Let's Explore Verbal Demeanor

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5 years 9 months ago - 5 years 9 months ago #323000 by Proteus
Statement: "Adolf Hitler was a great leader."

Response 1:
"No. This is wrong. I simply disagree. He was a bigoted dictator. I can't even believe anyone would say such a ridiculous thing! I don't support Nazis and you obviously sound like one. After all who else would say that such a thing?"

Response 2:
"Actually, Hitler was simply not a great leader. If you learned anything about World History you would know that'd he was a cruel dictator. This is common knowledge. Everyone should know this otherwise you're likely a Nazi movement supporter."

Response 3:
"I've spent years studying world history, and I can tell you, this is simply false. Trust me, I know. Over the many years I studied, I've accumulated a LOT of knowledge about him. Adolf Hitler might have been powerful but he wasn't great. Thinking otherwise is simply ignorant."

Response 4:
"Interesting. I wonder, what exactly you mean by 'great'. Are you referring to his discipline and calculation? ! I can see how you would say this. I mean, wasn't he considered highly intelligent in how he would execute his invasions and create propaganda? I'm curious to hear what other thoughts you have on this!




Without discussing your own actual opinions about the topic itself, I would like to hear what your thoughts are on the benefits and pitfalls of each of these responses. :)

“For it is easy to criticize and break down the spirit of others, but to know yourself takes a lifetime.”
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Last edit: 5 years 9 months ago by Proteus.
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5 years 9 months ago #323007 by thomaswfaulkner
Response 1:

This person sounds just like my co-worker when I told her that office door has a locking key mechanism instead of one of the dummy-lock ones that you can unlock with a coin. She insisted to the point of screaming that I was wrong and wanted to show me. She saw the difference between our handles and she still took a coin to the door to make her point. It didn’t work. And its funny because at that point, she knew the door was different all along and it was a scandalous conspiracy against her somehow. :)

I feel that a response like this just closes all discussion. As much as the other person wants to demonstrate their point, it’s just not going to happen. This person just is shifting the burden of the topic’s “juice” and focusing on personal beliefs.

I don’t think this is good for moral or intellectual growth.

Response 2:

I was following the flow of this response as someone who was offering some counter evidence for the claim until we reached the final sentence when they shifted the point of the conversation from the topic to the individual. I find it’s best to strip the label murderer off the person who does the murdering because it limits all of what they can be. This person started off giving an opinion on the topic but used Us vs. Them to back their evidence.

Response 3:

It’s good that this person knows what they know, but it is good to share this information. We do have this tendency to listen to the people with the titles and degrees, but we don’t do so because they have a piece of paper, rather we should trust them through their actions. This is a matter of fact behavior that excuses the other versions of truth that can exist. A ball is round, but it could be red, slippery, and heavy as well.

Response 4:

Curiosity is a great way to approach a situation of learning. I always say that it’s good to approach life with an empty cup in hand, but this does have its limits. We don’t want to have too much of an open mind that we lean over and it spills out in each direction that we turn. This behavior fosters that creativity and the willingness to learn something outside of our typical perspective, but we do have to have those personal boundaries as well. I think the key is to be vulnerable enough to explore our boundaries with people with different ideas. We don’t have to accept their knowledge as something absolute, but their insight definitely useful in some context. At some point, we come to an understanding that each discussion isn’t always about who is right or wrong, but rather what we learn from each other.

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5 years 9 months ago - 5 years 9 months ago #323008 by OB1Shinobi
just for the hell of it

My Response

He was obviously shite as a leader because he lost, for one, and because his country was in worse shape after his leadership ended than before it began though there were improvements made during his rise to power which he played a part in.

More importantly....the only people ive ever seen making this claim are middle and high school children who also think silly things like "communism could work it just hasnt ever been done correctly" and the actual nazi and race supremacist types...if youre a child then chances are that youre not technically stupid but you may as well be, because you know practically nothing about the real world. If youre a nazi type then youre actually stupid.
Its only the children themselves (who are irrelevant) and stupid people (who are hopeless anyway) who dont understand that children usually know nothing about real life so im not going to bother explaining that one.
Why are nazi types stupid? Because they prioritize pigmentation over character and ethnic background over personal integrity. A scumbag of their own race is superior to a hero of any other in the eyes of a nazi. This makes them morons (aka a person who has a poor command of logic), as they mistake the relative value of qualities and outcomes. The qualities which make for a healthy, cooperative relationship (at the person to person or group to group levels) are primarily psychological and moral such as i described above, and not at all racial or ethnic. The outcomes of placing race and ethnicity as higher level social criteria than individual character are genocidal at worst and generally unjust at best.

Theres no law against being a moron and i support everyones right to do it as well as their right to speak their mind. But their minds dont work very well and they produce wretched consequences for everyone, so i and other like me are going to publicly dismantle their stupid ideas whenever we encounter them. The feelings of a nazi are much less important to me than the lives of those the nazi would exterminate but by all means snub your nose at my insolent tone lol. THATS the important part!

That came across as fairly demeaning so i guess my verbal demeanor is OK. Or is that bad? Well in any event i am RIGHT which at the end of the day is far more important being POLITE, irritating though this may be.

People are complicated.
Last edit: 5 years 9 months ago by OB1Shinobi.

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5 years 9 months ago - 5 years 9 months ago #323011 by Carlos.Martinez3
Without discussing your own actual opinions about the topic itself, I would like to hear what your thoughts are on the benefits and pitfalls of each of these responses. :)

That may be harder than finding a tick ona monkey ... good luck catching a monkey jkjk jk ...

Blind hate is something I see everywhere.
Blind hate is simply that - blind hate. It can stem from anything and anywhere - it can come from what we have been taught or what we have learned. It can be learned and adapted then it can be un learned. Closed off and automatic is usually what I find in responses like #1 about love sexy music religion paths ways faiths n such at the local Starbucks and dunkin donuts. It’s common every where

# 2 this is my side ( not mine but the stance ) and I’m right your wrong in only what I know is right - I got lots of family like this for difrent subjects and even people of - faith - tend to hold this view I know.

#3 I’m smarter than you - your dumb - I’ve met many ideas and Many people like this even at the Ivy League level which a simple quote from “goodwill hunting “ leaves em baffled if you insert ceartain subjects for their degree of “expertise”

#4 “ we’ve learn to fly the sky like birds and swim the sea like fish “ .. but I look foward to the day I meet this heart ... I have - and when we meet - it’s like two masters who meet for a match - every ones given somthimg to take with them and every ones better for it . Number 4 is a rare bird indeed.
So the good and the bad

#1 I commonly meet them every where. They are called - people.
In my most best king julien voice “Don’t ya just love the people?”
As a minister I am prepared for this. As it’s common I don’t really get offended by it . What I find is action like a simple reminder of what they already know - can maybe CAN - be the reminder for them to return to what they have been taught or learned - this takes a lot of learning on my part of difrent faiths and ways but well worth it - it’s hard but difficult or - you could just walk away.

# 2 a lot of people have taken their own side and it’s clear black and white for some . That’s ok - if your 1 then your 2. If you see this this way then your this. To each their own.
They have that right

#3 acquired opinion- ego is so hard to break in myself - I can never even think to break it in some one else from one conversation. It’s good that people study. That could be the bridge between to make connections with a #3

# 4
Just - this mindset isn’t welcomed as often as it could be. Positivity is often ignored and often taken for granted.
Thanks for the thinker brother .
Hope this goes well but you will find more #1 2 3 - more than you will 4s

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Last edit: 5 years 9 months ago by Carlos.Martinez3.
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5 years 9 months ago #323012 by
Replied by on topic Let's Explore Verbal Demeanor
1 and 2 are knee jerk reactions that we've basically been trained to have whenever someone says Nazis and isn't saying something bad. While understandable given the subject matter, not a good way have a conversation.

3 sounds like a Donald Trump speech. Repeatedly talking about how smart you are while barely, if ever, mentioning the topic you're saying that you're so smart about. Mildly entertaining from an outside perspective, but again not a good way to have a conversation about a specific topic.

4 is the best choice if civil discourse is the goal. It didn't chastise the original speaker and it asked for more information to help keep the conversation going. It also didn't assume that the original speaker was a Nazi sympathizer.

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5 years 9 months ago #323015 by JamesSand
I have no interest in discussing german politics (actually, I have a lot of interest in that, but it is probably outside the scope of this topic).

Verbal demeanour is incredibly useful for manipulating people, and either talking them around to meet your own motives, or to get more information out of them,

More useful (and I think what the OP was actually going for) is an analytical mindframe, useful to have when approaching (lets call it investigating) situations as they occur in life.

I suppose the example that springs to mind now is when your lawnmower goes missing, and the neighbour looks like a thief, walks like a thief, and talks like a thief, but then when you find your mower on the other side of your house, the neighbour looks perfectly normal.

This is about removing your own motivations (or wild sweeping assumptions) from the situation.

I know the example was assuming guilt where there is innocence, but good natured people that we are, we just as often assume innocence when there is guilt (or at least, fault)

"Gary would never forget to lock the shop after closing!"

Well, we don't know that, Maybe Gary missed breakfast, maybe gary got a phone call mid-locking and didn't complete it, maybe Gary cut his hand on the door, had to get a bandaid, and in all the excitement of filling out the workplace injury logbook, didn't go back to locking the door.

We all like Gary, and he's never make a mistake locking the shop before, but we have to seperate that from the plausible human error that resulted in the shop not being locked.




ANYWAY - is that what we are talking about Proteus, or are we just talking about phrasing things nicely so no one has to go see HR because they told someone that their point of view was moronic?
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5 years 9 months ago #323026 by Proteus

ANYWAY - is that what we are talking about Proteus, or are we just talking about phrasing things nicely so no one has to go see HR because they told someone that their point of view was moronic?


You could consider it a form of rorschach test. We're just exploring.:)

“For it is easy to criticize and break down the spirit of others, but to know yourself takes a lifetime.”
― Bruce Lee

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5 years 9 months ago - 5 years 9 months ago #323036 by OB1Shinobi
Responses 1,2, and 3 are all trash because they fail to actually address the claim that "Hitler was a great leader". How to address the claim? Define "great leader" and then spend maybe 40-60 hrs reading about pre-war Germany and the conditions under which Hitler rose to power, how he got the power, the decisions he made during his reign and the results of those decisions, and compare all that to the definition.
If it turns out that he was a great leader then admit he was a great leader. If it turns out that he wasnt then explain why.

4 will become trash of it goes on for too long. The person may just be naive and taken in with a bad idea (as is true for many in the nazi and white nationialist movements) OR he may be seriously dedicated to genocidal purge of his ethnic enemies (which is ALSO true of many in the nazi and WN movements). Maybe youre more likely to change the first persons mind if you build rapport with him... but probably not. He is going to be trying to change your mind with facts and argumentations and if you have no viable counters to his version of the facts and his overal argument then he is walking away from the discussion even more confident and justified in his opinion than when it began. It may happen anyway that he entrenches himself further but at least if you give him credible counter arguments theu may sink in over time. The second person isnt changing their mind regardless of what you say. So i guess its all well and good to be polite and engaging with a genocidal mass murderer but at some point youre going to have to decide whether youre with it or against it and if against it, to make an case.

So once again we come down to "im right, youre wrong, here is why".

People are complicated.
Last edit: 5 years 9 months ago by OB1Shinobi.
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5 years 9 months ago #323041 by Manu
Replied by Manu on topic Let's Explore Verbal Demeanor
Response 4 is awesome at disarming people who are purposefully fishing for a reaction.

The pessimist complains about the wind;
The optimist expects it to change;
The realist adjusts the sails.
- William Arthur Ward
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5 years 9 months ago - 5 years 9 months ago #323058 by OB1Shinobi

Manu wrote: Response 4 is awesome at disarming people who are purposefully fishing for a reaction.



I think that would just encourage them to keep trying. My course would be to either ignore them completetly or (if i thought i was up to it) to go ahead and address their points without falling into the trap of crumbling under their sensationalism. But if theyre ONLY fishing for a reaction then id believe there was really no point talking to them at all on those terms, except as a test or demonstration of my own endurance.

Edit
OR maybe beat them at their own game, lol
If theyre really a troll (which means its deliberate) then you can defeat them by trolling them better than they troll you

People are complicated.
Last edit: 5 years 9 months ago by OB1Shinobi.

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