Advice for beginners ...

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DEALING WITH CONFLICT

• Show that it is safe to disagree with you. Convey respect for differences of opinion. Do not punish dissent.
• Important: Disagreement does not have to be disagreeable.
• Make eye contact and listen actively. Offer appropriate feedback, and give the speaker the experience of being heard.
• Never permit conflicts of personalities. Keep encounters about work task-centered, not ego-centered. The focus needs to be on reality – “What is the situation? What does the work require? What needs to be done?”
• Provide reasons for rules and guidelines when they are not self-evident. Explain why you cannot accommodate certain requests. Don’t merely hand down orders.

I often feel like a beginner ...

Did you know Wikipedia has a humour section?  Well, it doesn't, but here and there are harbours for some funny material. One, for example, is called "The Truth," and it is strangely hilarious.  The sections below are from the Wikipedia 'meta-wiki' page "How to Win an Argument."  It is very meta, and mostly pertinent to Wikipedia articles, talk pages, and the culture therein ... but it also can be consulted for work in other venues ...

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Shortcut: 
HTWAA

• Be sure to get the last word. People have short memories. If you do not get the last word, no one will remember what you have said. If this requires repeating your argument 50 times, so be it. This may appear repetitive, however, which will cause people to begin ignoring your messages; you may wish to alter a few words each time rather than repeating it verbatim. This will make it appear as if it were an entirely new message.
• Reply to every comment. Not addressing the concerns raised by others will make it appear as if you are evading them. Thus it is important to address every comment made in a thread. If you are discussing on the mailing list, you must reply to every message. If you consolidate your responses, some people may miss that you have responded to a point addressed in another message. Therefore, you should reply to every message, even if your reply is only one sentence long and contains the same argument you have already made.
  • Reply to only one element of each comment. If you argue strongly enough about a single sentence in another editor's comment, it makes it look like that sentence was the only point they were trying to make, and since your reply proves that sentence wrong, everyone will know your position supersedes the entire comment. Just make sure you choose a sentence that's close to the end of their comment, since people only scroll down, never up, when reading talk pages.

[...]

• Demand citations (including page numbers) for all claims. And if anyone ever provides one, you may dismiss it point-blank. If the cited work was a classic in its field, it must be out-dated and therefore inaccurate. If you've never heard of it, it's just an anecdotal coffee-table book with no status what-so-ever. And you can always deny the author's expertise — no amount of acknowledgement by his peers has to suffice to you. You know better. Or, if the work was put together by a panel, the cited part was probably added by a layman proof-reader without subsequent review. If someone floods the argument with multiple sources, dismiss one of them as derisively as you can and you can ignore the rest. If someone ever demands you to cite your claims, just say that it is all common knowledge. If they keep insisting on a source, say: "do a Google search, it's all there".
• Never leave the argument. If the argument is going nowhere in an endless cycle, tell the opposition that the project is hopelessly broken and announce that you're going to leave Wikipedia forever. Tell them that Wikipedia isn't what it used to be, and they'll be sorry when they come to realize what you now know. Post a bitter farewell message on your user page. Then, keep on arguing. When others start asking "weren't you leaving?", tell them that you're not going to reason with idiots and pretend to ignore them, while continuing to make your grievances known wherever possible.
• Explain why you are an expert on the topic. It is possible to lend weight to your own pronouncements by declaring yourself to be an expert on a topic. No proof, resume or documentation need be provided since those who doubt you can be accused of having bad faith.

Rudy Giuliani's TV appearance today offers a means of testing the ironic verities of the meta essay.  In that he launched a thousand bad 'memes' with his "Truth isn't Truth" ...

I think this is what he meant:

1 hour ago, william.scherk said:

Did you know Wikipedia has a humour section?  Well, it doesn't, but here and there are harbours for some funny material. One, for example, is called "The Truth," and it is strangely hilarious.  The sections below are from the Wikipedia 'meta-wiki' page "How to Win an Argument."  It is very meta, and mostly pertinent to Wikipedia articles, talk pages, and the culture therein ... but it also can be consulted for work in other venues ...

Additional tips:

Assume the role of teacher/lector/scold/mentor, dole out guidance and advice, but don't follow it yourself. You're the sage, they're the students at your feet. The rules of civil behavior are for Them, not for superior you.

Avoid substance. Stick with superficial gotcha points. When invited to swim in deeper waters, ignore the invitations. When challenged to swim deeper, extra-double-ignore the chalkengrs. Splash even more energetically in the safety of the shallows.

Document dump. Don't summarize. Don't explain. Just expect people to read thousands of words, and then to come to the same conclusion that you did, but which you won't share in a brief summary. Expect them to find and identify your argument for you, and to agree with it, of course!

Behave as if mortally wounded when you receive in turn what you've given. How dare anyone speak to you in the way that you speak to them!

J

The "Manager" quote in the box at the top reminds me of Deming, the statistician who preached quality control after WWII to deaf ears in the US, so he went to Japan and made that country a world leader in quality automobiles and electronics.  While this was based in part on statistics, it also included much about management practices.  I think the common thread is the question of whether the management task is to make things work or to assign blame when they don't.  This and three of Jonathan's points make me think of the management of the apartment building where I have been living for two years.  As one example, in the fall we get a condescending letter of advance blame reminding us not to open our windows in the winter and thereby let the apartment get so cold the radiators freeze.  The first question is, "Who would be dumb enough to do that in New Hampshire?"  Unmentioned is the fact that the second floor here is so hot that I never have to turn the heat on all year, and, indeed, do have to open windows in the dead of winter.  To solve the problem one would need to figure out what is wrong with the heating or ventilation system,  but it's much easier to blame the victim. 

The Giuliani quote is best understood by acknowledging he probably meant a 'he-said/he-said" situation, where memory, bias, availability heuristics and suggestibility reign.  In any case, he explained his remarks subsequently:

Giuliani also found the time to pontificate upon James Comey, who -- showboat that he is, right? -- pontificated upon Giuliani's easily-misunderstood "Truth isn't truth" garble.

Which brought a slightly snarked-out response ...

29 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

The Giuliani quote is best understood by acknowledging he probably meant a 'he-said/he-said" situation...

 

"Probably"? Heh.

Listen to the interview.

Extra-pretend fake news.

J

See also:  How to Disagree Without Being Disagreeable: 7 Tips for Having More Productive Discussions

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5) Don't get personal. 

When a disagreement gets heated, it's easy for people to call upon "low blows." These personal attacks are often used as an intimidation tactic or defense mechanism, but that doesn't make them appropriate in business situations -- or any situation for that matter. 

When disagreeing with someone, your claims should be based on the outcome over that you are debating, not on what the other person has done (or not done) in the past. 

“Try to make sure the conversation stays focused on facts, not personalities,” management professor Nate Bennett told QSR. "And if the other person gets personal, remember that you are not your job."

"It's a lot easier to embrace criticism of your work when you don't let your work define who you are," insists Jeff Atwood, co-founder of Stack Exchange and Discourse. "Even if someone says something out of line, avoid the itch to retaliate by keeping this notion in mind. Instead, refocus the discussion back to the subject matter at hand."

On 8/19/2018 at 11:36 AM, Jonathan said:

Additional tips:

Assume the role of teacher/lector/scold/mentor, dole out guidance and advice, but don't follow it yourself. You're the sage, they're the students at your feet. The rules of civil behavior are for Them, not for superior you.

Avoid substance. Stick with superficial gotcha points. When invited to swim in deeper waters, ignore the invitations. When challenged to swim deeper, extra-double-ignore the chalkengrs. Splash even more energetically in the safety of the shallows.

Document dump. Don't summarize. Don't explain. Just expect people to read thousands of words, and then to come to the same conclusion that you did, but which you won't share in a brief summary. Expect them to find and identify your argument for you, and to agree with it, of course!

Behave as if mortally wounded when you receive in turn what you've given. How dare anyone speak to you in the way that you speak to them!

J

Jonathan sums it all up better than anyone could.

1 hour ago, Jon Letendre said:

On 8/19/2018 at 10:36 AM, Jonathan said:

Behave as if mortally wounded when you receive in turn what you've given. How dare anyone speak to you in the way that you speak to them!

Jonathan sums it all up better than anyone could.

Sure.  Agreed for the sake of discussion.  

1 hour ago, william.scherk said:

"Even if someone says something out of line, avoid the itch to retaliate by keeping this notion in mind. Instead, refocus the discussion back to the subject matter at hand."

What is the best, most instructive disagreement you were involved in on OL over the years?  Or, in other words, all things being equal, what kinds of disagreement were fruitful for you here at this forum?

1 hour ago, Jon Letendre said:

Don’t get into discussions with deranged leftists who are only pretending to be interested in sincere discussion.

I agree, to a point.  Every political point  on the horseshoe can display an edge condition, where reason is not as important as it is to the Objectivist-influenced, those who follow a variant of Rand's epistemology. For every "deranged leftist" as tagged, there will be a cohort of less-mad or less-dogmatic 'ordinary leftists,' in my opinion. Even in an 'expanded cohort' with which one can find a large field of agreement, there will be folks who dissent. The dissent can be  reason-based, emotion-based, or a mixture.

With or without name-calling, what is there in the following video that you disagree with, and on which grounds?

Guess who wrote this ... 

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How to compose a successful critical commentary:

1. You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.
2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

11 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

Guess who wrote this ... 

Can one choose to so compose using their free will?

Michael

19 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

31 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

Guess who wrote this ... 

Quote

How to compose a successful critical commentary:

1. You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.
2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

Can one choose to so compose using their free will? 

No comprendo.

43 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

No comprendo.

William,

Come on.

You quote Dennett, make your little guessing game, and then get confused about a reference to free will?

For Dennett, it's all semantics, not in theory, but in the way he explains it.

And that is critical commentary according to his own standard?

It's hard, for me at least, to re-express his "target position" because I can't detect one. Something something determinism... something something free will exists... something something it doesn't but it does... something something the only kind worth having... something something biology... and so on.

(He has a nice smile.  )

Michael

Thanks, I wish I'd thought of putting it that way.  

The trio of writers and educators behind the 'Grievance Studies' expose of corruption in higher-ed^** are pretty productive. The two fellows, James Lindsay and Peter Boghossian have a new book called "How to Have Impossible Conversations," to be released September 17. It's subtitle is "A Very Practical Guide."

From the Look Inside function at Amazon.com:

Am interesting context-setting podcast interview with Boghossian at Quillette (via Twitter); Kay is a Canadian literary editor/opinion writer/author and also an editor at Quillette:

_____________

**

The first pre-publication reviews are in for the Boghossian-Lindsay book.

Skeptic editor Michael Shermer in conversation with Peter Boghossian:

Billy, I still remember a year ago when I begged for months for you to drop your flamewar against me. I repeated a fair truce offer many, many times wherein I would have been “duty-bound to behave consistent with not being aware of the existence of William.” You didn’t even have the courtesy to acknowledge the offers.

It is simple, Billy:

1) In the produce section, pick out a large eggplant.

2) Choke to death on it.

None of her followers could ever figure this out but “choke to death on it” is a singular proposition—the written form of a command about Billyboy (the existent referred to by the individual concept "Billyboy") to die by means of inserting the identity of Large Eggplant into the thing referred to by the individual concept "Billyboy." Or, in terms of units, that proposition is the mental grasp of a command about the existent Billyboy (the unit subsumed by the concept "Billyboy") to die by means of a happy union of the identity of Billyboy and the unit subsumed by the concept "Large Eggplant."

-What’s in Your Throat?

On 8/27/2019 at 10:43 AM, william.scherk said:

James Lindsay and Peter Boghossian have a new book called "How to Have Impossible Conversations," to be released September 17. It's subtitle is "A Very Practical Guide."

An internet chum, Iona Italia, has had her review of the book up at Areo since early September: Impossible Conversations

On 8/18/2018 at 10:35 AM, william.scherk said:

Advice for beginners ...

Quote

DEALING WITH CONFLICT

• Show that it is safe to disagree with you. Convey respect for differences of opinion. Do not punish dissent.
• Important: Disagreement does not have to be disagreeable.
• Make eye contact and listen actively. Offer appropriate feedback, and give the speaker the experience of being heard.
• Never permit conflicts of personalities. Keep encounters about work task-centered, not ego-centered. The focus needs to be on reality – “What is the situation? What does the work require? What needs to be done?”
• Provide reasons for rules and guidelines when they are not self-evident. Explain why you cannot accommodate certain requests. Don’t merely hand down orders.

I often feel like a beginner ...

Here's a challenging set of assumptions and presumptions, wrapped up in an image. From a blog series at the old Slate Star Codex (the author since shifted operations to Substack).

The entry at the old blog is called "Varieties of Argument Experience."