming the man for being domineering; then I posted blaming the woman for being unhelpful/dishonest; then Jack posted blaming the man for not understanding women; then I posted blaming Alice for not understanding her audience.
Perhaps you’re trying to move from ‘blame’ towards ‘consequences,’ and sure, I support that move. But I don’t think the comment tree as is will move very easily.
Which point?
she may not want to get into a fight about when they talk about it
Jack’s point is that among the plausible reasons to want to avoid the subject is a desire to not have the fight associated with the subject. That her strategy involves picking a different fight doesn’t take away from the point that she has plausible fight related reasons for not talking.
Then it’s not clear to me why you’re posting in this tree?
Weeding is part of gardening.
But really, Silas posted about the man not being to blame for lack of communication, so I can stand behind that. I also thought it a description of fact without necessarily involving blame when you described the woman as putting the man in a no-win situation. So I didn’t read that as you blaming her. I read your next sentence as blaming her, but on a different topic, as “out-and-out lie” implies a lot of judgement. I may or may not agree with Jack’s next comment, depending on what he meant by “lie”. She communicated poorly on the crystal-to-mud clarity scale, using a literal falsehood that had a relatively high likelihood of conveying the truth, for a literal falsehood. I don’t see any moral problem with that as such.
So I find myself agreeing with whoever is defending a character, it gives me a coherent side in each sub-part of the argument.
I think you have some formatting errors with the start of your comment.
Jack’s point is that among the plausible reasons to want to avoid the subject is a desire to not have the fight associated with the subject. That her strategy involves picking a different fight doesn’t take away from the point that she has plausible fight related reasons for not talking.
I see how Alice’s strategy is different; I don’t see how the subject of the fight is different. In example 1, Bob says “let’s talk now” and Alice responds with a subtextual “no.” In example 2, Bob says “let’s talk now” and Alice responds with a textual “no, how about later?” Is that enough for you to call it a different fight?
To be clear my main point was just: “Alice is not lying”. She may well be uncooperative and self-destructive but she is not lying. Whether or not she is being uncooperative or self-destructive is not obvious to me from the skeleton dialog. It would be dependent on details we don’t have—though I think it is likely her chosen path is not ideal. I think the man is being a bit dense and uncooperative by the end but he is not obviously in the wrong. Please interpret my comments as disagreement with precisely what you said not as support for TimS’s comment or signifying that I blame or care about blaming one party or the other.
So, hypothetical: if we were both standing outside under the clear blue sky and I said to you “The sky is green” you would say I was not lying? Assume we are speaking English, that both of us have working color vision, etc.
I’d be trying to figure out from your tone, body language, facial expressions etc what was going on. Is pedanterrific just being weird? Has he gone crazy? Have I gone crazy? Is he trying to performatively illustrate a position on the unknowability of qualia? You’ve made it sort of difficult by providing an example of an obviously false statement wherein there is no other information about what you’re doing—but I certainly don’t feel compelled to call it a lie.
I guess where you and I differ is that I don’t consider those mutually exclusive. If I’m stating something which I know to not be true, I’m lying. I may also be doing other things (e.g. stating a prearranged signal like “the eagle has landed”), but all that—“being weird”, “performatively illustrating a position” etc. - doesn’t mean I’m not lying.
I, for one, understand that the definition of lying you are choosing to use here is simply “making false statements.” It does not make sense to argue over what definition is “correct.” I do want to be sure you are aware that many people understand lying to be “intending to deceive,” particularly when things are morally charged, and you would be wise to taboo “lie” when this is relevant.
As a matter of curiosity: pursuant to your particular definition of lying as you were using it above, would you call making a true statement with the intent that it deceive and the knowledge that it is likely to do so “a lie” or “not a lie”?
It does not make sense to argue over what definition is “correct.”
I certainly hope that’s not what it looked like I was doing.
I do want to be sure you are aware
Oh, I am. I was just curious about Jack’s specific definition.
As a matter of curiosity: pursuant to your particular definition of lying as you were using it above, would you call making a true statement with the intent that it deceive and the knowledge that it is likely to do so “a lie” or “not a lie”?
In point of fact, I would call that a “deception”, not a “lie”. So, [a statement made with intent to deceive] = a “deception”, and [a statement of something that is known to be false] = a “lie”. So the two qualities are independent of each other. (Incidentally, [a statement of something that is false, but thought to be correct] would be a “mistake”.)
I wonder whether the legal system considers “making a true statement with the intent to deceive” perjury?
I certainly hope that’s not what it looked like I was doing.
It looked like what was generally happening—I’m not interested in meting out blame for it.
I do want to be sure you are aware
Oh, I am. I was just curious about Jack’s specific definition.
Good.
As a matter of curiosity: pursuant to your particular definition of lying as you were using it above, would you call making a true statement with the intent that it deceive and the knowledge that it is likely to do so “a lie” or “not a lie”?
In point of fact, I would call that a “deception”, not a “lie”. So, [a statement made with intent to deceive] = a “deception”, and [a statement of something that is known to be false] = a “lie”. So the two qualities are independent of each other. (Incidentally, [a statement of something that is false, but thought to be correct] would be a “mistake”.)
Alright, interesting. FWIW, I can go either way on that one.
I wonder whether the legal system considers “making a true statement with the intent to deceive” perjury?
To some extent, wouldn’t this amount to most defenses when the accused is guilty? This seems like a bad idea, unfortunately.
I wonder whether the legal system considers “making a true statement with the intent to deceive” perjury?
To some extent, wouldn’t this amount to most defenses when the accused is guilty? This seems like a bad idea, unfortunately.
You lost me. (Pleading “Not Guilty” when you are guilty isn’t perjury because it’s not under oath, but I don’t see what that has to do with “making a true statement with the intent to deceive”.)
Also, you only need the > at the beginning of each paragraph.
Generally, statements made in the defense would be made with the intent that people draw the conclusion that the defendant is, in fact, not guilty. A guilty defendant could then not legally testify at all.
Also, you only need the > at the beginning of each paragraph.
The third element of a perjury offense is proof of specific intent, that is, that the defendant made the false statement with knowledge of its falsity, rather than as a result of confusion, mistake or faulty memory.
Though I suppose this wouldn’t protect someone from prosecution for sarcasm.
Yeah. I mean—usage sometimes differs. I don’t want to make this exactly a definition debate. But look at how Vaniver used the word:
Alice saying “nothing is wrong” rather than “let’s not talk about it now” is an out-and-out lie. It’s not clear that Bob inferring that Alice is repeatedly lying would reflect better on Bob.
That usage suggests to me a meaning of liar that implies deceit (though Vaniver later said he didn’t mean to imply that).
I do think it would be a social/linguistic error to respond to weirdness, joking hyperbole, or sarcasm with with “Liar!” or similar variant in a sincere tone.
I do think it would be a social/linguistic error to respond to weirdness, joking hyperbole, or sarcasm with with “Liar!” or similar variant in a sincere tone.
Generally I prefer “Get thee behind me, Prince of Lies!” or possibly “You should be a statistician!” if I’m feeling particularly vindictive.
Okay. So, what word do you use to describe the act of “stating things which you know to not be true”? Or does your variant of English not have a word for that act?
I don’t see how that is supposed to matter. But because I’m curious, some hypothetical situations:
My motivation was to find out how my interlocutor would describe my statement.
Assume that you don’t and can’t know my motivation, as is commonly the case in the real world.
It was due to a random causeless quantum fluctuation, similar in theory to the idea of a ‘Boltzmann brain’, which acted on my neurons in a such a way as to output that statement and make me rationalize it as my idea.
meaning which can be thought of as the conjunction of two claims: (1) facts about what expressions mean are to be explained, or analyzed, in terms of facts about what speakers mean by utterances of them, and (2) facts about what speakers mean by their utterances can be explained in terms of their intentions.
Propositional theories of meaning fail precisely because they have a great deal of trouble accounting for situations where our words don’t match our intentions.
It’s not good enough to just be a consequentialist rather than a virtue ethicist. You have to be a conequentialist for the right reasons or it doesn’t count.
Intentions are physical facts about brains. If you care about those particular physical facts, then you can be a consequentialist who cares about intentions.
Often, some of the physical facts that determine whether a certain word applies to a certain situation happen to be physical facts that fall under the heading of “intentions”.
It’s just… if “intention always matters” when choosing which word to use to describe someone else’s actions, you spend an inordinate amount of time not knowing how to describe something while you gather data on the other agent’s intentions, data which may not ever be definitive. That seems to rather miss the point of language.
When an actor says, “I am Hamlet, prince of Denmark” is he lying?
Well he’s certainly not telling the truth, and he’s (probably) not honestly mistaken, so sure.
If yes, then why is there a negative connotation in the word lying?
I’m not exactly sure I’m qualified to answer that, but if I had to speculate… because it’s easier to accidentally mislead people by assuming they know you’re not telling the truth than the opposite, and because it’s valuable to society to pretend rigorous truth-telling is more laudable than it really is (i.e. “honest” has an unreservedly positive connotation, despite the fact that there are common social situations in which it is terribly impolite to actually be honest). Does that make sense?
This sounds vaguely like the idea once prevalent in legal proceedings that actors were not trustworthy as witnesses because their skill acting in plays showed that they could commit perjury undetected by the jury.
That theory is no longer accepted in law. And I think the modern understanding—that actors are no more or less likely to be dishonest than any other citizen—is the more rational position. Is society’s modern view wrong?
Uh… well first of all, I don’t see what any of those things have to do with each other. To put my objections in some kind of order:
The idea that actors’ skill at lying is a reason to distrust their testimony is ridiculous. Juries, and people in general, are much worse lie detectors than they believe themselves to be. The bar is set so low that probably only really, unusually bad liars are ever caught by that method.
That said, experience and skill at acting probably does generalize into skill at other forms of lying—that seems intuitively true, and it’s certainly been the case in my experience, so I have no reason to doubt it.
The unrelated claim of whether actors are equally likely to be dishonest as anyone else is also a terrible indicator of their reliability under oath. Presumably people who perjure themselves have a compelling reason, such that a constitutional tendency toward honesty wouldn’t do what the threat of jailtime did not.
That said, I have no idea whether actors are more, equally or less likely to be dishonest than the general population. I’m not sure how you’d go about testing that hypothesis, either.
Communication is the transfer of information, but social conventions still exist. And those social conventions provide context so that the spoken words include implicit statements.
I’m certainly not trying to say the the conventions are efficient. And lack of communication efficiency is bad for relationships. And sometimes, the social conventions are really opaque.
But when you say someone is lying, that’s an accusation that a norm has been violated. And I don’t think that Alice has violated any norm (social or otherwise). She may not be trying to maximize the viability of her relationship with Bob, but that’s a separate issue.
And my only point was that Bob’s explicit request for Alice to say what’s wrong is not really trying to understand Alice.
Finally, I want to point out that our conversation is very meta. Alice may not be interested in having this kind of conversation. Most people aren’t. And when the social conventions are very opaque, this sucks for Bob if he’s not good at figuring out social conventions. Further, if Alice is trying to make the convention opaque, or hiding behind to uncertainty to jerk Bob’s chain, that doesn’t say good things about her.
And my only point was that Bob’s explicit request for Alice to say what’s wrong is not really trying to understand Alice.
It seems like you’re using Alice’s perspective to identify Bob’s intentions. Since they’re having this fight, I don’t think that’s a reliable model to work off of. Bob wants to clear up his confusion, and he’s confused about Alice. Alice sees Bob’s attempt to clear up confusion (what’s there to be confused about?*) as dominating the conversation- obviously she doesn’t want to talk about it!
*Consider the emotional reaction that some women have when the man doesn’t know what the issue is about- “he should know (without telling).” While the first part is spoken, the second part is clearly the message- if the important thing were knowledge transfer, she would say what the problem is!
But when you say someone is lying, that’s an accusation that a norm has been violated.
Thanks for playing along! Notice that this has been a demonstration of social conventions, as alluded to:
It’s not clear that Bob inferring that Alice is repeatedly lying would reflect better on Bob.
It is incontestable that Alice is providing verbal content that is the opposite of the information she believes. Can that be labeled a “lie”? Well, that depends on consequences, not the definition. The label of ‘lying’ is one she would hotly deny- despite it being literally true- because of the subtext involved. If Alice is labeled a liar, then her status-seeking strategy (conscious or unconscious) has failed- and so she’ll probably double down by exploding. The convention is for Bob to not challenge Alice on that because it rarely ends well for either of them.
Yep, TimS, begging Alice to explain to him how he can treat her better while she refuses to say anything helpful whatsoever is an example of the man simply trying to selfishly “dominate the conversation”. (???)
Let me build on this hypothetical example to explain why.
Bob has clearly done something wrong. Alice is currently in a highly emotional state and recognises that she is likely not able to talk reasonably about what has happened without either becoming very angry or extremely upset and crying.
Therefore she really doesn’t want to talk about it right now.
Bobs insistence on demanding all the answers right now is not helping her highly emotional state and is, in fact, just adding to her feelings of anger and panic… given that clearly he did something wrong, she believes he has no right to currently dominate the timing of when she discusses this highly sensitive issue (whatever it is).
But right now, she is too emotionally fraught even to be able to say that without shouting… so she just blocks.
The best thing for Bob to do is to courteously withdraw for a little while until Alice calms down… then to return at a later date when she’s clearly had some time to reflect… and ask then.
I don’t mean to indict Alice, but maybe evolution gave her these sincere emotions to make her behavior achieve the same results as a power play. “Understandable” is how “self-serving” feels from the inside. Of course that also applies to the actions of males, including this comment of mine ;-)
Usually, men in this situation repeatedly ask Alice what they did wrong, and Alice will adamantly refuse to say. Whatever they’re doing wrong, it’s not failing to take time and effort. How many times do you see something like this:
“What, what’s wrong, Alice?”
Nothing.
“It … doesn’t sound like that. Really, what’s wrong.”
NOTHING. EVERYTHING’S FINE.
“Please, Alice. I want to know what I did. Just tell me.”
...
Given as everyone seems to want to pile unjustified extra assumptions onto the scenario, here are several actual scenarios that I know have occured that took this form:
Alice is angry/upset because of something Bob did. Bob is unaware of what he did, but has picked up on Alice’s anger and wants to help her. a. Alice is trying to convince herself that it doesn’t matter. -----b. Alice thinks Bob knowing what caused her anger will cause further problems.
Alice wasn’t actually angry/upset at all. Bob believed she was, but was incorrect. His repeated questioning has resulted in her getting angry; making him more confident that there is a problem.
Alice is emotionally abusing Bob, manipulating him so that he will grovel for an explanation, such that when she tells him what she wants him to do, he’ll be forced to do it.
Alice is angry at Bob for something he did. Bob is aware what this is, but wants to pretend he isn’t in order to be able to make Alice feel as though she’s over-reacting
Alice is angry/upset for reasons that have nothing to do with Bob. Bob is concerned for Alice’s wellbeing, but Alice doesn’t want to share.
Alice is angry. Bob knows this, but Alice is actually, honestly, unaware of this fact.
You leave out the fact that there is a common belief in women that “I shouldn’t have to explain. You should just know.”—thereby rendering the need for explanation a further injury to the initial insult.
I usually find that this is what needs to be bypassed early on if any real communicating progress is to be achieved. Generally speaking I resolve this by making it perfectly clear that if the injured party is unwilling to communicate the injury, they are not “allowed” to require redress in any form. Including being angry—thereby making them the party that is acting in the wrong, and requiring them to make amends. (This usually makes me quite “unreasonable” and causes a bigger blow-up than was necessary, but it gives me a vehicle towards more successful resolution after that initial blow-up and furthermore prevents similar scenarios from arising again. Mainly because I will have firmly estabilshed that that belief is not valid with regards to me. Those whom are capable of learning instead of just adding to their cached beliefs will have better relations with me.)
Yep, seen that many times. Happens with men, too, just not as often. And I think that your approach is quite sensible, if you can see it through.
As rare as it seems others find this to be true, I’ve found that being an ass on a routine basis is actually quite useful. Makes people tolerant of the dickish things you do and far more greatful for the helpful things you do. Of course, as with everything, there’s an art to pulling it off.
As a side note: in several of these scenarios I saw, Alice was male. In several, Bob was female.
Upvoted. The general phenomenon is interesting, the gendered aspect could also be interesting, but is also potentially a big distraction. In my relationship, I am definitely often Alex. Although my girlfriend is better at being Bob than most men are, including me (in terms of resolving the issue in a way that we’re both happy with, not ‘winning the conversation’).
In my experience this sort of conversation tends to act very much like a cached behavior on the both sides of the conversation
Relevant
It seems to me that even a completely unprejudiced person in Bob’s shoes may very well rationally decide that it’s not worth the trouble to try to understand Alice’s problem. Indeed, I’ve yet to be convinced that empathy is worth the effort required to achieve it in more than a handful of cases.
When this sort of thing has happened to me, I’ve said more or less “I’ll be here if you decide you want my help with whatever it is,” and then turned my back. It seemed to me, then and now, that any other response would have been a complete waste of time and effort.
I guess that depends on how much Bob cares about Alice...?
Alice is angry at Bob for something he did. Bob is not aware what this is. Alice thinks Bob is aware what this is, but wants to pretend he isn’t in order to be able to make Alice feel as though she’s over-reacting. Neither of them are capable of even imagining this might be the situation.
Some possibilities about what Alice is thinking:
One possibility is that being understood intuitively feels so good that actually explaining what one wants feels like settling for something grossly inferior. There are cultural ideas about what true love is like that can be really destructive, and aren’t any living individual’s fault. It would, of course, be nice if people had better sense than to fall for such stuff, but this may be expecting clear communication from the universe, and I don’t think it’s reliable about that. Sometimes the universe won’t even show it’s angry until it drops an anvil on your head.
Another is that women are sometimes trained to not be clear about what they want—it isn’t nice. I can’t be sure how common this is, but I’ve got a streak of it myself, and I’ve heard other women complaining about it. Having the conditioning is extremely unpleasant (if you want to ask for something but have a high internal threshold to get past to try), and I think the conditioning can produce a background fund of anger which isn’t about the current situation.
I don’t know whether it was necessary to explain this in such detail, but sometimes I get the impression that a lot of the men here are aware of that sort of conditioning in themselves, but don’t realize women might have a variation of it.
Copying my example from another reply:
Let me build on this hypothetical example to explain why she does that:
Bob has clearly done something wrong. Alice is currently in a highly emotional state and recognises that she is likely not able to talk reasonably about what has happened without either becoming very angry or extremely upset and crying.
Therefore she really doesn’t want to talk about it right now.
Bobs insistence on demanding all the answers right now is not helping her highly emotional state and is, in fact, just adding to her feelings of anger and panic… given that clearly he did something wrong, she believes he has no right to currently dominate the timing of when she discusses this highly sensitive issue (whatever it is).
But right now, she is too emotionally fraught even to be able to say that without shouting… so she just blocks.
The best thing for Bob to do is to courteously withdraw for a little while until Alice calms down… then to return at a later date when she’s clearly had some time to reflect… and ask then.
I’ve seen this scenario occur several times where Bob HASN’T done anything wrong. Alice is annoyed for some reason, and is passive aggressively taking it out on Bob, and Bob wants to solve the problem that’s causing them both to suffer.
The assumption that it’s Bobs fault is entirely unjustified from the scenario presented.
Yes, quite right—in which case it is a power-play, pure and simple.
I just wanted to present an alternative to show that it’s not always so cut and dried.
What makes you so sure anyone’s playing for power in my scenario?
Bob is attempting to solve a problem that’s causing both Alice and Bob suffering.
Alice may be playing for power, or she may not want to burden Bob with her personal problems, and may be honestly unaware that she’s causing Bob to suffer.
passive-aggressive behaviour is a power play.
If Alice is being passive-aggressive (as you stated) then she is trying to be manipulative… in this case(as you stated) by causing Bob to suffer when he has (as you stated) done nothing wrong.
She is punishing him for having done nothing. This is a power play, pure and simple.
A non-power play solution to the problem would be for Alice to sit Bob down and explain why she’s so upset, or just to say that she doesn’t want to burden him with her personal problems and can he please stop bothering her about it? or similar…
What if Alice does want to talk about it right now, and is using this to gauge the depth of Bob’s remorse? “Hm, he only asked three times then gave up. I guess he doesn’t really care.”
Yes, that may also be an alternative reading.
I never said my own hypothetical was the only way to read it… just offering an alternative viewpoint of what could be happening, to make sure we have more than one hypothesis here.
One should not assume that there is a power play involved… one should not assume that there is not a powerplay involved. One should not assume that Alice wants Bob to stop pestering her… one should not assume that Alice wants Bob to pester her...
One should consider all of these as possibilities… and then figure out which one is actually reality.
I was just offering a possible “inside view” to show that “power play” was not the only feasible option available.
Note: generalisations from personal experience and anecdote follow:
men in my experience, are generally not as sensitive to emotional nuance as women, and only tend to ask “what’s wrong” if the woman has made it very clear and obvious that the man has done something wrong through emotionally-laden body-language. From my experience, men don’t realise that women actually have to wildly accentuate their body-language before their men “get it”—thus, byt he time the man actually does “get” that they did something wrong—the woman has already worked herself up into a state of anger and may no longer wish to actually talk about whatever it is anymore.
By contrast, women will often pick up on when they’ve upset another woman much quicker (through subtler body-language cues) and women (being used to having that noticed) find men unusually insensitive… and thus get more upset with them because they seem to not notice when they’ve “done something wrong” without being explicitly told.
It’s part of “female culture” that you shouldn’t need to tell another person when you’re upset… the other person should “just know” by noticing these cues. Amongst women, that’s usually the case. However—men are generally not as well “trained” on female body-language cues as other women are… and therefore don’t pick them up, and therefore actually have to be told… in words.… that the woman was upset by some action. For a woman this is very frustrating.
Note: that I am referring to a perceived “average” here—some men are very capable of noticing these cues and some women are not very capable...
Also note: I am not actually agreeing that any of this is a “good idea” to do… just explaining what actually generally goes on in the female mind when the given hypothetical example is actually happening.
This is certainly something that actual women do often enough for it to be a noticed part of the general culture. (Google “women nothing’s wrong” and find hosts of examples.) Going from the majority of actual women to the usual woman whose man complains he can’t understand women is a difficult transition to make- obviously those groups should have some systematic differences.
Indeed, it appears a common explanation for this is that the woman is testing the man: does he care enough to draw out why she’s upset? If that’s the case, advice given elsewhere in this tree to back off and give her time would backfire. (If that’s the case with this particular scenario, though, then Alice would probably start talking about it during one of the questions. The sticky part is how far the man has to probe, and when the man should decide to leave it alone vs. be persistent.)
That experience seems in line with the scenario SilasBarta posits. For the woman, it’s frustrating that the man doesn’t understand the message she’s sending; for the man, it’s frustrating that he doesn’t understand the message she’s sending. The communication breakdown is that neither of them seems willing or able to use the language the other is using; the woman is unwilling to explicitly articulate the problem and the man is unable to implicitly understand the problem.
(Typically, I see unwilling as easier to fix than unable, and I suspect that’s true in this case. I’ll talk more about that later.)
So, is the man “lazy”? Well, he’s certainly putting in time and effort attempting to fix the problem- which to Silas is evidence that he’s not lazy. One solution method is for him to create an effective model of Alice, which requires getting training in female culture, which requires a lot more time and effort than just asking her what’s wrong now. But it seems to me that ‘laziness’ is not the reason why Bob doesn’t choose that method- he probably doesn’t know that’s something he can do. (It may even be the case that he can’t. Perhaps even after hundreds of hours of training Bob will be unable to correctly parse signals sent by Alice.)
Now, why is Alice unwilling to explicitly talk about why she’s upset? Perhaps Bob is quick to dismiss reasons Alice thinks are significant. Perhaps Bob has different standards of proof than she does. Consider: “I don’t think Carol likes me.” “Did she say she didn’t like you?” “No… but she crossed her arms at me.” “But that could mean anything!” Alice crosses her arms at Bob.
If that’s the case, then Bob might be able to make Alice more willing to talk by being more willing to listen, and slower to judge.
Alice’s reasons for being upset could be embarrassing for a variety of reasons. Maybe Alice is mad at Bob because she had a dream that Bob did something mean to her. (Yes, this actually happens.) She can’t just stop being mad at him, but she can’t explain why she’s mad because Bob will think it’s crazy. In cases like this, Bob can’t do as much.
Oh certainly—I never claimed that it was not present (or even common), I was reacting to Silas use of the word “usually” which implies that a majority of women do this, possibly a majority of the time.
I just find this attitude a little negative—as nasty as women suggesting that “all men are lazy”—which I do not agree with… though I have certainly seen many examples of it happening… and it’s another meme that I’m sure you can google for to find plenty of examples ;)
Actually, you might notice that I edited my original comment to remove the wording you’ve replied to, as on further thought I decided it was just a bit too reactionary. I changed what I was saying purely to the anecdotal discussions about how women often perceive men… based on their own maps of how people “should behave” or “should notice” them emotionally.
Again—not agreeing with that—I believe such views are laden with map-territory issues.
It took me personally a long time to realise that “he isn’t being insensitive… he just hasn’t learned the same cues I’m used to and he probably has lots of cues that I persistently fail to notice”
Agreed—in some cases there’s a kind of emotional mexican stand-off—where both partners are unable or unwilling to take the steps necessary to solve the problem.
I also agree that in this case, Bob is not being lazy, though perhaps he’s not acting in an optimal fashion (or perhaps he is, but Alice is not). I offered my original “number 3” as just another possibility—not “what all men do”, after all :)
“Noticed parts of general culture” are often wrong. They’re called stereotypes or prejudices.
It’s not clear to me that prejudices are worthless evidence. It seems to me reasonable to take stereotypes as your prior and update on evidence rather than taking maxent as your prior.
If there’s evidence out there I should be updating on, I’d love to hear it.
Silas,
The man in your hypothetical is not trying to understand Alice. He’s trying to dominate the conversation. He may not consciously understand what he’s doing, but that’s what’s happening.
Alice saying “Nothing” implicitly includes the message “I don’t want to talk about it right now.” Alice is engaging in a different relationship failure mode if (1) the issue is important to her, but (2) she never finds a time to discuss it. But that failure mode is independent and distinct from the failure mode of the man in the hypothetical.
EDIT: Ok, dominate has a lot of connotations that I didn’t intend. Let me restate: Bob is not trying to understand Alice. He’s trying to win the conversation. As others discuss both, the thesis that Alice was also trying to win the conversation is plausible. But I don’t rate it likely without more information about Alice.
You confidently characterize the man’s comments as an effort to dominate. Why are you not equally cynical about Alice’s motives? Why do you not conclude that her comments are part of a strategy to dominate in this domain of their relationship? Why not say “She may not consciously understand what she’s doing, but that’s what’s happening.”?
Personally, I am inclined to be less cynical about both their motivations.
That’s a good question. Here is my cynical analysis of Alice’s potential psychology. I think there is a lot of room to read a power-play on Alice’s part (though that says nothing about whether it is justified or not).
That seems about right. But entirely within the realm of normal social behavior. Being able to understand such dynamics does not make them any more sinister. The point about “she may not consciously understand, but” is good. And if she does understand then I will not judge her for being obnoxious, just for being obnoxious but ineffective.
Ah, but who says she is being ineffective? That depends on her goals (see my reply to the parent). If her goal is to piss off Bob, and/or make him feel guilty and/or make his start getting apologetic, then she is already doing well. She’s already got him to admit that he has done something wrong without making any explicit accusations (assuming he is being sincere, not sarcastic). Who says her goal is relationship harmony? Some people prefer drama.
Humans were selected for having reproductively successful relationships, but not all successful mating strategies involve harmony.
Me. You will notice (or, rather, I would usually expect HughRistik to notice) that the quote is explicitly conditional on the technique being a an overt self aware strategy. And I really do assert that if I was a self aware scheming manipulator that I could do better. Frankly it is an amateur move. A more talented or more experienced bitch (using the term in a technical sense to whatever extent that is possible) would sneer at the though of being so crude.
I agree. War, rape, infanticide, murder and even being a pain in the ass are highly viable strategies. Learning how to be a pain in the ass productively is a highly recommended life skill.
Very well, I concede that there could be more powerful self-aware plays.
This set of sentences is strange to me. It’s almost as it’s implied that if a statement is an attempt to gain power or dominate a conversation, it’s impossible for it to also be an attempt to understand.
I partially agree with you in that I think the man’s move might be a power grab, but I think your characterization of power-grabs as attempts to “dominate” (have overwhelming power) is wrong.
I think that the woman’s response might also be a power-grab, Likewise the man’s response to that. Each of these is very, very weak evidence of an attempt to dominate.
At the level we’re talking about, making a power grab seems inconsistent with attempting to understand, at least from Alice’s point of view. Is she wrong?
That said, the possibility that Alice is intentionally aiming for the relationship failure mode I described above is very plausible.
Yes. She would be correct that finding a sufficient motivation for a speech act reduces the chance each other possible motivation is intended. But there is no reason a single act couldn’t have two sufficient reasons behind it.
Also, to speak of emotions being in conflict or contradicting is confusing. The actions each emotion impels might be in conflict or physically or logically impossible, but to have multiple emotions is not a mysterious paradoxical state to be in, regardless of the emotions.
Um, perhaps? It’s pretty clear that Alice is putting Bob in a no-win situation. If he gives her space, then he doesn’t care; if he tries to ask her what’s wrong, he’s clueless (or dominating the conversation).
Indeed, under your interpretation Alice saying “nothing is wrong” rather than “let’s not talk about it now” is an out-and-out lie. It’s not clear that Bob inferring that Alice is repeatedly lying would reflect better on Bob.
If Alice said “let’s talk about it later” and then Bob insisted that this get hashed out now, then you would have a point. But as is this example doesn’t reflect poorly on Bob.
Alice is not “lying”. You cannot reduce human communication in these circumstances to the explicit meaning of words. When someone says “nothing is wrong” when everyone involved realizes something is wrong then their intent is not to deceive.
Why doesn’t Alice just say “lets talk about it later”? There are plenty of plausible reasons—she may not know if she wants to talk about it later, she may not want to get into a fight about when they talk about it, she may want Bob to figure it out for himself, she may expect some kind of cost involved in her being the first to state the problem, she may not know what she wants and would prefer to have him just shut up so she can think for a moment. That her reasons for saying “Nothing” are potentially ambiguous to Bob might be unfair to him… but she is not “lying”.
If by this you mean “Alice would explode at being called a liar,” then I agree.
Communication is the transfer of information from speaker to listener: while I cannot reduce intent to the explicit meaning of words in this case I can reduce actual transfer to the explicit meaning of words (and a bit extra). The man in question is likely to be literal-minded, otherwise he would have picked up on the hint. (Men tend to be more literal than women.) Alice is the one who has an easier path to avoid communication breakdown.
They are in a fight about when they talk about it, and she is the one that elevated it from discussion to fight.
This habit is not conducive to relationship success.
No, I mean she is not saying “Nothing” with the intent to deceive Bob into thinking that, in fact, nothing is wrong.
No. You really, really can’t. You are ignoring the information Bob receives from her tone of voice and body language. Bob may be literal minded but he is obviously not so literal minded as to miss this information. If he were he would not have insisted on that Alice tell him what is wrong.
Alice has already communicated to Bob that something is wrong with her body language, facial expressions or tone of voice.
But from the context that follows we know that Alice’s body language and tone of voice did not express the same thing. And Bob realizes it when he says “It doesn’t sound like that.”
From Alice’s perspective this is a bit smug. She is thinking “I fucking know it doesn’t sound like that”. It is debatable at this point what Bob should have said, sometimes asking again will get an answer. But he knows that something is wrong and that she is not saying what—it is reasonable to expect a socially competent person to by now understand that what she really means is something like “I don’t want to talk about it, at least not now.
Alice is clearly pissed. Apparently she is yelling. And Bob clearly knows it. And Alice knows that Bob knows it. So Bob has certainly concluded that Alice means something else than literally “Nothing is wrong”. And then...
Bob has clearly figured out Alice is saying something like “I don’t want to talk about it, at least not right now.” He is now assuming he did something wrong and begging to be told what it was. But why is he persisting? He should already know that she doesn’t want to talk about it at the object level and doesn’t want to talk about it at the meta level. Yet by trying to talk about it on the meta level he is going against her wishes and starting a fight.
Now what Bob should do is just let it alone for an hour and see if she want to talk about it then. He has the right to not put up with her attitude if she won’t tell him what he did. I wouldn’t want to hang out with Alice when she is in this mood and if she expects him to without her explaining herself then he can reasonably say “I’m not putting up with the silent treatment all afternoon. Either tell me whats up or I’m gonna go do something else.”
As for whether or not Alice ought to expect Bob to figure it out—it may or not be a good habit—but Alice wanting that and trying to communicate it is not lying.
And while communication is extremely important not everything needs to be turned into a huge, dramatic discussion or debate. Alice may know she’ll be over it in a little while but starting a fight would lead to week-long estrangement. I don’t know which of them is “right”—I’m not sure that makes to talk about since these aren’t real people and there is not actual problem. I am not in agreement with TimS that Bob is trying to dominate Alice… I just think he’s being stupid.
Unfortunately, Silas’ original example is under-specified, so there are many different situations that could lead to it, or potential power plays on both sides. I’m going to make a guess that the scenario (in Silas’ imagination) occurred because of something Bob did or didn’t do that Alice didn’t like.
Alice is fuming, and she very much wants Bob to know. She feels that Bob should know better. That’s why she won’t tell him what it is. She wants him to figure it out for himself, and apologize to her. If he asks what is wrong as if he doesn’t know, and she has to tell him, then she admits that there was ambiguity in the original situation, or lack of knowledge on his part, that completely or partially exculpates him.
Alternatively, she might agree that there are exculpatory factors, but she still want to see if he will now realize what he did wrong and apologize without her having to spell it out for him. This approach might be especially important if he forgot something (maybe their anniversary), and she wants to see how long it will take him to remember.
Another possibility might be that she doesn’t want to tell him what he did wrong because she doesn’t want to look accusatory or nagging. So instead she just blast accusatory nonverbal communication at him until he understands that he is supposed to start admitting guilt.
If Silas is imagining the same scenario that is evoked in my mind, Alice is not trying to disengage from communicating with Bob all; she is trying to show her displeasure with him, and get him to (a) admit that he is at fault, and possibly also (b) apologize to what he is at fault for without her having to explain it, proving that he has either “learned his lesson” or that he isn’t trying to “play innocent.”
This interpretation leads me to agree with you that Alice is not lying, and that she is using implicit communication, but I think she may be doing it even more than you realize. Note that I take no position about who is in the right or in the wrong.
Yes.
If Bob has good reasons to expect that she is unhappy with him, then it’s not clear at all that she really doesn’t want to talk about it.
Under the scenario I’m imagining, it’s obvious why he persists. He doesn’t believe that Alice is serious about not wanting to talk, based on the context, body language, and tone of voice. He interprets her communication to mean “I don’t want to talk about the thing you did wrong unless you stop playing innocent about it and start groveling.” That’s why he starts groveling by admitting that he did something wrong… That might satisfy Alice, or she might want him to guess or admit exactly what he did wrong without her having to explain it.
In heated arguments, people often say and do things that they don’t mean, or to test the reaction of the other partner. Alice could be sincere that she doesn’t want to talk, but she could also be testing to see if Bob cares enough to find out what she is unhappy about, or if he will admit full culpability and apologize.
Some personality types feel differently.
Wait, what makes you think that Alice isn’t trying to start a fight? She could be defending a Schelling Point.
Depending on the nonverbals, her behavior could be an excellent way to start a fight, while pretending that Bob is the one instigating it by pestering her. If she really didn’t want to start a fight, she could either hide her displeasure better, or making it sound absolutely cold and serious that she doesn’t want to talk. The fact that Bob is following up with questions suggests that he thinks she is trying to either start a fight, so he tries to roll over on his belly by asking what he did.
This only way Bob is being dominating is if he knowingly did something majorly fucked up or abusive, and is pestering Alice and playing innocent while trying to cope with it. Short of that, there actually may be good contextual reasons for Bob to believe that Alice wants to continue communicating with him, but just wants him to take an apologetic role, or (if they both know she is upset by something other than him) a supportive role. If Alice is using passive-aggressiveness to try to put him into an apologetic and groveling role, then she is the dominating one (of course, whether this is justified depends on context). Unless Bob is obviously in the wrong, then he is being stupid by letting her get away with this power play, which gives her an incentive to get upset in the future any time she wants concessions from him.
Of course, this is only one possible reading of the situation; I just suspect that it’s a bit closer to what Silas intended that most of the other readings.
Incidentally, I offered these interpretations because they were the right answers in particular instances where a girlfriend said “nothing” when there obviously was something. At least these are plausible interpretations if I believe our later conversations about why she said “nothing”. For these explanations the line by line interpretation is a little different—she is upset enough that it is hard not to show it or perhaps she is torn about whether or not to show it. Perhaps she just wants Bob to feel a little bad about it. Perhaps Bob is more observing than we have so far given him credit for. When she yells at Bob in her last line she is yelling at him because she is annoyed by his instance on talking about it, not trying to be obvious about being hurt regarding the object-level matter.
I suspect Silas may have posted the comment without knowing or having a specific intended reading. Or he might be speaking as someone who has been a Bob in the past and genuinely isn’t sure how to interpret Alice. I also think by rendering Alice’s motivations explicit where making her too calculating. I suspect “nothing” often comes out just because it seems like the easiest thing to say at the moment not because of any well thought out strategic considerations.
I agree your interpretation is plausible, though.
I’m coming to realize that dominate is too strong a word for what I’m trying to say. I think Jack made basically the entire point I’m trying to make here. My only criticism is that “stupid” is a very broad description of Bob’s failure. Is there a more precise way of stating Bob’s error?
This conversation is a lot like that moment in Top Gun. “I object” “Overruled.” “I strenuously object!” That’s not going to work. Why should Bob expect it to work?
Did I claim deceit? “Nothing” is inaccurate. (I understand that labeling an inaccuracy a ‘lie’ is a political statement.)
Notice that, by TimS’s interpretation, she actually is attempting to deceive him- she hopes that he believes the lie that nothing is wrong so that she won’t have to discuss the issue now. If you want to question whether or not deceit is involved, bring it up with TimS.
Mmm, I think that’s in there (as signified by the “and change”). It also depends what level we’re looking at. If we assume that Bob gets message 1: “Alice is mad” from her body language, then he asks her what’s wrong, and he gets the message 2: “nothing is wrong,” then he could suspect it is a falsehood solely from its mismatch with message 1. (This is probably made easier by a “falsehood” tag hung on message 2, but it isn’t necessary.)
Notice that any judgment about when the fight started is a political statement. Could we not say that Alice started the fight when she went against Bob’s wishes and didn’t explain what was wrong?
Is it reasonable for Alice to assume that Bob is socially competent, particularly when it comes to this understanding?
About what?
Bob and Alice clearly both have deficient models of each other. I get that, and the things Alice could be pissed about. You don’t need to explain basic human interaction to me (though both Bob and Alice could use some help). The problem is that, in this example, Bob wants to fix his model and Alice doesn’t put any effort into fixing her model. (Remember, the original contention was over taryneast putting forward the suggestion that “Bob is too lazy to take the time and effort to understand Alice.” SilasBarta concocted this hypothetical to suggest that the laziness of understanding is the other way around for many couples. TimS argued that Bob’s lack of laziness was actually a vice.)
Alice wanting that and not being able to communicate it effectively is fixable, though. If your man is too literal to pick up on your hints, tell him directly!
In which case try out “I’ll get over it, give me some time.” (If it’s true, start with “It’s not anything you did.”) If pressed, respond with “Talking about it will just make me madder, and I’d like to not be mad as soon as possible.”
Yes. It is inaccurate. It is inaccurate in the same way sarcasm in inaccurate. Calling what Alice says a lie is about as inaccurate as calling sarcasm a lie. Maybe we should taboo “lie”. We agree it is literally false and agree that it was not deceit. That leaves me not seeing what it was Alice did wrong (beside being suboptimal in her communication skills). She hasn’t seemed to commit a transgression since literally false statements are routinely acceptable as long as they are not part of a deception.
I’m not really concerned with what TimS thinks—lots of people have that covered. I’m sorry if this feels like I’ve put you in a double bind—having to say she is lying to dispute TimS’s position but also having to dispute my position that she was not lying (wasn’t my intention).
Conceivably. Personally, I think expecting people to be prepared to explain themselves immediately is unrealistic if not unfair. But note I also added that I don’t think Bob can be expected to put up with Alice’s attitude for an extended period of time if she is not prepared to talk about it.
Shrug. This is information that hasn’t been stipulated one way or the other. But obviously a plausible explanation for the whole scene is that Alice thinks Bob is socially competent on this matter when he in fact isn’t.
It can be the case that Alice is to blame for Bob not understanding her. It can also be the case that he is to blame. I have no idea how to evaluate that. I agree that if Alice is getting upset a lot and never saying why—and if she is getting upset about is not something Bob ought infer with a bit of empathy—then she is to blame for Bob not understanding her. Again, I don’t agree with TimS.
People here are projecting their truth fetishes (which I share) onto the rest of the world. Not ever map correction needs to be made right away and often they disappear into irrelevance. Not everyone has the same high verbal intelligence as this crowd and it isn’t fair to expect them to be able to put into words exactly what someone did wrong.
Reasonable. Or break up with him if you need someone who can pick up on the hints. Alternatively, if your girl wants you to pick up on hints learn to pick up on them or break up with her. Or the two of your could find some sort of compromise.
Good suggestion!
I suspect that the typical mind fallacy is the primary cause of men and women not understanding each other.
This strikes me as an overgeneralization. In this particular scenario, an agent is attempting an ineffective strategy, which could be fixed by being explicit (Bob’s strategy is also ineffective, but the path for Alice to improve is less ambiguous. As I pointed out in my first comment, since Alice determines the success or failure of Bob’s strategies, she can decide to turn any strategy he tries into a failure). There are comparable numbers of people defending Bob and defending Alice, which suggests the truth fetishists (of which I am not one) may not be sizeable enough to stand for all people here.
I was paying attention to upvotes but those seem to have evened out since I wrote that.
The part where Bob looks at fault is when he keeps repeating the strategy that has already failed.
It is generally understood that a false statement is only a lie if the intent or expectation is that it be understood as a true statement. We have other words for different kinds of false statements: “fiction,” “joke”… By saying “lie,” “deception” was understood.
This is, of course, a social convention, but the application of “generally” to the subject at hand is questionable. Notice also that I was responding to someone who interpreted Alice as attempting to deceive Bob, which is not necessarily the case.
No, he means that Alice fails to satisfy the literal definition of lying, in that she is not intending to deceive. That is, she does not mean for the man to conclude that there is in fact nothing wrong.
Emphasis mine. My dictionary contains four instances of “lie” as a noun; #3 applies, and #1 (the one you’re using) applies under the interpretation espoused by the person whose comment I was responding to (i.e. TimS suggested she wants him to conclude, for now at least, that nothing is wrong).
If you have read TimS correctly, then we agree that she was lying. But your reading of TimS doesn’t look very plausible to me. Alice’s not wanting to talk now doesn’t convey the message that nothing is wrong now.
I think what TimS probably meant was that she wants him to act, at least for now, as if nothing is wrong. But I probably shouldn’t have jumped on you for criticizing him (I was not focused enough on the context, ironically).
This is true, but as it is different from other fights about when to talk about it, the point stands. She escalated to a particular form of fight at a particular time for reasons she partially understands and partially doesn’t understand.
Possibly this isn’t failure for both or either of them, though such things usually are. They do things, those actions have consequences, and we can judge those consequences against their stated preferences, idealized preferences, revealed preferences...whatever.
So for:
I think it reflects poorly on whoever is losing utility. I’m not too interested in apportioning blame among for example a mugger, his abusive parents, the guy who he mugged in the dark alley, the engineer who should have put a light there, etc.
ETA: I changed my mind to arrive at a similar position. It’s not that behavior reflects poorly on people dependent upon the loss of utility that the behavior causes. Behavior less than what an entity expects to cause them the most utility (however weighted and whatever it is, including the right to e.g. be scope insensitive) reflects poorly on their character, and expectations divergent from those a perfectly rational agent would have reflect poorly on their minds.
So someone is still nuts if he or she fervently believes that if he or she enters a car that has a vowel on its license plate, the car will spontaneously explode even if this belief saves his or her life; and if one day a meteoroid unexpectedly drops out of the sky and kills you, giving you huge negative utility, that doesn’t make you somehow dumber than the people outside around you.
Which point? As I understand it, Jack gave a large number of plausible reasons why she might respond the way she did. I selected the two most self-destructive and criticized them. It’s still true that they’re plausible reasons, and so in that sense “the point stands,” but they aren’t reasons that should be cultivated.
Then it’s not clear to me why you’re posting in this tree? If you go up to the root, taryneast posted blaming the man for being lazy; then Silas posted about blaming the woman for being uncommunicative; then TimS posted about blaming the man for being domineering; then I posted blaming the woman for being unhelpful/dishonest; then Jack posted blaming the man for not understanding women; then I posted blaming Alice for not understanding her audience.
Perhaps you’re trying to move from ‘blame’ towards ‘consequences,’ and sure, I support that move. But I don’t think the comment tree as is will move very easily.
Weeding is part of gardening.
But really, Silas posted about the man not being to blame for lack of communication, so I can stand behind that. I also thought it a description of fact without necessarily involving blame when you described the woman as putting the man in a no-win situation. So I didn’t read that as you blaming her. I read your next sentence as blaming her, but on a different topic, as “out-and-out lie” implies a lot of judgement. I may or may not agree with Jack’s next comment, depending on what he meant by “lie”. She communicated poorly on the crystal-to-mud clarity scale, using a literal falsehood that had a relatively high likelihood of conveying the truth, for a literal falsehood. I don’t see any moral problem with that as such.
So I find myself agreeing with whoever is defending a character, it gives me a coherent side in each sub-part of the argument.
I think you have some formatting errors with the start of your comment.
I see how Alice’s strategy is different; I don’t see how the subject of the fight is different. In example 1, Bob says “let’s talk now” and Alice responds with a subtextual “no.” In example 2, Bob says “let’s talk now” and Alice responds with a textual “no, how about later?” Is that enough for you to call it a different fight?
To be clear my main point was just: “Alice is not lying”. She may well be uncooperative and self-destructive but she is not lying. Whether or not she is being uncooperative or self-destructive is not obvious to me from the skeleton dialog. It would be dependent on details we don’t have—though I think it is likely her chosen path is not ideal. I think the man is being a bit dense and uncooperative by the end but he is not obviously in the wrong. Please interpret my comments as disagreement with precisely what you said not as support for TimS’s comment or signifying that I blame or care about blaming one party or the other.
Have you tabooed “definition” without tabooing arguments from definition?
Heh. Almost. I’ve replaced definition with conventional speaker-meaning and am arguing from conventional speaker-meaning.
So, hypothetical: if we were both standing outside under the clear blue sky and I said to you “The sky is green” you would say I was not lying? Assume we are speaking English, that both of us have working color vision, etc.
I’d be trying to figure out from your tone, body language, facial expressions etc what was going on. Is pedanterrific just being weird? Has he gone crazy? Have I gone crazy? Is he trying to performatively illustrate a position on the unknowability of qualia? You’ve made it sort of difficult by providing an example of an obviously false statement wherein there is no other information about what you’re doing—but I certainly don’t feel compelled to call it a lie.
Consider sarcasm.
I guess where you and I differ is that I don’t consider those mutually exclusive. If I’m stating something which I know to not be true, I’m lying. I may also be doing other things (e.g. stating a prearranged signal like “the eagle has landed”), but all that—“being weird”, “performatively illustrating a position” etc. - doesn’t mean I’m not lying.
I, for one, understand that the definition of lying you are choosing to use here is simply “making false statements.” It does not make sense to argue over what definition is “correct.” I do want to be sure you are aware that many people understand lying to be “intending to deceive,” particularly when things are morally charged, and you would be wise to taboo “lie” when this is relevant.
As a matter of curiosity: pursuant to your particular definition of lying as you were using it above, would you call making a true statement with the intent that it deceive and the knowledge that it is likely to do so “a lie” or “not a lie”?
I certainly hope that’s not what it looked like I was doing.
Oh, I am. I was just curious about Jack’s specific definition.
In point of fact, I would call that a “deception”, not a “lie”. So, [a statement made with intent to deceive] = a “deception”, and [a statement of something that is known to be false] = a “lie”. So the two qualities are independent of each other. (Incidentally, [a statement of something that is false, but thought to be correct] would be a “mistake”.)
I wonder whether the legal system considers “making a true statement with the intent to deceive” perjury?
It looked like what was generally happening—I’m not interested in meting out blame for it.
Good.
Alright, interesting. FWIW, I can go either way on that one.
To some extent, wouldn’t this amount to most defenses when the accused is guilty? This seems like a bad idea, unfortunately.
You lost me. (Pleading “Not Guilty” when you are guilty isn’t perjury because it’s not under oath, but I don’t see what that has to do with “making a true statement with the intent to deceive”.)
Also, you only need the > at the beginning of each paragraph.
Generally, statements made in the defense would be made with the intent that people draw the conclusion that the defendant is, in fact, not guilty. A guilty defendant could then not legally testify at all.
Gracias.
Well, there’s a reason people plead the Fifth.
Y de nada.
Googles …
Though I suppose this wouldn’t protect someone from prosecution for sarcasm.
You wanted the previous page. Yes, for perjury, the statement must actually be false.
Oh, you’re totally right. I misread the parent.
No worries.
For what it’s worth, I’m not actually sure what I was going for there.
Edit: Yeah, that was probably it.
I assumed “curiosity”
Yeah. I mean—usage sometimes differs. I don’t want to make this exactly a definition debate. But look at how Vaniver used the word:
That usage suggests to me a meaning of liar that implies deceit (though Vaniver later said he didn’t mean to imply that).
I do think it would be a social/linguistic error to respond to weirdness, joking hyperbole, or sarcasm with with “Liar!” or similar variant in a sincere tone.
Generally I prefer “Get thee behind me, Prince of Lies!” or possibly “You should be a statistician!” if I’m feeling particularly vindictive.
But I get your point.
Do you intend to persuade your interlocutor that the sky is in fact green? If not, then you are not lying.
Okay. So, what word do you use to describe the act of “stating things which you know to not be true”? Or does your variant of English not have a word for that act?
Such an act has different names in different contexts. In your scenario, what motivated your statement that the sky is green?
Alternatively, if you need to sum up the action in any context, the phrase “stating things which you know to not be true” suffices...
It does, doesn’t it? Fancy that.
I don’t see how that is supposed to matter. But because I’m curious, some hypothetical situations:
My motivation was to find out how my interlocutor would describe my statement.
Assume that you don’t and can’t know my motivation, as is commonly the case in the real world.
It was due to a random causeless quantum fluctuation, similar in theory to the idea of a ‘Boltzmann brain’, which acted on my neurons in a such a way as to output that statement and make me rationalize it as my idea.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/meaning/#GriPro
Propositional theories of meaning fail precisely because they have a great deal of trouble accounting for situations where our words don’t match our intentions.
Intention always matters.
What does it say about me that my first instinctive response was “I’m a consequentialist, not a virtue ethicist.”
It’s not good enough to just be a consequentialist rather than a virtue ethicist. You have to be a conequentialist for the right reasons or it doesn’t count.
Intentions are physical facts about brains. If you care about those particular physical facts, then you can be a consequentialist who cares about intentions.
Often, some of the physical facts that determine whether a certain word applies to a certain situation happen to be physical facts that fall under the heading of “intentions”.
It’s just… if “intention always matters” when choosing which word to use to describe someone else’s actions, you spend an inordinate amount of time not knowing how to describe something while you gather data on the other agent’s intentions, data which may not ever be definitive. That seems to rather miss the point of language.
When an actor says, “I am Hamlet, prince of Denmark” is he lying?
If yes, then why is there a negative connotation in the word lying?
Well he’s certainly not telling the truth, and he’s (probably) not honestly mistaken, so sure.
I’m not exactly sure I’m qualified to answer that, but if I had to speculate… because it’s easier to accidentally mislead people by assuming they know you’re not telling the truth than the opposite, and because it’s valuable to society to pretend rigorous truth-telling is more laudable than it really is (i.e. “honest” has an unreservedly positive connotation, despite the fact that there are common social situations in which it is terribly impolite to actually be honest). Does that make sense?
Role playing can hardly be considered lying, as the latter usually implies an intent to deceive.
I am aware that this is the common understanding, yes. Apparently my definition is rather idiosyncratic.
This sounds vaguely like the idea once prevalent in legal proceedings that actors were not trustworthy as witnesses because their skill acting in plays showed that they could commit perjury undetected by the jury.
That theory is no longer accepted in law. And I think the modern understanding—that actors are no more or less likely to be dishonest than any other citizen—is the more rational position. Is society’s modern view wrong?
Uh… well first of all, I don’t see what any of those things have to do with each other. To put my objections in some kind of order:
The idea that actors’ skill at lying is a reason to distrust their testimony is ridiculous. Juries, and people in general, are much worse lie detectors than they believe themselves to be. The bar is set so low that probably only really, unusually bad liars are ever caught by that method.
That said, experience and skill at acting probably does generalize into skill at other forms of lying—that seems intuitively true, and it’s certainly been the case in my experience, so I have no reason to doubt it.
The unrelated claim of whether actors are equally likely to be dishonest as anyone else is also a terrible indicator of their reliability under oath. Presumably people who perjure themselves have a compelling reason, such that a constitutional tendency toward honesty wouldn’t do what the threat of jailtime did not.
That said, I have no idea whether actors are more, equally or less likely to be dishonest than the general population. I’m not sure how you’d go about testing that hypothesis, either.
Does that about clear it up?
Communication is the transfer of information, but social conventions still exist. And those social conventions provide context so that the spoken words include implicit statements.
I’m certainly not trying to say the the conventions are efficient. And lack of communication efficiency is bad for relationships. And sometimes, the social conventions are really opaque.
But when you say someone is lying, that’s an accusation that a norm has been violated. And I don’t think that Alice has violated any norm (social or otherwise). She may not be trying to maximize the viability of her relationship with Bob, but that’s a separate issue.
And my only point was that Bob’s explicit request for Alice to say what’s wrong is not really trying to understand Alice.
Finally, I want to point out that our conversation is very meta. Alice may not be interested in having this kind of conversation. Most people aren’t. And when the social conventions are very opaque, this sucks for Bob if he’s not good at figuring out social conventions. Further, if Alice is trying to make the convention opaque, or hiding behind to uncertainty to jerk Bob’s chain, that doesn’t say good things about her.
It seems like you’re using Alice’s perspective to identify Bob’s intentions. Since they’re having this fight, I don’t think that’s a reliable model to work off of. Bob wants to clear up his confusion, and he’s confused about Alice. Alice sees Bob’s attempt to clear up confusion (what’s there to be confused about?*) as dominating the conversation- obviously she doesn’t want to talk about it!
*Consider the emotional reaction that some women have when the man doesn’t know what the issue is about- “he should know (without telling).” While the first part is spoken, the second part is clearly the message- if the important thing were knowledge transfer, she would say what the problem is!
Thanks for playing along! Notice that this has been a demonstration of social conventions, as alluded to:
It is incontestable that Alice is providing verbal content that is the opposite of the information she believes. Can that be labeled a “lie”? Well, that depends on consequences, not the definition. The label of ‘lying’ is one she would hotly deny- despite it being literally true- because of the subtext involved. If Alice is labeled a liar, then her status-seeking strategy (conscious or unconscious) has failed- and so she’ll probably double down by exploding. The convention is for Bob to not challenge Alice on that because it rarely ends well for either of them.
Man, if there were one piece of social advice I would give to my younger self...
I wish I could upvote this more...
Yep, TimS, begging Alice to explain to him how he can treat her better while she refuses to say anything helpful whatsoever is an example of the man simply trying to selfishly “dominate the conversation”. (???)
Let me build on this hypothetical example to explain why.
Bob has clearly done something wrong. Alice is currently in a highly emotional state and recognises that she is likely not able to talk reasonably about what has happened without either becoming very angry or extremely upset and crying.
Therefore she really doesn’t want to talk about it right now.
Bobs insistence on demanding all the answers right now is not helping her highly emotional state and is, in fact, just adding to her feelings of anger and panic… given that clearly he did something wrong, she believes he has no right to currently dominate the timing of when she discusses this highly sensitive issue (whatever it is).
But right now, she is too emotionally fraught even to be able to say that without shouting… so she just blocks.
The best thing for Bob to do is to courteously withdraw for a little while until Alice calms down… then to return at a later date when she’s clearly had some time to reflect… and ask then.
I don’t mean to indict Alice, but maybe evolution gave her these sincere emotions to make her behavior achieve the same results as a power play. “Understandable” is how “self-serving” feels from the inside. Of course that also applies to the actions of males, including this comment of mine ;-)