Nate messaged me a thing in chat and I found it helpful and asked if I could copy it over:
fwiw a thing that people seem to me to be consistently missing is the distinction between what i was trying to talk about, namely the advice “have you tried saying what you actually think is the important problem, plainly, even once? ideally without broadcasting signals of how it’s a socially shameful belief to hold?”, and the alternative advice that i was not advocating, namely “have you considered speaking to people in a way that might be described as ‘brazen’ or ‘rude’ depending on who’s doing the describing?”.
for instance, in personal conversation, i’m pretty happy to directly contradict others’ views—and that has nothing to do with this ‘courage’ thing i’m trying to describe. nate!courage is completely compatible with saying “you don’t have to agree with me, mr. senator, but my best understanding of the evidence is [thing i believe]. if ever you’re interested in discussing the reasons in detail, i’d be happy to. and until then, we can work together in areas where our interests overlap.” there are plenty of ways to name your real worry while being especially respectful and polite! nate!courage and politeness are nearly orthogonal axes, on my view.
[people having trouble separating them] does maybe enhance my sense that the whole community is desperately lacking in nate!courage, if so many people have such trouble distinguishing between “try naming your real worry” and “try being brazen/rude”. (tho ofc part of the phenomenon is me being bad at anticipating reader confusions; the illusion of transparency continues to be a doozy.)
Nate messaged me a thing in chat and I found it helpful and asked if I could copy it over:
I wish Nate had optimized his post more for being clear about which of these things he was talking about!
yeah, I left off this part but Nate also said