This debate feels to me like husband and wife yelling at each other, starting with some object-level thing like “you didn’t do the dishes again”, but quickly escalating to meta and more meta (“it’s not just the stupid dishes, but your general attitude towards...”, “no, the real problem is how you communicate...”, “no, it’s you who cannot communicate, because...”), where almost everything that could be said was already said in the past.
Prediction: the only way this will be helpful is people choosing sides, based on whom they like more. This may solve the situation in the sense that the losing side may admit their loss and leave, or the winning side may feel socially empowered to ban the losing side… but if this is what actually happens, I would hope we are adult enough to realize it (even if commenting on it explicitly may not be the smartest idea, because it adds more potential fuel to the drama, yet another thing to go meta about, etc.).
What should be done instead… no idea, just a general suspicion that going meta/abstract is actually avoiding the painful part.
This debate feels to me like husband and wife yelling at each other, starting with some object-level thing like “you didn’t do the dishes again”, but quickly escalating to meta and more meta (“it’s not just the stupid dishes, but your general attitude towards...”, “no, the real problem is how you communicate...”, “no, it’s you who cannot communicate, because...”), where almost everything that could be said was already said in the past.
Prediction: the only way this will be helpful is people choosing sides, based on whom they like more. This may solve the situation in the sense that the losing side may admit their loss and leave, or the winning side may feel socially empowered to ban the losing side… but if this is what actually happens, I would hope we are adult enough to realize it (even if commenting on it explicitly may not be the smartest idea, because it adds more potential fuel to the drama, yet another thing to go meta about, etc.).
What should be done instead… no idea, just a general suspicion that going meta/abstract is actually avoiding the painful part.