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ChristianKl comments on Tell Culture - Less Wrong
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I read this suggested line and felt a little worried. I hope rationalist culture doesn't head in that direction.
There are plenty of times when I agree a policy of frankness can be useful, but one of the risks of such a policy is that it can become an excuse to abdicate responsibility for your effect on other people.
If you tell me that you're having an aversive reaction to our conversation, but can't tell me why, it's going to stress me out, and I'm going to feel compelled to go back over our conversation to see if I can figure out what I did to cause that reaction in you. That's a non-negligible burden to dump on someone.
If, instead, you found an excuse to leave the conversation gracefully (no need for annoyed body language), you can reflect on the conversation later and decide if there is anything in particular I did to cause your aversive reaction. Maybe so, and you want to bring it up with me later. Or maybe you decide you overreacted to a comment I made, which you now believe you misinterpreted. Or maybe you decide you were just anxious about something unrelated. Overall, chances are good that you can save me a lot of stress and self-consciousness by dealing with your emotions yourself as a first pass, and making them my problem only if (upon reflection) you decide that it would be helpful to do so.
I also find that line a bit strange. In nearly all cases where I would expect that someone says: "I'm beginning to find this conversation aversive, and I'm not sure why" I think I would take it as a topic change to why the conversation might bring up negative emotions in the person.
If we are in an environment of open conversation and I say something that brings up an emotional trauma in another person and that person doesn't have the self-awareness to know why he's feeling unwell, that's not a good time to leave him alone.
?! Depends. If you don't understand that person intimately or aren't experienced at helping less self-aware (aka neurotypical) people process emotional trauma, it's probably a very good time to leave him alone. Politely.
You don't need to understand another person to help them. Even if you do understand another person well enough to know what triggered them, telling them can be invasive and therefore needs some amount of implicit of explicit permission.
Being there and being a stable anchor is often better than trying to interfere with their state. That means if you are mentally flexible about changing your state opening up on your side and allowing the emotions to rise in you to a level that similar to the other person but more calm. If you are not flexible and can meditate, that usually a good state to go to.
For me the only reason to leave is if I'm myself not in a stable emotional place. But I can certainly understand if other people generally don't see themselves in a position to help.
Interesting.
My default move would be to sit quietly in their presence and pay attention, rather than leave.
Why would leaving be better?
Because if you don't know them intimately, you're likely to make them feel uncomfortable by intruding on their trauma.
Is the likelihood of that greater than the likelihood of making them feel uncomfortable by abandoning them in their (recalled) trauma?
(I realize that "abandoning" is a very connotationally loaded term; I choose it here to counterbalance "intruding." I'm happy to switch to less loaded terms if you prefer.)
It's likely to be worse than leaving them politely. Whether it's worse than just getting up and leaving depends on the person and situation.
Fair enough. I'm not at all sure that's true -- certainly when I'm experiencing recalled trauma I would far prefer that people sit quietly with me than that they politely leave, but of course one data point isn't especially useful in this case -- but certainly if it is true the rest follows. Do you have any data to support that?
No data, just introspection and personal observation. Maybe it's a variation in people's preferences.