This is more of my personal approach to things rather than some kind of claim about how the world works, or even how it should work. It’s how I like to do things.

I’m always kind of surprised when I see someone telling someone else that they’re wrong on the Internet. Not because that it’s surprising that people are make mistakes – we all make mistakes – but because, in my personal experience, telling someone that they’re wrong is a really ineffective conversational tactic.

Of course, here we have to ask ourselves what the goal is. If your goal is to create some kind of spectacle, then yes – being disagreeable creates conflict, which is a source of drama. And most people love drama.

But if your goal is to persuade someone else of their errors, saying “you’re wrong” (again, in my experience) is one of the most ineffective ways to do it. Saying “that’s wrong” is slightly better, but most people will often simply interpret that to be “you’re wrong” with an extra step. A better turn of phrase – which does take more effort – is “I don’t think that’s correct”. Now attention is directed not at a mistake in the person, or their utterance, but in the space between. And here we can have an interesting conversation, especially if you follow up with something else.

For the most part, in the abstract sense, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being wrong. How can we learn if we’re not allowed to make mistakes? There are some contexts where caution and sensitivity are particularly warranted, but it’s not always clear what those contexts are in advance until you’ve accumulated some life experience.

Some people will read something like this and respond, “That’s so tedious. I’ll just say what I think, which is YOU’RE WRONG.” Well, in what sense? What do you think I’m saying here? What do you think I’m trying to achieve?

It’s almost always more interesting to draw out the conversation and look for points of agreement (it’s productive, too, because you build relationships that way) than to just attack people, which maybe gives you a temporary smug feeling of superiority. If you’re really unlucky, you may even become popular for being a jerk to people – then you’ll have a bloodthirsty audience that demands greater and more vicious attacks, and they’ll likely turn on you when they eventually find you unsatisfactory.

to be continued