I felt intimidated!
A comment to one of these Logical Gal blog posts tripped me up. I couldn’t make heads or tails out of what my reader wrote in his ‘logical’ pushback. First of all, it was:
- scientific-sounding
- smart-sounding
Thus, I felt stupid. At first.
Then I reread his words, and realized that it was also incomprehensible!
With that insight, my logical training kicked in and I felt empowered.
When someone responds to you and you don’t understand what they mean, the ONLY logical course of action is to ask them TWO clarifying questions:
- What do you mean by ________? (whatever they say)
- How did you arrive at your conclusion? or Why do you think/say that?
When I replied to his lengthy comment with those questions, he DID try to clarify. And it was the same genre, to wit: scientific-sounding, smart-sounding BUT still incomprehensible. So I took it home to my resident scientific expert, my husband. And HE couldn’t make any sense out of what the guy was writing. I felt a bit better.
In all honesty, I did dialogue back and forth with this gentleman because I appreciated that he had READ my blog and also that he had taken the time to write a comment and share his thinking. In the end he and I both stopped because neither one of us was making headway toward mutual understanding.
But I learned a lot! When you don’t know WHAT to say, just ask some questions. This is wise AND easy and the pay off is three-fold:
- you’ll gain time to think
- you’ll gain more information to aid your thinking
- you honor your interlocutor by acknowledging his words
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Tags: Assertions, Claims, Clarity, Comments, Questions, Rational Thinking, Reasons
Logical Gal stumbles, and then remembers!
29 AprI felt intimidated!
A comment to one of these Logical Gal blog posts tripped me up. I couldn’t make heads or tails out of what my reader wrote in his ‘logical’ pushback. First of all, it was:
Thus, I felt stupid. At first.
Then I reread his words, and realized that it was also incomprehensible!
With that insight, my logical training kicked in and I felt empowered.
When someone responds to you and you don’t understand what they mean, the ONLY logical course of action is to ask them TWO clarifying questions:
When I replied to his lengthy comment with those questions, he DID try to clarify. And it was the same genre, to wit: scientific-sounding, smart-sounding BUT still incomprehensible. So I took it home to my resident scientific expert, my husband. And HE couldn’t make any sense out of what the guy was writing. I felt a bit better.
In all honesty, I did dialogue back and forth with this gentleman because I appreciated that he had READ my blog and also that he had taken the time to write a comment and share his thinking. In the end he and I both stopped because neither one of us was making headway toward mutual understanding.
But I learned a lot! When you don’t know WHAT to say, just ask some questions. This is wise AND easy and the pay off is three-fold:
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Tags: Assertions, Claims, Clarity, Comments, Questions, Rational Thinking, Reasons