No, this isn't directed at YOU.
Mar. 27th, 2006 09:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
Not you either.
I've been linkhopping today, and in the meantime I figured out, finally, why it pisses me off when people start talking on and on about how they feel. Half the time, it strikes me as unbearably passive-aggressive.
Of course, as I just realized, that's because the people who do that the most really *are* passive-aggressive about it. Firm "I feel" statements are all well and good, but not when you're talking to people who "resent" such things as the bus running late. And at the same time that whoever-it-is is going on and on about how you "feel" offended and you "feel" insulted and you "feel" like nobody loves you, everybody hates you, you should just go and eat worms... you're not paying the least attention to what other people are saying. It's all about you.
Unfortunately, this little trick works. People fall all over themselves to reassure you that no, you're a wonderful human being, and your contributions are valuable, and nobody really meant *that*, when what they *should* be telling you is that your viewpoint isn't everything and that feeling isn't a substitute for thinking anyway.
And then, of course, when discussing feelings really *is* relevant, it comes off with that cloying heavy smell that the fake kind has, and it's absolutely unbearable.
Not that talking about your feelings is as relevant as some people think it is. If, for example, all we'd done is discuss how racial segregation made black people feel, nobody'd ever have done anything - after all, weren't the feelings of the racists just as valid? (They, of course, would've said their feelings were more valid.) All that needed to be said is "This is wrong, and it has to change".
I've been linkhopping today, and in the meantime I figured out, finally, why it pisses me off when people start talking on and on about how they feel. Half the time, it strikes me as unbearably passive-aggressive.
Of course, as I just realized, that's because the people who do that the most really *are* passive-aggressive about it. Firm "I feel" statements are all well and good, but not when you're talking to people who "resent" such things as the bus running late. And at the same time that whoever-it-is is going on and on about how you "feel" offended and you "feel" insulted and you "feel" like nobody loves you, everybody hates you, you should just go and eat worms... you're not paying the least attention to what other people are saying. It's all about you.
Unfortunately, this little trick works. People fall all over themselves to reassure you that no, you're a wonderful human being, and your contributions are valuable, and nobody really meant *that*, when what they *should* be telling you is that your viewpoint isn't everything and that feeling isn't a substitute for thinking anyway.
And then, of course, when discussing feelings really *is* relevant, it comes off with that cloying heavy smell that the fake kind has, and it's absolutely unbearable.
Not that talking about your feelings is as relevant as some people think it is. If, for example, all we'd done is discuss how racial segregation made black people feel, nobody'd ever have done anything - after all, weren't the feelings of the racists just as valid? (They, of course, would've said their feelings were more valid.) All that needed to be said is "This is wrong, and it has to change".
