An outright “You’re dumb” is a mistake, period, unless you actually meant to say that the person is in fact dumb. This rounding is a pure bad, and there’s no need of it. Adding ‘being’ or ‘playing’ or ‘doing something’ before the dumb is necessary.
Part of a good combative-type culture is that you mean what you say and say what you mean, so the rounding off here is a serious problem even before the (important) feelings/status issue.
Your response here and Ruby’s both seem rude to me: you’re providing a (helpful) clarification, but doing that without either addressing the substantive issue directly or noting that you’re not doing that. Ordinarily that wouldn’t be a big deal, but when the whole point of my comment was that jimmy ignored Mary’s substantive point I think it’s obnoxious to then ignore my substantive point about Mary’s substantive point being ignored.
[...]but when the whole point of my comment was that jimmy ignored Mary’s substantive point I think it’s obnoxious to then ignore my substantive point about Mary’s substantive point being ignored.
FWIW, “jimmy ignored Mary’s substantive point” is both uncharitable and untrue, and both “making uncharitable and untrue statements as if they were uncontested fact” and “stating that you find things obnoxious in cases where people might disagree about what is appropriate instead of offering an argument as to why it shouldn’t be done” stand out as far more obnoxious to me.
I normally would just ignore it (because again, I think saying “I think that’s obnoxious” is generally obnoxious and unhelpful) but given your comment you’ll probably either find the feedback helpful or else it’ll help you change your mind about whether it’s helpful to call out things one finds to be obnoxious :P
I emphatically agree with Zvi about the mistakeness of saying “you’re dumb.”
In my own words:
1) “You’re absolutely wrong” is strong language, but not unreasonable in a combative culture if that’s what you believe and you’re honestly reporting it.
2a) “You’re saying/doing something dumb” becomes a bit more personal than when making a statement about a particular view. Though I think it’s rare that one have need to say this, and it’s only appropriate when levels of trust and respect are very high.
2b) “You’re being dumb” is a little harsher than “saying/doing something dumb.” The two don’t register as much different to me, however, though they do to Mary Chernyshenko?
3) “You’re dumb” (introduced in this discussion by Benquo) is now making a general statement about someone else and is very problematic. It erodes the assumptions of respect which make combative-type cultures feasible in the first place. I’d say that conversations where people are calling others dumb to their faces are not situations I’d think of as healthy, good-faith, combative-type conversations.
[As an aside, even mild “that seems wrong to me”-type statements should be recognized as potentially combative. There are many contexts where any explicit disagreement registers as hostile or contrarian.]
(Not important, but my supervisor was a great man who tended to revel in combat settings and to say smth like “You’re being dumb” more often than other versions, & though everybody understood what he meant, it destroyed his team eventually. People found themselves better things to do, as, of course, people generally should. This is where I’m coming from.)
An outright “You’re dumb” is a mistake, period, unless you actually meant to say that the person is in fact dumb. This rounding is a pure bad, and there’s no need of it. Adding ‘being’ or ‘playing’ or ‘doing something’ before the dumb is necessary.
Part of a good combative-type culture is that you mean what you say and say what you mean, so the rounding off here is a serious problem even before the (important) feelings/status issue.
Your response here and Ruby’s both seem rude to me: you’re providing a (helpful) clarification, but doing that without either addressing the substantive issue directly or noting that you’re not doing that. Ordinarily that wouldn’t be a big deal, but when the whole point of my comment was that jimmy ignored Mary’s substantive point I think it’s obnoxious to then ignore my substantive point about Mary’s substantive point being ignored.
FWIW, “jimmy ignored Mary’s substantive point” is both uncharitable and untrue, and both “making uncharitable and untrue statements as if they were uncontested fact” and “stating that you find things obnoxious in cases where people might disagree about what is appropriate instead of offering an argument as to why it shouldn’t be done” stand out as far more obnoxious to me.
I normally would just ignore it (because again, I think saying “I think that’s obnoxious” is generally obnoxious and unhelpful) but given your comment you’ll probably either find the feedback helpful or else it’ll help you change your mind about whether it’s helpful to call out things one finds to be obnoxious :P
I emphatically agree with Zvi about the mistakeness of saying “you’re dumb.”
In my own words:
1) “You’re absolutely wrong” is strong language, but not unreasonable in a combative culture if that’s what you believe and you’re honestly reporting it.
2a) “You’re saying/doing something dumb” becomes a bit more personal than when making a statement about a particular view. Though I think it’s rare that one have need to say this, and it’s only appropriate when levels of trust and respect are very high.
2b) “You’re being dumb” is a little harsher than “saying/doing something dumb.” The two don’t register as much different to me, however, though they do to Mary Chernyshenko?
3) “You’re dumb” (introduced in this discussion by Benquo) is now making a general statement about someone else and is very problematic. It erodes the assumptions of respect which make combative-type cultures feasible in the first place. I’d say that conversations where people are calling others dumb to their faces are not situations I’d think of as healthy, good-faith, combative-type conversations.
[As an aside, even mild “that seems wrong to me”-type statements should be recognized as potentially combative. There are many contexts where any explicit disagreement registers as hostile or contrarian.]
(Not important, but my supervisor was a great man who tended to revel in combat settings and to say smth like “You’re being dumb” more often than other versions, & though everybody understood what he meant, it destroyed his team eventually. People found themselves better things to do, as, of course, people generally should. This is where I’m coming from.)