One thing it seems pretty important to establish is the difference between ① someone who will (predictably) have hostile-type arguments with you, and ② someone who will actually do you harm for disagreeing with them.
Or between hostile arguing and abusive conduct.
If your parent mocks your atheism or tries to guilt you into going to church, that is one thing. If they beat you up, lock you in the basement, steal your property, or kick you out of the house at age fifteen because you don’t want to go to their church any more, that is quite another. The former may well be emotionally abusive, or it may just be an incompetent way of expressing their fear that you will go to hell. (Or both.) The latter are threats to your well-being as a living organism … and, in quite a few places, also illegal.
Similarly, if someone on the Internet makes fun of your views, that’s one thing; if they organize all their pals to stalk your children, slander you to your boss to get you fired, or call you on the phone and threaten to rape and murder you, that’s quite another.
“Are we having an unpleasant disagreement, or are you threatening me?” seems like a pretty useful question in situations that involve both hostile argument and a substantial difference of physical, social, or economic power.
I generally agree, but I’d caution against raising threats to the level of mutual knowledge. Intuitively it feels dangerous to ask things like “are you threatening me?” Thinking about it for a few minutes, it seems that it’s dangerous in part because once a threat has been made explicit, the threatening party can no longer back down without losing face and credibility. The question also feels like a power play and can be seen as disrespectful.
It’s still good to know whether you’re just dealing with a hostile argument vs. a real threat vs. intimidation without intent to follow through, but when there’s a power differential it’s probably bad for the knowledge to be out in the open.
Yeah, I should have stated that better — I didn’t mean literally asking the other person that question, but rather considering the question during (or better yet, before and after) the hostile argument.
Going on previous behavior seems to be a good guideline. Rather than asking, “Does this person hate people they disagree with?” you can ask, “How have they treated me in other disagreements? How have they treated others they disagree with?”
For instance, if someone has often been violent before over the (say) fifteen years you’ve known them, they will probably be violent again, and a new hostile argument might lead to an escalation of that violence. But if they have not been violent, they probably won’t suddenly start being violent on account of a disagreement, even a nasty one.
For that matter, if someone is abusive to others (such as mistreating a coworker and gloating about it) then they might become abusive to you.
One thing it seems pretty important to establish is the difference between ① someone who will (predictably) have hostile-type arguments with you, and ② someone who will actually do you harm for disagreeing with them.
Or between hostile arguing and abusive conduct.
If your parent mocks your atheism or tries to guilt you into going to church, that is one thing. If they beat you up, lock you in the basement, steal your property, or kick you out of the house at age fifteen because you don’t want to go to their church any more, that is quite another. The former may well be emotionally abusive, or it may just be an incompetent way of expressing their fear that you will go to hell. (Or both.) The latter are threats to your well-being as a living organism … and, in quite a few places, also illegal.
Similarly, if someone on the Internet makes fun of your views, that’s one thing; if they organize all their pals to stalk your children, slander you to your boss to get you fired, or call you on the phone and threaten to rape and murder you, that’s quite another.
“Are we having an unpleasant disagreement, or are you threatening me?” seems like a pretty useful question in situations that involve both hostile argument and a substantial difference of physical, social, or economic power.
I generally agree, but I’d caution against raising threats to the level of mutual knowledge. Intuitively it feels dangerous to ask things like “are you threatening me?” Thinking about it for a few minutes, it seems that it’s dangerous in part because once a threat has been made explicit, the threatening party can no longer back down without losing face and credibility. The question also feels like a power play and can be seen as disrespectful.
It’s still good to know whether you’re just dealing with a hostile argument vs. a real threat vs. intimidation without intent to follow through, but when there’s a power differential it’s probably bad for the knowledge to be out in the open.
Yeah, I should have stated that better — I didn’t mean literally asking the other person that question, but rather considering the question during (or better yet, before and after) the hostile argument.
Going on previous behavior seems to be a good guideline. Rather than asking, “Does this person hate people they disagree with?” you can ask, “How have they treated me in other disagreements? How have they treated others they disagree with?”
For instance, if someone has often been violent before over the (say) fifteen years you’ve known them, they will probably be violent again, and a new hostile argument might lead to an escalation of that violence. But if they have not been violent, they probably won’t suddenly start being violent on account of a disagreement, even a nasty one.
For that matter, if someone is abusive to others (such as mistreating a coworker and gloating about it) then they might become abusive to you.