1. Patronizing Opinion-Giving Grinds My Gears
Some people are under the impression that they’ve got a “Black Belt in Life” AND a PhD in “Everything: with an emphasis on all subjects”. They think that just because they had experiences similar to what I’m going thru or that they’re older than me, then they have the secret solution to all my issues. If I would just humble myself to listen to their “life forecasts” (“this will happen to you” “that won’t happen to you”) and heed their advice, I’m guaranteed a better life. “Poor Hashem; so arrogant and stubborn with his childhood psychological complexes. I just want the best for him. All I’m asking is that he lives his life according to my experience. After all, I’ve already been thru the things he’s been thru and I know so much more about life because I was born before him. He’s so lucky to have me as a sensei . I wish I had another version of myself so that I would benefit myself from my life-transforming experience teaching lessons. Alas, if he would just use his mind and drink from the fountain of my wisdom.” Well, I’ve got news for you “Dr. Black Belt in Life”. My life is not some novel you’ve already read from cover to cover while I’m only at p. 27, so you can mercifully and generously condescend to tell me what’s going to happen. My life is not a replay of your life. You’re not watching a pre-recorded match where you can tell me the pitfalls to avoid because you’ve already seen the whole thing. Your constant touting of irrelevant credentials and presumed experience is nauseating.
2. Addressing the intellectual basis for a condescending / patronizing attitude
A. Doubt Yourself
If we can get our well-meaning condescending ignoramus to doubt their experience, we’d come to closer to our ultimate goal of converting him to a self-effacing epistemically-paralyzed fellow. There comes the beauty of doubt-inducing psychological topics such as false memory and cognitive biases.
B. Is my life a replayed version of your experience dear self-styled mentor?
Hernandez has OCD. His doctor recommended Prozac. Hernandez, had excellent results. Can Hernandez prescribe Prozac to Paulo who also has OCD, because it worked with him? No, the same medicine with the same disorder can lead to radically different effects in two people. A medicine can cause insomnia in one person and hypersomnia in the other. If that is the case with medicine, how much more messy should we expect the issues to be when it comes it to the psycho-social realm?
How can I learn from the experiences of others then?
“Experience” and “Expert” share the same root.
(I’m averse to the word experience yet I love the word “expert” perhaps because the word experience has been used in the past to dismiss or trivialize my views while I use experts to prove my point). Psychologists and social scientists are the experts who devote their lives to understand the experiences of not just one person but huge groups of people and then come up with conclusions on how we can benefit from this pile of different experiences.
Given the choice between the experience of one person which was not subjected to scientific scrutiny and the experience of hundreds or thousands of people that have been subjected to scientific scrutiny by scholars who devoted their life to understand a specific social issue, it makes more sense for me to choose the latter. And even then with all the fancy PhD’s from the prestigious universities, the intimidating scientific jargon and the sophisticated intellectual circles, there is still room for a huge amount of necessary skepticism.
3. Opinion-Giving is Good. Patronizing Condescending Opinion-Giving is Bad (I won’t bite you) [i]
Given the tantrums that I’ve thrown thus far, I would understand that people might be wary of giving me suggestions. I actually crave feedback and suggestions from others and I actively solicit them. So how does this mesh with my aversion to “splaining” and lecturing others? An example to illustrate: There’s a colossal difference between saying “In my opinion, you should consider X” and “You must do X. And I know this because I have more experience than you. You only think that Y is better than X because you’re young/ single/ (insert your favorite genetic fallacy version). Once you grow up, get married, etc… you’ll find that X is so much better than Y”. Specific experience, rather than generic “experience in life” is fine with me.
I compiled a list of things I do/ try to do when I’m sharing knowledge to avoid coming across as condescending. The same points would make me more comfortable if I’m at the receiving side of advice etc…
- Mentioning explicitly that I’m aware of my limits. “I haven’t studied this in depth but ….” And aware of the limits of empirical studies (like the reproducibility crisis)
- Citing specific studies, books, scholars with their names so that they’d understand that I’m not saying this as an expert (According to Elizabeth Loftus ….) This could be wrongly interpreted as “This is not an opinion. It’s a fact.” This is why point 1 is helpful to highlight that I’m aware that a scientific study is not a guarantee that this claim is true.
- Asking for feedback.[ii]
- Saying I don’t know or maybe between every other sentence.
- Using simple words and resisting the temptation of fancy words (e.g. predicament instead of problem) (Ok, confession: I use fancy words a lot even though I can use simpler words. Come on people! My daddy didn’t spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on my educations so that I’ll use simple words. Using fancy words makes me feel important. Maybe I’ll mature in the future.)
[i] Unless It’s age-splaining. I can tolerate all kinds of baseless pontification and all kinds of know-it-all-isms expect ageist ones. So if someone thinks they know better than me because they think that their gender/ethnicity is better, I actually wouldn’t be pissed off much. “It’s the know better than you because I’m older that kills me.” Even the “I have better experience” version is tolerable if it is not linked with age difference.
[ii] (You can leave anonymous messages on it https://hitch84.sarahah.com/ or non-anonymous messages on my Facebook and linked-in) .
iii: This piece is an edited version of part of the Abandoned Project: “You’re Smart for a Kid”
Paradoxically Paradoxical 