Comment by ziddoap
Meta, but this might be one of the longest comments I have seen in reply to a couple sentences. Lots of condescension, emotions, and holier-than-thou in it, right before asking the person to not react emotionally. Fun stuff.
Meta, but this might be one of the longest comments I have seen in reply to a couple sentences. Lots of condescension, emotions, and holier-than-thou in it, right before asking the person to not react emotionally. Fun stuff.
Most of this essay is either about wholinator2's comment (for some reason?), or your thoughts on grading and why you're qualified to have those thoughts. Anyways.
>Please don't confuse expertise and experience with condescension
I'm not. Both of your comments are patronizing. You're sprinkling in rhetorical questions implying I can't read the comment I replied to, over-emphasizing parts of your sentences as if I'm a middle-schooler who is first encountering your fancy words, or claiming that I'm being emotional while you're just a beacon of logic.
I've had many experts explain stuff to me without doing any of that. I'm not confused. I even agree with a lot of the stuff you're saying about teachers! But your tone in these comments leaves a lot to be desired.
>But nobody - including you - is actually holy
Obviously. It's a saying, I wasn't being literal.
>Biggest issue aside from ascribing emotion to where there's none, that is, which is a common theme in this thread
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you're writing multiple thousands of words on a topic on a semi-obscure technology forum, in response to a total of like 8 sentences from random people you've never met, you've got some emotions and passion involved. Which is totally fine! Humans aren't meant to be completely devoid of emotion.
>I even agree with a lot of the stuff you're saying about teachers! But your tone in these comments leaves a lot to be desired.
OK, so we agree on the substance. Excellent.
As for the tone (and discussing it) - we're getting into discussing the emotional response you're having to my writing.
And I firmly posit that most of that emotional response comes from your internal state, rather than my writing. To give a specific example:
>over-emphasizing parts of your sentences as if I'm a middle-schooler who is first encountering your fancy words
Here, you're ascribing intent and attitude to formatting; specifically, you are reading condescension in it.
There are more reasons to italicize words in sentences other than being mean to people.
One good reason is making this text more accessible to neurodivergent people¹.
It has nothing to do with you; such formatting makes people with ADHD have an easier time reading the text - and makes it easier for everyone else to scan the long passages of text fast by providing visual anchors for the key words.
Saying this as both someone with ADHD and a neurodivergence advocate². The formatting makes it easer for me to read (and re-read / proof-read) my own writing.
I'm also autistic.
My words aren't "fancy", and aren't chosen to intimidate - they are simply the words I find most precisely expressing the thoughts I want to communicate.
I assume you know them, otherwise I wouldn't be using them (or would provide an explanation).
Speaking in this manner is a very common autistic trait³, and - most importantly - has nothing to do with you. Yet you perceive an attitude (and/or emotions) towards you in that manner of speech alone.
>claiming that I'm being emotional while you're just a beacon of logic.
I've claimed neither. Can you quote the specific instance?
We all have emotions, as we've established. My point was that I am not basing my arguments on appeal to emotion, nor I am driven by emotions you described when writing this.
Passion for teaching (my special interest) - absolutely; joy of writing - you bet. Those are emotions.
They lead me to producing solid arguments, however (we do agree on the substance, right?). And if there are flaws in the points I'm making, I'm all ears.
And I am not claiming that you are emotional. I am pointing out that when you comment on my tone, and on my tone only, what you are doing is discussing your own emotional response (reaction to how I say things) rather than the content of my argument.
Note the difference between "you are emotional" and "what you are doing here is emotional".
>You're sprinkling in rhetorical questions implying I can't read the comment I replied to
The questions aren't rhetorical.
You went ahead and pointed out that my comment had multiple instances of "holier-than-thou" (where there were none, as I argued above) while saying nothing of the ones I the comment I was responding to.
What gives? I assume you are being fair, which implies you missed them. But I don't want to assume, so I ask.
Other than that - I don't imply that you "can't read" when I ask you to re-read what I wrote with a different lens.
I have provided more context in my response, and I believe my previous comments - which I don't expect anyone to remember! - would come out in a different light with the extra context.
Hence - please re-read them, bearing in mind what I say here.
By the way, this is another instance where you are reading an implication where there's none.
As I said already, I'm autistic, and I don't speak in implications.
Reading with the assumption that nothing is implied is another lens worth trying to see my writing with.
Looping back to the ADHD side of neurodivergence: I read and re-read everything I respond to multiple times because I assume that I'll miss something if I don't, and get myself in a pickle.
I am not asking you to do anything I am not doing myself.
>But your tone in these comments leaves a lot to be desired.
What we are both experiencing now is an example of the so-called Double Empathy problem.⁴
One one side, we have me and /user/ninetyninenine - I clearly have no issue with what they wrote; particularly - I don't have the issue that others have here. I see them as empathic.
The people who respond to them see /user/ninetyninenine as angry, and my defense of them as condescending.
This is a known phenomenon, and I'm sorry, but I am not going to go out of the way and adjust my writing style to protect the feelings of people who refuse to follow a simple request of taking my words literally, not ascribing emotions to me, and distinguish their emotional response from the content of my arguments.
Doing so has a cost⁵ to me that I can't afford to incur.
Again, this:
>I even agree with a lot of the stuff you're saying about teachers!
...this is the important part, to me.
That means I have communicated the ideas I wanted to bring to your attention.
Which I am not taking for granted - attention is a limited resource.
>I've had many experts explain stuff to me without doing any of that.
Kudos to them. To each their own.
>on a semi-obscure technology forum
An influential technology forum. And not obscure by far, judging by the traffic it brings to pages linked in either posts or discussions (including my website).
That aside, I simply enjoy writing. And the cool thing about copy-paste technology is that I can re-use this writing in another argument or a publication elsewhere.
To quote a meme: the IBM Model M keyboard goes brrrrrrrrrr.
>you've got some emotions and passion involved. Which is totally fine! Humans aren't meant to be completely devoid of emotion.
Sure, and I did say that. I am passionate about teaching, and I am interested in these discussions.
>>But nobody - including you - is actually holy
>It's a saying, I wasn't being literal.
See, this is a patronizing and a condescending thing to say.
Which also implies you have not actually read what I wrote, because I specifically went over what I believe are examples of "holier-than-thou" in the comment I was responding to.
What I wrote very clearly, beyond shadow of doubt, indicates that I am more than familiar with that saying.
I wrote that sentence that way because it's attention-grabbing, and it appears to have worked.
Sadly, it also appears that you glossed over entirety of the text that preceded it.
So, may I ask you to go back and re-read it, while keeping in mind the extra context I have provided in this comment?
Asking sincerely, because I think it would be great for both of us to bridge the evident communication gap.
I'll be eagerly waiting for your feedback - thank you in advance.
______
¹ https://medium.com/@katerinegeraa/5-tips-for-writing-neurodi...
³ https://www.reddit.com/r/autism/comments/hc174z/why_do_peopl...
⁴ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_empathy_problem
⁵ https://tcf.org/content/commentary/the-economic-and-emotiona...
>Meta
That's one way to say "I'll add nothing of substance to the current conversation, and comment on the perceived tone"
I.e., we're back to reacting emotionally instead of talking about the subject of what to do with teachers who willfully abuse their authority.
To quote a wise person, "Fun stuff".
>longest comment
>emotions
You seem to be confusing the two (and/or are conflating the emotions you are experiencing as a reader with the ones I am experiencing and/or expressing as a writer).
Apropos, as a former instructor, I do enjoy pointing out hypocrisy, inconsistency, and logical fallacies in others' writing - and joy is an emotion, so I'll grant you that. I was channeling that emotion.
Unlike the teacher we are discussing, who's been made angry by the work they were evaluating. See?
>holier-than-thou
That was the biggest¹ issue with the comment I was responding to, which I illustrated. Did you miss that?
Their last sentence was, quote:
>>Maybe we could take the time to understand these impulses in ourselves and be the example we want rather than reflecting the pain we hate to ever increasing magnitudes.
This is holier-than-thou. I was responding to it, in a manner that highlighted the issue.
Since you seem to have missed the holier-than-thou instances in "a couple of sentences" of the parent comment, let me point out a few more:
>>You seem very angry yourself, and willing to let that anger guide you to harming someone.
>>Might there be a more charitable interpretation of the words, might there be information that we don't have that would, say, humanize the human being you'd like to ruin?
>>Are you so different from that teacher? In fact, you might be worse
That's four holier-than-thous per 7 sentences (I counted, correct me if needs be).
The last one takes the cake though: and they went as far as calling the grandparent commenter worse than a someone who willfully wronged a child under their authority — all for saying that such abuse and breach of trust warrants a revocation of such a person's privilege of having authority over children.
So, a personal attack and ad hominem on top of all that holier-than-thou.
Note that I am not resorting to implications of that nature - those that say something about what the person I am responding to is (as opposed to discussing something they say or do).
>right before asking the person to not react emotionally
...and yet you boldly went ahead, and did precisely that, feeling piqued on the behalf of the person I was responding to.
There's a reason I asked that, and thank you for providing an illustration why it was necessary.
May I ask you to go back, and re-read the comment I wrote as textual analysis, and respond on substance, not tone? Thank you.
>Lots of condescension
So, let's be clear. Stuff like this:
>>Might there be a more charitable interpretation of the words, might there be information that we don't have that would, say, humanize the human being you'd like to ruin?
...is an example of condescension because it asserts that the person they were talking to was dehumanizing the teacher, and implies that they'd have a difficulty of "humanizing the human" without some extra help from the parent commentor.
I make no such assumptions or assertions about the person I am responding to, as I am commenting exclusively on text that they wrote.
Note how I always include the text I am responding to, to make it clear that my attitude is towards the thing being said, not the person.
The thing being said, in this case, was a piece of emotional drivel, exceptionally rich in logical fallacies and manipulative techniques.
The entire argument was an appeal to emotion: look at how hurt the teacher would be by being fired, you are a bad person for suggesting that.
(Again, did you happen to miss that? This was another reason I asked not to react emotionally).
I rightfully lampoon such rhetoric, whereas the parent commentor was condescending towards a person.
Compare and contrast.
>holier-than-thou
Oh, and I want to come back to that.
See, I taught mathematics for over a decade (as a tutor, grader, teaching assistant, lab instructor, and instructor of record in a class of 90 people).
I've had the grace of teaching a few students I considered brighter than myself, and I felt very happy to have had such privilege.
And not once in my decade of teaching did I feel the urge to mis-grade someone, or thought of defending someone who did so.
I've had children (and young adults) who've gone through such instructors in my classes. They were traumatized. Some cried in my office hours. Some went red in their faces, saying why didn't they show us this in high school.
So, while I am not "holier" than thou (or the parent commentor), I am absolutely more qualified to comment on whether the person we're discussing deserves to continue teaching than anyone here who hasn't had that experience (specifically - that of teaching people who've been traumatized by other instructors).
Please, I urge you to understand what I wrote above.
I am not ashamed to put my name under this statement:
https://romankogan.net/math/
I am saying this to provide a basis for my statements, to qualify them - not to engage in appendage measuring. My experience is what gives my words weight.
Please don't confuse expertise and experience with condescension; and note that I am expressing none towards you.
For all I know, you might be a professor with decades of teaching experience, far more accomplished than I am in everything.
But nobody - including you - is actually holy, much less "holier". We all make mistakes, and sometimes miss some context, or say something stupid.
And pointing those instances out isn't a sin either.
_______
¹Biggest issue aside from ascribing emotion to where there's none, that is, which is a common theme in this thread