It's been awhile. I was challenged by a comment a few months ago, which was, essentially that I was wrong and should stop talking. I don't agree that I'm wrong, but it led me down a line of thinking. Why do people (myself included) get locked into arguments where one or both aren't going to be convinced or change? I've had many debates - political, economic, theological - and inevitably, there's a point where I realize, or I should realize, that the conversation is not going anywhere and walk away.
I knew it had to do with some aspect of growing up in a spiritually abusive authoritarian environment, but I couldn't piece it together. It's one thing to be right, even if only in my own mind; It's another to feel like I have to prove that I'm right to random strangers doing drive-by comments.
I came across this quote that put it into perspective:
In all of my research across the decades, we have found that perfectionism is "What will other people think?" versus striving for excellence, which is driven by "What do I want?" Perfectionism is one of the most insidious forms of self-protection because no matter how we excel, we can never control other people's perceptions of us. (Strong Ground, Brené Brown, Ch. 15)
This got me full circle. For me, perfectionism is a defense mechanism that combines authoritarianism (the subtle shift from God-centric religion to church-leader-defined religion), legalism (the idea that actions are externally-visible examples of our relationship with God) and Total Depravity (the idea that God demands perfection and that any deviation from perfection is sinful).
If you want a good primer on authoritarian spiritual abuse, check out Gary Ezzo's premise of "trangulation". Your child disobeys you. That means that you have to choose between your child and God because God says you must punish disobedience. If you choose not to spank your child, you are putting your child in the place of God. -- There's a logical flaw here, but this was taught in a lot of churches, leading to legalistic authoritarian child abuse and driving kids towards perfectionism. I don't have to love or care, but as long as I check the boxes my parents care about, I'm okay.
I think this answers a lot of debates I've seen online, especially politically. Both parties must not only be right, but must prove that they are right without question. Unfortunately, life has a lot of gray and a lot of nuance, and, in my opinion, no system, despite how well designed and well intentioned cannot withstand the onslaught of enough greedy and evil people.
It's interesting because I have always thought of myself as striving for excellence and not wanting to allow people to "live rent-free in my head" - allowing someone other than God the place of defining something so core to my identity.
Hopefully, this can be helpful to you and others. I know people who cannot lose arguments, most likely because perfectionism is to tightly coupled to their identity. It leads to anger and rage, and best to figure out ways to defuse the argument. "Agree to disagree" or "I don't see it that way, and you're not going to be the one to convince me otherwise." If you're a person who can't lose an argument... where does your value come from? Are you letting the person across the chat thread define whether you have value or not?
If you're stuck in an authoritarian/legalistic environment, whether it's a church or workplace, check yourself and get coaching or help to learn how best to survive with your value intact.
5 comments:
What is a drive-by comment, as opposed to a comment?
Lack of actually wanting to engage with the other person, and generally trying to absolve oneself of any need to engage. For example, telling someone whose spouse just died that "All things happen for good." It's true, but what's really happening is that the person is not willing to help, feels shame and has to put that shame on the other person to feel better, so the person who was suffering is now suffering more.
Making statements that are trite, belittling and not backed by any understanding or evidence (i.e. what comes out of our echo chamber) that are made not to generate mutual understanding, but to ensure that the other person feels outside the camp.
The desire to engage with someone is internal, so we can’t ‘know’ this the same way as if it was directly stated. So yes, examples help, and I agree with the ones given. I have seen comments on this blog though that have been rejected on the grounds you give in this answer. It’s certainly your prerogative to do so, but has made for a confusing dialogue more recently.
It felt a lot like this: "'Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.' The Jews answered and said to Him, 'Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?'"
Now the Jews may have believed what they said is true, but this was the Pharisee echo chamber speaking, and they were not seeking to listen to him or understand him. They were only seeking to tear him down. Maybe I'm not 100% accurate, but I have a pretty good idea when a comment is seeking engagement and understanding and when a comment is to belittle and tear down. I got sucked into that myself, and I don't want this blog to become a cesspool of unhealthy arguments.
And, there were respectful and engaging comments in the middle of a chain of comments that were not as much. It was a hard choice, but I thought it would be much more confusing, and lead to more accusations of controlling the dialogue if I only removed disrespectful comments. It takes a lot of skill to engage and understand a core disagreement and talk about that vs. exploding into all of they symptomatic disagreements. I think that is especially true politically. It reminds me of one of the standard plots where humans get caught in a war between two powerful forces. One force wants to grow and unite humanity by being kind, near, and guiding, but perhaps naive, and the other force wants to grow and unite humanity by being cosmic warmongers and forcing humans into a conquer (by uniting) or die scenario. And, in a sense, the plot is an argument that the real world exists as a tension between these extremes.
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