I see no indication in Ben’s post that he had the same estimate of the results of his efforts as I did.
This is exactly the problem that the ITT is trying to solve. Ben’s interpretation of what you said is Ben’s interpretation of what you said, whether he posts it or merely thinks it. If he merely thinks it, and then responds to you based on it, then he’ll be responding to a misunderstanding of what you actually said and the conversation won’t be productive. You’ll think he understood you, he’ll perhaps think he understood you, but he won’t have understood you, and the conversation will not go well because of it.
But if he writes it out, then you can see that he didn’t understand you, and help him understand what you actually meant before he tries to criticize something you didn’t even actually say. But this kind of thing only works if both people cooperate a little bit. (Okay, that’s a bit strong, I do think that the kind of thing Ben did has some benefit even though you didn’t respond to it. But a lot of the benefit comes from the back and forth.)
if one may spend hours on such a thing, and end up with such disappointing results, what’s the point?
Again, this is merely evidence that communication is harder than it seems. Ben not writing down his interpretation of you doesn’t magically make him understand you better. All it does is hide the fact that he didn’t understand you, and when that fact is hidden it can cause problems that seem to come from nowhere.
If the claim is “doing interpretive labor lets you understand your interlocutor, where a straightforward reading may lead you astray”
That’s not the claim at all. The claim is that the reading that seems straightforward to you may not be the reading that seems straightforward to Ben. So if Ben relies on what seems to him a “straightforward reading,” he may be relying on a wrong reading of what you said, because you wanted to communicate something different.
but the reality is “doing interpretive labor leaves you with the entirely erroneous impression that you’ve understood your interlocutor when in fact you haven’t, thus wasting your time not just for no benefit, but with a negative effect”, then, again—why do it?
I mean, yes, maybe Ben thought that after writing all that he understood what you were saying. But if he misunderstood you have the power to correct that. And him putting forward the interpretation he thinks is correct gives you a jumping-off point for helping him to understand what you meant. Without that jumping-off point you would be shooting in the dark, throwing out different ways of rephrasing what you said until one stuck, or worse (as I’ve said several times now) you wouldn’t realize he had misunderstood you at all.
sometimes there are just actual disagreements. I think maybe some folks in this conversation forget that, or don’t like to think about it, or… heck, I don’t know. I’m speculating here. But there’s a remarkable lack of acknowledgment, here, of the fact that sometimes someone is just wrong, and people are disagreeing with that person because he’s wrong, and they’re right.
Yes, but you can’t hash out the substantive disagreements until you’ve sorted out any misunderstandings first. That would be like arguing about the population size of Athens when one of you thinks you’re talking about Athens, Greece and the other thinks you’re talking about Athens, Ohio.
I mean, yes, maybe Ben thought that after writing all that he understood what you were saying. But if he misunderstood you have the power to correct that.
This, I think, is where we differ (well, this, and the relative value of spending time on “interpretive labor” vs. going ahead with the [what seems to you to be the] straightforward interpretation). I think that time spent thus is generally wasted (and sometimes, or often, even counterproductive), and I think that correcting misunderstandings that persist after such “interpretive labor” is not feasible in practice (at least, not by the direct route)—not to mention that attempting to do this anyway, detracts from the usefulness of the discussion.
This is exactly the problem that the ITT is trying to solve. Ben’s interpretation of what you said is Ben’s interpretation of what you said, whether he posts it or merely thinks it. If he merely thinks it, and then responds to you based on it, then he’ll be responding to a misunderstanding of what you actually said and the conversation won’t be productive. You’ll think he understood you, he’ll perhaps think he understood you, but he won’t have understood you, and the conversation will not go well because of it.
But if he writes it out, then you can see that he didn’t understand you, and help him understand what you actually meant before he tries to criticize something you didn’t even actually say. But this kind of thing only works if both people cooperate a little bit. (Okay, that’s a bit strong, I do think that the kind of thing Ben did has some benefit even though you didn’t respond to it. But a lot of the benefit comes from the back and forth.)
Again, this is merely evidence that communication is harder than it seems. Ben not writing down his interpretation of you doesn’t magically make him understand you better. All it does is hide the fact that he didn’t understand you, and when that fact is hidden it can cause problems that seem to come from nowhere.
That’s not the claim at all. The claim is that the reading that seems straightforward to you may not be the reading that seems straightforward to Ben. So if Ben relies on what seems to him a “straightforward reading,” he may be relying on a wrong reading of what you said, because you wanted to communicate something different.
I mean, yes, maybe Ben thought that after writing all that he understood what you were saying. But if he misunderstood you have the power to correct that. And him putting forward the interpretation he thinks is correct gives you a jumping-off point for helping him to understand what you meant. Without that jumping-off point you would be shooting in the dark, throwing out different ways of rephrasing what you said until one stuck, or worse (as I’ve said several times now) you wouldn’t realize he had misunderstood you at all.
Yes, but you can’t hash out the substantive disagreements until you’ve sorted out any misunderstandings first. That would be like arguing about the population size of Athens when one of you thinks you’re talking about Athens, Greece and the other thinks you’re talking about Athens, Ohio.
This, I think, is where we differ (well, this, and the relative value of spending time on “interpretive labor” vs. going ahead with the [what seems to you to be the] straightforward interpretation). I think that time spent thus is generally wasted (and sometimes, or often, even counterproductive), and I think that correcting misunderstandings that persist after such “interpretive labor” is not feasible in practice (at least, not by the direct route)—not to mention that attempting to do this anyway, detracts from the usefulness of the discussion.