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TimS comments on How to understand people better - Less Wrong
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This set of sentences is strange to me. It's almost as it's implied that if a statement is an attempt to gain power or dominate a conversation, it's impossible for it to also be an attempt to understand.
I partially agree with you in that I think the man's move might be a power grab, but I think your characterization of power-grabs as attempts to "dominate" (have overwhelming power) is wrong.
I think that the woman's response might also be a power-grab, Likewise the man's response to that. Each of these is very, very weak evidence of an attempt to dominate.
At the level we're talking about, making a power grab seems inconsistent with attempting to understand, at least from Alice's point of view. Is she wrong?
That said, the possibility that Alice is intentionally aiming for the relationship failure mode I described above is very plausible.
Yes. She would be correct that finding a sufficient motivation for a speech act reduces the chance each other possible motivation is intended. But there is no reason a single act couldn't have two sufficient reasons behind it.
Also, to speak of emotions being in conflict or contradicting is confusing. The actions each emotion impels might be in conflict or physically or logically impossible, but to have multiple emotions is not a mysterious paradoxical state to be in, regardless of the emotions.