I will see if I can catch a fresh one in the wild and share it. I recognize your last paragraph as something I’ve experienced before, though, and I endorse the attempt to not let that grow into righteous indignation and annoyance without justification—with that as the archetype, I think that’s indeed a thing to try to improve.
Most examples that come to mind for me have to do with the person projecting identity, knowledge, or an aura of competence that I don’t think is accurate. For instance holding someone else to a social standard that they don’t meet, “I think person X has negative attribute Y” when the speaker has also recently displayed Y in my eyes. I think the anti-hypocrisy instinct I have is accurate in most of those cases: the conversation is not really about epistemics, it’s about social status and alliances, and if I try to treat it as about epistemics (by for instance, naively pointing out the ways the other person has displayed Y) I may lose utility for no good reason.
I think I may agree with the status version of the anti-hypocrisy flinch. It’s the epistemic version I was really wanting to argue against.
if I try to treat it as about epistemics (by for instance, naively pointing out the ways the other person has displayed Y) I may lose utility for no good reason.
… That doesn’t seem like treating it as being about epistemics to me. Why is it epistemically relevant? I think it’s more like a naive mix of epistemics and status. Status norms in the back of your head might make the hypocrisy salient and feel relevant. Epistemic discourse norms then naively suggest that you can resolve the contradiction by discussing it.
I think I may agree with the status version of the anti-hypocrisy flinch. It’s the epistemic version I was really wanting to argue against.
Ok yeah, I think my concern was mostly with the status version—or rather that there’s a general sensor that might combine those things, and the parts of that related to status and social management are really important, so you shouldn’t just turn the sensor off and run things manually.
… That doesn’t seem like treating it as being about epistemics to me. Why is it epistemically relevant? I think it’s more like a naive mix of epistemics and status. Status norms in the back of your head might make the hypocrisy salient and feel relevant. Epistemic discourse norms then naively suggest that you can resolve the contradiction by discussing it.
I was definitely unclear; my perception was the speaker’s claiming “person X has negative attribute Y, (therefore I am more deserving of status than them)” and that, given a certain social frame, who is deserving of more status is an epistemic question. Whereas actually, the person isn’t oriented toward really discussing who is more deserving of status within the frame, but rather is making a move to increase their status at the expense of the other person’s.
I think my sense that “who is deserving of more status within a frame” is an epistemic question might be assigning more structure to status than is actually there for most people.
[...] or rather that there’s a general sensor that might combine those things, and the parts of that related to status and social management are really important, so you shouldn’t just turn the sensor off and run things manually.
That’s a good point. Given that I didn’t even think of the distinction explicitly until engaging with comments, it seems really easy to confuse them.
I will see if I can catch a fresh one in the wild and share it. I recognize your last paragraph as something I’ve experienced before, though, and I endorse the attempt to not let that grow into righteous indignation and annoyance without justification—with that as the archetype, I think that’s indeed a thing to try to improve.
Most examples that come to mind for me have to do with the person projecting identity, knowledge, or an aura of competence that I don’t think is accurate. For instance holding someone else to a social standard that they don’t meet, “I think person X has negative attribute Y” when the speaker has also recently displayed Y in my eyes. I think the anti-hypocrisy instinct I have is accurate in most of those cases: the conversation is not really about epistemics, it’s about social status and alliances, and if I try to treat it as about epistemics (by for instance, naively pointing out the ways the other person has displayed Y) I may lose utility for no good reason.
I think I may agree with the status version of the anti-hypocrisy flinch. It’s the epistemic version I was really wanting to argue against.
… That doesn’t seem like treating it as being about epistemics to me. Why is it epistemically relevant? I think it’s more like a naive mix of epistemics and status. Status norms in the back of your head might make the hypocrisy salient and feel relevant. Epistemic discourse norms then naively suggest that you can resolve the contradiction by discussing it.
Ok yeah, I think my concern was mostly with the status version—or rather that there’s a general sensor that might combine those things, and the parts of that related to status and social management are really important, so you shouldn’t just turn the sensor off and run things manually.
I was definitely unclear; my perception was the speaker’s claiming “person X has negative attribute Y, (therefore I am more deserving of status than them)” and that, given a certain social frame, who is deserving of more status is an epistemic question. Whereas actually, the person isn’t oriented toward really discussing who is more deserving of status within the frame, but rather is making a move to increase their status at the expense of the other person’s.
I think my sense that “who is deserving of more status within a frame” is an epistemic question might be assigning more structure to status than is actually there for most people.
That’s a good point. Given that I didn’t even think of the distinction explicitly until engaging with comments, it seems really easy to confuse them.